The CycleChat Helmet Debate Thread

[Dan B]

[QUOTE 3998194, member: 43827"] View attachment 109591

[/QUOTE]
On this occasion it's pretty obvious I think

 

[shouldbeinbed]

Why are people so sensitive about helmets?

It's not a legal requirement, so don't wear one if you don't think it matters.

Personally, I doubt they will make much difference in a really big impact (they are hardly built to the standards of a full-face bike or racecar helmet), but I also think they don't do any harm, and I would rather bang my head against the floor via a lump of polystyrene than without. I would also rather set an example to my kids of making an attempt to protect themselves a little bit, just in case.

I don't care if someone rides without one. I'm more concerned by the quality of their riding and awareness rather than the safety gear they put on, because riding with your senses switched on is the best way to protect yourself. So no need to defend your choice. Any helmet-wearer that demands you to defend your choice is missing the point. And I doubt you will find many people that think like that.

Your last line. PMSL. The number of 'had a crash, didn't die, wear a helmet' posts outstrips any single other means of prompting a helmet conversation dozens and more to (n)one.

Or comments from colleagues and strangers querying my reason for not regularly wearing one or the smug prick a couple of months ago accosting me leaving Tesco to suggest that the correct name for cyclists not wearing helmets is donors.

I'd be very happy not to find many people like that.

On the other hand, go and find forum threads facebook post etc starting. 'Rode my bike, didn't die, bin the helmet'. Or bare headed cyclists and non cycling people that feel the need to accost random helmet wearers they meet and query their motives.

Happy hunting.


So I'm not sensitive about helmets, I'm sensitive about people demanding I wear one because they think I should and the lurid, anecdotal, emotional blackmail they misrepresent as fact to justify their personal opinion, allied to the one genuine fact that this all portrays routine day to day cycling as some sort of dangerous contact sport requiring specialist equipment and so called protection.

Protection which, as you recognise, is barely anything of the sort but coming back to the lurid commentary style, is cited as the sole lifesaving factor in so many of these stories, when in reality it's little more than TV packaging with a chinstrap.

 

[davidallenxyz]

I think you should put more effort into ignoring people in that case. I've spent most of my adult life ignoring people's dumb opinions and I am much more content as a result.

 

[User33236]

I totally 100% agree that the not wearing or wearing of helmets should, and must, remain a personal choice.

Personally I have read all the evidence, and factored in the facts that I have had three bike crashes in my life, two resulting in my head hitting the road within the limits on my helmet design. I therefore, until absolute convincing proof either way, will continue to wear one.

Note: I have walked, and driven, many many more miles than I have cycled and fallen / crashed on more than one occasion. To the best of my knowledge, on a grand total of zero occasions from these has my head hit a hard surface.

You may argue that my my head being enlarged by my helmet resulted in the impact however I counter-argue that due to both case me landing flat on my back at speed would have resulted in head impact anyway.

That is my experience in my (close to) 5 decades of life. Your's may differ and so may your choice. Life and let life.

 

[totallyfixed]

Helmet wearers need to ask themselves which is more vulnerable, the skull or the soft tissue and vertebrae in the neck, both surround a vital organ, the brain and the spinal chord respectively. The skull is many times harder than a helmet, the cervical vertebrae are capable of articulation, but only so far, beyond this point if the force applied is sufficient, damage may occur to the vertebrae and by extension the spinal chord.
Ironically, the instrument that is being touted to protect the skull [cycle helmet] increases the chances of the head coming into contact with another surface or object, it also raises the likelihood of the neck rotating and / or whiplash.
I have personal and tragic experience of the latter.
To all intents and purposes the cycle helmet on the face of it is a good thing, logically it ought to make sense. However, it does not take much digging to discover there are flaws in the claims that have previously been made in support of the cycle helmet.
Interestingly it appears that an increasing number of people [and an eminent neurosurgeon] are questioning the efficacy of the helmet, indeed a number of researchers just recently have discovered vital flaws in how statistics were gathered and presented that supported helmet use.

