Research into helmet compulsion

[col]

Col, I posted - "That there's an extra risk of a significant head injury without a helmet is an assumption not an established fact" and you took issue with this.

If you want to refute this then refer to some evidence, I'm struggling to find anything relevant in your last post.

Im not taking issue, I cant understand how you say its assumption, when its obvious really. I dont have evidence for this, its just a belief.

 

[MartinC]

+1 .



There's none more stupid than those without common sense . Go bang your head on the kerb sans head gear then go do the same again wearing a cycling helmet. If you don't realise the helmet is protecting your head remove helmet and bang your head harder ....

Firstly, there's no need for insults. Get a grip of yourself.

Secondly, just because common sense tells you that a cycle helmet can prevent some level of discomfort in some impacts it's still dangerously optimistic to believe this means it can offer you a meaningful level of protection against head injury.

If you've got a reasoned case why this is so then share it with us. If not then just accept that everyone doesn't need to share your faith.

 

[MartinC]

Im not taking issue, I cant understand how you say its assumption, when its obvious really. I dont have evidence for this, its just a belief.

If it's obvious that cycle helmets can prevent significant injury then it should be easy for you to articulate how.

As you say it's just a belief. No-one's obliged to share your beliefs.

 

[col]

If it's obvious that cycle helmets can prevent significant injury then it should be easy for you to articulate how.

As you say it's just a belief. No-one's obliged to share your beliefs.

Im not asking anyone to. Its something that I think is obvious, but now you have added the significant injury bit in, it does open the debate more. Im talking of a simple head bang, it would obviously be less painful with a helmet in my opinion. you seem to dissagree which is fine.

 

[Dan B]

There's none more stupid than those without common sense . Go bang your head on the kerb sans head gear then go do the same again wearing a cycling helmet. If you don't realise the helmet is protecting your head remove helmet and bang your head harder ....

I have done both. Although on different occasions, so the circumstances weren't absolutely identical, I can report that the helmet appeared to make no significant difference. I was travelling in excess of 12mph both times.

"Common sense" is very poor at physics and likewise crap at statistics. I see no immediately compelling reason to suppose it any more reliable in the field of cranial medicine

 

[515mm]

I would not vote for compulsory helmet wearing as I think it can give one an increased sense of one's own safety. However - I normally wear a helmet during cycling.

I came off my bike last weekend at about 20mph. It hurt. I injured my legs, shoulder and forearm. On the mend now, but as I was cleaning the dirt off my helmet (no sniggering please!) I noticed that it had been stoved in at the back. I have no head injury and didn't black out at any time, though I do recall rolling onto my head at one point during the crash.

Will I continue wearing a (new) helmet? Yes.

Would I have taken the risk that caused my crash(it was my fault btw) if I hadn't been wearing a helmet? Hmmm.... tricky one that.

 

[col]

I have done both. Although on different occasions, so the circumstances weren't absolutely identical, I can report that the helmet appeared to make no significant difference. I was travelling in excess of 12mph both times.

"Common sense" is very poor at physics and likewise crap at statistics. I see no immediately compelling reason to suppose it any more reliable in the field of cranial medicine

I think the point is being missed here? If you head butt a wall without a helmet, lets say just above the forhead, it will hurt wont it? Now lets do that again with an inch or two of polystyrene between the head and the wall. do you think that will hurt as much?
The point being that in SOME circumstances it will help maybe do you think?
Im not talking of all the other impacts which probably are most of what could happen, but the odd chance ones that probably wont happen anyway, but the risk is still there no matter how small?

 

[col]

I would not vote for compulsory helmet wearing as I think it can give one an increased sense of one's own safety. However - I normally wear a helmet during cycling.

I came off my bike last weekend at about 20mph. It hurt. I injured my legs, shoulder and forearm. On the mend now, but as I was cleaning the dirt off my helmet (no sniggering please!) I noticed that it had been stoved in at the back. I have no head injury and didn't black out at any time, though I do recall rolling onto my head at one point during the crash.

Will I continue wearing a (new) helmet? Yes.

Would I have taken the risk that caused my crash(it was my fault btw) if I hadn't been wearing a helmet? Hmmm.... tricky one that.

Your going to get the ones that will say the extra width added to your head made the impact happen, it might not have if the helmet wasnt there, which in rare circumstances might be the case. But I believe if your head was moving floorwards at enough speed to cause the damage to the back of the helmet, then yes it probably stopped you getting a head injury of somesort, as your head was going to impact the ground anyway.
This could be one of those rare times when a helmet did actually save you from more injury.

 

[Greenbank]

I think the point is being missed here? If you head butt a wall without a helmet, lets say just above the forhead, it will hurt wont it?

