The CycleChat Helmet Debate Thread

[Justinslow]

Remind me not to become your friend

Like that's gonna happen..............

 

[Justinslow]

Actually @mjr the second one has just posted on FB his cracked and dented helmet and told everyone to make sure they wear their helmet when cycling, judging by the facial injury he received when the side of his face also hit the deck I don't doubt that his helmet did help him.
Incedentaly, another case where the head has come into contact with the Tarmac just like @Big Andy, something which is incredibly rare according to many on here!

 

[Poacher]

Yep that old chesnut. Old folk and drunks being compared with a cycling population...

Whaddya mean, compared? Can be one and the same thing - I cycle, I'm drunk, and I'm frequently old!!!!!

 

[Big Andy]

Which bit of the helmet do you think helped with the facial injury?

Why would any part of the helmet help with an injury to part of the body which it wasnt there to protect? You could just as easily ask which part of the helmet helped with the rib injury I sustained.

 

[MarquisMatsugae]

Actually @mjr the second one has just posted on FB his cracked and dented helmet and told everyone to make sure they wear their helmet when cycling, judging by the facial injury he received when the side of his face also hit the deck I don't doubt that his helmet did help him.
Incedentaly, another case where the head has come into contact with the Tarmac just like @Big Andy, something which is incredibly rare according to many on here!

Judging by the comments,my chainring hitting my helmet was 1 in 7billion.
Oh and it was decided(not by me) that I was going too fast,riding beyond my capabilities and reckless conduct(thanks Brandane )
It's a very accurate analysis,without being accurate at all.

 

[Wobblers]

Well whatever or whoever is behind it, it is a scientific study.
It does back up what some of have been saying with regards to helmets in accidents esp those that have actually had accidents whilst cycling and been "shot to pieces" on this thread.
As @User says, the chances of these accidents may be rare, but a helmet can help.......

I've yet to read the article fully - tbh, I do this thing all day so it's nice to get a break from science at least occasionally. However, the devil is in the details - or in this case, the methods.

They look at three cases. Given that setting up these sort of models is time consuming that is not unreasonable. Those three cases came from a set of 84. I saw no mention of the selection criteria used. This is a major omission. All three cases involved skull fracture and celebral contusion: this may have formed at least part of the selection criteria. It looks very much like a very narrow specific set of circumstances were chosen, so I would be exeedingly cautious about deriving more general conclusions from this. In other words, this study is far too limited in scope to draw any general conclusions to the benefits of helmet wearing What I find deeply worrying is that the authors make no comment as to this in their conclusions, but instead make exactly gneral claims as to the benefits, which their study does not support: this is bad science.

Regarding the impact, only the initial head impact was considered. The accident and injury sequence (which may well have involved multiple head impacts, along with other injuries) was out of scope. In particular, loading on crucial structures in the neck were not considered, nor were rotational forces.

They applied a linear model for strain (Green-Lagrange). It looks like shear strain was not considered. This is rather unfortunate as shear is a significant mechanism for brain injury.

It should also be noted that wearing a helmet, because it makes the target that much larger, increases the probability of head impact. This wasn't considered - but this study was of course not looking at those factors, so this is not a criticism.

 

[Big Andy]

What bit of your face is not part of your head? Why excuse such an obvious weakness? Why are you not demanding better?

Please point out anywhere a claim is made that a helmet will prevent a facial injury. You know full well the parts of the head a helmet may provide some protection for. Some of us choose to wear extra protection for that part of our heads. Why is that so difficult for you to understand.

Your supply of red herrings is seemingly endless.

 

[Big Andy]

Point out a claim that a helmet will prevent a head injury and we can go from there.

Why? I havent at any point made that claim. I have however made the claim that they may prevent some head injuries.
Perhaps you should provide conclusive proof that they cannot prevent any head injury.
Or will you be throwing another red herring in?

 

[MarquisMatsugae]

Have you ever came off your bike at any great speed and hit your head @User ?
Just interested.

 

[MontyVeda]

.

Actually @mjr the second one has just posted on FB his cracked and dented helmet and told everyone to make sure they wear their helmet when cycling, judging by the facial injury he received when the side of his face also hit the deck I don't doubt that his helmet did help him.
Incedentaly, another case where the head has come into contact with the Tarmac just like @Big Andy, something which is incredibly rare according to many on here!

something that seems to happen to helmet wearers all the more often.

I've had three, maybe four offs since 1985. I've been cycling pretty much daily since 2000 (that's well over 5000 journeys in the last 16 years). None of the three or four offs resulted in me hitting my head on the ground.... so as far as i'm concerned, falling off my bike is rare, hitting my head is almost* unheard of.

*last time i fell of my bike and hit my head was 1985.

 

[swansonj]

Have you ever came off your bike at any great speed and hit your head @User ?
Just interested.

Isn't that kind of the point - that many of us don't come off our bikes at great speed very often, and, when we do, we don't hit our heads very often?

 

[MarquisMatsugae]

Ouch,sounds sore.
But you didn't hit your head on anything ?
So no sure way of saying if a helmet or no helmet is better.

 

[bianchi1]

Point out a claim that a helmet will prevent a head injury and we can go from there.

How about this one ?

"helmeted bicyclists in our study were 72% less likely to sustain traumatic brain injury, compared with un-helmeted bicyclists, in the event of a crash. Helmeted bicyclists were also less likely to sustain the most severe intracranial haemorrhagic lesions. In addition, our data show that helmeted bicyclists had a lower likelihood of loss of consciousness and a lower likelihood of requiring hospital admission".

 

[MarquisMatsugae]

Isn't that kind of the point - that many of us don't come off our bikes at great speed very often, and, when we do, we don't hit our heads very often?

Well no one goes out cycling with the intent of landing on their heads,I'll grant you that.
But it does happen,with no way of preventing it.

 

[swansonj]

Well no one goes out cycling with the intent of landing on their heads,I'll grant you that.
But it does happen,with no way of preventing it.

We're talking at cross purposes. You say such incidents do happen, which I do not deny. Many of the rest of us say that relevant incidents happen very very rarely - are you comfortable agreeing with that?