Fifty Plus (50+) - Here's to the Helmet

I posted a thread awhile back about getting to ride with my big brother, who had just taken up the sport and was using an 80's bike. When we rode together he complained about his seat and, coincidentally, I had an extra Serfas RX with me which I gave him for his older bike. He offered to pay but I told him I would give it to him if he would just start wearing a helmet, and to get down to WalMart and get one the next time he was in town. Even though the roads he rides are very, very remote and almost no traffic, I just wanted him to know he needed it.

I got an email from him. Last week he was on one of his rides (he's now up to 40 miles) and went to turn around at the out-and-back point on a deserted blacktop. He said he's not sure what happened but the tires came out from under him....bruised shoulder...skinned knuckles, and his head bounced off the pavement....BREAKING THE HELMET without even giving him a headache.

So...here's to the bike helmet.

1+ for giving your helmet to your bro. I fell last year when I touched wheels with a bud. BOOM! Helmet first. No concussion or lasting damage.

Glad I had it on.

Tyson
Cushing, Oklahoma

Sorry to spoil you guy's stories but think of this - the PADDING in the helmet doesn't activate until it gets to almost 300 gees. That is a near death experience. If the helmet broke and your brother wasn't unconcious it was a helmet failure and not a life saving experience.

There IS a chance that a helmet can save your life but it's about as likely as you winning the lottery without buying a ticket.

Nothing and I mean NOTHING will save you from being a stupid or careless rider. Surely accidents will happen but if you're careful those accidents will likely not be life threatening.

Remember that WAY BACK when Effective Cycling by John Forester was first published he noted that MOST serious accidents occurred to new riders and although experienced riders have MORE ACCIDENTS these accidents were far less serious.

I'm very glad that your brother wasn't injured but please don't pretend that it was the helmet and not just human reflexes and some luck. In the last year there have been four cyclists killed in stupid accidents in the San Francisco bay area and all four were wearing their helmets. As have been the great majority of those who suffered serious and fatal accidents all over the USA.

Now all this said, remember that the human body is designed to protect itself pretty much instinctively and that things occur on a bicycle at about the same speed they occur while walking. This means that in MOST cases you can protect your own body quite effectively simply with your natural reflexes.

This is why the overwhelming majority (90%+) of fatal and serious accident occur in vehicular collisions.

Again let me make it CLEAR - nothing will protect you from your own incautious stupidity. Please learn the proper way to act on a bicycle and in traffic and that will be 1000 times more effective than a helmet.

But of course if you want to wear a helmet as part of that REAL(tm) cyclist uniform that's entirely up to you. I know I do for that reason solely.

Came off the bike a few years ago on black ice. So not my fault unless you count the fact that I was riding a bike. Couple of miles later stopped because I had a headache. Took the helmet off and it was worn away by the tarmac, and was half way through the foam. At the time of the off- I did not even realise I had hit my head. Then a fast downhill offroad and Off. Long struggle to get back home with a rip in the knee and a very sore leg. I had hit the ground hard and rolled. Back home took the helmet off and a big crack right the way through on one side.

Perhaps as helmets are so useless- I just ought to save myself the $100 I pay for them every year or so when I damage them.

Sorry to spoil you guy's stories but think of this - the PADDING in the helmet doesn't activate until it gets to almost 300 gees. That is a near death experience. If the helmet broke and your brother wasn't unconcious it was a helmet failure and not a life saving experience.

There IS a chance that a helmet can save your life but it's about as likely as you winning the lottery without buying a ticket.

Maybe the helmet in this story protected his brother from having a head wound. Isn't that a good enough reason for wearing one?

Sorry to spoil you guy's stories but think of this - the PADDING in the helmet doesn't activate until it gets to almost 300 gees. That is a near death experience. If the helmet broke and your brother wasn't unconcious it was a helmet failure and not a life saving experience.


- i'm sorry, but the above doesn't make sense to me... could you explain about padding activation?

- the way i look at it is if the helmet breaks it has done its job... almost same thing happened to me... hit a bump, went down, had three contact points on the ground - one was the right side of my head - and the two-week-old helmet's interior foam split four ways at the contact point...

Maybe the helmet in this story protected his brother from having a head wound. Isn't that a good enough reason for wearing one?

