The CycleChat Helmet Debate Thread

[JMAG]

So you wear one as a pedestrian/motorist/DIYer as well, right?

Good point sir!

TBH though I wouldn't be worried about wearing a helmet cycling around my garden, a park or on the pavement at a sedate speed (not that I do ride on pavements). I'm also not worried about falling over whilst walking due to the speed and the fact that at 49 years old I don't recall having ever fallen over whilst on foot. At my average cycling speed of 15 mph on public roads however I prefer to wear a helmet.

I've had 2 offs at that sort of speed and both times landed on my head. Whilst careless of me, I haven't yet managed to perfect the art of controlling which part of my body hits the ground first. The first one was a bit of a whack, but I doubt I would have suffered any greater injury without a helmet. The 2nd time I went over the bars and landed head first on the tarmac with quite a thud. The other parts of my body that made contact with the road didn't come off very well and I can't help but suspect that my head would have been no different.

 

[Incontinentia Buttocks]

Great, wonderful, but I hope you realise it may be only in your mind and not reality.

Alas there is plenty going on inside my skull that may only be in my mind!

 

[double0jedi]

No, I've never had a "clipless moment".

why don't you break your fall? Do you just let your head hit the ground because the helmet will save you?


That's the second time I've answered lots of @double0jedi questions and asked some in return, but there's no sign of replies to mine, so I'll probably not continue

Thank you for replying to my thread, I can see that, I have made some errors. Just to clear a couple of things then on with the debating.

“ everyone has clipless moments “. Glad to hear you have never had a “clipless moment” clearly you are a better rider than me but do check out any of the oft repeated “Should I start using clipless pedals” threads, you will find many seasoned riders advising newbies that everyone has a clipless moment, this was what I was referring to.


I am not sure as to why you would think that I did nothing to break my fall, in fact you word it in such a manner that it almost seems as if you think that I did not have the intelligence to think of this as being an option. I am sure that if you were in a similar positon you would no doubt have been able to save yourself although I doubt you would have put yourself in such a position in the first place. Judging by the quality of your usual answers it was an oversight to have posted such a stupid remark. As if someone would not try to protect themselves as they fell. Ha ha ha ! Or maybe it was humour, in which case, Oh how I laughed.


Thanks for the he/she/ IT reference that was not at all insulting.

Sorry it took so long to respond to you, work got in the way I am afraid. Please do not feel that you should have to respond to any of my questions in the future as I may not be able to respond within the required time scale

 

[srw]

here you go
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oBZ-aQWBdrYT0NM40KVAKz0ei3xQEbX3hJccnBr5JT8/edit?hl=de#gid=0

The data indeed shows that head injuries are rarely the cause of a cyclist dying in London traffic. By far the biggest risk is being crushed by a lorry.

However - this is important! and meant as an agnostic statement of facts, not as a value judgement - this does not necessarily say much about the protective value of helmets per se, as I do not systematically track serious but non-fatal injuries, which by far outnumber fatalities. About 12 riders die each year on London roads, but 450 to 500 (numbers from the back of my head, don't quote) are seriously injured - but only a small fraction of them show up in my list, and nobody knows what injuries they suffered and if they were wearing a helmet or not.

Before anyone gets excited, time again for my favourite internet piece.
http://www.gicentre.net/blog/2013/11/24/risk-cycling-and-denominator-neglect

 

[martint235]

Thank you for replying to my thread, I can see that, I have made some errors. Just to clear a couple of things then on with the debating.

“ everyone has clipless moments “. Glad to hear you have never had a “clipless moment” clearly you are a better rider than me but do check out any of the oft repeated “Should I start using clipless pedals” threads, you will find many seasoned riders advising newbies that everyone has a clipless moment, this was what I was referring to.


I am not sure as to why you would think that I did nothing to break my fall, in fact you word it in such a manner that it almost seems as if you think that I did not have the intelligence to think of this as being an option. I am sure that if you were in a similar positon you would no doubt have been able to save yourself although I doubt you would have put yourself in such a position in the first place. Judging by the quality of your usual answers it was an oversight to have posted such a stupid remark. As if someone would not try to protect themselves as they fell. Ha ha ha ! Or maybe it was humour, in which case, Oh how I laughed.


Thanks for the he/she/ IT reference that was not at all insulting.

Sorry it took so long to respond to you, work got in the way I am afraid. Please do not feel that you should have to respond to any of my questions in the future as I may not be able to respond within the required time scale

Let's clear this up. If you use clipless pedals you'll have a clipless moment. You might not have had yours yet. But you will. This is a generally accepted rule.
I've had two, both public which doesn't help. But entirely irrelevant to this thread cos I put my hands out. Kind of what they are for.

 

[double0jedi]

Let's clear this up. If you use clipless pedals you'll have a clipless moment. You might not have had yours yet. But you will. This is a generally accepted rule.
I've had two, both public which doesn't help. But entirely irrelevant to this thread cos I put my hands out. Kind of what they are for.

Yeah I did think of that. Wow why does everyone think I didn't. !!

