License2Ill

It wasn't measuring head injury data in terms of helmet effectiveness. It takes leaps to correlate helmet use with head injury rates when it is not isolated as a factor. Just the same it makes some stupid remarks in the intro about vehicle speeds as if rider heads are hitting vehicles at those speeds when a vehicle is part of an incident. Speeds may increase the severity of impacts but riders involved in impacts caused by vehicles or impacts with vehicles themselves are not impacting their heads at the speed the vehicles are traveling more than the head impacts are happening with the ground most often and all the speed may do is increase the number of impacts or objects struck after being punted. That is oft repeated mythical storytelling stuff. When you head hits the ground when you fall at 40mph, you still fall at the same speed of gravity.

sudo bike

"Stop trying to pretend that the first question you can come up with doesn't have a simple answer. Yes, you've completely stumped them."

chasm54

Gravity is not a speed. And if you really believe that piling into the ground at 40mph is likely to be no more damaging than doing so at, say, 10 mph, you are making even less sense than before.

FBinNY 

It really depends on how you fall. If falling sideways it doesn't matter what your forward speed is, except for torsional and road rash considerations.

Consider a bouncing ball. Drop the ball and it rebounds to a certain height. Throw it sideways and when it falls to the ground it'll rebound to the same height as the dropped ball. The forward speed is unaffected by the impact, except that some spin will be imparted.

However, if you go over the bars, hit a wall or car, or are hit from behind, then forward speed comes into play since the impact will be changing that.

In all cases what matters is the change in speed and direction, not the speed itself.

chasm54

In the first place, torsional considerations are crucial. Rotating the head (extremely likely if it strikes the ground at an oblique angle at high speed) bounces the brain around inside the skull and gives rise to diffuse axonal injury to the brain, which is highly damaging.

In the second place, the bouncing ball doesn't have my brain inside it. As my head rebounds from the ground, my brain decelerates rapidly as it crunchesninto the inside of my skull.

I agree with your other points. But really, to suggest that the speed at which my head impacts the ground is immaterial to my rosk of injury (which is waht was suggested in the post to which I replied) is absurd.

FBinNY 

Methinks thou dost protest too much.

I never said speed didn't matter, I said it depends on how you fall. Everything else you inferred from my post was in your head.

In any case those who design helmets and set standards factor the vertical drop much more heavily than forward speed, and the current standards barely factor forward speed at all.

mconlonx

He does that a lot. But to be fair, most of the bare-head brigade do, too.

FBinNY 

What? So are the helmet wearers are any different on that score?

There's too much attitude, and disrespect for those who disagree on this forum. That applies to both sides.

BTW- for the record, I don't know if this makes me a member of your so-called "bare headed brigade" or not, but I don't usually wear a helmet when riding on the road.

mconlonx

The Pro-Helmeteers are a bit different. They tend to overstate protective capacities of helmets based on personal experience and use questionable research for source material. Bare-Head Brigade does a lot of mis-inferring and very often misrepresents and overstates data from legitimate studies.

Different tactics and faults, same end. Fanatic adherence to one end of a very polarized subject.

I wear a helmet most of the time I'm on a bike, but infrequently go without.

665ae

This thread has been a fascinating read. I never wore a helmet as a kid, and crashed a lot while trying a lot of silly stuff. As an adult, I wear one every time I ride. I don't necessarily wear one because it's going to help in a severe crash (i.e. high speed or car / bike impact) because it seems like that much trauma would be more than the helmet is designed for, I wear one because even as an adult I still do silly stuff, and I'd hate to suffer a head injury because I forgot how to kick my foot out of my clipless pedals (which has happened a couple times already )

rydabent

I see the anti helmet cult is still posting their tired old weak arguments against wearing a helmet.

wphamilton

Here's a new one to add into the safety equation. Normally without a helmet I wear a visor cap but yesterday it just seemed too hot so I went with a cloth headband. I wound up with a strange looking inverse-cap tan, maybe a bit of burn on top. So I've increased my chance for skin cancer. That should be factored in.

ZmanKC

FBinNY 

I don't speak for anyone but myself. While I have no arguments against wearing a helmet, I don't feel that the risks warrant wearing them. That's a personal decision, as far as I'm concerned, people are absolutely free to wear helmets if they wish. All I want is the same courtesy.

Unfortunately helmet advocates feel free to proselytize, cajole, annoy and pester in their efforts to get non-wearers to see the light. Some even would go so far as to suggest making helmets mandatory though law.

So regardless of who has the old, weak or tired arguments, only one side is trying to impose their view on the other. When folks don't buy into their arguments helmet advocates characterize them as ignorant oafs, who lack the brains to make the "smart" decision. Short and sweet, "if you don't agree with me, it's because your too dumb".

Charming!!

wphamilton

No kidding - I rode to a local bike shop on Sunday, that I've been using for a couple of years for incidentals, and the kid said "I worry about you not wearing a helmet." And then he wanted to argue about it. Cost the shop a customer.

FBinNY 

So was the kid concerned with you as a person, or the potential loss of future business?

wphamilton

Either way when someone tells him don't worry about it, he should leave it alone. I didn't know the kid (in his 20's I suppose). The shop owner's a good guy who wouldn't dream of butting into someone else's business so I may give them another chance.

rekmeyata

Yup, and they just go on and on and on with the same tired weak arguments.

