closetbiker

I'm glad you feel you need a rest. It might be good for you.

I don't think I misrepresented you (and after all, the entire quote is close by), just quoting the points you made to address (does one need to quote an entire study, if the bottom line is all that's needed?).

It's good that you've given the issue thought, but so have others, and I have simply come to different conclusions than you. One of the things that prompted such thoughts are the real life examples here in BC that went from about a 20% wearing rate to about a 65% rate in a few short years, yet the only difference in death and injury rates have been that, the victims of death and injury are now wearing helmets.

The good news is that, despite these few, unfortunate incicdents, cycling is a relatively safe activity. Those same angles that reduce impact to helmets, also reduce impact to cyclists and the bottom line is, extremley few cyclists are seriously hurt compared to other people doing other things. Seniors have a much larger slice of the head injury pie.

The rates of head injury to cyclists are as over-hyped as the effectiveness of helmets to prevent them.

Enjoy your break John. I know I will.

jwc

It amazes me that no matter how many times I repeat the story of my brain injury and how it occurred, everyone just ignores it. I guess John does need a break.

Just to reply to his comment a page back to my post. His reply concerned the dampening affect of the fluid surrounding the brain and how a helmet reduces the helps dampen impact that causes the brain to contact the inside of the skull.

Again, my injury occurred without ANY impact at all. Just a sudden jolt. Sorta like a really hard fall. My accident involved being broadside by another car going about 20 miles per hour. I had a whole car absorbing the direct impact, but it couldn't protect my brain from the sudden change in direction.

John C. Ratliff

iwc,

I'm in a training session, between sessions. I apologize for ignoring you, but this has been a fairly intense discussion on a specific topic with Closetbiker. It has long been recognized that acceleration and deceleration can indeed influence and injure the brain. There is a site on these kinds of injuries happening to bungy jumpers, for instance:

https://www.medstudents.com.br/sport/sport7.htm

They quote studies stating that these forces in excess of 3 G's can cause this injury. These initial studies come from studies of flight and what astronauts can handle that started in the 1950s with NASA.

Well, I need to sign off now. But my not addressing your situation doesn't mean it was not interesting; I have a very limited time to work on these things, and Closetbiker kinda took what I could give.

Helmets do protect within their limits from these kinds of injuries (as shown above), by slowing the deceleration forces.

John

closetbiker

Geez John, that wasn't much of a break. I hardly had a chance to enjoy it.

I find it funny that you can state what you just did when I've recently posted a quote from the cheif pathologist of Perth in court testifying quite the opposite. Maybe you can discuss the matter with him and get that point sorted out.

You might also interested to know that last night, after Think First (a lobby group) failed to have a provincial mandatory helmet law passed, and they then focused instead on municipalities to pass helmet by-laws, their first attempt in Saskatoon failed.

City council reviewed all the information submitted and concluded, wearing helmets do not reduce head injuries and rejected the proposal.

Doug5150

I used to wear a helmet always, I don't much anymore.
I don't need a helmet as much as most riders do, because I only ride recumbent bicycles. The bikes I own have a rearward weight bias, and will not flip me over the handlebars if I hit something, or if I apply the front brake as hard as possible.
You wanna lecture me about preventing head injuries?
Let's start with a type of bicycle that makes head injuries a lot less likely in the first place....

Also, I generally ride mostly on rural roads, well way from motor vehicle traffic and pedestrians. Guess what most adult bicycle injuries involve?
.....
When riding in city traffic, I tend to think that having a good head-mounted rear-view mirror (and using it!) is more important than having a helmet--and most people I see don't have that (even ones that have helmets). The rear-view mirror helps you avoid crash situations, where the helmet only helps you after you've gotten into a crash situation.....
~

John C. Ratliff

Dough5150,

I pretty much agree with your assessment. I switched to a recumbant about 5 years ago, and feel as you do that it is a much safer design. Leading with your feet makes a lot more sense. I still wear a helmet, but it is more for visibility (it's yellow, with a blinking red light on the back) than protection. My experience is that a recumbant bicycle will set you down in a crash on your hip, and not flip your head into jeopardy. It's like sliding into second base in baseball, with about the same impact (albeit onto asphalt rather than dirt). This kind of engineering control could help reduce the head injury situation for bicyclists of they would only switch the type of bicycle that they ride from upright to recumbant.

