growingvegetables
Guru
- Location
- Leeds
The CycleChat Helmet Debate Thread
- Thread starter Shaun
- Start date
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- helmet helmet debate
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srw
It's a bit more complicated than that...
http://www.lookmumnohands.com/events/strike-the-helmet-project
There's a Facebook link with a discussion page......
There's a Facebook link with a discussion page......
jefmcg
Guru
I can see your point in criticising their involvement in this event to promote helmet wearing, but please don't say this. This isn't a design project, it's an art project. They are not meant to be safety devices, they are canvases for artists' imaginations.
That would be like criticising this because you can't get wool, milk or (sorry @vickster) meat from them.
Shut Up Legs
Down Under Member
...
Why do otherwise intelligent people come up with baseless speculation like the above?
mjr
Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
- Location
- mostly Norfolk, sometimes Somerset
Well, to be fair, although it's baseless speculation, it is possible. It's equally correct to say "had Zoe been wearing a helmet, she may have broken her neck and snapped her head clean off" - it would be nice to see more balance in the baseless speculationWhy do otherwise intelligent people come up with baseless speculation like the above?
Wakey
Regular
I used to have a view on cycle helmets
I manage a local youth football team and knew this lad from playing many matches in the local leagues against him http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-37599273. I won't go into the details of his injury but his mother is convinced that if he'd worn a helmet he wouldn't have died. That may be true or maybe not true...but....
I now have a different view about cycle helmets.
I manage a local youth football team and knew this lad from playing many matches in the local leagues against him http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-37599273. I won't go into the details of his injury but his mother is convinced that if he'd worn a helmet he wouldn't have died. That may be true or maybe not true...but....
I now have a different view about cycle helmets.
jefmcg
Guru
Welcome to cycle chat, and kudos for jumping in on the most controversial topic.
Helmets are designed for a fall from the the seat of a bicycle. That's it. The tests just involve dropping it from two metres. The forces from a hit and run by a drunk driver so exceed that, that it's unlikely in the extreme that a helmet would have made much difference here. No one involved in the manufacturing or testing of cycle helmets would claim it was designed for that situation. http://www.bhsi.org/limits.htm
It breaks my heart to know that the mother believes this. A stranger mows her son down, and leaves him dying by the side of the road, yet she believes her son is dead because of action he (or she) did not take. The blame for this tragedy lies entirely with the driver.
mjr
Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
- Location
- mostly Norfolk, sometimes Somerset
As that link states, "In Europe the drop height is only 1.5 meters" which I understand to be correct, but the current standard is £164 so I've not checked the original - but I also note that the page repeats the long-discredited "88 per cent" Thompson-Rivara-Thompson claim from 1999 (which it claims is from 2009), which is so unsafe that it's illegal for the US government to use!
[QUOTE 4947345, member: 43827"]I wear a helmet on the road and mtb because I feel safer in them. I have had several falls, including two which had a direct hit on the helmet.[/QUOTE]
That's the core logical disconnect, though, isn't it? You use a helmet because you feel safer and have had several falls including head impacts, whereas I don't use one partly because I actually noticed that I started falling more after I started. Do helmet users fall more? Are helmets a product that creates their own market?
[QUOTE 4947345, member: 43827"]In the second incident I have absolutely no recollection of the fall but witnesses say I just fell sideways off the bike and hit the side of my head on the road. The helmet split, I woke up in hospital suffering from concussion and some bleeding on the brain, and the doctors said that if I had hit the side of my bare head on the tarmac floor with the same force the damage would have been worse.[/QUOTE]
That's a bit of a statement of the obvious, isn't it? But it seems equally obvious that you wouldn't have hit the tarmac with the same force without a helmet because your head wouldn't have had the weight of a helmet at the furthest point from your neck and the headform being slightly smaller would have meant that impact would have been slightly later, probably after more deceleration.
It might even have meant that your head was smaller and lighter enough that your neck could hold it off the ground entirely, which is a job that our necks have evolved to do, after all. If it did indeed make your injuries worse by making your headform bigger and heavier, then cycle helmets are a great self-perpetuating nuisance... after so many falls, why aren't you concerned that helmets could kill you by inducing a fall that exceeds its capacity or fatally injures another part of you? Is it the safe warm fuzzy feeling that society in general won't blame you for using a cycle helmet? Fark that - I'd rather not be dead!