Just done it. It hurts a bit, but I have no injury.

Now lets do that again with an inch or two of polystyrene between the head and the wall. do you think that will hurt as much?

Yup, just done it. It hurt less. Still no injury.

What exactly does this prove?

I repeated the same test with a thick wooly jumper tied around my head and it didn't hurt at all and still no injury. Does this prove that a jumper tied around the head is better than a helmet? Or was this whole test meaningless?

 

[col]

Just done it. It hurts a bit, but I have no injury.



Yup, just done it. It hurt less. Still no injury.

What exactly does this prove?

I repeated the same test with a thick wooly jumper tied around my head and it didn't hurt at all and still no injury. Does this prove that a jumper tied around the head is better than a helmet? Or was this whole test meaningless?

Nope, it proves it hurts less. Well done, if you have a vid post it, purely for scientific reasons you understand

 

[Greenbank]

Nope, it proves it hurts less. Well done, if you have a vid post it, purely for scientific reasons you understand

So, we've proven that in impacts that lead to no injuries at all, helmets successfully slightly lessen the temporary and very mild pain, and do not contribute to more injuries. Also note that in such a test a thick wooly jumper performs best.

Unless you're expecting to wildly extrapolate from this data and claim that helmets will always reduce the severity of injuries in every type of accident. In which case one can also extrapolate the wooly jumper data point and claim that this will perform even better than a helmet in reducing both the number and severity of injuries.

Of course, this experiment suffers from the same problems as the experiment suggested by Crankarm before. In order to test whether the helmet does indeed prevent or reduce minor (or even major) injuries, one has to be willing to subject oneself to those injuries. I'm guessing there'll be no takers for that.

 

[ufkacbln]

Just done it. It hurts a bit, but I have no injury.



Yup, just done it. It hurt less. Still no injury.

What exactly does this prove?

I repeated the same test with a thick wooly jumper tied around my head and it didn't hurt at all and still no injury. Does this prove that a jumper tied around the head is better than a helmet? Or was this whole test meaningless?

As you were in pedestrian mode when you performed this test - it is valid for pedestrians, how do we translate this "test" to cyclists?

 

[Crankarm]

As you were in pedestrian mode when you performed this test - it is valid for pedestrians, how do we translate this "test" to cyclists?

Well you're one of the nay sayers so perhaps you could offer yourself for my test for which I requested volunteers last weekend which Greenbank has kindly referred to above. Saturday this coming weekend is currently free if you like? If helmets are indeed of benefit in low impact collisions which common sense would suggest then you have nothing to worry about however if they are as you maintain purely a cosmetic item then you should be concerned...........

 

[MartinC]

Well you're one of the nay sayers so perhaps you could offer yourself for my test for which I requested volunteers last weekend which Greenbank has kindly referred to above. Saturday this coming weekend is currently free if you like? If helmets are indeed of benefit in low impact collisions which common sense would suggest then you have nothing to worry about however if they are as you maintain purely a cosmetic item then you should be concerned...........

This test is a very flawed idea. Anyone who did it would be nuts.

Firstly it's of no value. It's not repeatable and there are too many uncontrolled variables for it to prove anything.

Secondly there's a highly optimistic presumption that in a cyclist/car collision with a closing speed of 20-40mph the only life or health threatening outcome to worry about is a head injury.

Thirdly the scenario is outside the generally accepted parameters of helmet effectiveness. Taking part in a test where neither the standards bodies or the manufacturers predict any benefit is a bizarre idea.

I'm not sure why you've directed this post at Cunobelin - presumably because he doesn't say the right things. His point is consistly that if helmets are effective then pedestrians would get a similar benefit - how does this make him a naysayer - whatever that is.

Fortunately there are people who can make a reasoned case for cycle helmets - why don't you have a go?

 

[ufkacbln]

Well you're one of the nay sayers so perhaps you could offer yourself for my test for which I requested volunteers last weekend which Greenbank has kindly referred to above. Saturday this coming weekend is currently free if you like? If helmets are indeed of benefit in low impact collisions which common sense would suggest then you have nothing to worry about however if they are as you maintain purely a cosmetic item then you should be concerned...........

How do you correlate this assumption with my posts - such as....

In depth and full comparison of standards at BHSI

I would also be interseted on how you gained the assumption that I think they are "cosmetic only" - I have argued that they could and should be more protective, but then again it depends on whether you are interested in cyclists wearing helmets or people actually preventing head injuries - the two are not neccesarily the same thing.

Mind you the question still exists..... do you want me to volunteer as a pedestrian where the low impactcollisions tend to occur and prove that pedestrians need to wear helmets, or as a cyclist?