John

John C. Ratliff

Dough5150,

You may want to reconsider about the helmet and recumbants. Read on:

https://www.bikeforums.net/recumbent/282951-bike-accident-resulting-911-a.html

John

John Wilke

What if you get run over from behind (like I did)?



jw

Doug5150

Well yea, what if a meteorite falls on you?
---------
The whole point of advocating that people wear helmets is closely interlinked with the problem that upright bicycles have--in that in an emergency braking or collision situation, they tend to drop the rider on his head. If you read accident reports, there's a common pattern of head trauma and broken clavicles that is testament to this.

The critical part to keep in mind here is that wearing a helmet doesn't lessen the liklihood that an upright bicycle will dump you on your head: the cause of bicycling head injuries is not "lack of helmets", the actual cause is the poor design of upright bicycles.

The question here is only if it's better to prepare for a head injury you expect to suffer, or to use a different bicycle type that is drastically less likely to result in head injuries at all. I'll take my chances with the second way.
~

I-Like-To-Bike

Safety lectures from glassy-eyed bentster converts are as obnoxious as those from the helmet nannies. Tell it to the moonies!

closetbiker

I'd have to dispute this point.

I believe it's a fallacy that in collisions riders fall on their heads any more than just about anyone who has any fall.

charles vail

Recumbent crashes usually result in a feet first skid out, where as, upright crashes usually result in a over the handlebars and onto your hands, shoulder and sometimes your head. The point the poster is making is that, its a head first rather than a feet first, body position most of the time.

Shoulder and collar bone injuries are common in upright bicycle accidents but any time an auto impacts with you, you have more serious problems to be concerned with.

Finally, many recumbent riders are far from "glassy eyed moonies"! While some are new to cycling in general, quite a few have ridden more miles than I care to on upright design bicycles and are riding recumbents because they are more comfortable, faster on most courses (except steep hill climbing) allow a heads up neutral position while retaining aerodynamic superiority 100% of the time and they are just plain fun to ride. For the skeptics, you might try actually riding a performance based recumbent for a while and see why many are switching.

There is also the fact that recumbent design bicycles hold all the speed records but......they have been banned from the UCI because of the unfair advantage they pose. When I am talking recumbents, I am referring to, two wheeled, laid back, performance machines and not heavy recreational designs or trikes, although some trikes are quite speedy.

Don't let my comments get you all bent out of shape either!

My bikes: https://www.myspace.com/eccentriccyclistcharlie

Doug5150

Some dumb little website named helmets.org would probably dispute that.

Aside from that, there is the ever-popular Google test:
Google search results {bicycle "head injuries" -recumbent} = 198,000 results
Google search results {"recumbent bicycle" "head injuries"} = 494 results

Shocking, no?
------
I'd love to be able to find info on recumbent-bicycle related crash injuries, but I don't think anyone is recording and sorting it separate from conventional bicycles.
~

closetbiker

I'm not talking about the difference between recumbents and diamond frames, I'm talking about all people on bicycles having their heads injured in falls (over other parts of the body injured - shoulder to hand and hip to foot injuries lead the pack) or, more than other people involved in falls injuring their heads.

MichaelS

Interesting thread. All I know is that wearing a helmet saved my life (or potentially worse than dying in an accident, saved me from becoming an eggplant or other veggie). A head hitting pavement at 35 mph is a pretty significant impact. While our skull is pretty tough and does good job of protecting our brain, it evolved to (or was designed to according to your beliefs) protect us from much slower and softer impacts.

