In the post above, Closetbiker plagiarized Mr. Walker by not giving him credit, and making it a quote. Closetbiker has not been involved with the Medical Commission on Accident Prevention at the Royal College of Surgeons. In short, he used Mr. Walker's words as if they were his own. Here's the quote:
Originally Posted by closetbiker
from
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/mf.html#1081
The opinion of Brian Walker, one of the leading experts on the mechanics of helmets, and whose company Head Protection Evaluations is the principal UK test laboratory for helmets and head protection systems of all kinds
I have read so many opinions over the past few years on this subject, which in the main have been technically adrift of reality or based on misinformation. I felt that it was time to respond.
Medical case studies are often referred to as evidence for the effectiveness of cycle helmets. My own experience of studies in this field is that they very often arrive at erroneous conclusions. Certainly my ten years' of involvement with the Medical Commission on Accident Prevention at the Royal College of Surgeons in London illustrated that the recording of accident data in A & E departments is often limited in both detail and accuracy. It also varies enormously from one authority to another.
In a recent Court case, a respected materials specialist argued that a cyclist who was brain injured from what was essentially a fall from their cycle, without any real forward momentum, would not have had their injuries reduced or prevented by a cycle helmet. This event involved contact against a flat tarmac surface with an impact energy potential of no more than 75 joules (his estimate, with which I was in full agreement). The court found in favour of his argument. So a High Court has decided that cycle helmets do not prevent injury even when falling from a cycle onto a flat surface, with little forward momentum. Cycle helmets will almost always perform much better against a flat surface than any other.
In other legal cases with which I have been involved, where a cyclist has been in collision with a motorised vehicle, the impact energy potentials generated were of a level which outstripped those we use to certify Grand Prix drivers helmets. In some accidents at even moderate motor vehicle speeds, energy potential levels in hundreds of joules were present.
my purpose is to illustrate that the whole cycle helmet issue contains many hidden issues of which most researchers are quite unaware.
Referring back to the Court case mentioned early, the very eminent QC under whose instruction I was privileged to work, tried repeatedly to persuade the equally eminent neurosurgeons acting for either side, and the technical expert, to state that one must be safer wearing a helmet than without. All three refused to so do, stating that they had seen severe brain damage and fatal injury both with and without cycle helmets being worn. In their view, the performance of cycle helmets is much too complex a subject for such a sweeping claim to be made.
read more here:
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/papers/c2023.pdf
Here's how the text should have read:
Originally Posted by closetbiker
from
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/mf.html#1081
The opinion of Brian Walker, one of the leading experts on the mechanics of helmets, and whose company Head Protection Evaluations is the principal UK test laboratory for helmets and head protection systems of all kinds
I have read so many opinions over the past few years on this subject, which in the main have been technically adrift of reality or based on misinformation. I felt that it was time to respond.
Medical case studies are often referred to as evidence for the effectiveness of cycle helmets. My own experience of studies in this field is that they very often arrive at erroneous conclusions. Certainly my ten years' of involvement with the Medical Commission on Accident Prevention at the Royal College of Surgeons in London illustrated that the recording of accident data in A & E departments is often limited in both detail and accuracy. It also varies enormously from one authority to another.
In a recent Court case, a respected materials specialist argued that a cyclist who was brain injured from what was essentially a fall from their cycle, without any real forward momentum, would not have had their injuries reduced or prevented by a cycle helmet. This event involved contact against a flat tarmac surface with an impact energy potential of no more than 75 joules (his estimate, with which I was in full agreement). The court found in favour of his argument. So a High Court has decided that cycle helmets do not prevent injury even when falling from a cycle onto a flat surface, with little forward momentum. Cycle helmets will almost always perform much better against a flat surface than any other.
In other legal cases with which I have been involved, where a cyclist has been in collision with a motorised vehicle, the impact energy potentials generated were of a level which outstripped those we use to certify Grand Prix drivers helmets. In some accidents at even moderate motor vehicle speeds, energy potential levels in hundreds of joules were present.
my purpose is to illustrate that the whole cycle helmet issue contains many hidden issues of which most researchers are quite unaware.
Referring back to the Court case mentioned early, the very eminent QC under whose instruction I was privileged to work, tried repeatedly to persuade the equally eminent neurosurgeons acting for either side, and the technical expert, to state that one must be safer wearing a helmet than without. All three refused to so do, stating that they had seen severe brain damage and fatal injury both with and without cycle helmets being worn. In their view, the performance of cycle helmets is much too complex a subject for such a sweeping claim to be made.
read more here:
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/papers/c2023.pdf
Further, if you will read the PDF cited above, you will see that Mr. Walker was testifying that helmets would have helped. Here's that quote from Mr. Walker's article:
Cycle helmets come in a wide variety of styles and designs. And every accident has features that differentiate it from other events. If the accidents were more alike, designing helmets and writing performance criteria would be much easier. The problem is compounded by the fact that cycle helmets are the most fragile type of safety helmet. In today’s road traffic accidents, it’s not unlikely for a cycle helmet to be subjected to severity loads greater than it is designed to cope with. One recent court case that I was involved with was even more telling. I was one of the specialists in the case. A respected materials specialist argued – against me – that a cyclist who was brain injured from what was essentially a fall from their cycle without any real forward momentum would not have had their injuries reduced or prevented by a cycle helmet. This event involved contact against a flat tarmac surface with an impact energy potential of no more than 75 joules, in his estimate. I agreed with his energy potential estimate but not his conclusion. The court found in favour of his argument. (My emphasis added.)
Actually, it is Closetbiker who cannot learn. He simply continues to say the same things, post after post, situation after situation, without acknowledging that he could be wrong.
I have a friend at work who took an awful, nasty fall from a motorcycle. He was riding it at about 75 mph when a deer jumped in front of his bike, and they crashed. The bike was later recovered, and its front end had disintegrated. My friend suffered numerous broken bones, and was hospitalized for weeks afterwards. His head hit the pavement at 75 mph, and he was wearing a motorcycle helmet. The pavement had worn through the kevlar into the lining of the helmet, but his head was undamaged.
Closetbiker has stated way back in this thread that helmets could cause further brain damage through head rotation. If this were true, then my friend would now be dead; he is not. I asked my friend, who is a respected engineer in a high tech firm, about this, and here is what he said (I won't quote him, as I don't have it on tape, but I will give the gist of what he stated to me). He said that there are still people who believe that the earth is flat too, and there is nothing we can do to convince them otherwise. The Flat Earth Society still exists, and there will continue to be people who don't believe that helmets save lives. Closetbiker is one such person. So at this point, I will continue to counter his opinion here whenever it shows, as it is simply wrong.
John