+1

Wonder where you get that number - 300 G's?? In an automobile or aircraft crash, at 20 G's your aorta (the big artery coming off your heart) will tear away from the back attatchment on the back of your chest. This is a well known physiological fact.
300G's???? I'd love to see the references on that one. Not saying you are wrong, but just curious.

300G's???? I'd love to see the references on that one. Not saying you are wrong, but just curious.
He must be in constant "go Lance on 'em" mode and have it dialed in at 400 watts like all the time. Dude's totally hardcore! :D

.......... the PADDING in the helmet doesn't activate until it gets to almost 300 gees. .,,,-
...............and that things occur on a bicycle at about the same speed they occur while walking....
.........................
.....There IS a chance that a helmet can save your life but it's about as likely as you winning the lottery without buying a ticket..................................
.

What do mean by "activate"? Its not an airbag. The padding in a helmet is a form of passive restraint. I have no test data but feel that it certainly that it takes less than 300 times the wieght of the foam to break the foam.


300 G? Where did that figure come from? Is that published in some literature?

My experience from flying is that 300G (or 50 times more force than a tightly wrapped turn in an F-16) would push your eyeballs through your toenails and you would be inside out. This would occur after you blacked out.

Also, a 10 or 15 mph accident on a bike (not that he was going that fast) is considerably faster than walking. I say from experience....GOOD LUCK on protecting youself with your arms or whatever if you go off the bike at that speed. You can't, unless you are able to catch 200+ pounds with your arms, because that is the effect of the sudden stop (i.e. the G forces).

Here's hoping you have safe bicycling.

Helmets. . .defensive cycling. . .lights. . .bright clothing. . .maintenance.

Folks, there's NO SINGLE technology or behavior that's gonna' make cycling [or life] risk free. Every time we throw a leg over the seat we're throwing the dice. Every smart action we take only reduces the chance of throwing snake-eyes. Yeah, my helmet can't defend against many easily conceivable decelerations but I'll keep wearing it. . .it adds a few 'points' in my favor in the dice throw and THAT'S all I can ask of a Forgiving God [or a Cold Universe or Fate or Entropy].

300 Gs!! Holy-Moley!! I can't think of anything in my immediate environment that would generate that acceleration. 'Course, I don't get out like I used to.

Back in the mid 80's I started wearing a helmet for two reasons. One, my crude and self taught off road skills often caused unplanned exits from the trails and branches would catch my head and glasses. Two, my wife insisted. She was fed up with me cutting my head open.

Since then, as my skills increased so did my need to test those skills. Overall, I guess I have destroyed 6 or 7 helmets. The last one not a month ago when I went off an 8 foot high ledge attempting a technical climb on some rocks. A pointy rock put a major indent in my helmet just above my temple. I am not sure if I hit 300 Gees, but I know had I not had the helmet on, the abrupt smack that crossed my eyes anyway would have been way more serious.

So for all those folks out there blessed with the coordination of Gayle Sayers, be my guest, don't wear a helmet. But being the klutz that I constantly prove I am, helmets are just one more thing to help me make it to my next birthday. Even if they don't work, they seem to carry good karma. And that's all that matters.

If the helmet broke and your brother wasn't unconcious it was a helmet failure and not a life saving experience.


Go back and read to original post. He did not claim that the helmet saved his brother's life.

In thirty+ years of riding I have bounced my head off the pavement twice. Both times I was glad to have on a helmet if only to prevent scalp abrasions. I think that most of us are aware that a helmet is not going to save you from death in a major altercation with a motor vehicle.

Just checked my helmet and guess what- Another $100 down the drain. Don't know where I hit it but similar to crum- I have either hit a rock or the woodpeckers have been having a go- Small hole in the outer casing and inside- a nice bump of loose foam.

Luckily I keep a spare helmet so I may have enough time to look around the shops for a bargain- but Time to upset the LBS again as it takes me about a hour to sort the one I want out of all the stock in the shop. And he carries a lot of helmets.

The first (or second) time my son rode a bike with hand operated brakes, he grabbed a big handful of the front brake. He was going sloe enough that the front wheel stopped. He and the bike pivoted around the front axel, in slow motion. He landed on the top of his head. He was wearing a helmet, he got up laughing. I needed a defibulator.

cyclintom is a shill for the anti-helmet crowd. His figures are rubbish, and even if accurate, have been selectively quoted to support a case that doesn't stand up. There are enough robust anecdotes about the effectiveness of helmets in preventing injury and death to discount this sort of garbage. Interestingly, I see few testimonials from people who crash without a helmet on and suffer head trauma -- because the person has a head or brain injury, becomes incapacitated, or dies as a result.

