Helmets Work!!!!!

[Kermit power]

Zigster said:

Okay - I'll bite.

Anecdote is not data, blah, blah, blah. If it makes you feel better, wear a helmet - I tend to when I'm out on a long ride but not when I'm cycling to/from the station, although I accept there are inconsistencies in that approach (I class the helmet as sports kit in the same way as my lycra shorts). But if you claim that a helmet saved your life, you're speculating at best. Cycling isn't that dangerous to start with - no more so than walking.

How often do you hit the ground head first at 20mph when you're walking? I've done it twice whilst cycling. Once with a helmet - brief outing to casualty to check I hadn't broken my ribs and make sure my concussion wasn't too serious - and once without - 3 hours unconscious, 3 days in hospital, a month off work and 26 stitches to the front of my head, which still has the dent 20+ years later.

Zigster said:

Various studies have shown that cycling helmets make no noticeable reduction to head injuries. This can be seen from places like Australia which introduced mandatory helmets yet saw no reduction in the rate of head injuries (although they did see a reduction in the number of journeys undertaken by bike - and Australia is now challenging the US for fattest nation on the earth but who knows if that is correlated). Similarly, helmet wearing has become much more common in the UK over the last few decades yet rates of head injuries have not fallen.

And in the safest cycling nation on the earth (the Netherlands), helmets are seen as a bizarre affectation from the English speaking countries and are almost never seen.

Lots of (admittedly not unbiased) analysis here. http://www.cyclehelmets.org/

Just as controversially, skiing helmets also seem to provide little benefit.

How can we really be sure whether any of this is the case? Both my incidents were logged as official statistics, but whilst having 16 coppers closing a road in both directions whilst the ambulance treated me at the scene was never going to sneak under the radar, the only reason the later one was reported was because by pure fluke, the first person I'm aware of meeting after crashing was a police moutain biker.

There must be plenty of people who crash with a helmet on that don't report it where the exact same incident without a helmet would've resulted in a reported injury. Even if it's only a minor injury, the smallest head wound tends to bleed like a bd after all!

At the end of the day, though, it's an individual choice. I just don't understand why anyone would ride without a helmet and more than I understand why they'd drive without a seatbelt. Neither are exactly an inconvenience, and if it can prevent injury, why not?

Edited by Kermit power on Tuesday 13th October 05:04

[Zigster]

I thought this one had died a death ...

Hard to follow which bits were which as the quoting got a bit messed up.

But, helmets are an inconvenience. A helmet messes up my hair, makes my head sweaty and itchy, means I have to either carry it around with me at the other end or leave it attached to my bike and hope it's there when I get back. Sure, you might not think these are big deals, but I have to be convinced that the benefit outweighs these inconveniences. And many people will choose not to cycle rather than put up with these inconveniences, probably driving to the shops/station/etc instead.

The overall data doesn't support that helmets make much of a difference - where's the big fall in head injuries since helmets became popular? The problem with relying on anecdotal evidence such as the OP's is that it isn't borne out by the wider data.

But we've all got entrenched positions on this. I remain sceptical until convinced; many will believe regardless.

[anonymous-user]

I reckon the helmet caused your crash..
If you wasn't wearing one, you would not have got changed on the move, believing you were invincible!
Also there is evidence that cars give a wider berth to non-helmet wearers
I do wear usually though, but I'm not a 'sports' cyclist, if riding to the local shop I wouldn't bother ..

[oddball1973]

Zigster said:

I thought this one had died a death ...

Hard to follow which bits were which as the quoting got a bit messed up.

But, helmets are an inconvenience. A helmet messes up my hair......

what more could you say to make you sound like a moron?

[Banana Boy]

I got five minutes down the road when I realised that I had forgotten to put my mushroom top on!!!

Fortunately, I had enough time to beat the four horsemen of the apocalypse back to my house to get my lid!

In all seriousness I like to wear mine but equally I couldn't give a st if anyone else wants to or not.

[castex]

oddball1973 said:

Wear a helmet guys, I'm perfectly confident to state for a fact if it didn't save my life this morning it certainly saved me from hospital and serious injury

No, you wear one. I can't be arsed.
Does that make me sound like a moron too?

[Kermit power]

Zigster said:

I thought this one had died a death ...

Hard to follow which bits were which as the quoting got a bit messed up.

But, helmets are an inconvenience. A helmet messes up my hair, makes my head sweaty and itchy, means I have to either carry it around with me at the other end or leave it attached to my bike and hope it's there when I get back. Sure, you might not think these are big deals, but I have to be convinced that the benefit outweighs these inconveniences. And many people will choose not to cycle rather than put up with these inconveniences, probably driving to the shops/station/etc instead.

The overall data doesn't support that helmets make much of a difference - where's the big fall in head injuries since helmets became popular? The problem with relying on anecdotal evidence such as the OP's is that it isn't borne out by the wider data.

