More helmet debate - but this time sensible!

[Mr Will]

mikee boy said:

Not really. I have only argued that helmets reduce the risk of head injury. I don't agree with mandatory helmet laws but I'm not convinced that a mandatory helmet law would increase the probability of a cyclist hitting their head in the first place. I don't think you're convinced either, judging from your use of 'potentially'. I don't think there's any evidence for such a claim.

There is more evidence to support it than there is of the benefits. Every example I've seen of a country introducing a mandatory helmet law has lead to a small reduction in head injuries but a larger reduction in cycling. A 5% drop in head injuries that corresponds with a 10% reduction in cyclists is not a safety improvement in my book.

My personal view is that everyday cycling is safe enough without one, in the same way that walking to the shops is safe enough. I'll wear one for mountain biking or for fast group riding though, as these have a different level of risk involved.

[WinstonWolf]

Mr Will said:

mikee boy said:

Not really. I have only argued that helmets reduce the risk of head injury. I don't agree with mandatory helmet laws but I'm not convinced that a mandatory helmet law would increase the probability of a cyclist hitting their head in the first place. I don't think you're convinced either, judging from your use of 'potentially'. I don't think there's any evidence for such a claim.

There is more evidence to support it than there is of the benefits. Every example I've seen of a country introducing a mandatory helmet law has lead to a small reduction in head injuries but a larger reduction in cycling. A 5% drop in head injuries that corresponds with a 10% reduction in cyclists is not a safety improvement in my book.

My personal view is that everyday cycling is safe enough without one, in the same way that walking to the shops is safe enough. I'll wear one for mountain biking or for fast group riding though, as these have a different level of risk involved.

What would do more for safety is introducing a kitemark system as with motorcycle helmets, at least that way you'd know what you bought was up for the job. Chances are lid safety would improve for those that choose to wear one.

[heebeegeetee]

mikee boy said:

I recently suffered a crash and smashed my helmetted head into the ground. This provided extra protection than had I not been wearing one.

Would you care to tell us the circumstances of this crash?

[mikee boy]

Mr Will said:

mikee boy said:

Not really. I have only argued that helmets reduce the risk of head injury. I don't agree with mandatory helmet laws but I'm not convinced that a mandatory helmet law would increase the probability of a cyclist hitting their head in the first place. I don't think you're convinced either, judging from your use of 'potentially'. I don't think there's any evidence for such a claim.

There is more evidence to support it than there is of the benefits. Every example I've seen of a country introducing a mandatory helmet law has lead to a small reduction in head injuries but a larger reduction in cycling. A 5% drop in head injuries that corresponds with a 10% reduction in cyclists is not a safety improvement in my book.

My personal view is that everyday cycling is safe enough without one, in the same way that walking to the shops is safe enough. I'll wear one for mountain biking or for fast group riding though, as these have a different level of risk involved.

Where is this evidence? People often quote it but have never linked to it.

I agree individuals should choose when to wear a helmet.

[mikee boy]

WinstonWolf said:

What would do more for safety is introducing a kitemark system as with motorcycle helmets, at least that way you'd know what you bought was up for the job. Chances are lid safety would improve for those that choose to wear one.

There are various standards in place that helmets have to meet. My Met Forte is certified to EN1078

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EN_1078

[mikee boy]

heebeegeetee said:

mikee boy said:

I recently suffered a crash and smashed my helmetted head into the ground. This provided extra protection than had I not been wearing one.

Would you care to tell us the circumstances of this crash?

As you ask. I was taken down by another cyclist at 34mph and slammed my head into tarmac and suffered various other injuries. Helmet largely protected my head but I did have a small graze where some force was transferred through the helmet. I can only imagine what my head would look like had I not been wearing a helmet.

Last year I landed badly after a jump on a MTB and smashed my head into the ground. My helmet and arm/leg protection took most of the force and I was able to ride away.

[Mr Will]

mikee boy said:

I agree individuals should choose when to wear a helmet.

Ah, a violent agreement! My favourite kind of debate

Don't have the evidence to hand, but look at the stats surrounding the introduction of the law in Australia if you are going googling.