It is well known that a force of sufficient magnitude will cause overwhelming trauma (car hitting a cyclist or pedestrian at speed or even another car) and no amount of protection will help prevent that trauma. But helmets aren't designed to be helpful in those situation, because nothing is. Even seatbelts and airbags are useless if the magnitude of force in a car crash is great enough.

Essentially, helmets serve the valuable function of preventing minor, mild, severe and fatal head traumas at the speeds most cyclists are likely to crash at (often very slow ones at that). Heck, there have been enough cases of people dying outside pubs in brawls after being pushed over and their heads hitting the gutter or pavement to illustrate that low-speed head trauma can be fatal.

Perhaps people like cyclintom should declare at the top of their posts that they are anti-compulsory wearing of helmets so we can all understand where they are coming from.

Last month, while completing a forty mile ride, I was cruising down a one mile 5% hill going about 25mph, when I hit a baseball size rock. I was launched over the bars and landed on my left side and back. My head hit the ground so hard that one of my front tooth fillings was knocked out. The back of my helmet was shredded and split almost exactly in the center rear. Lots of road rash but thats it. I am "certain" that had I not been wearing a helmet, I would have cracked my head open on the asphalt. I have that helmet sitting in my office here at home. It didn't seem like much when I was wearing it, but it is my friend for life now.

I wear a helmet because it helps me keep my thoughts contained.....


Sorry, a pretty lame attempt at humor. I do wear a helmet, and I hope I never need to find out if it protects me or not. I am pretty simplistic in my evalution of the situation too. I figure I'd rather take the chance that the helmet might work than the chance that I'd be OK without one in an accident like the one described above. AND... on that note.... I'm glad your brother did not have a head injury with his fall.

Regarding all the talk about 300 g's. It's from the Snell B-90A B-90C spec.

The spec states, quote "E4.4 Impact Test Interpretation
The peak acceleration of the headform shall not exceed 300 G's for any valid test
impact. Similarly, the helmet's protective structures shall remain intact throughout the
testing. If, the Foundation's technical personnel conclude that the headgear has been
compromised by breakage, the sample shall be rejected."

That means that the compressability and modulus (stiffness) of the foam lining cannot be to so stiff that
the headform (the buck placed inside the helmet) sees a negative acceleration greater than 300 g's.
Really compliant foam will crush further under the impact force and slow the headform at a slower rate, meaning lower g's for a longer duration. The 300 number is the maximum that the test allows.
The test requires an impact force of 100 joules, equivalent to a 2.2m drop of a 5kg headform. That's dropping a weight of almost 5 lbs. from a height of 7 1/4 feet.

300G is a considerable amount of force. The foam inside a helmet is design to crush to slow down the deceleration process. Part of that process includes crushing of the foam structure, and in many cases, disintegration of the foam.

If anyone (except the hardcore disbelievers) has any doubts whatsoever about the effectiveness of this, do what I did regularly with kids -- get two watermelons about the size of a human head. Dress one in a helmet; leave the other bare; funny faces are optional. Lift both to chest height and with the helmet pointing towards the ground. Drop. The result is pretty dramatic, including the spread of red bits all over the place. Guess which one the red bits come from.

Anyone who thinks hitting your head with or without a helmet on the pavement is the same does not need a helmet since there is nothing in there to protect.

Maybe the helmet in this story protected his brother from having a head wound. Isn't that a good enough reason for wearing one?
The only good reason to wear a helmet is because you WANT to wear one. Never should you believe that it gives you even so much as an edge because the advantage of a helmet is so slight that about all they're good for is saving your head from minor wounds. If you treat a helmet like that you're not likely to take more chances than a helmet can make up for - a practice that's commonly known as "risk compensation".

Let's make this clear - I'm NOT against helmets. I'm against the phoney practice of falling off of your bike and then telling everyone that your life was saved by your helmet when you should be ashamed that you were too stupid to stay on two wheels.

Very few accidents are truely accidents and it's time that we stop excusing the nitwit who rides down a hill at 45 mph from bright sunlight into shade and then can't spot the pothole in the road at that speed and lighting conditions.

