Closetbiker,

Well, I stayed away for quite a while, and it seemed that this thread went on anyway. You say that if people would not state that people without helmets were called names, this thread would not exist too. Well, what happens here when someone says that they have confidence in helmets mitigating injury potential from falls, whether cause by a motor vehicle or "simple" falls (which in reality are never "simple"). Why are you, Meanwhile and RazrSkutr ganging up on these people, and Meanwhile and RazrSkutr calling them names (like those I've been called here--idiot, gullible idiots, and nuts [and that's just on this page]). I came back in because of this attitude I see on your parts. At least Meanwhile has now admitted that helmets work--in a round-about way of admitting it.

Meanwhile,

By the way, I did measure that helmet I showed earlier. In case you cannot remember that post, you accused me of simply taking what I saw that fit my theories, and throwing away the rest. Well, I still have that helmet. I borrowed a General measuring caliper, and re-measured it. The part that was not impacted on the left temple area of my helmet had foam which measured one and one-eighth inches thick. The part on the right temple area measured just over three-quarters of an inch thick (about 13/16th of an inch). These measurements were taken one and three-quarters inches up from the edge of the helmet. The foam compaction actually tapers on the right side, and at the edge (about half an inch in from the edge) is only seven sixteenths of an inch, whereas the edge of the left side of the same helmet is thirteen sixteenths of an inch. I'll try getting new photos for you soon. For you who cannot go back a few pages, here are those photos again:

This is how I got my helmet back from the ER, in a plastic bag.


I pieced it together to see what had happened.


I measured with a ruler the thicknesses, and put them on this photo. Note that I did not have a caliper, and that because of the taper, these measurements are still approximate. In other words, the thicknesses depend upon where on the liner the measurement is taken.


The differences are striking though. The compression is unmistakable.

Now here's the point. If the foam had simple broken apart, and not absorbed any impact, then there would be no compression. But there is definite compression, which according to my calculations are approximately 53% to 70% of its original thickness. This is why I say that there was compression prior to the fracturing, and that the fracturing only occurred when the foam had reached its maximum compressibility. The photos and calculations will follow.

John