The CycleChat Helmet Debate Thread

[Poacher]

You're right. You'll normally put an arm out or, if you spent your formative years doing judo, the automatic reflex is to tuck and roll.

...with a bike on your back?

Actually, that's pretty much what I did in my last big off. (see post on some recent previous page of this thread). I think I posted that I pivoted on my right elbow - it felt that way shortly after, but in fact it was probably my right forearm including the elbow that took the brunt of the contact. Two days later, my right arm was uniformly black from wrist to shoulder. I may have taken a selfie - if I did, it's still on an undeveloped roll of 35mm film (late adopter of new technology!). No head contact with the ground, but probably would have been if I'd been wearing a helmet - i was travelling rather faster than the rider in the clip!

 

[shouldbeinbed]

As above, I generally ride flats now but even when I did ride clipped in, I've never ended up still attached to my bike. That lurch forwards or start of going sideways has always been the impetus, consciously or not to make my foot twist and leave the pedal.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

As above, I generally ride flats now but even when I did ride clipped in, I've never ended up still attached to my bike. That lurch forwards or start of going sideways has always been the impetus, consciously or not to make my foot twist and leave the pedal.

I dunno. With spds I've ended up on the ground legs in the air with a bike hanging from one foot like a sword of Damocles a few times, and once my mate says I once kicked out and threw the bike about 5m away!

 

[Brandane]

Yes you keep believing that. Have you noticed how almost every roadie wears one these days?

 

[mjr]

Even without sheep effects, the "almost every roadie wears one" effect may be due to BC road racing rule 8.6.1 "A rider whilst racing or training in any cycling discipline, with the exception of training on the open road shall wear properly affixed protective headgear which must be of a hard/soft shell construction"

And if you're going to have to wear one for racing, you'll probably use similar kit for training. On top of that, the blind trust in crash helmets as net-protective seems so strong in BC that many BC clubs remove choice from most rides that they can, including social rides but not time trials, as that's CTT not BC and CTT regs still upheld personal choice for adults last I saw - I don't know how long that will last as there have been attempts to remove it.

At the very least, I'd expect any of the non-wearing majority to get challenged and possibly abused or excluded if they turned up to a BC-linked road ride without one.

The unrepresentative helmet-wearing is one illustration of why cycle campaigning absolutely must not be left to BC and its members. They are out of touch.

 

[Kumquat]

Right! Convince me (one way or another, I'm not fussed) :P

I usually wear a helmet out of habit. Sometimes I don't bother if it's just on a canal path or similar, but I generally always would on the road.

Last weekend I didn't wear a helmet on my trips on the roads because it was cold so I preferred to wear a woolly hat, and my waterproof jacket (not a cycling one, clearly) has a very high collar which is annoying catching on my helmet, and can even limit my head turning for shoulder checks.
This worked out well, I would probably still wear a helmet the rest of the time (I'm a medic so very aware of head injury..even if they don't do much I'd rather have it) but it seemed silly to wear a helmet just for the sake of it when not wearing one was much more pleasant and possibly even safer!

However, nearly all my friends cycle, and those that do ALWAYS wear a helmet despite not necessarily being the safest cyclists in other ways eg not taking primary, cycling far too close to parked cars. (I can't really comment as my cycling is not always the safest either, but in a different way). Not wearing a helmet on my commute would probably be met with horror!

Two of my friends have also recently had a minor accident (one was mostly her fault crashing into another cyclist, and my other friend was hit by a car turning left but he's ok) and there have been a couple of other near misses in the past week. I feel like it's perhaps not the best time to be tempting fate!

 

[martint235]

When I stopped wearing a helmet, it took longer for me to stop wearing it on my commute. I felt my risk levels were higher on my commute (which they probably are). After a while though I was thinking "I don't bang my head when I crash as a general rule and even if I did what help will the helmet provide?". Logic eventually overcomes habit and blind faith in a bit of plastic.

Trust in your own ability and even if you feel you don't always cycle safely, look at the situations and ask "if this happened, is there anything to say a helmet would help?". It's your decision and you should do what you think is best for you

And fate? Not really a believer.

 

[shouldbeinbed]

Right! Convince me (one way or another, I'm not fussed) :P

I usually wear a helmet out of habit. Sometimes I don't bother if it's just on a canal path or similar, but I generally always would on the road.

Last weekend I didn't wear a helmet on my trips on the roads because it was cold so I preferred to wear a woolly hat, and my waterproof jacket (not a cycling one, clearly) has a very high collar which is annoying catching on my helmet, and can even limit my head turning for shoulder checks.
This worked out well, I would probably still wear a helmet the rest of the time (I'm a medic so very aware of head injury..even if they don't do much I'd rather have it) but it seemed silly to wear a helmet just for the sake of it when not wearing one was much more pleasant and possibly even safer!

However, nearly all my friends cycle, and those that do ALWAYS wear a helmet despite not necessarily being the safest cyclists in other ways eg not taking primary, cycling far too close to parked cars. (I can't really comment as my cycling is not always the safest either, but in a different way). Not wearing a helmet on my commute would probably be met with horror!

Two of my friends have also recently had a minor accident (one was mostly her fault crashing into another cyclist, and my other friend was hit by a car turning left but he's ok) and there have been a couple of other near misses in the past week. I feel like it's perhaps not the best time to be tempting fate!

Or maybe the perfect time to prompt the debate given your own recent experience and your friends non horrific (reading between the lines here) collisions, allied to your obvious understanding of how they could use road positioning and their senses better -maybe suggest a trial (fortnight or more at least of regular riding to break the habit) of helmetless riding but having had a gander at roadcraft or the highway code or the good bit of youtube, allowing for sharpened up technique and awareness and see if they feel differently or maybe recognise the notion of risk compensation and riding in a less than ideal manner because they believe the helmet will protect them.