 

[User33236]

Helmet wearers need to ask themselves which is more vulnerable, the skull or the soft tissue and vertebrae in the neck, both surround a vital organ, the brain and the spinal chord respectively. The skull is many times harder than a helmet, the cervical vertebrae are capable of articulation, but only so far, beyond this point if the force applied is sufficient, damage may occur to the vertebrae and by extension the spinal chord.
Ironically, the instrument that is being touted to protect the skull [cycle helmet] increases the chances of the head coming into contact with another surface or object, it also raises the likelihood of the neck rotating and / or whiplash.
I have personal and tragic experience of the latter.
To all intents and purposes the cycle helmet on the face of it is a good thing, logically it ought to make sense. However, it does not take much digging to discover there are flaws in the claims that have previously been made in support of the cycle helmet.
Interestingly it appears that an increasing number of people [and an eminent neurosurgeon] are questioning the efficacy of the helmet, indeed a number of researchers just recently have discovered vital flaws in how statistics were gathered and presented that supported helmet use.

In two out of the three crashes I have had I rotated whilst still airborne and hit my head on the road at speeds of, an estimate from video footage of the latter (and speedometer data from the former), of approx 20mph. I have absolutely no doubt that having been propelled toward a hard, flat, surface at that speed my head would have made contact with the road with, or without, a helmet. In both instances my helmet compressed and showed slight signs of fracture.

The third crash, as a child, resulted in my chin hitting the road (a scar I bear to this day). As I state again, my own personal data for my style of riding supports e continuing to wear a helmet.

Your experience may be different.

 

[totallyfixed]

In two out of the three crashes I have had I rotated whilst still airborne and hit my head on the road at speeds of, an estimate from video footage of the latter (and speedometer data from the former), of approx 20mph. I have absolutely no doubt that having been propelled toward a hard, flat, surface at that speed my head would have made contact with the road with, or without, a helmet. In both instances my helmet compressed and showed slight signs of fracture.

The third crash, as a child, resulted in my chin hitting the road (a scar I bear to this day). As I state again, my own personal data for my style of riding supports e continuing to wear a helmet.

Your experience may be different.

Our own experiences are of course anecdotal, but, and it is a fairly substantial but, why are those of you that wear helmets always hitting your head? It is a serious question and has been alluded to a few posts back with some evidence showing helmet wearers take more risks or, and here is another one for consideration, could it be non helmeted cyclists are more skilled? In the Netherlands hundreds of thousands of school children of all ages ride to school without helmets every weekday and yet they are not falling off and hitting their heads. More skilful?

 

[User33236]

Our own experiences are of course anecdotal, but, and it is a fairly substantial but, why are those of you that wear helmets always hitting your head? It is a serious question and has been alluded to a few posts back with some evidence showing helmet wearers take more risks or, and here is another one for consideration, could it be non helmeted cyclists are more skilled? In the Netherlands hundreds of thousands of school children of all ages ride to school without helmets every weekday and yet they are not falling off and hitting their heads. More skilful?

There are many variable in a crash. In my circumstances I landed flat on my back on two out of three crashes. As this occurred at a reasonable speed I fail to see how my head would have failed to impact a hard, flat surface, with or without a helmet.

If you can explain otherwise please do expand.

 

[classic33]

Question on preventing injuries
Currently getting over the following, slowly. At least four seperate lumps on the head. Blunt Impact Injuries
Damage to the left side of the face, most noticable is the swelling and the friction burn that left that side of the face a nice colour.
Loss of vision in the left eye due to the swelling.
Sore neck, from where it was either pulled sharply to one side or further than it was meant to.
Sore shoulders(heavy bruising) and back.
Clear line at the back of the head, running more or less from the top of one ear to the other. Along which there is a crack in the skull, along with open cuts.
Head is generally swollen, a 69cm(down from 72cm) helmet measurement. Minor cuts to the scalp, neck and shoulders.
Alongside those is the one constant. The brain continues to move after the impact. Bouncing off the inside of the skull, causing the long term pain.

