Helmets Work!!!!!
Discussion
Zigster said:
timnoyce said:
I like to think of a few basic tests when considering the benefit and use of cycle helmets. All of these tests can be performed whilst sat in an arm chair, you just need a friend to perform the 'actions'
Test 1.
Sit still, and get a friend to smack you in the head with a piece of metal bar. Similar to that in size and shape of a lamp post.
Test 2.
Sit still, and get a friend to repeatedly scrape your head with a small piece of ashphalt. The action should be similar to that of grating a piece of cheese.
Test 3.
Sit still, and get a friend to hit you around the top of the head with a tree branch (you know, a really good bit with some nice jaggedy cut off branches)
Test 4... I could go on.
If, given the option, would you rather go bare head or would you rather be wearing a plastic reinforced shock absorbing foam structure on your head when completing these tests?
Tim #helmetwearer
Seriously?! Several pages in and someone still thinks that analogy makes any sense?Test 1.
Sit still, and get a friend to smack you in the head with a piece of metal bar. Similar to that in size and shape of a lamp post.
Test 2.
Sit still, and get a friend to repeatedly scrape your head with a small piece of ashphalt. The action should be similar to that of grating a piece of cheese.
Test 3.
Sit still, and get a friend to hit you around the top of the head with a tree branch (you know, a really good bit with some nice jaggedy cut off branches)
Test 4... I could go on.
If, given the option, would you rather go bare head or would you rather be wearing a plastic reinforced shock absorbing foam structure on your head when completing these tests?
Tim #helmetwearer
I'm sat at my desk now, bare-headed and praying that the office psycho doesn't hit me on the head with a tree branch.
*Why* would you only apply this to cyclists? Cars are significant source of head injury despite all the inbuilt safety, so why wouldn't you wear a helmet if you're so troubled by head injury? As you rightly say, go and smack your head off the A pillar and see how you get on.
The issue with cycling helmets is that there are really significant unintended consequences, none of which would matter when applied to other uses. For instance, if car helmets created a major reduction in car use, if there was a 90% reduction in the number of children being driven to school - would that matter?
Zigster said:
Seriously?! Several pages in and someone still thinks that analogy makes any sense?
I'm sat at my desk now, bare-headed and praying that the office psycho doesn't hit me on the head with a tree branch.
Of course it makes sense, it just takes the context of cycling out of it and makes you think about the actions.I'm sat at my desk now, bare-headed and praying that the office psycho doesn't hit me on the head with a tree branch.
If a lamp post, tree, road etc is going to smash in to your noggin at pace, then I can't see any situation where I'd rather not be wearing a helmet to take at least some of the impact. The people arguing otherwise are doing so just to look 'cool'. It's actually not an argument worth having, not sure why I am still typing tbh.
timnoyce said:
Zigster said:
Seriously?! Several pages in and someone still thinks that analogy makes any sense?
I'm sat at my desk now, bare-headed and praying that the office psycho doesn't hit me on the head with a tree branch.
Of course it makes sense, it just takes the context of cycling out of it and makes you think about the actions.I'm sat at my desk now, bare-headed and praying that the office psycho doesn't hit me on the head with a tree branch.
If a lamp post, tree, road etc is going to smash in to your noggin at pace, then I can't see any situation where I'd rather not be wearing a helmet to take at least some of the impact. The people arguing otherwise are doing so just to look 'cool'. It's actually not an argument worth having, not sure why I am still typing tbh.
Helmets would work in cars and with pedestrians but we have to balance risk, convenience and practicality, and acceptance by the populous. Walking is not massively dangerous and if you fall over on many occasions you can put your arm out or break your fall without hitting your head. In cars you have other more convenient protection.
For cyclists protection is rather limited despite certain riders being capable of reaching high speeds or be in a relatively dangerous environment (on road or off road). For those riders a helmet is a good idea IMO and thats why I wear one myself. For popping down the shops/work for a mile or pottering down a cycle path then the risk of a more dramatic accident is reduced and the benefit of a helmet is outweighed by the convenience of just jumping on a bike in normal clothes and getting on with things.