But we've all got entrenched positions on this. I remain sceptical until convinced; many will believe regardless.

There you go, quotes fixed now.

As for the rest...

If I'm cycling hard enough, then my head is going to get sweaty whether I'm wearing a helmet or not. If I'm not, then wearing a helmet makes no real difference. I find that up to a point, there tends to be a fairly linear relationship between how much you spend on a helmet, and how well ventilated it is, so a £20 jobbie from Argos is enough to make you start sweating as soon as you get it out of the box, whereas my Specialized S3, which I picked up for £90, is unobtrusive enough that if I do forget it, I'm usually several miles into my ride before I notice the difference.

As for messing my hair up, I can't really comment on that, as I'm of the school that if my hair is long enough to need brushing, it's time to get it cut, but if your hair is so important to you, wouldn't it be better to wear a helmet which might, in the unlikely event that you do crash and hit your head, prevent you from following my example and ripping off a piece of your scalp - and the luxuriant locks attached to it - about twice the size of a £2 coin on the way down?

Will my helmet be there when I get back to my bike? Seeing as I run my bike lock through my helmet straps, it's as likely to be there as my bike is. Why would anyone cut the straps - rendering the helmet useless in the process - to steal a used bike helmet?

What do the statistics show? I don't think there's any way of knowing, because there's no way of knowing how many accidents befalling helmeted riders don't get reported.

Sure, there's no definite answer either way, but in a debate where one side is "it just might save me from more serious injury, as it has in the past" and the other is "it's going to dull the impact of my Timotei moment when I finish my ride", I know which side I'm going to choose.

[Zigster]

oddball1973 said:

Zigster said:

I thought this one had died a death ...

Hard to follow which bits were which as the quoting got a bit messed up.

But, helmets are an inconvenience. A helmet messes up my hair......

what more could you say to make you sound like a moron?

Strong words. Why does that make me a moron? Are you saying having your hair messed up isn't an inconvenience?

Or were you clutching at straws to misinterpret my comment?

[Hugo a Gogo]

The_Jackal said:

Surely removing your sleeves while riding is more stupid than not wearing a helmet?

this, so much this

[Zigster]

Kermit power said:

There you go, quotes fixed now.

Thanks

As for the rest...

The point I was making is simple - these might not be major inconveniences for some, but they are inconveniences for others. For example, the messed up hair point discourages a lot of women I know from cycling. The choice they are making is not whether to cycle with or without a helmet but whether to cycle without a helmet or not cycle at all (because they have been brainwashed into thinking they will die if they cycle without a helmet). Many, inevitably, choose not to cycle at all but waddle to their cars to drive a short distance instead, with negative benefits for them as an individual and society as a whole.

I'm not talking about sports riding where you put on all the gear, head off for a few hours, get home for a shower - I do wear a helmet for that (as much because it's part of the kit as because I have any great faith in its miraculous abilities to prevent injury). I'm talking about cycling to the station in the morning, cycling to the shops, doing the school run (where I don't wear a helmet).

Also, insisting on helmets makes cycling seem more dangerous than it is - again, dissuading people from cycling and encouraging them to take their cars instead.

And, putting aside the minor inconveniences, there are some studies which appear to show that helmets can make injuries worse. If you look into it, there are a lot of references to rotational injuries and so on - suggesting that although helmets might help with some accidents, they might make things worse with other accidents. (Cue shouts of "moron" from some less self-aware posters.)

And it's wrong to say the statistics don't show that there hasn't been a significant benefit from increased wearing of cycle helmets. The reason the analysis that exists tends to focus on KSI (Killed or Seriously Injured) is that these injuries ARE reported and investigated in detail. Looking at the stats over time, for example, doesn't show a correlation between increasing helmet use and decreasing head injuries. If wearing helmets meant that helmeted riders were having accidents but not getting a (serious) head injury, we would see evidence of this in the KSI statistics - the numbers of riders getting such injuries as a whole would decrease but this hasn't happened.

So to justify discouraging people from cycling by insisting on helmets (whether by mandating them by law or going for the sophisticated approach of pointing the finger and shouting "Moron, huh-huh"), you have to be confident that a) cycling is more dangerous than other activities such as walking and driving a car and b) that helmets significantly reduce this heightened risk. And the research (note: NOT anecdote or even a few anecdotes) doesn't provide any meaningful support for cycling being risky and helmets providing a noticeable reduction in that risk.

I can understand why many people assume that helmets are essential riding kit. But I'm always surprised when people are so evangelical about helmets that they can't even consider the counter arguments - resorting to insults rather than engaging with the arguments.