[heebeegeetee]

mikee boy said:

As you ask. I was taken down by another cyclist at 34mph and slammed my head into tarmac and suffered various other injuries. Helmet largely protected my head but I did have a small graze where some force was transferred through the helmet. I can only imagine what my head would look like had I not been wearing a helmet.

Last year I landed badly after a jump on a MTB and smashed my head into the ground. My helmet and arm/leg protection took most of the force and I was able to ride away.

Fair enough.

34mph is cracking on for a bike, and MTBing is of course an off-road sport. I MTB'd for a good few years, had countless trips over the handlebars though non on the road. never once hit my head either fwiw.

I think most anecdotal evidence of cyclist strikes to the head will be of this nature. I really don't think there's any need for an ordinary cyclist riding sensibly to wear a helmet. Anoter stat I found in the last debate cited that a cyclist riding a few good thousand miles a year will have 1 head injury every 175 years.

[Hugo a Gogo]

quite

helmets are very sensible for something like MTB, BMX, going over jumps etc

riding to the shops is not in the same ballpark

[WinstonWolf]

mikee boy said:

WinstonWolf said:

What would do more for safety is introducing a kitemark system as with motorcycle helmets, at least that way you'd know what you bought was up for the job. Chances are lid safety would improve for those that choose to wear one.

There are various standards in place that helmets have to meet. My Met Forte is certified to EN1078

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EN_1078

Wasn't aware of that, shouldn't be able to sell anything that is below the standard, assuming it's any good

[Birdthom]

heebeegeetee said:

I really don't think there's any need for an ordinary cyclist riding sensibly to wear a helmet. Anoter stat I found in the last debate cited that a cyclist riding a few good thousand miles a year will have 1 head injury every 175 years.

As someone who's had 2 concussions in the last 9 months/4,000 miles I guess I must be somewhere out on the extremes of the bell curve :-)

One was a smash in a race, so not really relevant to this debate, but the other involved the wheels going from under me when I hit a patch of wet leaves whilst rolling pretty gently up to a junction. I would count that as pretty 'ordinary'. My skull doesn't really differentiate between the two.

I don't think helmets should be compulsory, and if you don't want to wear one then that's your call, but I don't see why anybody would deny that they confer worthwhile safety benefits for most people. Probably a dozen people I know have smacked their heads in cycling accidents, some of them big ones, and most of them in 'ordinary' situations. Chances are that one or two of them *might* not be around had they not been wearing a helmet, or their lives *might* be very different.

Yes, there are many thousands of cyclists who survive without wearing helmets (take a look at some of Mario Cipollini's recent videos), but if you ride often enough for long enough then you will most likely have a smash at some point. You might land on your head, you might not. If you land on your head then a helmet is likely to give you a better chance of staying out of hospital. It's all a matter of chance, but to me it seems daft not to take such easy and convenient steps to help swing the percentages in your favour. It only has to happen once.

Someone wobbling slowly round the corner to the shops on a clunky old shopping bike once a month is at the other end of the risk curve from me, and is a good argument for why helmets shouldn't be compulsory, but most people sit somewhere in between.

[words marked * * are so emphasised to keep the science bods happy]

[mr pg]

heebeegeetee said:

Fair enough.

34mph is cracking on for a bike, and MTBing is of course an off-road sport. I MTB'd for a good few years, had countless trips over the handlebars though non on the road. never once hit my head either fwiw.

I think most anecdotal evidence of cyclist strikes to the head will be of this nature. I really don't think there's any need for an ordinary cyclist riding sensibly to wear a helmet. Anoter stat I found in the last debate cited that a cyclist riding a few good thousand miles a year will have 1 head injury every 175 years.

I'm an ordinary cyclist, and was riding sensibly to work yesterday at about 12mph on a hill, when a car turned left from a side road, and hit me. I went down with my head hitting the tarmac hard. My helmet is split, but my head isn't. That's all the evidence I need.

[Pothole]

mr pg said:

heebeegeetee said:

Fair enough.

34mph is cracking on for a bike, and MTBing is of course an off-road sport. I MTB'd for a good few years, had countless trips over the handlebars though non on the road. never once hit my head either fwiw.