Its basically called common sense. Some people will crash, some people wont. Its up to the individual to access the risk they are in and whether some additional protection is a good idea.
For cyclists protection is rather limited despite certain riders being capable of reaching high speeds or be in a relatively dangerous environment (on road or off road). For those riders a helmet is a good idea IMO and thats why I wear one myself. For popping down the shops/work for a mile or pottering down a cycle path then the risk of a more dramatic accident is reduced and the benefit of a helmet is outweighed by the convenience of just jumping on a bike in normal clothes and getting on with things.
Its basically called common sense. Some people will crash, some people wont. Its up to the individual to access the risk they are in and whether some additional protection is a good idea.
Edited by Batfink on Thursday 22 October 17:55
CorbynForTheBin said:
It's interesting how some seem to be against helmets just for no real reason.
Would you make, say your 8, 9, 10 year old wear one?
You need to understand - *nobody*, but *nobody*, is against helmets. What they're against is the promotion of helmets, and the proposition that ordinary cycling is anything other than a normal activity undertaken by normal people wering normal clothing.Would you make, say your 8, 9, 10 year old wear one?
The cycling charity CTC put it well imo. I've picked the following:
CTC is opposed to both cycle helmet laws and to helmet promotion campaigns, as these are almost certainly detrimental to public health. Evidence shows that the health benefits of cycling are so much greater than the (relatively low) risks involved, that even if these measures caused only a very small reduction in cycle use, this would still almost certainly mean far more lives being lost through physical inactivity than helmets could possibly save, however effective.
In the UK, the life years gained due to cycling’s health benefits outweigh the life-years lost through injuries by around 20:1. Mile for mile, the slim chances of being killed whilst cycling are about the same those for walking, and on average, 1 cyclist is killed on Britain’s roads for every 27 million miles travelled by cycle.
Enforced helmet laws have consistently caused substantial reductions in cycle use (e.g. 30-40% in Perth, Western Australia). They have also increased the proportion of the remaining cyclists who wear helmets, yet the safety of these cyclists has not improved relative to other road user groups (e.g. in New Zealand).
Cycling typically accounts for 7-8% of the head injuries for which children are admitted to English hospitals – just a quarter of these to parts of the head that a helmet might protect.
Batfink said:
For popping down the shops/work for a mile or pottering down a cycle path then the risk of a more dramatic accident is reduced and the benefit of a helmet is outweighed by the convenience of just jumping on a bike in normal clothes and getting on with things.
My cycle helmet lives on a shelf next to my bikes in the garage. There is no inconvenience whatsoever in putting it on whether I'm bimbling to the shops or out for five hours. I understand that for some rides you'll wear a helmet and for others you won't, and also understand that regardless of the reason for the ride people have the right to choose whether to wear a helmet or not, but to suggest a possible reason for not wearing one is inconvenience seems bloody stupid to me.Antony Moxey said:
but to suggest a possible reason for not wearing one is inconvenience seems bloody stupid to me.
Yet that's probably the reason, amongst others that may also seem trivial, that has meant the only measurable consequence of helmet promotion or laws is to significantly reduce the numbers of cyclists. Might be stupid, but hey, the customer is always right. 
heebeegeetee said:
Antony Moxey said:
but to suggest a possible reason for not wearing one is inconvenience seems bloody stupid to me.
Yet that's probably the reason, amongst others that may also seem trivial, that has meant the only measurable consequence of helmet promotion or laws is to significantly reduce the numbers of cyclists. Might be stupid, but hey, the customer is always right. If you already own a helmet then like I say it's entirely up to you when and if you wear it, but to cite inconvenience as a reason not to just seems daft. What's inconvenient about spending two seconds putting one on when it's sat there next to your bike?
Batfink said:
Helmets would work in cars and with pedestrians but we have to balance risk, convenience and practicality, and acceptance by the populous. Walking is not massively dangerous and if you fall over on many occasions you can put your arm out or break your fall without hitting your head...
