Helmets??

[classic33]

......... head injuries on stairs don't count, hurt less and aren't worth preventing..... so man up and stop whinging!

The injury didn't occur on the stairs though. It was at the bottom whilst being helped up.

I will add that head injuries are a part of life for me. Pre-existing medical condition.

 

[Drago]

Perhaps a helmet made from vegetables...?

 

[ufkacbln]

Perhaps a helmet made from vegetables...?

MELON TIME!!!!!!

(and yes I know melons are not vegetables, and are in fact fruit)

 

[TheSoulReaver03]

Because not everybody agrees with you.

Go ahead then and disagree with what I just said, as I took a fully objective view on wearing it or not. And I was realistic.

 

[winjim]

Go ahead then and disagree with what I just said, as I took a fully objective view on wearing it or not. And I was realistic.

My personal position on the helmet debate is undefined.

 

[Brandane]

This is slowly turning into a deb8 thread. I guess the old helmet topics were going down the same way?

Bottom line : Wear it if you want to. Don't wear it if you don't want to. It provides a little protection, so it could save you from a force that would otherwise crack your skull, but only to a certain limit. Bottom line, it gives you a little more protection overall.


Why can't this debate end like this?

Errrrrm ...........

You people realize that you're debating over a piece of plastic, right?

 

[TheSoulReaver03]

Errrrrm ...........

Erm...technically it's more or less a piece of plastic, so I wasn't far from reality, and the two things I said are connected regardless. I'm not debating.

 

[winjim]

Erm...technically it's more or less a piece of plastic, so I wasn't far from reality, and the two things I said are connected regardless. I'm not debating.

Your stated bottom line is so far from the actual bottom line it's untrue.

 

[classic33]

Erm...technically it's more or less a piece of plastic, so I wasn't far from reality, and the two things I said are connected regardless. I'm not debating.

Reality is when you find out just who was wrong or right.

 

[Racing roadkill]

I want to be convinced they work, I really, genjinely do. The thought that a lid can save lives and prevent serious injury is a noble one.

The bottom line is despite any supposed claims about energy absorption or redirection, reduction in acceleration etc, there is still no firm evidence that they save lives or reduce serious injuries. Indeed, if one goes by raw user data alone then the experience of countries that have made them compulsory is that the death and serious injury rate per cycling capita actually rises. How can this be so if these devices save lives?

Its like high visibility garments - in lab conditions they have been shown to make the wearer more conspicuous, but this has not translated to the live environment where there is no evidence that wearing one makes the user any less likely to get mowed down. The DoT tried very hard to prove their efficacy by comparing historic collision data from 3 decades ago before such garments were regularly worn, with modern data where roadworkers now invafiably wear them, but were unable to identify a corresponding drop in fafalities.

I suspect the same may be true of helmets. In the lab with a steel weight inside dropped upon an anvil they may indeed appear to function, but transplanted to a live environment there are no figures to show any shrinkage in injury and death rates.

The thing about compulsion of lid wearing not seeming to reduce death rates, is very very complicated. One possible scenario comes to mind. Person A. rides a bicycle, has never worn a lid, never seen the point, as they only do short distances, and rarely on the road. Subconsciously, this person is taking less risks / paying more attention/ whatever, because without a lid, getting hit / falling off is going to hurt a lot. Person A. is now forced to wear a lid. He / she, is now wearing a lid, so screw it, they'll use the quicker route, which involves a busy main road, after all, they have a lid on now, what could go wrong? Simultaneously, driver B. who used to give the vulnerable looking non lid wearing cyclist lots of room, now doesn't need to, the cyclist is wearing a lid after all, what could go wrong? I'm aware that this is an over simplification, but it's a good reason why I don't think compulsion is a great idea. There is a whole different argument, which is purely down to how a court of law / insurance company, would deal with an incident involving a lid wearer, vs a non lid wearer. Would the outcome be the same? I doubt it, IME, the lid wearer would get treated far more favourably.

 

[ianrauk]

don't think compulsion is a great idea.

Now you have changed your tune. A post of yours from a closed Helmet thread
The sooner the law changes to compulsory helmets the better.

What has made you change your mind?

 

[Racing roadkill]

Now you have changed your tune. A post of yours from a closed Helmet thread
The sooner the law changes to compulsory helmets the better.

What has made you change your mind?

Sometimes a battle is unwinable / not worth fighting. I think blanket compulsion would never work or be worth it. Specific compulsion, ie those who choose to ride on main roads (I'd probably go as far as to say only on A roads / trunk routes) should have to wear lids, would be much more achievable / palletable. A lot of cyclist deaths, where the lid wearing debate comes in, fail to take account of the 'whole' event, that led to the death anyway. For instance, Person A. was hit by a truck, whilst riding their bike, without a lid, and died. Everybody on the pro lid side starts jumping up and down shouting about how a lid may have saved them, everybody on the other side, points out that a lid is no defence against a truck. What has been omitted, or wasn't realised is, that ( again a theoretical case) person A. ended up under the truck, because they had been hit in the head by a piece of debris, this knocked the senses out of them / sparked them out,which was why they ended up under the truck. In this case, the lid may have been of some help. Again a bit of an oversimplification, but I wouldn't be surprised if there have been a lot of cases where a fatal collision event was initiated, by an unseen event, which wearing a lid would have mitigated.

 

[Mugshot]

Now you have changed your tune. A post of yours from a closed Helmet thread
The sooner the law changes to compulsory helmets the better.

What has made you change your mind?

As interesting is that Roadkill has now decided that motorists behave less carefully around helmet wearers than non helmet wearers, the plot thickens.

 

[Dan B]

Sometimes a battle is unwinable / not worth fighting. I think blanket compulsion would never work or be worth it. Specific compulsion, ie those who choose to ride on main roads (I'd probably go as far as to say only on A roads / trunk routes) should have to wear lids, would be much more achievable / palletable.

Why is that, because you more likely to fall off on an A road, or because the lower volumes of traffic on them mean that close passes are not a problem?

 

[Mugshot]

Sometimes a battle is unwinable / not worth fighting. I think blanket compulsion would never work or be worth it. Specific compulsion, ie those who choose to ride on main roads (I'd probably go as far as to say only on A roads / trunk routes) should have to wear lids, would be much more achievable / palletable.

Ah, despite you saying drivers behave with less care and attention when cyclists are wearing a helmet, makes sense.