Helmets

Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.
The kind of head injury I am concerned most about is not visible damage to my head but rather a closed head injury type where the brain bounces around inside the skull
Well they don't prevent (or reduce concussions) - hardly surprising, feel how rigid they are! How on earth would that reduce your brain rattling round inside your skull?
Don't believe me, try some research. First google hit:
https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/helmets-concussion.html#:~:text=Your friend is right: No,can protect you from concussions.
But do read further:
https://lmgtfy.app/?q=helmets+dont+prevent+concussion

YES, they do reduce cuts, bruises and perhaps occasionally skull fractures (which I expect are no fun, but are a great mechanism for protecting our brains.) I have 12 forehead stitches from a SMIDSY - annoying, but hardly life-threatening.
 

classic33

Leg End Member
I used to race motorcycles. This of course required using helmets which had been recently developed by Bell. I finally grew tired of it because small men have a definite advantage over larger men because you can get out of the way of the ground when cornering. With the tires used today you can see people dragging a knee but in my day that was rare because of insufficient traction. With the lean angle limited by the tires of those days a small man could get his knees out of the way while I had my knee on the ground in nearly every unbanked turn. This reduced the speed I could corner at and so Davey Scott the Yamaha rider would always be in first place, there would be the usual nut case that didn't know he was taking his life in his hands who would normally finish second since I actually knew that you could get hurt and I would normally finish third on my factory Kawasaki unless Crazy would fall off, which was about half the time.

I don't have a lot of memory of those times because of the concussion, but I was just informed last weekend that I also race Ducati in the 500 cc class.

What I do remember is that when I stopped racing I was asked to be the safety director of the American Federation of Motorcyclists. Since I had responsibility I needed to know what I was doing and I went down to Bell laboratories and went over all of their design data for helmets. In motorcycle racing helmets work really in one manner - almost all crashes are "slide outs" and the hard shell of the motorcycle helmet keeps you from grinding your face off on the pavement.

After I changed over to bicycles, and knowing that most of that design crap from Bell was just so much BS, I did a study with the available data. It is available at Mod note: link deleted because it's not from a reputable source
This used the data from before helmets were available until after they were in reasonably large use. I compared this data to the numbers of pedestrian deaths. If you look at the study you can see that there is no change in fatalities compared to pedestrian deaths before and after helmets. While this data is old I recently checked the new data and it is pretty much identical. In other words, the foam plastic helmets have no effect on life and death situation.

This should come as no surprise since almost ALL bicycle fatalities have the same general pattern, a man on a bike is hit by a car at speed. This breaks the body of the rider into many pieces and whether or not the helmet provided any protection is irrelevant.

But the fact is that 99% of bicycle accidents do not involve a motor vehicle although almost 100% of the fatal accidents do. Most bicycle accidents are "fall offs" that do not involved any other vehicle at all or at most interference from another bicycle. Since they are both traveling the same speed there is little worry unless you're dealing with a professional race sprint.

The design standards of a bicycle helmet were originally developed when it was believed that the reason people died from head blows was because of broken skulls. In fact nothing of the sort happens. It is possible that cracking a skull might lessen the effects of a concussion and reduce your chances of injury though I wouldn't like to test that hypothesis.

In any case, I have always suggest that cyclists wear helmets not because I had any belief that they would protect your head but because they would keep you from injuring your face etc. from these slow speed falls.

The extreme danger of a concussion was made quite clear to me when one of the first generation carbon fiber forks from IRD broke apart under me and dropped me on my head. It was an entire list of occurrences that caused this. The fork was supposed to be glued onto the aluminum fork head and held in place with a large rivet while the epoxy was drying. One side did not have the epoxy on it. Then, when it started falling off it made noise which I took to be the speedo pickup touching so I bent over to adjust this just as the other leg without the assistance of the failed leg literally exploded and instantly dropped me on my face with no time to mediate my fall. Had I been sitting normally it probably would have been gravel rash and nothing more.

If you EVER need a neurologist to help you with a concussion, GO TO A HOSPITAL that treats football players. Concussion is common in football players and they are used to treating it. Elsewhere neurologists seldom see concussions and forget the proper things to do since their clientele is normally people with Alzheimer's and the like.

So concussion is the slamming of your head so hard against something that your brain flies in the direction of impact, tears the attaching media off of the other side of your skull and allows the brain to strike so hard against the side of impact that it can destroy entire areas of the brain. In my case it caused a condition similar to diabetes that caused me to have severe seizures. This caused me to have four car wrecks since I had no memory of the seizures after they occurred so I figured I just hadn't been attentive. Luckily there were no injuries, just property damage.