Just a thought.

 

[Mugshot]

Right! Convince me (one way or another, I'm not fussed) :P

I don't think it's really a case of convincing people one way or another whether they should or shouldn't wear a helmet, the only thing I'd like to convince people of is the value of not just accepting that you should wear one for whatever reason but that you should look at both sides of the argument and then make up your mind.

I'll share my decision making process.
I started back cycling around 7 or so years ago, my wife and I bought bikes for our anniversary presents to each other and did short laps around the block or down the shared use path to the marina. Neither of us had helmets and they weren't mentioned by either of us. My mileage and frequency of use started to increase and I started to commute, a couple of years after buying the clunker I decided that I'd like to get something a bit better. When I decided to buy the road bike my wife asked me to get a helmet, I have no idea why, I didn't ask, I just thought "yeah, why not". I suppose I wore it for around 6 months until one day I left the house without it and couldn't be bothered to go back and get it and somehow survived the journey without any serious incidents. I started to think then about the amount of times I had fallen off and bumped my head, not just since my return but when I was younger and stupider too, and the answer was none, so I stopped wearing it. A year or so later I bought another one, it was a particularly cheap thing from lidl but I wanted somewhere to mount a camera. I wore that for a few weeks until I got a decent handlebar mount then stopped helmet wearing again.
I've done plenty of miles and spent many hours in the saddle in the last 7 or so years and I've fallen off once, a clipless moment at about 0mph. I don't think I'm a particularly careful rider nor do I believe I'm especially adept at bike handling, I'm just a bloke that rides his bike to work (generally the long way). I'm not so stupid as to believe that something could never happen but for me it's the cycling equivalent of Pascal's Wager.
My decision does make me unusual around here, particularly when it comes to road bikers, and I do sometimes question that decision and have heated debates with myself as I ride back and forth, but so far I am satisfied that I am not in imminent danger and that cycle helmets in their current guise would do little to protect me if I was. I do however reserve the right to change my mind.

 

[mjr]

(I'm a medic so very aware of head injury..even if they don't do much I'd rather have it) but it seemed silly to wear a helmet just for the sake of it when not wearing one was much more pleasant and possibly even safer!

Ah, there's the key phrase "possibly even safer". So, as a medic, in another scenario would you administer a treatment that seems to do nothing significant for injuries at the population level, is extremely debatable at an individual level and has both perpetual direct costs for the patient and indirect costs for society?

References:
- seems to do nothing significant for injuries at the population level - see for example this summary http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f3817?ijkey=I5vHBog6FhaaLzX&keytype=ref in the BMJ
- extremely debatable at an individual level - what page are we on now? Of how many threads on helmet topics?
- perpetual direct costs are up to about £300 for a new helmet every 3 years or every impact, whichever is sooner; and
- indirect costs for society arise from deterring people from cycling as much, contrary to NICE Public Health guidance such as PH8 Physical Activity and the Environment.

Two of my friends have also recently had a minor accident (one was mostly her fault crashing into another cyclist, and my other friend was hit by a car turning left but he's ok) and there have been a couple of other near misses in the past week. I feel like it's perhaps not the best time to be tempting fate!

Maybe not, but rather than merely hoping that a crash helmet will help you if you crash (which isn't a certainty if you hit or are hit by a motorist), why don't you try to reduce the risk of crashing by getting a cycle training refresher near you - maybe for you and your friends? Most councils will offer something, or you might find local training companies offer Bikeability-based training if the council doesn't (Norfolk doesn't). Oh and you can also tell if they're any good by whether they force helmets on people

 

[srw]

After all, isn't that what we pay a fortune to train medics for - to find and assess the evidence rather than expect to be given the answers?

No. We pay them to treat injuries and sickness. Assessing evidence in the statistical sense is not their core expertise. As you and I might have mentioned before.

 

[Profpointy]

Do motorcyclists, racing drivers crash more ? Or does this rule apply only to cyclists ?

I see youngsters at a local rollerblading/skateboard park, many (most) of these wear helmets - would they be safer without helmets ? Do they take greater risks, because they wear helmets ?

Although these are rhetorical questions I guess, there are answers:
1) - yes probably
2) - dunno - possibly, though the evidence is mixed even for "high risk" cycling, which may or may not compare with skateboarding
3) - yes probably.

"risk compensation" is a widely believed notion. I quoted my rock climbing example upthread - an extreme case, but I dare say I'd climb a 100 foot cliff with a rope, but it would have to be a bloody easy climb for me to even think of it without a rope

 

[Justinslow]

Talking to a mate this morning he was telling me of an accident where he was there. Him and another riding along "semi dark" the other guy hits a pot hole which fetches him off and has a bad crash (maybe his lights weren't very good who knows, that's another story) Smashed up pretty bad cracked pelvis big impact on the head, "helmet saved his life" -my mates words not mine.
Of course we will never know if it did or didn't, but that's now two people I know in a few months who've had these mythical head injuries that apparently are so very very rare that "evidence" shows hardly ever actually happen?

 

[mjr]

that's now two people I know in a few months who've had these mythical head injuries that apparently are so very very rare that "evidence" shows hardly ever actually happen?

And both were wearing helmets, just like the one I saw last month... it would seem as fair to conclude that the helmet-wearing minority crash and hit their heads more, wouldn't it?

 

[mjr]

I rode my bike yesterday and didn't crash, probably because I was wearing a cap. Black moleskin, in case anyone is interested in knowing exactly what provides the best protection.

Aha! I was wearing a black fleece beanie yesterday. Do you think it might not be anything to do with helmets being helmets, but that the bright colours of most helmet uppers are destabilising the wearers by bouncing more wavelengths of light away?