[oddball1973]

I'm sorry if the word Moron offends - for the record I had my shoulder checked at Peterborough A & E and all three clinicians I saw asked straight off was I wearing a helmet. I think they probably have a better perspective than anyone here on what happens when un-protected heads hit roads.

[Kermit power]

Zigster said:

The point I was making is simple - these might not be major inconveniences for some, but they are inconveniences for others. For example, the messed up hair point discourages a lot of women I know from cycling. The choice they are making is not whether to cycle with or without a helmet but whether to cycle without a helmet or not cycle at all (because they have been brainwashed into thinking they will die if they cycle without a helmet). Many, inevitably, choose not to cycle at all but waddle to their cars to drive a short distance instead, with negative benefits for them as an individual and society as a whole.

Possibly so. I wonder how many people have been put off cycling after a minor accident became more serious in their minds because they hit the deck without a helmet and hurt themselves, even if it wasn't particularly serious?

[Zigster]

oddball1973 said:

I'm sorry if the word Moron offends - for the record I had my shoulder checked at Peterborough A & E and all three clinicians I saw asked straight off was I wearing a helmet. I think they probably have a better perspective than anyone here on what happens when un-protected heads hit roads.

Your average doctor or nurse knows no more about this than anyone else. There are all sorts of reasons why the medics you saw are unlikely to have based their opinion on good evidence but on bias and assumption.

People often point to cyclehelmets.org as containing data around the benefits (or not) of cycle helmets. The problem for me is that cyclehelmets.org is clearly biased.

I think this 2013 BMJ editorial from Ben Goldacre (of Bad Science) and David Spiegelhalter provides a less biased analysis. It ends with,

BMJ said:

In any case, the current uncertainty about any benefit from helmet wearing or promotion is unlikely to be substantially reduced by further research. Equally, we can be certain that helmets will continue to be debated, and at length. The enduring popularity of helmets as a proposed major intervention for increased road safety may therefore lie not with their direct benefits—which seem too modest to capture compared with other strategies—but more with the cultural, psychological, and political aspects of popular debate around risk.

[oddball1973]

Your average doctor or nurse knows no more about head injuries than the average person?


....Speechless to be honest.

[Madkat]

Having being knocked off my bike on friday morning by a moron in a blue oval My head took a bump it was enough for me to be glad i was wearing one. Whether or not it offered a huge amount of protection doesn't matter to me it would of been enough to draw blood so who knows what other damage.

I really don't see why helmets are even debatable.

[CubanPete]

I wear one.

[PugwasHDJ80]

oddball1973 said:

Your average doctor or nurse knows no more about head injuries than the average person?


....Speechless to be honest.

There's an element of truth to this though.

Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) is really very badly understood. I can't pretend to be an expert but my wife has spent her life researching the effects, causes and relief of ABI. She has a PhD on the subject.

The reality is that what most medical professionals "know" is often out of date, wrong or plain dangerous.

First responders/trauma teams don't fall into this category though- they do tend to know what they are doing- if they aren't sure, they know they should get a neurologist on it PDQ and do an MRI scan!

[No Bend]

Zigster said:

oddball1973 said:

I'm sorry if the word Moron offends - for the record I had my shoulder checked at Peterborough A & E and all three clinicians I saw asked straight off was I wearing a helmet. I think they probably have a better perspective than anyone here on what happens when un-protected heads hit roads.

Your average doctor or nurse knows no more about this than anyone else. There are all sorts of reasons why the medics you saw are unlikely to have based their opinion on good evidence but on bias and assumption.

Yeah, doctors or nurses that work in A&E (like oddball mentioned) know sweet F.A. about A's or E's. They never see the injuries or have any idea what results of impacts are. Drugs, some people use them and wallow away in their own little universe of ignorance.

[No Bend]

Zigster said:

Okay - I'll bite.

And in the safest cycling nation on the earth (the Netherlands), helmets are seen as a bizarre affectation from the English speaking countries and are almost never seen.

Yes, the Dutch find cycling helmet laws pretty laughable. They also find the lack of cycling paths obscene.

Zigster, have you ever been to Holland and see the way cycling happens there? Helmets aren't really needed there, in the english speaking countries you most likely refer to the cyclist is a total afterthought on the roads, that is if any thought is given to them at all. Not that i'm a pedal pushing lyrca clad type, I can just see as most of us do that cycling lanes would make everyone happier and safer.

[Mr Gear]

I wear a helmet when I'm likely to be riding fast. If I'm popping to the shop to get some milk on my shopper bike I won't wear one, because the chances of me falling off and landing head-first are virtually zero.

I have only ever hit my head once and broken a helmet, and that was because I over-cooked a berm when mountain biking. I believe the helmet prevented me from banging my head worse in that incident, but I'm unlikely to make a similar mistake when going to the shops. I'm more likely to bang my head going up the stairs in my house, and I don't wear a helmet for that either.