I've been reading mcon's stuff for quite some time now and am still not quite sure what he's trying to say. And that's not meant as a slam - even after reading dozens of his posts, I really don't know his position is on helmets.

Ok, interesting. Thank you.

I exchanged emails with the Snell Foundation to ask them why, as an independent testing agency, they provided funding for the TRT study (conducted in '87 after establishing their standard) and they replied that since their standard was the de facto standard for industry they wanted to show that the standard was effective. Not to see if it was, they wanted a study to show that it was.

They hired a doctor who had already been promoting helmets to design and conduct the study and they got what they paid for. Favorable results that has been used time and again to sell the public on the idea that wearing a helmet is the most important priority in cycling safety.

Snell was paid a fee per helmet sold, and of course Bell started to rake in the cash and bicycle helmets quickly took over as their main source of income.

Of course. But helmets do have verifiable benefits--some of which have to do with actual intended use within design parameters, some of which have nothing to do with safety.

closet

And you think all the anti helmet "studies" are pure as the driven snow----right??

Now about that ocean front property in Nebr, feel free to contact me any time.

Many do. Understandable.

I'm just tossing out the usual bare-head arguments in condensed fashion. I'm not sure I agree with them, either, but willing to give the benefit of the doubt until further studies show otherwise. Still stand by my takeaway from Dr. Walker's research: maximum safety includes use of a wig if you're bald or short-haired.

Hey, no problem. :thumb: I simplified them because the arguments behind them are available elsewhere.

Amen, brother.

I wear a helmet, I don't care if you wear one or not. Studies seem to indicate that in certain accidents, helmets will be of no use; in some situations, they may even exacerbate injury. MHLs are bad, m'kay? I work in a bike shop and 1.5% of my income comes from sales the store makes on all bike helmets. I trust that a helmet may save me from or mitigate some specific non-serious head injuries, and that a helmet mounted light and reflective tape will probably provide even more protection through prophylactic safety than the helmet might provide in a crash.

I'm passionately agnostic about the issue. Shrill, screeching hyperbole has little place in critical discourse, and it comes from both sides. I also see weak, tenuous arguments presented as fact on both sides--the bare-head crowd take care of the pro-helmet yahoos, but there are precious few jabbing at tenuous arguments put forward by the bare-head crowd.

Keep it sharp, people.

This is probably the understatement of the year, but I have to say that what I'm getting from this discussion, as a newcomer to the controversy, is just a lot more confusion. I mostly ride locally, a fairly high-traffic older suburban town, totaling maybe 25 - 35 miles per week of city/town riding right now, with trips taking me into inner-city conditions maybe once or twice a week.

If anyone is familiar with the area, it's urban Essex County, NJ, in the area between Newark and Paterson. I mostly ride to do errands, within a 5 mile radius, and most of the time I'm going pretty slowly. One regular trip gets me up to about 22-23 mph on a downhill if the wind is in my favor; mostly I'm going 12-14 mph on the flats, and maybe 7-9 mph on the uphills.

Yesterday I decided to try to ride without my helmet for the first time in many years, on a 10 mile ride to a bakery in Newark's North Ward. I couldn't bring myself to do it. It felt like going out without pants on or something, and finally I said, oh what the hell - it takes half a second to click it on my head, and I've worn it for every ride for the last 20 years or so... so I put it on. Traffic was brutal - people zipping around me with inches to spare, even when I decisively took the lane, honking and cursing, and then buzzing past me to teach me a lesson for being in their way...

I've been trying to tease out whether helmet wearing is a good idea for this type of riding (and my more relaxed smaller town riding) from reading this thread, or if it's a waste of time, or even if it makes me less safe from injury. In just the last few days of posts, I've seen completely conflicting views posted about this, seeming to come from anti-helmet posters. (Most people seem to agree that there are a set of circumstances in which helmet use is a good idea, but not on what those circumstances are.)

I'd love to hear some opinions backed up by data regarding whether helmets are a net plus, neutral, or a net minus for this type of urban/dense suburban riding. I pretty much get it that, on a 50 mph downhill, if I crash, I'm toast, and helmet/shmelmet, I'm going to die. But what about for this low speed stuff in lots of traffic with chronically pissed off drivers who think you don't belong on the road, and are willing to help you not be there - permanently?

If your prime worry is being hit by a car (even if it is just a glancing blow/brush), a helmet won't help.

Helmets are made for simple falls at low speed, the type of falls that could result in minor injuries and rarely result in serious injury. A lot of people wear helmets to prevent serious injury but the record of helmets doing that have yet to be seen.

One reason I wear a helmet is: didn't wear a helmet for a long time. One day, decided to wear one. That day, front wheel went into an un-noticed pothole and I launched over the bars, helmet was wrecked, I completed my ride to work. Spooky.

I don't recall taking any more risk because I thought I was safer, wearing a helmet. Just riding like I usually would, except I was wearing a helmet. And encountered a typical Boston hazard while jamming up a hill. Foam deformed, helmet cracked. Wore a helmet ever since...

Not saying it helped, but it certainly didn't hurt more to be wearing a helmet. <--might be an outlier minority situation/only a personal anecdote.

Have not been in a situation where I was wearing a helmet and glad I was, since. Aside from a couple branches offroad.

Slave to fashion, though, I get a new helmet about every other year. And now have reflective tape on it; newly converted adherent to helmet mounted light being one of the best safety related things I can do for a night commute.

So yeah, I'd wear a helmet in an urban situation, others wouldn't...

If I get hit/brushed by a car at relatively low speed, and fall, isn't that a fall at low speed - the kind of fall helmets are made for? I know the helmet won't protect the other parts of my body, but wearing one sounds like it might help in situations that I'm likely to get into.