Walking is just as dangerous as cycling on the road, with the same risk of head injury. If one is safe enough without a helmet then surely the other is too?What about all the other activities we do that have a greater risk of head injuries than cycling - drinking for example? When you get drunk your risk of head injuries goes up massively. Should we start promoting polystyrene drinking hats?
Mr Will said:
What about all the other activities we do that have a greater risk of head injuries than cycling - drinking for example? When you get drunk your risk of head injuries goes up massively. Should we start promoting polystyrene drinking hats?
Too late, the safety drinking helmet already exists...
heebeegeetee said:
CorbynForTheBin said:
It's interesting how some seem to be against helmets just for no real reason.
Would you make, say your 8, 9, 10 year old wear one?
You need to understand - *nobody*, but *nobody*, is against helmets. What they're against is the promotion of helmets, and the proposition that ordinary cycling is anything other than a normal activity undertaken by normal people wering normal clothing.Would you make, say your 8, 9, 10 year old wear one?
The cycling charity CTC put it well imo. I've picked the following:
CTC is opposed to both cycle helmet laws and to helmet promotion campaigns, as these are almost certainly detrimental to public health. Evidence shows that the health benefits of cycling are so much greater than the (relatively low) risks involved, that even if these measures caused only a very small reduction in cycle use, this would still almost certainly mean far more lives being lost through physical inactivity than helmets could possibly save, however effective.
In the UK, the life years gained due to cycling’s health benefits outweigh the life-years lost through injuries by around 20:1. Mile for mile, the slim chances of being killed whilst cycling are about the same those for walking, and on average, 1 cyclist is killed on Britain’s roads for every 27 million miles travelled by cycle.
Enforced helmet laws have consistently caused substantial reductions in cycle use (e.g. 30-40% in Perth, Western Australia). They have also increased the proportion of the remaining cyclists who wear helmets, yet the safety of these cyclists has not improved relative to other road user groups (e.g. in New Zealand).
Cycling typically accounts for 7-8% of the head injuries for which children are admitted to English hospitals – just a quarter of these to parts of the head that a helmet might protect.
Would be interesting to know other factors in the reduction in Perth, seems odd that there was a big drop in one area for one reason, assuming Perth is stated because it has the highest % change. It's hard to believe that 30-40% of cyclists stopped using a bike permanently just because they need to use a helmet, the average second hand bike price must plummet with all those being dumped on the market!
The safety not improving - is that incident occurance or injury severy etc Could skew it either way. I'd expect there to be the same incident occurance, but slightly less injury severity ( as per the reduction % in their quote). Their quote doesn't say.
Edited by CorbynForTheBin on Friday 23 October 10:26
CorbynForTheBin said:
Interesting details.
Would be interesting to know other factors in the reduction in Perth, seems odd that there was a big drop in one area for one reason, assuming Perth is stated because it has the highest % change. It's hard to believe that 30-40% of cyclists stopped using a bike permanently just because they need to use a helmet, the average second hand bike price must plummet with all those being dumped on the market!
The safety not improving - is that incident occurance or injury severy etc Could skew it either way. I'd expect there to be the same incident occurance, but slightly less injury severity ( as per the reduction % in their quote). Their quote doesn't say.
There's a ton of info on this topic out there, it's a surprisingly complex subject and for whatever reason I find it very interesting.Would be interesting to know other factors in the reduction in Perth, seems odd that there was a big drop in one area for one reason, assuming Perth is stated because it has the highest % change. It's hard to believe that 30-40% of cyclists stopped using a bike permanently just because they need to use a helmet, the average second hand bike price must plummet with all those being dumped on the market!
The safety not improving - is that incident occurance or injury severy etc Could skew it either way. I'd expect there to be the same incident occurance, but slightly less injury severity ( as per the reduction % in their quote). Their quote doesn't say.
Edited by CorbynForTheBin on Friday 23 October 10:26
I don't have link to it now, but there's a vid on youtube documenting the Australian experience - they reckon it was like flicking a switch, so noticeable and sudden was the reduction.
The figures are worse than that though, it's reckoned overall since the helmet law was introduced the numbers of children cycling to school have reduced by 80-90%, which I think is tragic.