Furthermore there are sorts of sociological problems being caused by helmets. Motorists tend to think of cyclists wearing helmets as "professional" or at the very least competent. They give helmeted cyclists less room when passing. All it takes is a bump, narrowing shoulder or flat at the wrong time and now you're MORE likely to have a fatal accident because of this silly interaction with traffic.

Children have pretty much stopped riding bicycles because more than half the states have helmet laws for minors and there's nowhere to store a helmet in schools anymore (not that there were any when I was a kid either but we also didn't have a 40 lb book load to carry back and forth every day either).

Locally almost every kid rode a bike to school up until the first day the helmet law came into effect. Now there are NO bicycles at any of the local schools in my area where once there were hundreds.

There are a couple of studies that report that helmeted cyclists apparently take more chances that non-helmeted cyclists or that helmets add so much to the size and weight of the head that they CAUSE more injuries than they mediate. (R.C. Wasserman, "Bicyclists, Helmets and Head Injuries: A Rider Based Study of Helmet Use and Effectiveness". AJPH September 1988, Vol 78, No 9, pp 1220-21., M.M Dorsch, "Do bicycle safety helmets reduce severity of head injury in real crashes". Accid. Anal. & Prev. Vol 19, pp183-190, 1990.)

Bottom line - helmets are nothing more than an item of apparel. They MIGHT save you from a relatively minor injury but there are serious question that they might not cause at least as many injuries as they prevent.

http://www.magma.ca/~ocbc/kunich.html
http://www.magma.ca/~ocbc/hfaq.html
http://www.cycle-helmets.com/

- i'm sorry, but the above doesn't make sense to me... could you explain about padding activation? - the way i look at it is if the helmet breaks it has done its job
You're quite wrong. While a helmet does absorb some energy in order to fracture it is a tiny portion of the energy that would be absorbed if the foam were compressed instead of fractured.

There are a lot more things going on with helmets that you'd not like at all if you understood the science behind it.

Regarding all the talk about 300 g's. It's from the Snell B-90A B-90C spec.

The spec states, quote "E4.4 Impact Test Interpretation
The peak acceleration of the headform shall not exceed 300 G's for any valid test
impact. Similarly, the helmet's protective structures shall remain intact throughout the
testing. If, the Foundation's technical personnel conclude that the headgear has been
compromised by breakage, the sample shall be rejected."
Thanks for the reference.


That means that the compressability and modulus (stiffness) of the foam lining cannot be to so stiff that the headform (the buck placed inside the helmet) sees a negative acceleration greater than 300 g's. Really compliant foam will crush further under the impact force and slow the headform at a slower rate, meaning lower g's for a longer duration. The 300 number is the maximum that the test allows.
The test requires an impact force of 100 joules, equivalent to a 2.2m drop of a 5kg headform. That's dropping a weight of almost 5 lbs. from a height of 7 1/4 feet.
Bad math - 5 kgrams is 11 lbs. That's the weight of a head that has been disconnected from the body.

For the record, helmets are designed THE VERY BEST that materials science allows. The limitations is not in the helmet companies (though indeed there are production standards at some companies which make even poor standards worse) but in the design of the human body. If you make helmets larger or heavier they cause more head injuries. Remember, a light helmet is about 5% of the "standard" head weight. That is a LOT of weight. Now think of a half pound of helmet weight at 300 gees - Duhh - that's 150 lbs - do you suppose your neck could support that or maybe you might tend to let your head droop a bit more than usual?

Anyway it's sort of an academic exercise. There have been sufficient well managed studies that demonstrate that helmets do nothing measureable. Perhaps they help in one sort of accident while hindering in others. Surely the numbers haven't changed for cyclists injured and that should tell you something.

AGAIN - I'm not saying not to wear a helmet. I'm saying that putting phoney faith in a myth helps no one.

I continue to be entertained by people who still reference Australian "research" material gathered 20 years ago when the anti-compulsory helmet-wearing lobby was in full swing, both politically and with its distortions to suit its ends. Bruce Robinson is one who steadfastly continued to grasp at wafts of information that he thought could support his claims. There were all sorts of suggestions, from the notion that riders wearing a helmet were encouraged to take unnecessary risks, and therefore were at greater risk of injury than if they didn't wear a helmet, to saying that more facial injuries resulted from wearing helmets (what they didn't say was that superficial facial injury might be far more acceptable than brain injury). And of course, the old saw -- that a helmet won't help when you're hit by a car at speed. Well duh... being helmetless won't either!!!

