Helmet or no helmet??

[4F]

I don't see why they should get heated. I wear a helmet whenever I am on my bike, does it make me better than those that don't? Certainly not. I choose to wear one, others do also, others choose to not wear one. Why is that so difficult for people to comprehend?

They always get heated though . The way it goes is that without fail someone will post on here that they are related to someone who works in A&E. That person in A&E is then an expert in head injurys and cycle helmet design and then before you know it they will say that non wearers are negligent. A couple of people will then post stories of how a helmet saved their life because their helmet broke into 100 pieces and before you know it it has turned into world war III.

At least this thread has not gone that far yet but I am sure it won't be long.

I don't wear a helmet and I have no problem with anyone that does, each to their own.

 

[Andrew_P]

I don't wear a helmet and I have no problem with anyone that does, each to their own.

Can you explain why you don't wear one, I struggle to explain to anyone why I do not wear one. I would like to think I am reasonably intelligent and applying pure logic I conclude that I would be better off with one, but still do not want to wear one. Strange really.

 

[4F]

Can you explain why you don't wear one, I struggle to explain to anyone why I do not wear one. I would like to think I am reasonably intelligent and applying pure logic I conclude that I would be better off with one, but still do not want to wear one. Strange really.

Because I don't consider cycling dangerous. Withoubt doubt If I was to hit my head and was wearing a helmet then that would prevent grazing / cuts etc but these are not life threatning injurys and I remain unconvinced about the protection that a current helmet may offer.

In the 20 years I have been commuting I have had 3 offs, 1 on diesel and 2 on black ice. On each ocassion my front wheel went and on each ocassion I landed on my side brusing my hip and arm and yet on each ocassion my head did not come into contact with the ground. Ironically on 1 of the black ice ocassions I was very close to home so wheeled the bike back and walked to the bus stop. It was whilst walking to the bus stop that I slipped over in a comedy fashion with both feet flying forwards and fell backwards and cracked my head on the road.
Should I consider in my experience that walking is more dangerous than cycling ?

Actually thinking about it there was 1 other off at the CC Manchester Velodrome meet last year where helmet use is compulsary. There was a big pile up and I ended up getting run over by 3 - 4 others however I have no qualms about wearing a helmet here as these are not usual circumstances to be cycling in.

And one other thing to consider, look at all of the countries with a high cycle use such as Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, China. If a helmet was such a life saving invention as it is claimed why is the helmet take up so low in these countries ?

 

[Andrew_P]

I was going to quote France, it was last year that I got back on a bike in the last 7 days of our Holiday, I hired four bikes, because it was on a whim we did not have helmets, kids included, and as not many locals were wearing them the peer pressure was not there, in fact you could spot the English cyclists by the use of Helmets.

I came off three weeks ago, entering a gravel drive at work was concentrating on beating my best time and and forgot about the gravel, I hurt my wrist and knee and my overidding memory was how instinct was trying to protect my head, cannot explain it but everything happend fast but without considering it my head was furthest from the ground.

Although logic does apply I think the Helmets are very poorly designed.

 

[jimboalee]

Ahh ... Qaly & Daly! - I remember them. Comedy duo from the 60's . ,.... umm or was that Morcome & Ronnie..?


Can I have another glass of that red stuff you're on?




You sound like you might be a proper statistician type person?




There are two approaches- Top down - effect on life in general, and bottom up - do the bits work? Hopefully they meet in the middle.

No. It was Little and Large.....

Nice headgear Eddy...

 

[Smokin Joe]

Can you explain why you don't wear one, I struggle to explain to anyone why I do not wear one. I would like to think I am reasonably intelligent and applying pure logic I conclude that I would be better off with one, but still do not want to wear one. Strange really.