New Zealand have also introduced a ban, I was looking at a graph just yesterday which clearly shows that since the introduction of the law numbers of cyclists have reduced significantly and accident rates have gone up. This mirrors the situation elsewhere in the world, the only measurable consequence of helmet laws is a reduction in cyclists and an increase in accident rates. It is well known that cyclists are safer in numbers, the more there are of them the safer they are.
In the UK accident rates of cyclists and pedestrians have tended to track each other, with pedestrians consistently at a slightly higher risk of injury. Accident rates for both have consistently reduced over the years though, obviously helmets have played no part in the reduction rate of pedestrians but it's also all but impossible to see what difference helmets have made for cyclists despite the numbers wearing helmets going effectively from 0% to 80%.
If you have a google though there's a ton of this stuff out there, and what surprises me is that whenever I return to the topic every now and then is how much new stuff I find.
However most people do want to ignore the evidence and put all their faith in their own anecdotal evidence.
The risk is that it's easy to draw iffy conclusions too, such as accident rates going up because of helmet laws - a direct causal link would be hard to prove, rather than putting 2 separate stats side by side.
Still, personally I have a feeling that on the single track and road route to work, I'll be a tad safer. Happy days.
Still, personally I have a feeling that on the single track and road route to work, I'll be a tad safer. Happy days.
The thing about helmets (for me, anyway) is that I grew up in an age before polystyrene mushrooms. What 'helmets' there were back then, were padded leather affairs, worn only by professional bike racers.
I think it's likely that such headgear was available for mere mortals to buy, but I don't recall seeing shelves full of them at any bike shops I ever visited.
Fast forward to 1987, and I got a job where helmets were compulsory. First they were heavy, and made of steel, then shortly afterward, they were swapped for 'gucci' Kevlar things. I found beer, and women. I stopped cycling for about 3 years. Then came a move to the Salisbury Plain area. And the purchase of what was optimistically described as a "Mountain Bike". I rode it to and from work (no car at that point in my life) and around the woods, plains, and tank roads in the area.
I moved again, to Farnborough, Hampshire, and kept commuting by bike, across local MOD training areas. One night, on the way home, I fractured 2 vertebra (C6/C7) and spent nearly 2 years getting physio to put me back to full health. Those 2 years, and another 18 months on top, were yet more bike-free years. I'd crashed in winter, at night, alone, in woodland. If I hadn't been able to "self-recover" and drag myself to civilisation, it's likely I'd have died (from exposure, not my injuries). My wife wasn't keen on me cycling at all, and a new MTB was utterly out of the equation.
Then I wanted to get back on a bike again. I bought a road bike, and when I got back into riding, it was as a commuter. But the "2 miles into work, 28 miles home" kind of commute. And those polystyrene mushrooms,which had been such hideous things a few short years before, that I didn't bother with one? All of a sudden, they looked sleaker, and better vented. I didn't want one. But the wife insisted this time.
I didn't really begin to wear a helmet regularly until it became compulsory (or at least conditional) to my getting to ride my bike as Wednesday afternoon "Sports Parade" activity. I wasn't keen on the alternative sports, so when they (military management) explained that they couldn't let me cycle as a 'Sport' unless I wore a helmet (H&S, probably, in the same way that you can't play competitive hockey without a mouthguard and shin pads), I just said yes. It was a small price to pay. And that was it, really. From then on a lid was just another piece of cycling apparel that became a habit.
So I've gone from "there's no such thing as a bike helmet" to "My helmet! Where's my helmet? I NEED my helmet to ride my bike" in around 30 years.
I don't much ride in "normal clothes" though, principally because none of my bikes has a chain guard, and they all require silly shoes to ride comfortably. So even if I'm off to the library, I tend to wear 'cycling specific' clothing, because if I'm clipping in it just "feels right" to be dressed appropriately. My outlook on wearing a helmet has altered now from "total and utter sceptic" to "it feels odd to ride without one".
The orthopod who treated my neck injury all those years ago? Well he theorised that NOT wearing a helmet MAY have saved me from more serious consequences. But in virtually the same breath, he recommended wearing one in future (go figure that logic??).