Let's get it clear. The Australian "data" is outdated. The anti-complusory helmet-wearing lobby lost its battle to prevent compulsory helmet-wearing laws to be introduced Australia-wide. The medical experts who see and treat injuries in hospitals advised the government, and knew better than the anti-compulsory lobby. The motivation behind the "data" manipulation by the lobby was simply because these people didn't want to be told by government what to do when riding a bicycle. The whole political cycle is, I believe, being repeated in Europe now... so the old, outdated, irrelevant data has resurfaced as gospel.

There *are* people out there who need protecting from themselves. Frankly, I couldn't care less whether there is compulsory wearing or not -- I like the protection and it has worked several times for me. And as for the swipe about falling off and riding competence -- if you haven't fallen off your bike, then you haven't ridden very much. Or your day is coming and I just hope you can tell us about it.

If a person does not want to wear a helmet thats fine but why denegrate someone who attributes a helmet to saving injury in an accident? I have had three accidents this year and the first one I landed head first on concrete, I now have only one high cheekbone and had to have 20 stitches on my face. The other two I was wearing a helmet and hit my head but suffered no head injury.
Did the helmet save me, you may spout all the anti-helmet opinions you want but I say, the helmet saved me from injury and I now wear one. Ride without one if you want but I am a believer!

While I was riding last week a walnut fell and hit me on my well protected head. Don't leave home without it.

Also, helmets are great places to store one's gloves between rides. If not for that, I'd forever be looking for my gloves.

Also, helmets are great places to store one's gloves between rides. If not for that, I'd forever be looking for my gloves.As it is also a wonderful spot to find my head when I have lost it.

Bad math - 5 kgrams is 11 lbs. That's the weight of a head that has been disconnected from the body.



Good catch, you are correct.

I continue to be entertained by people who still reference Australian "research" material gathered 20 years ago when the anti-compulsory helmet-wearing lobby was in full swing, both politically and with its distortions to suit its ends.
I wonder if you still laugh at people who still believe in that silly Theory of Relativity which was written in the early 1900's?

What you appear to be saying is that the studies using actual whole populations, whole population injuries and actual injuries aren't to be trusted because they returned findings contrary to your beliefs.

OK.

According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, using a bicycle helmet reduces the risk of a head injury by 85%.

http://www.helmets.org/cpscmcdo.htm

Now that I'm on the up side of the big 5-0, I find myself never wanting to be on my bike without a helmet. Even when I'm testing brake and derailleur adjustments while riding around my driveway. I might not be as nervous if riding on the grass in my back yard.

And now that I have the images of falling watermelons in my mind, I may wear one when just looking at my bike.

According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, using a bicycle helmet reduces the risk of a head injury by 85%.

http://www.helmets.org/cpscmcdo.htm

Now that I'm on the up side of the big 5-0, I find myself never wanting to be on my bike without a helmet. Even when I'm testing brake and derailleur adjustments while riding around my driveway. I might not be as nervous if riding on the grass in my back yard.

And now that I have the images of falling watermelons in my mind, I may wear one when just looking at my bike.

One thing that wasn't clear to me. Do the watermelons wear fingerless gloves, or not?

I have a cracked helmet I keep on display just as a reminder to myself and others that it could have been my skull.

Incidentally one of my buddies was broadsided by a dog Saturday and crashed. His helmet shattered as it was designed to do but he didn't have any head injuries.

My feeling is that bike helmets are too light and flimsy to be of much help...but that they're so light and flimsy that they also won't do any harm. I always wear a helmet, though, because where I live, they're required by law.

My feeling is that bike helmets are too light and flimsy to be of much help...but that they're so light and flimsy that they also won't do any harm. I always wear a helmet, though, because where I live, they're required by law.


I know of too many situations where they have saved very serious damage. I'll take light and safe(r) any day!!