I think most anecdotal evidence of cyclist strikes to the head will be of this nature. I really don't think there's any need for an ordinary cyclist riding sensibly to wear a helmet. Anoter stat I found in the last debate cited that a cyclist riding a few good thousand miles a year will have 1 head injury every 175 years.

I'm an ordinary cyclist, and was riding sensibly to work yesterday at about 12mph on a hill, when a car turned left from a side road, and hit me. I went down with my head hitting the tarmac hard. My helmet is split, but my head isn't. That's all the evidence I need.

Does that mean I should be forced to wear a helmet by law?

[mikee boy]

Pothole said:

Does that mean I should be forced to wear a helmet by law?

Do you think it should?

[Getragdogleg]

mr pg said:

heebeegeetee said:

Fair enough.

34mph is cracking on for a bike, and MTBing is of course an off-road sport. I MTB'd for a good few years, had countless trips over the handlebars though non on the road. never once hit my head either fwiw.

I think most anecdotal evidence of cyclist strikes to the head will be of this nature. I really don't think there's any need for an ordinary cyclist riding sensibly to wear a helmet. Anoter stat I found in the last debate cited that a cyclist riding a few good thousand miles a year will have 1 head injury every 175 years.

I'm an ordinary cyclist, and was riding sensibly to work yesterday at about 12mph on a hill, when a car turned left from a side road, and hit me. I went down with my head hitting the tarmac hard. My helmet is split, but my head isn't. That's all the evidence I need.

That's cool, you don't need to wear a helmet ever again because you have used up your once in 175 years allowance !

[mikee boy]

BIANCO said:

What gets me is every time you get a load of story’s of, I fell off and cracked a flimsy bit of plastic and polystyrene and without doubt it saved my life or saved me from a serous head injury. Now I am not saying the helmet didn’t help but the seemingly magical protection that some people think they have annoys me.

Are you speaking from experience? How nasty was your crash onto tarmac? I'm only asking because you obviously have a first-hand story that is different to the others on here.

Personally, smashing my head into tarmac at 34 mph and still being alive is magic.

Here's a link to a study of UK A&E data for cyclists: http://www.bmj.com/content/308/6943/1537 comparing helmetted and non-helmetted riders.

"There were no significant differences between the two groups of cyclists with respect to the nature and site of injuries sustained except in the incidence of head injury: the difference between helmet wearers (4/114 (4%)) and non-wearers (100/928 (11%)) was significant, with an odds ratio of head injury in unhelmeted cyclists of 3.32"

"Our study has shown that wearing a helmet significantly decreases the risks of sustaining a head injury in all types of cycling accidents."

So, cyclists who didn't wear a helmet were more than 3 times more likely to sustain a head injury.

"We estimate that one in 40 cyclists will be involved in a cycle accident and seek help in our accident and emergency department each year."

[Hugo a Gogo]

you know your forward speed doesn't really have a bearing on how hard you hit the tarmac (assuming it's horizontal tarmac)?


plus, around .035 of a chance of your 1 in 40 chance of injury being a head injury vs around .1 of a chance?

I'm comfortable with that risk

and that obviously would include scrapes and abrasions to the head that might even be stopped by a wooly hat

Edited by Hugo a Gogo on Wednesday 10th July 20:28

[Birdthom]

BIANCO said:

a flimsy bit of plastic and polystyrene

Buy a decent helmet. They aren't flimsy.

[Birdthom]

Hugo a Gogo said:

you know your forward speed doesn't really have a bearing on how hard you hit the tarmac (assuming it's horizontal tarmac)?


plus, around .035 of a chance of your injury being a head injury vs around .1 of a chance?

I'm comfortable with that risk

Now this is getting silly. Are you seriously saying that falling off at 40+ mph is no more likely to hurt your head than doing a prat fall at the lights?

[Hugo a Gogo]

Birdthom said:

Now this is getting silly. Are you seriously saying that falling off at 40+ mph is no more likely to hurt your head than doing a prat fall at the lights?

well, aside from the obvious scrapes which will hurt, yes, I am saying that

as long as you aren't launched upwards, or you don't hit something upright

the main difference being that you can brace yourself with your arms at a standstill

Edited by Hugo a Gogo on Wednesday 10th July 20:32