Lately Trek through their subsidiary, Bontrager, began actually thinking about this and designed a media unlike foam plastic. It is a 3D printed material they call Q-cell and it is designed to have a FAR slower deceleration in case of a head blows. This is available in both a standard helmet or a MIPS but they told me that MIPS doesn't appear to do anything extra.

While it is far too new to have any statistics to show its efficacy, it is something that is at least attempting to address the problem of concussion from a real scientific approach. I obtained one of them for myself. It took a little while to get used to the slightly different shape, they have fallen a large deal in price so I would now recommend the Trek or Bontrager Q-cell helmets.

From a personal point of view. I have to spend the rest of my life taking anti-seizure medication that isn't exactly the greatest thing in the world with its side effects. On the plus side - I can act pretty much normally other than having no sense of balance at all (if I were to be standing and look straight up I could fall over) I walk normally by always keeping a visual horizon. Good thing that bikes balance themselves. I can't take my hands off of the bars because I have no feel of which way to move to maintain a balance.

So there is a fairly good reason that I can not recommend helmets that CAN possibly make a difference in the occasional nonvehicular life or death situation.
The damage is caused by the brain not stopping "bouncing around" inside the skull, once the head(skull) has come to a stop. It's the CSF that allows this movement to continue. Your brain is unattached to your skull.

Seizure's of the type you describe, are nothing like diabetes, more akin to epilepsy.

My question to you is why having had one seizure, did you continue driving. Having two and continuing wasn't the best thing to do.
 

classic33

Leg End Member
OP works for Trek ? Helmets are only really thare for a bit of scuff protection and to reduce concussion. Personally I wear one as I'd rather not have gravel rash on the thin skin on my noggin. It depends opon what cycling you are doing. I never wear one pottering about with family, but if I'm out on the MTB bombing down hills, then yes. Worst MTB accident was actually on the flat, but I actually banged up my shoulder and cracked my helmet. Most other accidents/crashes haven't involved my head/helmet, so read into that if you want. I full body air bag might be better. :wacko:

The cheap helmets from Planet X are as good as the expensive ones I've bought in the past.
Hopefully not, as they're starting off with wrong information and giving information that could prove fatal if followed. They say the brain can be torn from it's "attaching media"? on the opposite side of the skull. The brain isn't attached to the skull itself, it "floats" in cerebral spinal fluid which allows some movement, but is slow to dampen it. Six months isn't uncommon for movement to cease, assuming no further impacts.

Any medical help(neurological especially) offered after the injury, should be taken up. A delay, because you feel the person treating you, initially, may not be qualified to treat brain injuries long term is something to avoid.

They have also mixed two seperate conditions up. The seizures after a head impact is a form of epilepsy, not diabetes. Repeated blunt impact trauma, American football?, is a different case to a single impact where the skull is broken in the impact. Possibility of bits of bone going inwards is increased.

Any helmet designed on the information given in the opening post wouldn't even be considered by me. The starting point is wrong, errors can only increase, leading to a product that isn't suitable for it's intended use.
 

RichardB

Slightly retro
Location
West Wales
But the final thought is one that always gets me scratching my head. Per journey mile, cycling is less likely to kill you than walking. Do you wear a helmet for walking? You are also more likely to die of a head injury while travelling in a car. Do you wear a helmet while driving? Placed in context with such daily activities, and when consodering head injuries, cycling is an inherently low risk passtime

Firstly, I agree with your general drift 100%. However, I have heard these claims before and I think they are dubious, even though I would like them to be true. I have been walking for 65+ years and never been close to being killed while doing it, but I have had a few close shaves on the bike. The claim for head injuries to car occupants is more credible, certainly before the advent of seat belts, curtain air bags etc., but I have never seen any stats to support it. Have you got any sources for the data? I have a suspicion it’s a bit of folk mythology, but I’d love to be proved wrong.
 

faster

Über Member
Firstly, I agree with your general drift 100%. However, I have heard these claims before and I think they are dubious, even though I would like them to be true. I have been walking for 65+ years and never been close to being killed while doing it, but I have had a few close shaves on the bike. The claim for head injuries to car occupants is more credible, certainly before the advent of seat belts, curtain air bags etc., but I have never seen any stats to support it. Have you got any sources for the data? I have a suspicion it’s a bit of folk mythology, but I’d love to be proved wrong.

Yes, I'd like to see some support for these claims too.
 

FishFright

More wheels than sense
But do youse three wear helmets for any other activities *known* to produce head injuries?
e.g. walking, driving, running, stair use. And most other sports!

I did when climbing and caving
 
Top Bottom