According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, using a bicycle helmet reduces the risk of a head injury by 85%..
Unfortunately that was an extremely poorly done study that Thompson, Rivara and Thompson that was funded by - wait for it - Bell Helmet Company. It was proven wrong ages ago but of course anyone that wants to believe in miracles quotes those phoney figures. The "non-helmeted head injuries" were from black kids riding on the streets in black neighborhoods and the helmeted non-injuries were white kids riding in nice neighborhoods on BICYCLE PATHS. There were a great deal worse things about this such as - NONE of the "head injuries" were fatal - in fact the injuries themselves were all very minor - and yet the study was usually presented as "85% fewer fatalities".

But then when you want to believe something most people won't let facts stand in their way.


And now that I have the images of falling watermelons in my mind, I may wear one when just looking at my bike.
Think about this - what sort of watermelon have you seen that would fit inside a bicycle helmet? And considering that does it lend a certain critical view of our friendly poster's story?

I have a friend that wears a religious icon around his neck and belives it helps keep him safe. I don't share the belief, nor do I feel compelled to tell him his beliefs are incorrect, despite there being no facts to support his belief. Belief is an interesting thing.

Cyclingtom: While I respect your passion and admire your research into something that interests you, I'm not sure I understand your drive to change people's beliefs. I'm probably missing something, not an uncommon event for me. Are you concerned that the belief that helmets improve safety really makes people less careful riders or in some other way harms them? If this is so, I need help in seeing how. One last thought. While the theory or relativity is "old", it does have merit; yet we still need quantum mechanics to explain other parts of our universe, and we've yet to find a way to unify these two. I wish science was totally pure and could, in fact, be held up as absolute truth. Yet, I know this not to be the case.

NOS88-It doesn't seem to me that Cyclintom is trying to change anyone's belief re:wearing a helmet. As he points out in an earlier post, he wears a helmet. My understanding of what he is saying is that a helmet is not designed for nor intended to protect in the event of a catastrophic accident and that the best protection is provided by good riding skills and habits. This makes perfect sense to me. Lets face it, my head with my helmet on or not, won't be any less flat upon being hit by a train, plane , or automobile. That being said , however, I do expect it to protect me (at least to some extent) from head injury on those occasions when I do something embarrasing-such as forgetting how to get my shoes out of the clips or running into something while looking at things other than the road, and that it has done-for which I am grateful.
Cyclintom-My apologies if I misread you intent.

Okay, how many people here have had crashes, damaged their helmets, but now wish they hadn't been wearing a helmet.

Raise your hands!

I agree with rck in that most serious head injuries and deaths result from impact collisions with motor vehicles. In the vast majority of those cases, a helmet doesn't make a huge difference.

But I also agree on those occasions, when we are trying to be careful, but misread a bump, don't see a rock or a walnut, or even get clipped by another biker, that it is a great asset to be wearing a helmet.

And now that I'm 50+, I even think about elbow and knee pads. That pavement looks so much harder than it used to.

Today I became a convert to the use of cycling helmets.

A litttle history. Thirty years ago when I was in college I rode my bicycle a lot and never even considered wearing a helmet. At that time helmets were for racers, not recreational riders like myself.

When I decided to start riding my bicycle again earlier this year, I bought an inexpensive helmet so that I would be in compliance with our local ordinances that require the use of a helmet. My hope was that I would have a helmet that was not too uncomfortable, nothing else.

Today I crashed. It was at fairly low speed and certainly my own fault. As I fell I heard (and felt) a sharp crack as my helmet hit concrete. I feel fortunate that I was able to ride home after the crash with a minor case of road rash, a cut on my leg, but not a mark on my head. I examined the helmet when I got home and saw where the the foam had split and the outer portion of the helmet was deformed near the point of impact. I am convinced that if I had not been wearing a helmet, I would have required, as a minimum, a trip to the emergency room.

I no longer care about studies, local laws, or fashions and trends. I will never ride without wearing a helmet, because I am convinced they can prevent serious injury if and when an accident occurs.

NOS88-It doesn't seem to me that Cyclintom is trying to change anyone's belief re:wearing a helmet. As he points out in an earlier post, he wears a helmet. My understanding of what he is saying is that a helmet is not designed for nor intended to protect in the event of a catastrophic accident and that the best protection is provided by good riding skills and habits. This makes perfect sense to me. Lets face it, my head with my helmet on or not, won't be any less flat upon being hit by a train, plane , or automobile. That being said , however, I do expect it to protect me (at least to some extent) from head injury on those occasions when I do something embarrasing-such as forgetting how to get my shoes out of the clips or running into something while looking at things other than the road, and that it has done-for which I am grateful.
Cyclintom-My apologies if I misread you intent.


