Originally Posted by
Kat12
I also have never been sure how much padding a bike helmet provides...would it just keep my head from getting scraped up, or would it truly disperse enough shock to keep me from getting a concussion?
A bike helmet is designed to handle a 12mph vertical impact. *If* it is worn correctly, which it usually isn't. And only if you hit a flat, smooth surface, your head takes only its own weight, and the accident doesn't give you a strong rotational component. In an accident outside these parameters, the helmet will be useless, or even of negative worth - eg by increasing rotation, the main agent of serious brain injury. In practice this means that a helmet reduces the chances of your getting concussion from a "I just fell off my bike" but is useless to harmful in a "a car hit me!". You might be better off without one in a pot hole induced endo also, because of the rotational thing.
Helmets could easily be much better, but the helmet makers have managed to control the certification system, and crappy helmets sold at a range of prices makes them the most money. (Expensive helmets are NOT generally safer than cheap ones.)
On the other hand, now that I think about it, I do know someone who was protected from a possible head injury while wearing a bike helmet, lol. In elementary school at a bike safety presentation, one of my friends won a bike helmet. He was tickled pink and wore it all day. At recess, some other kids were practicing a "softball toss" for track and a softball came right down on his head...and smacked him on the helmet. There's luck for you...
That's not luck - it's preparation!
However, these are children: more likely to get into accidents/fall of their bikes, less likely to know how to fall safely if they have time to react while falling, and probably more likely to be injured due to their softer bones/larger head in relation to their bodies/whatever it is that causes a shaken baby's brain to turn into mush while the effect on an adult is much smaller.
Unfortunately, helmet fit and the way a helmet is worn is critical. Between growth spurts and the issues with wearing - basically a helmet worn so that it will work looks dorkier and is more uncomfortable, plus it's quite tricky to get the position right - there is very little chance that children will benefit from helmet wearing. I remember seeing a report from one UK charity that calculated that universal child helmetting would save two lives a year in the UK - which they calculated to be far beneath the break-even point for the likely increase in child obesity and deaths through risk compensation and helmet induced strangulation.