The CycleChat Helmet Debate Thread

[ufkacbln]

You know, that's an interesting thing, one of the guys rode into the back of a parked freelander at speed on a TT bike A few months ago, his face was pretty messed up as you can imagine, nose nearly sliced off and loss of teeth, no breaks or any "major" injuries though, obviously he was wearing his helmet, I haven't got round to asking him yet his thoughts on whether his helmet did any good or not, but I will.
My bike is actually not set all that radical as it kills my back if it's too aggressive.
You can understand why TT organisers emphasise keeping your head up!

Which is the really rather pertinent argument (supported by Headway) for a full face helmet.

Even supported by the professionals

Given the anecdotal evidence, support by the professionals who deal with the injuries, and a pro helmet charity such as Headway.... how can people be so stupid as to argue against full face helmets?

 

[glasgowcyclist]

The presumption by some that 'marketing' comes before the natural human instinct to protects ones head is slightly debatable..

There is no instinctive desire to buy a helmet.

Helmet makers (and others) have cleverly manufactured an atmosphere of danger around all cycling that so overstates the risks, that many people blindly associate the two automatically and the very mention of a bicycle brings a pavlovian response about a helmet. The makers want it to become as 'instinctive' as, say, wearing a seatbelt purely so they can shift more units, that is all.

This association of bicycle + helmet is reinforced by propaganda in the media, from the emergency services and from our government, instilling both a sense of fear around a safe activity and, at the same time, a transference of the onus of road safety onto the victims instead of the danger bringers. (Same applies with hi-vis clothing).

This has to be challenged so that free choice remains available and the many who want to see mandatory helmet use do not succeed. As Mikael Colville-Andersen of Copenhagenize said, "You can have cities full of cyclists or mandatory helmet laws, you can't have both".

I'll close with this example of marketing bollox which the advertiser had to remove and agree never to repeat.


GC

EDIT: It's not that clear in the pic so I'll put the relevant bollox part here: "... wear the Las Victory Supreme crown with pride and joy and ride in absolute safety"

 

[Fab Foodie]

There is no instinctive desire to buy a helmet.

Helmet makers (and others) have cleverly manufactured an atmosphere of danger around all cycling that so overstates the risks, that many people blindly associate the two automatically and the very mention of a bicycle brings a pavlovian response about a helmet. The makers want it to become as 'instinctive' as, say, wearing a seatbelt purely so they can shift more units, that is all.

This association of bicycle + helmet is reinforced by propaganda in the media, from the emergency services and from our government, instilling both a sense of fear around a safe activity and, at the same time, a transference of the onus of road safety onto the victims instead of the danger bringers. (Same applies with hi-vis clothing).

This has to be challenged so that free choice remains available and the many who want to see mandatory helmet use do not succeed. As Mikael Colville-Andersen of Copenhagenize said, "You can have cities full of cyclists or mandatory helmet laws, you can't have both".

I'll close with this example of marketing bollox which the advertiser had to remove and agree never to repeat.
View attachment 129691

GC

In a nutshell .... so to speak ....

 

[hatler]

If anyone has not seen it before, Dave Horton's Fear of Cycling series is worth reading. There's a copy starting at http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/09/fear-of-cycling-01-essay-in-five-parts.html

That link is a great read. Everyone participating in this thread should be prevented from posting anything further until they have read all five parts of that article.

 

[Mugshot]

That's a nice picture, no it's not odd, like I said my own kids sometimes ride with or without helmets.

The thing is with this picture is that not one child on a bicycle is not wearing a helmet (the picture was taken in Centre Parcs BTW so no traffic) the only child not wearing is riding a unicycle. Despite the fact that the girl on the unicycle was a beginner and had already had a number of spills her activity was not deemed dangerous enough to merit the wearing of protective equipment. Even in the unlikely event that every single other child is also a beginner and stands a very real chance of falling off their bicycle it is clear to me that one activity is considered dangerous and the other is not, yet in reality and in particular in that environment they surely must carry a roughly equal risk.
A friend of mine used to enjoy trying to try to start a row with me and then getting indignant when I challenged the "it's obvious innit" mantra. One day he told me with a puffed out chest how proud he was that his son (about 6 or 7) would automatically get his helmet from the garage before riding his bike around their cul de sac, I asked whether he did the same when he was riding on his scooter as my friend had mentioned to me that he was getting pretty fast on it now and was jumping off kerbs and the like. My mate stormed off telling me it was impossible to have a discussion with me.
I don't see the difference in risk and I don't see the necessity for PPE for one and not the other.

