The Great Helmet Debate

[alfablue]

Just reiterating what the manufacturers and standards bodies say.

They don't say "this will offer nil protection when hitting a bus regardless of the speed or nature of the impact"

 

[MartinC]

Neither did I.

 

[Jaded]

Nothing to do with 5 point seat belts, christ knows what that was about

Insisting that kids use safety gear that adults don't. It's fairly straightforward.

 

[col]

It's OK, there's no need to worry about cyclists without helmets. There's no real evidence that they provide any benefit, it's a bit optimistic to expect 250 gms of polystyrene to provide much protection and hitting a bus is beyond the design limitations of a standard cycle helmet.

I think the part of the head covered would benefit on impacts not enough to break your neck.An experiment done by putting a raw egg inside a small polystyrene cube showed that the egg wasnt broke when dropped from a great hieght,so i think as long as the impact wasnt neck breakingly hard,even the limited protection would save more serious damage wouldnt it?

 

[Disgruntled Goat]

I have yet to speak to someone who sustained a head injury whilst not wearing a helmet who could claim that their injury would have been worse had they been wearing one.

But then it was difficult to make out what they were saying as they ate their lunch through a staw.

 

[Disgruntled Goat]

Of course it's all about personal choice but don't come drooling to me when you sustain head trauma.

 

[Chris James]

I have yet to speak to someone .....

But then it was difficult to make out what they were saying as they ate their lunch through a staw.

Mmm, so you couldn't understand the person who you had 'yet to meet'.

Perhaps wearing your helmet all the time is frying your brain, to come up with such nonsense?

There are arguments for and against wearing helmets, most of them rehearsed endlessly on cycling forums, but just coming out with the 'lunch through a straw' comment is very lazy. Why don't you grow up?

 

[BentMikey]

On the other hand Ravenbait had a crash where she sustained serious neck injuries due to her helmet. IIRC she wishes she hadn't worn it.

The lunch through a straw argument is typical of lazy debaters on the pro side. It's using fear uncertainty and doubt, and largely none of these people have spent any significant amount of time reading the studies and evidence out there. It's "common sense" that helmets are magical and always protect you according to them, and they just won't open their minds to the less appetising reality.

 

[Kovu]

I think its more the choice of the wearer. At the moment i dont, but i dont feel unsafe on my bike, I feel content as if I had one on. I will get one pretty soon, but I dont think it should be made for everyone to wear one, simple because I don't overly think they protect your head that much.

Its more any protection is better than none.

 

[Elmer Fudd]

It's like when I was at work, I was supposed to wear ear plugs but never did, always felt safer hearing the FLT coming up behind me rather than the blood rushing through my ears. Blood going through my body (no much alcohol it contained !!) wasn't going to kill me as fast as 3.5 tonnes+ of cast iron / steel.

 

[Jaded]

I have yet to speak to someone who sustained a head injury whilst not wearing a helmet who could claim that their injury would have been worse had they been wearing one.

But then it was difficult to make out what they were saying as they ate their lunch through a staw.

Well, you've never spoken to me.

 

[MartinC]

There's a well estabished causal relationship between people hitting their heads and them sustaining injuries. There's no established relationship between people wearing cycle helmets and head injuries being mitigated. Some people like to believe, for a variety of reasons, that there is. Endless examples of people being hurt don't make any meaningful contribution to the debate.

 

[MartinC]

The population wide studies don't show any benefit.

 

[MartinC]

They do, they include all reported injuries. We seem to agree that there isn't any evidence that cycle helmets protect heads. Population wide studies are available (e.g. Australia pre and post helmet enforcement). It would be reasonable to expect that a protection effect would be noticeable in these studies if it existed. Common sense also suggests that the energy absorbing potential of 250 gms of polystyrene isn't going to make a significant difference in an injury threatening impact. I'm still trying to follow the reasoning that 2 people had head injuries therefore cycle helmets are beneficial.

 

[MartinC]

That seems disingenous. Your post was, on the face of it, suggesting that in these two instances wearing a cycling helmet would have been beneficial. When challenged it seems that we both agree that there's no logic to this conclusion. As BentMikey pointed out earlier "The lunch through a straw argument is typical of lazy debaters on the pro side. It's using fear uncertainty and doubt"