My explanation for not wearing on is something like this -

Do you turn the gas and electricity off at the mains every night? Do you wear a saftey harness and guide rope everytime you walk up stairs? Do you wear a full harness, flameproof overalls and a helmet whenever you ride in a motor vehicle? Do you wear safety goggles, gloves and boots when you are taking glaswear through to the table of washing it up afterwards? All those things lead to more accidents and deaths than head injuries on bicycles but we don't take the precautions mentioned bcause we perceive the risk to be too low to be worth bothering about.

That's why I don't wear a helmet on a bike. I never question anyone i meet on the road when they are wearing a helmet, that's their business not mine, and I resent those who do questioning my decision not to wear one. That's why these debates get so heated, the criticism is all one sided. You have to wonder if some helmet wearers get a bit embarrassed when they meet someone who is riding without a helmet so they have to trot out a load of old moral blackmail to force everyone to their way of thinking.

 

[jimboalee]

My explanation for not wearing on is something like this -

Do you turn the gas and electricity off at the mains every night? Do you wear a saftey harness and guide rope everytime you walk up stairs? Do you wear a full harness, flameproof overalls and a helmet whenever you ride in a motor vehicle? Do you wear safety goggles, gloves and boots when you are taking glaswear through to the table of washing it up afterwards? All those things lead to more accidents and deaths than head injuries on bicycles but we don't take the precautions mentioned bcause we perceive the risk to be too low to be worth bothering about.

That's why I don't wear a helmet on a bike. I never question anyone i meet on the road when they are wearing a helmet, that's their business not mine, and I resent those who do questioning my decision not to wear one. That's why these debates get so heated, the criticism is all one sided. You have to wonder if some helmet wearers get a bit embarrassed when they meet someone who is riding without a helmet so they have to trot out a load of old moral blackmail to force everyone to their way of thinking.

To quote the chap in your avatar from another of his roles,



"I know what you're thinking: Was that six buses pass close or only five?' But to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I've kinda lost track myself. But being this is the A45 Coventry Road, the most dangerous stretch of road out of Birmingham, and a bus would knock your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?

 

[Ravenbait]

Fell off at low speed on ice a number of years ago. I was wearing a helmet. Spent 2 years getting physio for a neck injury caused by the helmet catching on the road and twisting my head back and around and still have occasional niggles with it now.

Since then the only time I wear a helmet is on my infrequent ventures off-road (fire trails, mostly, with my arthritic mum), where I am likely to fall off or hit my head on an overhanging branch; or when racing or training on a race bike (so that I have it firmly established in my head that I don't touch the bike without a helmet on, therefore avoiding DQ mishaps in T1).

I don't criticise others for choosing to wear a helmet if they want to and get fed up with being criticised for choosing not to -- especially when it's clear the ones criticising haven't done the research.

On the other hand, you wouldn't catch me getting on a bike without some form of eye protection. Ever.

Do the research. Make up your own mind. Respect whatever decisions others make on the issue. There really isn't a more accurate answer than that.

Sam

 

[srw]

That's why these debates get so heated, the criticism is all one sided.

Actually you quite often get someone saying something like "every person wearing a helmet is one step closer on the road to compulsion for all."

 

[chillyuk]

I wear my helmet.

Where else am I going to fix my camera?

Seriously at my age we don't bounce like the youngsters, bones are a little more brittle and every sensible little bit of help to survive I can use I will. I once heard an ambulance crew handing over a cyclist to the A&E department. The cyclist had injured his leg fairly severely but the paramedic completed his handover with the comment that the cyclist was not wearing a helmet, although there had been no mention of any head injury whatsoever. I can see the time coming when insurance or compensation claims will be affected by helmet wearing or not.

In the meantime I am a strong advocate of personal choice and wouldn't seek to question anyone's decision to wear or not wear head protection.

 

[Midnight]

Midnight - thanks for the feedback. I share your concerns about the government.. They seem to be good at producing large quantities of data, which no doubt cost lots of money, but less good at producing something that the typical cyclist should find useful. Perhaps they need to be driven more by the needs of the end-user (ie cyclists) rather than by some statistician within a government department.

