Keeping safe and being seen on the road

[Ian H]

Helmets are designed to work the same way "crumple zones" do in cars. They are designed to be single use so far as damage prevention is concerned. If they are destroyed in an accident but your head is undamaged, then they have done exactly what they were designed and intended to do.

You mean generated another sale for the manufacturer?

 

[Ming the Merciless]

they have done exactly what they were designed and intended to do.

They are not designed or tested to handle collisions with cars. A destroyed helmet does not indicate it did a job. Just that the energies involved far exceeded its design spec.

 

[tyred]

I've never given a helmet a thought in honesty.

Lots of other people like to remind you that you should wear a helmet in my experience.

It's never happened in this country, but I've done a lot of cycle touring in Scotland in recent years and there's always someone to ask where your helmet is - ferry operators or b&b owners.

 

[MontyVeda]

... A visit to a Headway charity would probably give us a very different insight.

that old chestnut.

A friend is an OT working with traumatic brain injuries, and questioned my lack of helmet when leaving their house on my bike. Then came the statement "I work with traumatic brain injuries remember!" Which was met by my question; How many of your patients injured their heads whilst riding a bike?. The following silence suggested none of them. Simple fact is, any of us are one serious accident away from a traumatic head injury, and the vast majority of the time, we're willing to take our chances.

 

[Oldhippy]

@tyred that is so true.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Point of order: your head didn't touch the tarmac...


...and possibly wouldn't have, sans helmet.

I remember my head gently tapping the ground

then I remember looking up at 2 teenage girls that were just round the corner as I approached it

they looked very worried

I think I fell harder than I remember as my head hit the ground but I didn;t remember that bit
because my head hit the ground

or maybe not

but anyway - the depression in the padding on the helmet was just where my head "gently tapped the ground"

so - hardly evidential - but possible

in any case the helmet needed replacing

 

[Vantage]

The UK and European testing process states that they must prevent skull fractures. Not brain injury.

 

[MontyVeda]

The UK and European testing process states that they must prevent skull fractures. Not brain injury.

That i find surprising.

 

[Profpointy]

I saw a article that interviews a Head Surgeon who worked with the local A&E

He said he saw a lot of cyclist who had not been wearing a helmet

very very few that HAD been wearing one

only an anecdote - but that was what it said

That said, I'm guessing that his assessment hasn't at all taken account of the flaws in the now notorious Rivera, Thompson Rivera paper, (basically comparing helmeted kids in parks and leafy suburbs, vs unhelmetted inner city kids on busy roads) nor for that matter a more recent British study which casually mentioned at the end that cyclists who'd been drinking were a lot less likely to be wearing helmets - then totally ignored any implications of this in their conclusion.

Instinctively, everyone, myself included, assume helmets are helpful; it's common sense after all, but when you critically read proper papers, it doesn't quite work like that it seems - despite said papers often making the same common-sense conclusion which their own paper doesn't support.