OK, got it. Perhaps my friend's belief in his faith, as manifested by his wearing of the religious icon, is the only thing that may work in a catastrophic accident.

OK, got it. Perhaps my friend's belief in his faith, as manifested by his wearing of the religious icon, is the only thing that may work in a catastrophic accident.
That could be a problem as well.

Look, they began putting antilock braking systems in cars a long time ago. These antilock braking systems GREATLY improved braking because if someone slammed their brakes on in front of you, you didn't have to have the skill of a professional driver to maintain maximum braking - you just stood on the brake.

So - improved braking - what effect did it have on accident rates? Rear enders increased - precisely the opposite of what you would think might happen if anything.

That effect is called "risk compensation" and occurs when you believe something will give you more of a safety buffer than it actually does.

We probably have the same thing with bicycle helmets. Most ESPECIALLY on downhill and other offroad riding. In the early days of mountain biking there were LOTS of broken arms and the occassional broken leg but really serious accidents were pretty rare. Now with full suspension and bicycle helmets a significant number (I think it's like 5% now) of the fatalities and serious injuries happen to offroad riders.

People who believe that a helmet is going to make a difference in an accident (see postings above where the poster says, "In the vast majority of those cases, a helmet doesn't make a huge difference") are the people who take more chances, and in the end more than nullify the TINY safety addition from a helmet.

I have been posting these helmet arguments for two decades now. I was the Safety Director for the American Federation of Motorcyclists and figured I should know about safety helmets. And when I actually looked into it I was mortified at how inadequate helmets really are. Over the years again and again I've had people argue with me that they'd never ride a bike without a helmet while I tried to convince them that safe riding was the ONLY THING that would protect them. It's been something of a pain that several of the most vocal helmet promoters died in bicycle crashes and in two of the cases the accident was avoidable. Perhaps three of them.

I don't like people to think that ANYTHING other than their brain is going to protect them from their own carelessness.

That effect is called "risk compensation" and occurs when you believe something will give you more of a safety buffer than it actually does.


So, this is the same as those mountain passes where there are no guard rails, because people will drive less carefully when there is a guard rail. Hmmmm, I see your point. Yet, for those that do not increase their risk taking because they think they are safer with a helmet, does the helmet provide any advantage according to the data you've seen? I have to confess that when I strap my helmet on it reminds me that riding is serious business and deserves my upmost attention and care.

The data I've seen over the preceeding 40 years says that helmets effectively do nothing in serious or fatal accidents. The rates of these injuries remain unchanged before and after helmets.

What isn't clear is if helmets prevent any minor injuries. That would seem to be rather self apparent but you can't really say that sort of thing without some sort of scientific backing. And here's the real problem - in order to do tests on helmets or to massage data bases to look for effects for less than serious accidents you HAVE TO ADMIT THAT HELMETS DON'T WORK for the accidents they're being promoted as a cure for.

The argument goes that since they save lives, OF COURSE they prevent minor injuries.

But if you look up the postings here you'll see a couple of interesting entries:

"Incidentally one of my buddies was broadsided by a dog Saturday and crashed. His helmet shattered as it was designed to do but he didn't have any head injuries."

Hmm, didn't I note earlier that unless a helmet stays together and simply crushes that it hasn't worked properly? Helmets are NOT designed to "shatter" nor are they supposed to.

"Today I crashed. It was at fairly low speed and certainly my own fault. As I fell I heard (and felt) a sharp crack as my helmet hit concrete. I feel fortunate that I was able to ride home after the crash with a minor case of road rash, a cut on my leg, but not a mark on my head."

Forgive me but I've fallen off my bike many, many times and never hit my head until I started wearing a helmet. Moreover a helmet is LARGER than the head and it is relatively heavy at about 5% or more of the weight of the head. This implies that you are far more likely to HIT your head in the first place when you wear a helmet.

IF a helmet provided a lot of protection that wouldn't be a problem since it would prevent more injuries than it caused (actually these injuries are so slight that most people don't recognize them as injuries).

But unfortunately, because there is so little room to work with and the skull and brain limit the amount of deceleration that you can apply, there is only the tiniest amount of protection you can give via a helmet.