Re your earlier comments on mileage, I've now done a little more research. According to the Deparment of Transport, the average miles cycled per adult was 39 miles in 2001. This report also stated that the average number of trips was 16 in 2001, so the typical trip is quite short (2.5 miles). Using this mileage figure I get a risk rate of an adult head injury every 487,000 miles. As I cycle 3000 miles/year this means for me I would expect a head injury roughly once every 160 years. This is higher incident rate than using trips (one incident every 760 years) reflecting that for me my miles/trip is greater than the average. As you say, this is probably a more realistic figure, although I also note other comments about higher risk rates for off-road cycling which I don't do. I'm not going to get an exact figure with this type of simple model - I'm really just looking for an order of magnitude. I'm OK to assume that for me I might expect an incident roughly once every 500 years or so.

Thanks again for taking the time to do the maths, James. You've helped me put things into perspective.

 

[swee'pea99]

I don't see why they should get heated. I wear a helmet whenever I am on my bike, does it make me better than those that don't? Certainly not. I choose to wear one, others do also, others choose to not wear one. Why is that so difficult for people to comprehend?

The reason they get heated is simple. Whenever 'antis' hear this debate starting up again, they instinctively begin sensing a nasty beastie  lurking over there behind that big drape - a beastie called 'compulsion'. And not without reason. Don't forget there are many places in the world where compulsion *has* been introduced, driven by ignorance and arrogance, and often with disastrous consequences. Nor is it entirely a non-issue over here - the BMA has famously endorsed the idea, at least in principle. (And you thought you had to be smart to be a doctor....)

If there could ever be universal endorsement of the fundamental principle:

Each to his own

That would pretty much take all the heat out of the debate, and we could (or at least most of us could) talk about it in a civilised manner. 

Don't hold your breath...

(Oh, BTW, earlier in this thread I questioned someone's suggestion that '100-200 cyclists a year die on UK roads'. I've since been to check and he's right and I was wrong. I got confused with a half-remembered stat about the number of people *killed* on UK roads each year by cyclists...which I believe is around one.)



PS Apologies if others have covered this earlier - I must confess to not having followed the entire thread.

 

[crumpetman]

I can see the time coming when insurance or compensation claims will be affected by helmet wearing or not.

I cannot find evidence at the moment but I am sure that this is already the case, even if the the cyclist suffers no head injury!

Edit, I take it back, from http://www.anweald.co.uk/cyclehelmets.html

Some insurance companies sometimes claim a cyclist has contributed negligently to "accidents" they're involved in by not wearing a helmet, even when there has been no head injury. In fact, no such claim has succeeded, partly thanks to CTC lawyers

 

[Smokin Joe]

I cannot find evidence at the moment but I am sure that this is already the case, even if the the cyclist suffers no head injury!

Edit, I take it back, from http://www.anweald.c...clehelmets.html

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Myth.

An insurance company cannot absolve their liability for a leg injury, for example, because someone was not wearing a helmet. How on earth would they argue that a broken leg or collarbone could have been prevented by a helmet?

 

[4F]

Crumpetman, from that site you quoted above these are very particular points

1. Their design-intended strength is equivalent to a impact speed of about 12.5mph [3]. They were never intended for collisions with cars. They're not a cycle-equivalent of motorbike crash helmets (and you can't wear one of those because your brain would boil). They're not safety gear in the sense of being designed to save your life [1]. They work by the outer shell keeping the polystyrene in place whilst it absorbs the deceleration by being crushed. Counter-intuitively if the shell breaks in the initial contact the total energy absorbed is a lot less: a broken helmet is one that didn't work. This means above about 12.5mph the helmet has little effect; certainly it won't reduce a crash at, say, 30mph by an amount equivalent to crashing at 12.5mph. Ask an engineer. Doctors and nurses aren't usually engineers