No recollection of the moments before impact or after. No witnesses either.

How do I prevent further similar injuries? Helmet or no helmet?

 

[davidallenxyz]

That cycling is a dangerous thing.

Dumb response. I'd appreciate if you didn't mock my parenting as part of your attempt to justify your choice not to wear a helmet.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

I think you should put more effort into ignoring people in that case. I've spent most of my adult life ignoring people's dumb opinions and I am much more content as a result.

You stated "people don't think like that". Now the tune has changed to "ignore them".

I much prefer the latter point of view, though, depending on circumstances, such 'feedback', and the people giving it, can be hard to ignore, much like excrement on the sole of one's shoe, or the wasps that intrude at a picnic...

 

[shouldbeinbed]

I think you should put more effort into ignoring people in that case. I've spent most of my adult life ignoring people's dumb opinions and I am much more content as a result.

I do ignore people but short of jamming my fingers in my ears anf yelling lalalalalalala not listening how do you suggest we get people to desist spontaneously commenting ? Also you are making an inaccurate and incorrect observation that you don't find such people, maybe your ignore filters are so good you wipe them from your memory, but in a thread headed 'debate' such inaccuracies are fair game to be challenged and queried.

Edit: (after JF & GG likes) you also ignore the observation that the obsession with helmets by the wear one proponents gives an unfairly dangerous misrepresentation of cycling. 'too dangerous' is often cited as 'why don't you cycle' such lurid nonsense actively discourages and works against cycling. That bothers me too.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Question on preventing injuries
Currently getting over the following, slowly. At least four seperate lumps on the head. Blunt Impact Injuries
Damage to the left side of the face, most noticable is the swelling and the friction burn that left that side of the face a nice colour.
Loss of vision in the left eye due to the swelling.
Sore neck, from where it was either pulled sharply to one side or further than it was meant to.
Sore shoulders(heavy bruising) and back.
Clear line at the back of the head, running more or less from the top of one ear to the other. Along which there is a crack in the skull, along with open cuts.
Head is generally swollen, a 69cm(down from 72cm) helmet measurement. Minor cuts to the scalp, neck and shoulders.
Alongside those is the one constant. The brain continues to move after the impact. Bouncing off the inside of the skull, causing the long term pain.

No recollection of the moments before impact or after. No witnesses either.

How do I prevent further similar injuries? Helmet or no helmet?

Two things...

Why don't rugby players wear helmets given the incidence of head injuries, and if they did, would they look like cycle helmets?
-&-
One of my cycling mates sustained similar sounding injuries in a crash in the 00's including the fractured skull and partial scalping. Inexplicable, given he was wearing a helmet. It failed catastrophically (of course) but the nurses and junior doctors were full of "it saved you from much worse" nonsense. He doesn't wear a helmet anymore...

(our club "encourages" its members to wear lids. He and I met each other on the naughty step at the back of a club run)

 

[Mugshot]

I followed a fairly recent acquaintance on facebook last week. The very first post I saw from her was of a totally smashed catastrophically failed helmet with the usual numpty "saved my mates life, all cyclists must wear one" bs. Instant unfollow.

That's awful, I'm pleased to say I don't have to put up with that kind of thing.







From this morning;


Can everyone please make sure they wear a lid when biking or boarding. That includes dads too. Looks like Christian Tugwell is very lucky to still be with us. Cheers ta.


Rampworld Cardiff
11 hrs ·
This young lad is Christian Tugwell. He is from Caerphilly and my girlfriend taught him English at school, I've ridden with him and his friends at Van Road. Four weeks ago he crashed at Radyr skatepark without a helmet on, banged his head on the floor, fractured his skull and had a blood clot on his brain. (Just that one ride without a helmet too). Luckily he looks like he's going to make a full recovery, thanks to our amazing NHS. Wear a helmet guys. No matter how good you are you'll smash that skull on the floor eventually. If helmets are good enough for Kriss Kyle.....

 

[Mugshot]

Perhaps we should also wear a helmet all the time, just in case.

It's obvious innit.