350htrr

Careful now, you are going to get bent over like I got in post 3884 https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...-thread/page62 for such simplistic ideas...

Jseis 

This org is the high water mark in helmet tech & research?

BICYCLE HELMET RESEARCH.

Hilarious. Where's Larry Penberthy when we need him. At least Sheldon put it down.

I'd hang with NEJM before BHR.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056...le&maxtoshow=&

robble

His wife just called. Mild concussion and a broken hip. I hope his hip recovers better than my father in laws.. my FiL never did really recover. This guy is 70 years old but competes(ed) in triathlons regularly.

Jseis 

After my crack up I got X-rayed. Doc does ribs (badly bruised...but not broken), then pelvis..... I asked why? He smiles...oh. Being in shape...hope it helps your buddy.

sudo bike

You totally and utterly missed the point. The point is your logic can be applied literally to any activity evar.

Let's try a test. You wear a cup and let me kick you in the nuts. Then remove the cup and let's repeat the test and see which causes the most damage.

Let's try a test. You wear body armor and let me hit you with a baseball bat. Then remove the armor and let's repeat the test and see which causes the most damage.

Let's try a test. You wear shin guards and let me kick you in the shins. Then remove the shin guards and let's repeat the test and see which causes the most damage.

Let's try a test. You wear a bullet proof vest and let me shoot you in the chest. Then remove the vest and let's repeat the test and see which causes the most damage.

So I presume you're going to start suiting up in a bullet proof vest with body armor on top, while wearing shin guards and a cup before every ride because it's better to "have it and not need it"? If yes, great! Your logic works! If not, it should be clear to you where the flaw in your thinking is.

robble

it sounds to me that you just admitted that helmets ARE EFFECTIVE.

game over. You lose.

edit: Or perhaps I should say 'meanwhile' loses since my statement that you replied to was refuting his "damage would have been the same" if my friend had not been wearing a helmet when he slammed his head on the ground.

Had my friend been wearinga suit of body armor he wouldn't have gotten a ton of road rash either but you didn't hear me saying that would have been feasible. road rash seldom kills. Head injuries do.

elcruxio

You actually are comparing apples and oranges when talking about hammers and stuff.
Why is it a good idea to wear a helmet while riding a MTB in my neck of the woods. Because of all sizes of triangular sharp rocks jutting up from the ground everywhere. Hit your head on one of those buggers without a helmet and blood is quaranteed. Hit hard enough and further damage might appear. The same thing happens with a hammer which while normally considered a blunt object is actually fairly sharp in terms of impact. Sharp stony objects is one thing I think a BMX helmet excels, because the hard outer shell and the styrofoam will at least slow the penetration of the object down. A road or mtb specific helmet might still be useless because of all the large vents and the tendency to crack on impact.

To make your comparison fair let's try a different experiment.
Run against a wall head first without a helmet. You might suffer pain, a cut and additionally with adequate force a concussion and a broken neck.

Now put a helmet on and repeat. You might suffer pain, and additionally with adequate force a concussion and a broken neck.
See where this is going?

And as a disclaimer, bmx helmets seem like the only ones that really give any kind of protection, because of the smooth hard outer shell which is supposedly better at staying intact in a crash, and somewhat thicker foam than all those super thin road helmets.

robble

Are you really saying the helmet isn't going to make a difference in the amount of injury you'd receive from banging your head into a wall?

wow...

I think it's time for me to exit the thread. I can't argue against insanity.

350htrr

And you guys are missing my point. I don't think doing any of those things is as dangerous as cycling thus I don't wear helmets doing them, but I think bicycling is just dangerous enough, to wear a helmet... You guys don't really think any of those things are really dangerous including bicycling, thus you don't wear helmets doing any of those things...

meanwhile

I'm struggling to understand what is beyond your comprehension. It's pretty simple:

- Helmets are NOT effective in those accidents where loss of life takes place; these are almost entirely collisions with cars

- They are effective (if worn correctly and of reasonable quality) in preventing minor injuries of the type referred to - but these are things like cuts and bruises, not even concussions

...So I have no idea where you got lost. Unless you think that a major cause of death among cyclists is "I fell off my bicycle." Which I suppose you must do, once again reminding me that people would rather make silly posts rather than spend a few seconds doing a net search.

rekmeyata

I love this comment, this makes all the sense in the world! LOL!! LOL!!

meanwhile

The problem here is that you're not smart enough to understand the argument you are trying is silly and counterfactual. No one is missing your point, it's just that we can several stages beyond it and can't understand why you do not.

Firstly, walking is just as dangerous as cycling in risk per mile. So, yes, you should wear a helmet by your logic! You won't, because other people don't - and this is the biggest influence on you. Helmets are in-group for cycling, so they must work!