 

[MontyVeda]

...
A friend of mine used to enjoy trying to try to start a row with me and then getting indignant when I challenged the "it's obvious innit" mantra. One day he told me with a puffed out chest how proud he was that his son (about 6 or 7) would automatically get his helmet from the garage before riding his bike around their cul de sac, I asked whether he did the same when he was riding on his scooter as my friend had mentioned to me that he was getting pretty fast on it now and was jumping off kerbs and the like. My mate stormed off telling me it was impossible to have a discussion with me.
I don't see the difference in risk and I don't see the necessity for PPE for one and not the other.

That's usually what happens when you put a big dent in someone's so-called logic... they'd sooner storm off than consider the point that they might be wrong and you might be right. Maybe it's a man thing?

 

[Mugshot]

Maybe it's a man thing?

That is quite frankly a ludicrous thing to say!!

 

[broadway]

Off to Brecon this weekend and found this popped up on an unrelated search search for some reason.

His comment "Crash on descent to Hay-on-Wye, brakes off in corner, got unlucky. Very well fitting Specialized helmet took brunt and cracked, did a great job"

I'm not sure unlucky is the right word, probably lucky that something more serious didn't happen on the way down, does safetyhat ride like this because or in spite of a helmet?

 

[mjr]

I'm not sure unlucky is the right word, probably lucky that something more serious didn't happen on the way down, does safetyhat ride like this because or in spite of a helmet?

Trying to turn a road bike sharply through water at over 15mph (possibly ice, as there's ice earlier in the video) isn't bad luck, it's foolishness. It looked like quite a close encounter with an oncoming car too, but maybe the camera lens is misleading, and I think the speedo hit 50kph = over 30mph a few times, which seems a bit high in poor conditions.

I suspect it's "because" but is there any indication that safetyhat has learned the relevant lesson from that? That is "don't bomb down descents in bad conditions" rather than "my helmet saved my life". I ask because I don't know if you know more about them and their youtube profile is a bit sparse.

 

[swansonj]

It looks to me as if he fell sideways and scraped off the energy sliding along the road. I doubt if his helmet "took the brunt" rather than his shoulder, side and leg. No-one can know - but it's surely possible his head/helmet impacted the road at quite a low speed.

 

[Mugshot]

Trying to turn a road bike sharply through water at over 15mph (possibly ice, as there's ice earlier in the video) isn't bad luck, it's foolishness. It looked like quite a close encounter with an oncoming car too, but maybe the camera lens is misleading, and I think the speedo hit 50kph = over 30mph a few times, which seems a bit high in poor conditions.

I suspect it's "because" but is there any indication that safetyhat has learned the relevant lesson from that? That is "don't bomb down descents in bad conditions" rather than "my helmet saved my life". I ask because I don't know if you know more about them and their youtube profile is a bit sparse.

Agreed, it's difficult to be certain because of camera angles but that seemed particularly reckless at times. Far too fast around what were at best corners with severely compromised sight lines, banking at speed despite obvious snow and ice further up the mountain, can't be sure but it looked like and was likely to be gravel down the centre of the road which again they seemed to be treating with gay abandon. Possibly harsh but my clenched buttocks throughout the whole video suggested that an off was almost inevitable.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

Off to Brecon this weekend and found this popped up on an unrelated search search for some reason.

His comment "Crash on descent to Hay-on-Wye, brakes off in corner, got unlucky. Very well fitting Specialized helmet took brunt and cracked, did a great job"

I'm not sure unlucky is the right word, probably lucky that something more serious didn't happen on the way down, does safetyhat ride like this because or in spite of a helmet?

Crap roadcraft rather than unlucky.

GC

 

[srw]

If anyone has not seen it before, Dave Horton's Fear of Cycling series is worth reading. There's a copy starting at http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/09/fear-of-cycling-01-essay-in-five-parts.html

As @hatler says, a great read. I know I'm biassed because I do a lot of my riding in central London, but I'd say that in that part of the country his part 4 (new cycling spaces) is well on the way to becoming obsolete, and part 5 (cycling is strange) is now very nearly obsolete.

London drivers and pedestrians are now used to seeing cyclists as just part of the traffic, whether they're on segregated paths, in bus lanes or on-street bike lanes or on unmixed roads. And people don't view my toting a Brompton into meetings as anything other than very normal indeed.

 

[J1888]

I like my helmet

 

[martint235]

I like my helmet

Calling @Fnaar