Two days ago, most recently
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2017-09-05a.109.12&s=cycling
Proposed by a chap called Peter Bone, who is obviously very concerned about the safety of vulnerable road users. So concerned, in fact, that on the same day he also found time to support another bill making it harder to reduce 30 mph limits to 20 mph
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2017-09-05a.106.2&s=speed+limit
mjr
Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
- Location
- mostly Norfolk, sometimes Somerset
Indeed - Peter Bone's Child Safety (Cycle Helmets) Bill just had its first reading - https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2017-09-05a.109.12 - but hopefully it won't get any support to get further in this parliament (Peter Bone filed 73 speculative bills according to http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/two-tory-mps-accused-abusing-10873972 ).
The cycle-harming bad-science helmet-compulsion fanatics will probably never stop until either no-one's cycling or we succeed in making them a laughing stock.
[QUOTE 4947714, member: 43827"]My head is big and my helmet light and as I cannot even remember falling I would not have thought about holding my head up. [/QUOTE]
It's a reflex - how often do you have to think about keeping your head from falling? - and rotational force is proportional to distance from the pivot, so a head being big actually means the helmet doesn't have to be that heavy to have a surprising effect.
[QUOTE 4947714, member: 43827"]Just reading this thread you do seem to be obsessed with proving helmet wearers to be wrong. Were you bullied by a helmet wearer as a kid?[/QUOTE]
When I was a kid, we were still on the Snell 1973 standard. No-one wore them for casual riding where I grew up. I'm not obsessed, but I do point out these flaws in wild claims because I believe helmet users are hurting themselves and others by making cycling look dangerous and by helping perpetuate a myth that most cyclists wear helmets or at least should. Would it be courtesy not to challenge someone hurting themselves and others?
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Wobblers
Euthermic
- Location
- Minkowski Space
[QUOTE 4947345, member: 43827"]I wear a helmet on the road and mtb because I feel safer in them. I have had several falls, including two which had a direct hit on the helmet. In the second incident I have absolutely no recollection of the fall but witnesses say I just fell sideways off the bike and hit the side of my head on the road. The helmet split, I woke up in hospital suffering from concussion and some bleeding on the brain, and the doctors said that if I had hit the side of my bare head on the tarmac floor with the same force the damage would have been worse.
I fully accept that there are a lot of falls where a helmet would not affect the outcome, and on some occasions could even lead to damage from twisting the head in a fall, but I am happy to carry on taking that chance based on my own limited experience. Would have trumps could have imo.
I would oppose compulsion because of the individual freedom aspect and because there is disputed evidence on both sides of the argument.[/QUOTE]
"The helmet split". Aaargh! The internet is full of photos of split helmets. Only thing is, when I look at them, I rarely see any evidence of crushing or compression. To reduce the impact forces, a helmet must crush, not split (simply put, energy is dissipated by the breaking of chemical bonds: crushing breaks many bonds while splitting - crack propagation - breaks few). Your split helmet quite likely failed to give much protection.
The other problem is that doctors tend not to understand biophysics. Without a helmet, an impact has a very high force for a very short duration. Your skull is actually very good at resisting such high force / short duration impulses, but much less good when subjected to lower forces over longer durations. A helmet if it works will decrease the peak force - but increase the impact duration. For instance, a 200 g impulse for 2 milleseconds will not induce a life threatening brain injury, but a 100 g impulse over 6 ms will. The latter example is the sort of forces and duration you can expect when wearing a helmet and fall off a stationary bike. In other words, a helmet cannot guarantee safety under any circumstance. (If you don't believe me, look up something called the Wayne State Tolerance Curve.) Your doctors claiming that the damage would have been worse without a helmet has no basis on the actual clinical evidence.
I fully accept that there are a lot of falls where a helmet would not affect the outcome, and on some occasions could even lead to damage from twisting the head in a fall, but I am happy to carry on taking that chance based on my own limited experience. Would have trumps could have imo.
I would oppose compulsion because of the individual freedom aspect and because there is disputed evidence on both sides of the argument.[/QUOTE]
"The helmet split". Aaargh! The internet is full of photos of split helmets. Only thing is, when I look at them, I rarely see any evidence of crushing or compression. To reduce the impact forces, a helmet must crush, not split (simply put, energy is dissipated by the breaking of chemical bonds: crushing breaks many bonds while splitting - crack propagation - breaks few). Your split helmet quite likely failed to give much protection.