Secondly, all the evidence is that no helmet light enough to wear cycling can reduce your risk of death. Regardless of how dangerous cycling is or is not, isn't it rather stupid and inconsistent to wear a cycling helment that doesn't make you safer for cycling, but not to wear a helmet for driving? Yes, driving is safer - but you could actually wear a helmet that would work - a motorcycling one. Yes, cycling is more dangerous than driving - but safety measures should be selected not for the danger of the associated activity but for their potential benefit: keeping a sheet of tinfoil handy to block bullets is, sanely, less useful than wearing sunscreen - but your "logic" reverses this.

meanwhile

It's what is called "a fact." Whether it makes sense to you or not is a property of your brain: insufficiently intelligent people often reject facts they don't like, or fail to use them correctly. But this is not anyone's problem but yours...

meanwhile

You don't seem able to argue your way out of a paper bag: whether a helmet will help or not in hitting a wall surely, to anyone not an idiot or insane, depends on the speed of impact? No one would argue a foam hat would help at, say, 500mph???

The post you are answering specified that the impact takes place at a speed that will lead to concussion or break a neck: this is much faster than the 12mph helmets are designed for (and that is cushioning the head only, not the weight of the body.) After that helmets fail without liner compression and provide no benefit.

meanwhile

This is true but astoundingly silly: virtually all cyclist deaths come from car collisions at +25mph, and such a collision will have about 10,000 the kinetic energy of a hammer blow - it's like saying "You don't believe that suncream will protect you from an atomic blast, just because nuclear scientists and dermatologists and the army guys who tested nuclear weapons say it won't? Go outside on a sunny day for an hour and see what happens!" No. This is the logic of a lunatic.

meanwhile

No, you are lying. You said the helmet cracked. No one says "The helmet cracked" when they mean "the liner compressed BUT THE HELMET DID NOT CRACK." You're changing your story to save face.

meanwhile

[QUOTE=robble;15678957]
[quote]
Let's try a test.
This is past some sort of Stupidity Barrier beyond which my comrephension won't.

Yes, but HEAD INJURIES THAT KILL CYCLISTS ARE ALMOST ALWAYS FROM +25MPH HITS FROM CARS! Really: a few grams of foam will not aborb the kinetic energy of an SUV. Helmets are designed to absorb the kinetic energy of the head only in a 12mph impact; a typical cyclist killing accident has about 10,000 this energy. You are being very, VERY silly!

Also: about 75% of fatal head injuries to cyclists are accompanied by fatal torso injuries. (Front of car made of metal, yes???) This shouldn't surprise anyone intelligent, but there you go...

meanwhile

A smarter person would have checked the credentials of the people running the site: eg the helmet engineer runs the main helmet testing lab for Europe and is the main UK forensic witness on helmets...

meanwhile

I think this better than anything shows the fundamental stupidity of the "Helmets save lives!" brigade:

Understand what this means: even if you had a helmet that would work perfectly and would protect your head at any speed, there is virtually no chance that thus helmet would save your life. Fatal cycling accident almost always involve a cyclist being smashed against a large piece of metal at high speed, and the odds (about 13 to 1!) say that such an accident will turn the contents of your torso into jam.

If you want to wear a helmet because you think it will reduce the chances of minor injury from a "I fell of my bicycle" accident, then do so. But if you think that a helmet will significant reduce your chances of dying, then you are lying to yourself.

MMACH 5

I have the helmet in my garage. I will find it and post a picture of it. In my first mention of this helmet I did say the helmet cracked and yes, I did mean the foam cracked and mentioned that this is how a helmet is designed to absorb energy (meaning the foam, not the shell). In my mention of the other helmet, I did say it shattered. That involved the liner and the shell.

I have neither the need nor desire to save face with someone who clearly is not here to debate any points, but rather to insult anyone who disagrees with him.

rekmeyata

Fact? it's like you're Mr Obvious! Obviously a helmet is not effective in accidents where someone dies, this is true for motorcycle helmets, true with seat belts, true about a lot of different things designed to protect you but fail and you die. That's why it was so funny.

mconlonx

I'm sure you posted these before, but do you happen to have links to the studies that show rotational injury is increased by helmets, and the studies regarding liner compression vs. shell cracking?

rekmeyata

That's odd, because I know heads rotate without helmets and when they don't it's because the head was smashed flat preventing rotation! But no, helmets do not increase head rotation, in fact a lot of the tear drop shaped helmets are worse for you then the round ones because the tear drop shape and other odd shaped helmets don't allow the head to rotate and instead snaps the neck. This why time and time again round helmets fair better in consumer studies...of course no one likes to wear round helmets and they are a bit a of pain to find.

MMACH 5

I think you are equating rotational injury with head rotation. These aren't the same thing. Rotational injury has to do with parts of the brain and their differing densities accelerating and decelerating at different rates, causing nerve axons to tear and damage. Someone feel free to interject, if I'm explaining this incorrectly.

meanwhile

I've posted such a link in the 24 hours, so no. Search for the name "Curnow" on the last 3 pages. Yes, I AM THAT LAZY!

You should also do some googling: the scalp actually works as anti-rotational device and you lose this effect if you use a helmet.