To be fair, I've had only one fall that resulted in major road-rash, and another one that resulted in hospitalization and months of physical therapy. In neither instance was my helmet scratched, so I can't say it did anything at all. But, for the record, while I really hate major injuries, I'm not really much of a fan of minor injuries either -- especially when they're mine! :D Even if it only prevents minor injuries, and only under certain circumstances, it's really not that much of a hassle to put the damn thing on.

Not unexpectedly, personal anecdotes rarely line up with hard data.

A lot of people have said to me about how beneficial helmets were for them, but before helmets were worn I hardly ever heard of the types of injuries that are now claimed to have been prevented. When I look at records for both eras, I see there's not a lot of difference.

I guess when someone is looking for validation in something they believe, they'll find it.

While a helmet can mitigate a minor injury, in circumstances that are beyond it's designed, built, and tested standards, saying it can do the same thing is suspect at best.

Even a brush by a motor vehicle introduces forces to a fall that a helmet isn't made for and no manufacturer or tester will say they can help with

fify

Unless you're claiming that in every single case, in every possible situation in a car/bike accident, a helmet wouldn't help in the least?

A brush with a motor vehicle does introduce forces it was not designed to mitigate (not to mention the additional force of movement in hitting the ground)

Remember, a helmet is tested by a simple fall on it's crown, to a stationary base. Nothing more, nothing less. Introducing more elements results in unknown results. Who knows what happens then? What we do know are the results from known circumstances.

Fixed again. Based on what you say in your second sentence...

No fix. You can't say the brush has no effect

And you can't say that in every single brush resulting in helmet hitting the ground, forces will exceed those helmet was designed for.

Fix stands.

Did I say that? I don't think I did. Go back and read what I said

To you.

Sure you did:

But also:

So you insist that interactions with a motor vehicle will impart forces that a helmet will be unable to contend with, beyond design parameters, but also that you don't know what happens in such an interaction because such results are unknown.

Which is it? Can't have it both ways.

what I said was:

you have your own take on what I said (which is not what I said:

What I said was subjecting a helmet to forces that are not the same that it is designed, made, and tested to uphold is suspect at best.

That's not the same as as saying those forces will exceed those the helmet was designed for, but it is saying that when additional forces are introduced, to say the helmet will perform the same as the tests for which it is made and tested for is suspect.

You see, this is where problems start; when people start thinking things will do what they haven't been made to do, and have not been shown to do.

Suddenly, helmets are helpful in collisions with motor vehicles, even if they haven't been made for that and there is no evidence they ever have (except in the minds of those who want to believe they do)

I've already put out a number of sources that explain that cycle helmets do not help in collisions with motor vehicles. All I'm seeing here is some speculation that maybe, they possibly could help in the right circumstances, no matter how unfounded or unlikely that may be.

for the record, a source that shows after my province mandated helmet use that virtually doubled helmet use overnight, head injuries to cyclists remained constant.

(it also showed collisions between cyclists and motorists dropped 35%, so unless helmets really do prevent collisions, cycling dropped 35%)

http://cyclehelmets.org/1103.html

Wouldn't you think if helmet did provide protection in collisions with motor vehicles that there would be a drop in head injuries if helmet use doubled overnight?

No, you clearly stated, as I quoted, that:

"...a brush by a motor vehicle introduces forces..."

and

"A brush with a motor vehicle does introduce forces..."

which are declarative statements then contradicted in one of the same posts when you qualify:

So when I inject a simple "may" into your statements, they become more truthful, less hyperbolic. And you have an issue with that?

Not at all. Your initial unqualified statements do not at all match up with this further qualification. You make unequivocal statements and then try to qualify them. No fair.

Which I've cited, and which specifically state "...at GP racing forces..." or those where the speed differential make for a "no duh" situation, but which make no mention of more likely low speed interactions.

...which has absolutely no bearing on what we're talking about. And is typical disingenuous argument of the bare-head contingent, which they are very quick to jump on pro-helmet advocates for, but which they are loathe to admit they indulge in themselves.

Just like you have issues with people that say "helmet saved my life," I got issues with your unqualified blanket statements, like "helmets will not help in any situation involving an accident with a motor vehicle." which break down when subject to fine examination.

If I made such a blanket statement I could see a problem, but as can be plainly read, I was specific to the point.

Early this afternoon I rode to the store to do the semiweekly food shopping. I was in the lane for going straight and making a right turn, and there was a long line of cars. As I usually do, I took the center of that lane, and waited in line for the light to change. This light is green for about a minute for traffic going straight, then red for almost five minutes for the cross-street.

A woman didn't like the length of the line, so she rode up in the left-turn lane, and when we started to move, tried to cut me off. (The classic right hook). I was going less than 5 mph, she was maybe doing 10, and if I had hit her, I would have been knocked off balance, but the effect would have been the same as just losing my balance at 5 mph (maybe with a small contribution from brushing her - my total speed would have still been less than if I had been going along at 10 mph.)

Again, I'm asking from the point of view of an urban cyclist. Does it make sense for an urban cyclist to wear a helmet to prevent or mitigate injury? Even minor injury? Not should it be mandatory, not does it send a message that cycling is dangerous (which, BTW, around here ... it is!), not does it make you feel safer and ride more stupidly (that's really up to the individual, and is completely under his control), not does it make motorists think you're invulnerable and drive less courteously (that's a laugh around here - they couldn't care less), not does it help in a high speed crash. For just tooling around city or almost city streets, is wearing a helmet better than not wearing it?

That's a decision each individual should make for themselves.

Most cyclists (even those without helmets) survive such collisions, often with little to no injury. Conversely, although it's rare, some cyclists (even while wearing helmets) have died in the same situation.

I'm sure you wouldn't want to be told what to do. I know I wouldn't.