Did you know that the linear deceleration of the skull must remain below 300 gees or the skull of a large strong man fractures? So they use that for the maximum deceleration values in helmet design. Unfortunately women's skulls fracture more likely at 280 gees and a childs is much lower. Yet the same foam padding is used for all.

Now to be as balanced as possible we admit that most accidents only require the smallest amount of protection as in the case above. Someone whacked their head and what the helmet did was modify the blow from being a spot contact to a much larger area that reduced the blow to harmlessness. IF the helmet itself didn't cause that head strike then indeed it offered effective protection.

Now note that the results without the helmet would have been nothing more than a bump on the head. Not very serious though I certainly would prefer to avoid it.

And this isn't meant as any criticism of the helmet companies. All of the reputable manufacturers make helmets as well as they can be made. They are just unfortunately limited to what they can do by the mathematics of the situation. There simply isn't enough room around the head and the body can't carry enough weight on the top of the neck to make an effective helmet.

Well, we all could ride with those big wraparound motorcycle helmets. Those are certainly heavier. Might be hard for those who ride in a lean forward position.

As to anti-lock brakes, one of the big factors is improper use. People still pump their brakes, even with anti-locks. An anti-lock brake being pumped has worse stopping performance that a standard brake being pumped. You have to stomp down on an anti-lock, it does the pumping. And you are supposed to steer through the stop. A lot of people do neither. And they don't drive as safely either, as you cite.

I sure am glad to have them, they saved me from a serious accident, with my family in the vehicle. I did remember to stomp and steer and I avoided a near certain major collision.

I can understand why some mountain bikers might ride a bit more aggressive with a helmet, feeling they can take even more risks than they do already. But I don't know why an adult riding on pavement would ... after all the helmet doesn't do anything to avoid breaking arms and getting nasty abrasions.

But I don't know why an adult riding on pavement would ... after all the helmet doesn't do anything to avoid breaking arms and getting nasty abrasions.Your post does not infer this, but got me to thinking.

Riding in both the road world and the off road world, I find it odd that some folks think ridng off road is more dangerous than the road. How often has anyone died while riding off road v road cycling deaths? Just look at the "Wall of Remembrance" thread in the Gen Discussion forum to see my point. And yet the misconception persists that off road riding is dangerous. Sure I nick myself up on a regular basis, but I do not die very often. Matter of fact, I can't remember the last time I died riding in the woods. A mistake in the woods may mean a trip to the E room, but a mistake on the road can mean a trip to the local funeral home. The road is a dangerous place.

...That effect is called "risk compensation" and occurs when you believe something will give you more of a safety buffer than it actually does.


The whole concept of risk compensation is a red herring, at least as related to helmets. Even if I believed that helmets prevented all head injuries, I know that accidents are painful to the other 90% of my body, and that alone would keep me from doing risky stuff.

As I've read through these postings, the tone of your responses puzzles me. So my question to you concerns what your 'real' argumentation may be?

1) to relieve cyclists of a naive notion that riding with a helmet will protect them in a vehicle/cycle accident?

2) that wearing a helmet 'may' prevent some minor head injuries (at slow enough speed & all the other qualifications you've previously stated) but don't really do much for the other 90 % of the body that is vulnerable?

3) that wearing a helmet may cause a cyclist to conceive mistakenly that their safety in case of accident is improved?

4) that wearing a helmet may cause motorists to conceive mistakenly that cyclists' safety is improved and therefore they have less responsibility in sharing the road?

Your postings are articulate and well-argued but a precis of your point would be appreciated.

As I've read through these postings, the tone of your responses puzzles me. So my question to you concerns what your 'real' argumentation may be?

1) to relieve cyclists of a naive notion that riding with a helmet will protect them in a vehicle/cycle accident?

2) that wearing a helmet 'may' prevent some minor head injuries (at slow enough speed & all the other qualifications you've previously stated) but don't really do much for the other 90 % of the body that is vulnerable?

3) that wearing a helmet may cause a cyclist to conceive mistakenly that their safety in case of accident is improved?

4) that wearing a helmet may cause motorists to conceive mistakenly that cyclists' safety is improved and therefore they have less responsibility in sharing the road?

Your postings are articulate and well-argued but a precis of your point would be appreciated.Who is the "you" you are referring to?