The other problem is that doctors tend not to understand biophysics. Without a helmet, an impact has a very high force for a very short duration. Your skull is actually very good at resisting such high force / short duration impulses, but much less good when subjected to lower forces over longer durations. A helmet if it works will decrease the peak force - but increase the impact duration. For instance, a 200 g impulse for 2 milleseconds will not induce a life threatening brain injury, but a 100 g impulse over 6 ms will. The latter example is the sort of forces and duration you can expect when wearing a helmet and fall off a stationary bike. In other words, a helmet cannot guarantee safety under any circumstance. (If you don't believe me, look up something called the Wayne State Tolerance Curve.) Your doctors claiming that the damage would have been worse without a helmet has no basis on the actual clinical evidence.
Selfie cyclist died from heart attack linked to head injury
It is possible, even plausible that a helmet could have prevented this tragedy.
But so could not drinking as much before cycling, and not taking a selfie while cycling.
This is such a freak combination of events, with a very rare complication of the initial injury as to be astronomically unlikely.
I'd suggest that a similar occurrence is about as likely (ie not very) to happen to a pedestrian as a cyclist.
It is possible, even plausible that a helmet could have prevented this tragedy.
But so could not drinking as much before cycling, and not taking a selfie while cycling.
This is such a freak combination of events, with a very rare complication of the initial injury as to be astronomically unlikely.
I'd suggest that a similar occurrence is about as likely (ie not very) to happen to a pedestrian as a cyclist.
MontyVeda
a short-tempered ill-controlled small-minded troll
- Location
- Lancaster... the little city.
[QUOTE 4951598, member: 43827"]You like to live up to your tag line don't you?
Here are some pics of the helmet. I don't care whether my helmet split, crushed or compressed - it broke! I don't know whether the doctor I saw knows as much about biophysics as you, but he knew a lot about medicine and head injuries and more importantly, he was there looking at the injury, rather than pontificating about it on the internet.
I tried reading some of the stuff you suggested, in between going out to watch the end of the Tour, plus other bits of research and like most BF contributors I choose to put more emphasis on the bits that reinforce my gut feeling. For example some bloke called Mills said a helmet would reduce the lha to less than 200g in an impact with tarmac at an impact velocity of 6.6 ms. Now I haven't a clue what all that means but it sounds good to me so must be right!
I now realise how cavalier I have been over the years with the efficacy of equipment I have used. For example I never read the research evidence of the effectiveness of the condoms I used, or safety goggles in the workshop. Foolishly I saw the kite mark and just believed they worked, so must just have been lucky not to have had more kids, or lost an eye. I am grateful for your interest as I know you are just looking after my welfare, rather than trying to prove me wrong and you right.
Please read the last two paragraphs of my op. I am no helmet zealot.
View attachment 372793 View attachment 372794 [/QUOTE]
If something that's weak breaks whilst something next to it that's hard doesn't break does not mean that the weak stuff saved the hard stuff.
Simple fact of the matter is... your skull is a lot harder than polystyrene.
If you don't believe that, ask your doctor.
Here are some pics of the helmet. I don't care whether my helmet split, crushed or compressed - it broke! I don't know whether the doctor I saw knows as much about biophysics as you, but he knew a lot about medicine and head injuries and more importantly, he was there looking at the injury, rather than pontificating about it on the internet.
I tried reading some of the stuff you suggested, in between going out to watch the end of the Tour, plus other bits of research and like most BF contributors I choose to put more emphasis on the bits that reinforce my gut feeling. For example some bloke called Mills said a helmet would reduce the lha to less than 200g in an impact with tarmac at an impact velocity of 6.6 ms. Now I haven't a clue what all that means but it sounds good to me so must be right!
I now realise how cavalier I have been over the years with the efficacy of equipment I have used. For example I never read the research evidence of the effectiveness of the condoms I used, or safety goggles in the workshop. Foolishly I saw the kite mark and just believed they worked, so must just have been lucky not to have had more kids, or lost an eye. I am grateful for your interest as I know you are just looking after my welfare, rather than trying to prove me wrong and you right.
Please read the last two paragraphs of my op. I am no helmet zealot.
View attachment 372793 View attachment 372794 [/QUOTE]
If something that's weak breaks whilst something next to it that's hard doesn't break does not mean that the weak stuff saved the hard stuff.
Simple fact of the matter is... your skull is a lot harder than polystyrene.
If you don't believe that, ask your doctor.