Everyone can do what they want but I firmly believe it’s foolish to ride without one. (Maybe I feel this way because now that I have reached 50, I no longer have that wonderful feeling of immortality I had when still a youth).

Michael

Doug5150

Well the practical problem here is that the injury that is most-often recommended for hospital treatment is a head injury, and there's not very many good methods to track injuries that don't result in hospitalization, because it's only people that receive hospitalization that ever get a full diagnosis.

A helmet doesn't claim to offer protection for anything but your head, and the reason we're fixating on head injuries is because most of bicycling fatalities involve a head injury ("two thirds" of all bicycling fatalites, from helmets.org's collected stats).
~

I-Like-To-Bike

I'm sure you are right, just like there are some cyclists who choose to ride other kinds of bikes and do so without singing to the world a joyful song about their cycling epiphany. But then again, there are the others...

charles vail

Singing the praises of recumbents is a natural thing for some, especially for those that can now ride in comfort where they couldn't before. The darn things are really fun to ride but I also ride uprights and am building a fenderless single speed out of my junk parts for ease of transport ( poor mans folder) in my car and for general hacking around. While I enjoy riding my various classic lugged steel bikes, I truly enjoy the speed potential of my recumbent especially since I am no longer young,slim or speedy as I once was. To me the recumbent is a great equalizer and a really fit rider can ride a full 5 mph faster than a upright.

charles vail

Singing the praises of recumbents is a natural thing for some, especially for those that can now ride in comfort where they couldn't before. The darn things are really fun to ride but I also ride uprights and am building a fenderless single speed out of my junk parts for ease of transport ( poor mans folder) in my car and for general hacking around. While I enjoy riding my various classic lugged steel bikes, I truly enjoy the speed potential of my recumbent especially since I am no longer young,slim or speedy as I once was. To me the recumbent is a great equalizer and a really fit rider can ride a full 5 mph faster than when on a upright.

It sounds like you have had someone annoyingly trying to convince you to ride a bent and it just nags you that they are so happy about their bike choice. Different strokes for different folks.......I like all kinds of bicycles and want a folder in a bad way but am saving up for a Bike Friday or a steel Swift.

My various kinds of bikes: https://www.myspace.com/eccentriccyclistcharlie

I-Like-To-Bike

No more than the happy moonies that used to be found at airport with a need to tell the world about their newly discovered special happiness.

closetbiker

...and wouldn't it be nice if a helmet could prevent fatalities from head injuries? Too bad they was never made to do that and there has never been any evidence that wearing helmets have been shown to reduce fatalities.

BikeZen.org

I've crashed on a motorcycle. And I've crashed hard on a bike. I always wear a helmet. One reason: it's designed mainly to protect you from the distance you fall from your perch to the ground. This distance is roughly the same whether you ride a motorcycle or a bicycle. Anyone who rides a motorcycle with a helmet shouldn't think twice about doing the same on a bicycle. To do otherwise is to become an candidate for a Darwin award.

There's many ways to die on a two-wheel vehicle. The most common is striking an object (such as a utility pole or a car). And no, I don't meant the ground. Bicycle helmets will help protect your noggin from striking the ground too hard, but won't help a lot if you kiss a car. The main advantage is the perch protection.

(Tangent note: another strong reason for using (full-face) helmets with motorcycles is hearing: it saves yours (from wind noise) and it helps you hear traffic better (due to reduced wind noise). Not so with bicycle helmets. But my helmets have saved me. They might save you, too.)

lincolns2

I had one of those bald spots from a concussion-related accident when I was very young. Unfortunately it took several more hard blows to the head, but I've finally had the sense beaten into me. Helmets are religion. Followed closely by hydration - in my book, anyway.

Doug5150

Yea, but not hitting your head in the first place probably would reduce fatalities.
Certain types of recumbent bicycles make this much less likely than typical upright bikes do.
How many people a year die from broken ankles?
~

I-Like-To-Bike

Oh, The Humanity! Mandatory Recumbent Laws! Now!! Yeah, that's the ticket.