Sadly, helmets do little to nothing to prevent concussions. The truth is that while theories about what causes concussions abound and data exists to "prove" every one of them since the various theories and supporting data are contradictory no one really knows how to make a helmet that will prevent concussions. Concussions are being regarded these days as much more serious than previously thought and so groups, the NFL in particular, are funding studies to see what can be done to prevent them. The jury is still out.

On the bright side, helmets are designed to prevent more immediately serious head injuries, like fractured skulls. They provide a crushable structure around your skull that gives your head more time to deccelerate in a collision and that lowers the G forces dramatically. Even though they have what on paper would seem to be a laughably tiny effective range, in practice it seems that they have enough range to prevent a good number of serious injuries. I would not be without one.

I was not without one when just about a year ago I was turning off a major street into my neighborhood at the end of a ride. I don't know what happened next, in fact I do not remember the ride at all. The first thing I can remember after having lunch with my wife in a local bagel shop is waking up in the hospital well after dark and being told that I had crashed my bike and had four broken ribs, a punctured lung, and a concussion. The immediate problem was the ribs since the lung puncture proved to be too small to need treatment. I did have a little trouble walking but I attributed that to the pain from the ribs and gait adjustments to relieve it. However a few weeks later, after the rib pain abated somewhat, I started having tremendous trouble with numbness in both arms, a right foot that wanted to drag, and difficulty "aiming" when I passed through doorways (I kept brushing the side of the doorjamb). On my doctor's advice I scheduled an appointment with a neurologist which had to be 2 or 3 weeks in the future and then had him cancel on me the morning of the appointment. They offered to reschedule but by then the symptoms, thankfully, had disappeared and my regular doctor agreed that there was no point in rescheduling. It undoubtedly was post concussion syndrome and it could rear its ugly head again in the future in one guise or another. Having multiple concussions just makes it worse.

So we really would like to prevent concussions, especially those of us who have already had one (or more). You are right that our legal system punishes those who step outside industry norms in an attempt to provide a better product. So the only hope is that the various helmet research efforts will reach a consensus on what the next industry standard should be and that the government will then mandate compliance with it. At that point it will be legally safe to offer an improved product.

Obviously I have no idea what caused my crash other than the slim physical evidence which consists of a cracked helmet, grass stains on my clothes, and two kinked bicycle rims which trued up again nicely. In spite of all the damage to my person there was no other damage to the bike! It seems clear that I went wide on the turn and up over the curb which caused me to fall in the grassy "parkway"* and hit my head on the curb. Or maybe I made as far as the sidewalk and hit my head on that. I doubt very much that this was an unforced error caused by too much speed, for instance, and the road had been repaved the year before so it was in perfect condition. Most likely I had to swing wide to avoid something: a child, a pet/wild animal, or perhaps most likely a car that failed to see me coming and started to make a left turn in front of me. Knowing how I generally take that turn before and after the accident it is very unlikely that I was going as much as 15mph at the time and certainly no faster. This was an accident with a severity level that could occur to just about any rider at any time even though the details could vary. It is likely that the helmet prevented a more serious, even fatal, head injury.

My old helmet was a Uvex model. I replaced it with a Bell Citi because it came in a brighter color (I have the light green pictured above, I wanted but could not find the dayglow orange) and tested slightly better than most in someone's (Consumer Reports?) testing. I am still riding and at age 58 it is easy enough to recover from such a collection of injuries, as long as you can ignore the pain! In fact I am training right now to attempt my first century, the McHenry County (IL) Bicycle Club's Udder Century (we seem to have a cow fixation here in McHenry County). I am sure that I can do one, I'm just not sure I am being diligent enough in my training to do this one but I still have a few weeks....

Ken

* Parkway is Chicago area slang for the grassy strip between the street curb and the sidewalk