Personally, and I've said this before, I don't care if someone does or doesn't want to wear a helmet, if their 18 or over no law forces anyone to do so nor should there be a law to force people to do so, but I also believe no law should force someone 18 or over to wear a seat belt. I've said that before and gotten all sort of arguments against dropping the law on seatbelts, I disagree, it's a safety issue just as a helmet on a bike or motorcycle is a safety issue and you should have the right to chose unless you have a job that the employer requires you to wear a seat belt.

But just because I don't care if someone wears a helmet or not, just don't throw around two or three bogus studies to prove that helmets are useless when the overwhelming studies over a far longer period of time have PROVEN that helmets are effective. Even though I know that seat belts work due to the overwhelming evidence and I can find a couple of studies to prove they don't doesn't mean they don't work! See this: https://www.libertarianrepublican.net...ives-dont.html or: https://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...564465,00.html So based on those reports I now should push everyone not to wear seat belts because they can trap you or make you drive more aggressively, same argument as the the non helmet arguments, "I ride safer when not wearing a helmet" nonsense.

mconlonx

I work in a shop. I don't push helmets. If people ask, I tell them what I know: what helmets can do, what they can't. What is generally assumed but not actually true. That they are only the very last increment where safety is concerned. That skipping a helmet and paying for a bike safety class will do more to keep them safe than a helmet.

However, most people don't ask, and I certainly don't go out of my way to not sell them a helmet they wish to purchase, even if it is for the wrong reasons.

FBinNY 

What helmet proponents, even libertarian ones like Rekmeyata don't get is that there's a fundamental asymmetry here.

Nobody seriously tries to talk folks out of wearing helmets, or in any way confronts them on the issue. But those of us who don't feel helmets are warranted (for any reason) are constantly barraged by folks who think they're well meaning, or better informed, or concerned for our welfare, or whatever their motives are.

Helmet proponents also use weak data to justify their decision --- which is their right and which they don't have to justify to anyone --- but that doesn't make the data compelling. Unfortunately, well meaning folks in state legislators look at the same data, and the pattern of hemet use among the so-called informed cyclists, and may use that to pass legislation forcing the rest of us to join in.

That risk, the risk of a mandate, is the reason, and the only valid reason for non-helmet wearers to be vocal, and show the issue for what it is --- a marginal reduction in what is already a very low risk.

rekmeyata

I'M NOT A LIBERTARIAN, always assuming schit is why we're having this ******** helmet discussion.

And helmet proponents are not using weak arguments it's the non helmet proponents using the weak arguments...get your information and facts straight.

(not related to your post) but while a safety class if great it doesn't replace a helmet. That's like saying I took firearms training in the military so I wouldn't need to carry a gun into battle!

FBinNY 

Sorry, I should have said, those with libertarian views on safety legislation (but even that would probably get a flame response).

The reason we have this debate is because proponents are so morally certain they're right, and resort to full caps, and profanities instead of engaging in what they are so certain is not a reasonable debate.

There's no sense debating this any more here, since it's like debating religion of a fundamentalist Christian (or any religion) forum.

rekmeyata

What exactly is libertarian views to you? The reason to have more freedoms is Libertarian to you? I thought that was provided for us in our constitution and bill of rights? But back to the more pertinent post debate, you like the fact some politician is telling you that you should wear seat belts? Yet, you have a problem with that when it comes to helmets? Do you hear yourself thinking? or do you just blab along? Which are you? for or against safety regs like requiring seat belts and helmets or not requiring either? Would you prefer a law that gives motorists a zero alcohol tolerance so if you blow a .001 you go to jail? But that's where we're heading because we have allowed the government to control us to the point that they tell us to wear a seat belt or not. (I drink very little, maybe a beer or two a year, so I'm not defending the right to drink and drive, in fact I had a close friend die from a drunk driver and I was hurt by one, so I'm really against it but within reason and I think the new .05 law is where is should remain and not needed to go lower).

Actually the word I used that got stared out was not profanity but the mods didn't like it, just think highly mentally backwards and I think you'll get the 5 letter word with an ed at the end that I used.

And fundamentalist religion discussion out of what I said? What planet do you come from? Seriously, how did you come up with that? All I said was either have laws that require helmets much in the same way they have laws requiring seat belts or have none at all for either. Do I have a preference? Sure, I prefer that if I'm an adult I should have the right to choose, I choose as an adult to either buy or not buy alcoholic beverages, to watch or not watch porn, to smoke or not to smoke, to watch tv or not, to buy from China or not, to walk barefoot or not...get the idea? If I chose to drink and drive and hurt or kill someone then I chose to accept the consequences of the full extent of the law, just as I chose not to wear a seat belt and have an accident I chose to accept whatever the consequences of that will be, same with a helmet, why? Because I'm an adult I can make those decisions on my own and know the consequences of those decisions. Thats not libertarian that's just being a free adult, and as a free adult I chose to wear my seatbelt when driving and wear my helmet when riding...and I don't care if you chose not to. What I do care about is someone using a few weak and unsubstantiated claims that something is unsafe or useless when years of substantiated studies from huge number of resources prove otherwise.

350htrr

That about sums it up as to why I'm still here... If someone doesn't want to wear a helmet because they are willing to take the chance, no problem, telling others that it's useless or even more dangerous to wear a helmet than not, is the BS that I find hard to swallow and ignore...

rekmeyata

YUP, me too.