I sort of fell to one side and slightly behind, I did put my arm out to try to stop me but, that did not work. Still hit the floor. What is so hard to understand about this I really don't get it. Why is it so hard to grasp, I couldn't UN clip in time, fell to the right, and as I had tried to dismount my weight then shifted and I was falling sort of backwards. Shoulder hit the floor and then my head.
Hope that clears up the accident.
I'm unsure why it's such an issue, it did happen, sure it was stupid but it did, what do I gain by making it up.
I'm so glad that others are completely capable of avoiding every type of accident and always being able to do exactly the right thing in any given situation.
Shame I'm to thick to think about putting my arms out to stop my self. Why don't they teach that at schools?

 

[classic33]

Most trips to the floor are far more mundane: lost balance, clipless moments, going down sideways after overcooking a corner than the lurid head first spearing into the ground or other vehicle eg's used and in almost every case another body part gets there first to absorb the brunt of it.

I've never heard or read of someone that doesn't choose to wear a helmet say they don't have accidents.
More often its that they feel it makes them a more cautious rider and they perceive vehicles treating them differently.

I posted on here a few weeks ago about a crash I had. I wasn't weaing a helmet so it has no significance to mention in my recounting the incident.

People recounting incidents while wearing helmets are naturally going to ascribe a significance to the helmet as it validates to them the rightness of their choice to wear it in the first place.

People falling off without a helmet don't have that element to fixate on so moan about the bent brake lever and scuffed paintwork instead.

Wearing one when I was hit by a car. Bike was a write-off & the lower body took the worst of the impact.
The helmet, I was told whilst being treated, made things worse.

The police actually refused to speak with me, at the scene, unless I removed it first.

 

[ClichéGuevara]

Wearing one when I was hit by a car. Bike was a write-off & the lower body took the worst of the impact.
The helmet, I was told whilst being treated, made things worse.

The police actually refused to speak with me, at the scene, unless I removed it first.

Why did the Police make you remove your helmet? Generally speaking, at accident scenes it should be medical people that advise when it should be removed, as it can be helping control a head injury that could be made worse if it is removed.

 

[ufkacbln]

Bizarrely the greatest evidence that cycle helmets increase injury comes form the Bicycle Helmet Initiative Trust (BHIT

If you read their claims then the number of lives saved by compulsory helmets for children is massive

In fact it is several orders of magnitude greater than the number of children suffering cycle related head injuries at this time.


The only possible conclusion is that given their figures, compulsion would vastly increase the number of head injuries suffered by children


... or the BHIT is simply lying

 

[ufkacbln]

Oi! A jauntily worn Tilley hat is de rigueur for any self-respecting cyclist....

... and of course there is evidence:

From the Tilley Hat Manual

One reason your Hat floats is because of the air trapped inside the water-repellent fibres. The main reason,
however, is the layer of closed-cell polyethylene foam in the crown of the Hat that also protects your noggin
from blunt objects. (People have told us this feature has actually saved their lives!)

 

[ufkacbln]

Somehow my S-Works Evade does not carry the same elegance and panache on the Christiania as a fine Tilley

...... may I also point out that with a smaller brim, my LT5s offer far less resistance than the original T4?

 

[winjim]

Not much faster than that and you're outside the tested limits of your helmet so to stay on the safe side, yep 10mph max.

But is a cycle helmet not designed and tested to withstand a vertical drop onto a level surface*? In that situation, speed in any other direction is irrelevant. Drop an object from 2m and it's going to hit the ground with a vertical impact velocity of 14mph, regardless.


*Disclaimer: I am aware that this is unlikely to be the case in many real world accidents, I am merely relating what I believe to be the design and testing parameters of bike helmets.

 

[classic33]

Why did the Police make you remove your helmet? Generally speaking, at accident scenes it should be medical people that advise when it should be removed, as it can be helping control a head injury that could be made worse if it is removed.

Refused to speak to me unless I removed it first.
Made wearing one in the first place meaningless

 

[ufkacbln]

But is a cycle helmet not designed and tested to withstand a vertical drop onto a level surface*? In that situation, speed in any other direction is irrelevant. Drop an object from 2m and it's going to hit the ground with a vertical impact velocity of 14mph, regardless.


*Disclaimer: I am aware that this is unlikely to be the case in many real world accidents, I am merely relating what I believe to be the design and testing parameters of bike helmets.

The performance of a helmet is due to many factors.

Part of that is the ability to slide on impact reducing the energy

In some cases there are sharp edges and points that can arrest this motion, cause the helmet to rotate the head and even cause it to eject

So two helmets tested on the same vertical impact may perform differently in an oblique tangent

 

[winjim]

The performance of a helmet is due to many factors.

Part of that is the ability to slide on impact reducing the energy

In some cases there are sharp edges and points that can arrest this motion, cause the helmet to rotate the head and even cause it to eject

So two helmets tested on the same vertical impact may perform differently in an oblique tangent

I realise that applies in the real world, but in this case I'm interested very specifically and narrowly in whether riding at a particular (forwards) speed puts one outside the tested parameters of the helmet and I don't believe it does, due to the stated velocity only applying in the vertical dimension.

Of course it could be argued that if the test is a simple stationary drop then travelling at any forward speed puts one outside the tested parameters.