Last year I was hit by a van. This time I WAS wearing a helmet. But there was no real sign of any impact damage, save for a slight scuff on the right temple area where I'd been laying on the floor for over 40 minutes. I can't say that wearing the hat made any difference to my outcome or not. But I was glad I was wearing it all the same
TL;DR?
Quit squabbling about whether or not helmets work, stop debating who should wear one and when, and leave the law exactly as it is. Then make your own minds up about whether YOU, as individuals, ought to wear one, and like the grown-ups we're supposed to be, do so based on your own perception of the risk presented by each individual activity. It shouldn't ever be any of anyone else's business whether you wear one or not. (Unless, of course, their event insurance provider has insisted upon a lid as a condition of entry...
)
I think it's likely that such headgear was available for mere mortals to buy, but I don't recall seeing shelves full of them at any bike shops I ever visited.
Fast forward to 1987, and I got a job where helmets were compulsory. First they were heavy, and made of steel, then shortly afterward, they were swapped for 'gucci' Kevlar things. I found beer, and women. I stopped cycling for about 3 years. Then came a move to the Salisbury Plain area. And the purchase of what was optimistically described as a "Mountain Bike". I rode it to and from work (no car at that point in my life) and around the woods, plains, and tank roads in the area.
I moved again, to Farnborough, Hampshire, and kept commuting by bike, across local MOD training areas. One night, on the way home, I fractured 2 vertebra (C6/C7) and spent nearly 2 years getting physio to put me back to full health. Those 2 years, and another 18 months on top, were yet more bike-free years. I'd crashed in winter, at night, alone, in woodland. If I hadn't been able to "self-recover" and drag myself to civilisation, it's likely I'd have died (from exposure, not my injuries). My wife wasn't keen on me cycling at all, and a new MTB was utterly out of the equation.
Then I wanted to get back on a bike again. I bought a road bike, and when I got back into riding, it was as a commuter. But the "2 miles into work, 28 miles home" kind of commute. And those polystyrene mushrooms,which had been such hideous things a few short years before, that I didn't bother with one? All of a sudden, they looked sleaker, and better vented. I didn't want one. But the wife insisted this time.
I didn't really begin to wear a helmet regularly until it became compulsory (or at least conditional) to my getting to ride my bike as Wednesday afternoon "Sports Parade" activity. I wasn't keen on the alternative sports, so when they (military management) explained that they couldn't let me cycle as a 'Sport' unless I wore a helmet (H&S, probably, in the same way that you can't play competitive hockey without a mouthguard and shin pads), I just said yes. It was a small price to pay. And that was it, really. From then on a lid was just another piece of cycling apparel that became a habit.
So I've gone from "there's no such thing as a bike helmet" to "My helmet! Where's my helmet? I NEED my helmet to ride my bike" in around 30 years.
I don't much ride in "normal clothes" though, principally because none of my bikes has a chain guard, and they all require silly shoes to ride comfortably. So even if I'm off to the library, I tend to wear 'cycling specific' clothing, because if I'm clipping in it just "feels right" to be dressed appropriately. My outlook on wearing a helmet has altered now from "total and utter sceptic" to "it feels odd to ride without one".
The orthopod who treated my neck injury all those years ago? Well he theorised that NOT wearing a helmet MAY have saved me from more serious consequences. But in virtually the same breath, he recommended wearing one in future (go figure that logic??).
Last year I was hit by a van. This time I WAS wearing a helmet. But there was no real sign of any impact damage, save for a slight scuff on the right temple area where I'd been laying on the floor for over 40 minutes. I can't say that wearing the hat made any difference to my outcome or not. But I was glad I was wearing it all the same
TL;DR?
Quit squabbling about whether or not helmets work, stop debating who should wear one and when, and leave the law exactly as it is. Then make your own minds up about whether YOU, as individuals, ought to wear one, and like the grown-ups we're supposed to be, do so based on your own perception of the risk presented by each individual activity. It shouldn't ever be any of anyone else's business whether you wear one or not. (Unless, of course, their event insurance provider has insisted upon a lid as a condition of entry...
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