OK, you've convinced me. If I wear a helmet I'll die on the bike. Or is that off the bike?

This is actually a serious topic, and one that effects everyone who rides in public. It is likely beyond your comprehension, as you demonstrated, but given that it is germane to the forum charter, perhaps you can ruminate on Twain's advice regarding fools and silence before continuing to waste our time?

So asphalt is significantly softer than rocks now? You never answered that you keep harping on the everything. If that is all you have sure I wrote everything good job on reading comprehension. If you can answer the question at hand now please love to hear your answer otherwise I think I will go take a nap.

I don't need chemicals or drugs that sounds like a you thing that you are trying to put on me because you feel guilty about it. I was making a joke about brakes and lights you took it as something truly serious.

You haven't linked to anything from the NHTSA, if it is so easy to find and that is now what you are using to back up your poor argument you can link to it. I don't need to go looking for it. I am not making the argument that a helmet is unsafe. Nobody is, you are the only one. I always find when people have to say "google it" they have long ago lost. If you have peer reviewed studies to back up that a helmet is unsafe then you would have posted them and promoted them. You wouldn't be just harping on chemicals and plastic as you have done.

You are holding a position that nobody else is holding but you cannot back it up. It is like being the last sniper in the tower with the allies surrounding you and you are shouting "bang" at them and saying "I just shot you with the rifle I have here, you have to lay down and die" and not actually shooting them or even seeming to have said rifle.

You will need to just google it. The data exists but I don't want to provide it you however a Buzzfeed person said that helmets will give you helmet hair and helmet hair is the number one killer.

To those who may not understand this is a joke. I am laughing while writing this and you should to. Have some fun in life.

Sorry, I'm smarter than you and I'm not the one posting unhinged on the internet. The others don't need help from me, they've whacked you down sufficiently. I'm just here for the entertainment.

I've often thought that a professor teaching a course in logical reasoning would do well to assign students the task of reading through this thread. Plenty of failures of logic in various flavors, all invariably expressed with great vehemence.

You said you don't drink coffee. Consider starting, or trying something to assist with your reading comprehension skills, which are grade-school level. The point is that the perceived danger of cycling is what stops many from riding.

You obviously didn't read it, nor were you familiar with the source. Again, the point is that the perceived danger of cycling is what stops many from riding. Try to keep up.

You are confusing yourself. You questioned why helmets still exist, if they do not keep people safe. I explained that many products which do not keep people safe remain on sale. Now you are claiming that "science and knowledge has moved on" -- which means you are now agreeing with me, and realize that the outdated belief in bicycle helmet efficiency should have disappeared by now, and so it's legitimate to wonder why they are even still available to purchase. Are you now agreeing with me or have you simply been trolling this entire time?


Wow, you are a lot less intelligent than I thought.

As a matter of fact, bicycle helmet testing standards are a huge part of the problem. But you didn't know that either, because you are basically a troll, and completely without knowledge on the topic at-hand.

https://www.bicycling.com/news/a2193...elmet-ratings/
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...-flaws-n886691
https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlton...h=1e2ab851cbd4
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/2211...accounts-head/
https://www.evo.com/guides/virginia-tech-helmet-ratings

And the market is full of untested helmets, as well.

https://www.consumerreports.org/bike...ely-available/

Have you ever even read one single article on the topic of bicycle helmets? It is difficult for me to imagine how clueless you are on this topic, while still seemingly being interested in it.

Be careful what you wish for. I can go on illustrating your incompetence on this topic for literally days, and you might wind up permanently scarred like shelbyfv.

Newsflash, you are on the internet too, and your alleged smarts were unable to comprehend a thread which is relatively simple so far. It doesn't even appear that you understand the meaning of the word "fact", in fact, which is rather embarrassing for you.

When did that happen, exactly? I'm still waiting for the first person to even attempt to explain why bicycle helmets exhibit the precise statistical signature of a placebo.

Did you want to give that a try smarty, or do you plan to stick with wasting everyone's time on nonsense?

Wow, you are really not smart.

That was your statement. I was forced to educate you by listing many of the items "out there" which are not harder than your head.

Ah, the infamous "I got caught making a completely stupid remark, so I will pretend it was a joke" defense. That's novel.

I will make you a deal -- if I do your homework for you, and prove this, will you be an honest person -- for the first time -- and admit that you are wrong?

This is getting absurd. I’m out!

It's a fact that people can go off a bike and be hurt w/o being dead. Obvious to most if not to you.

Absurd can be fun! Come back tomorrow after 5 o'clock somewhere.

Ah yes personal attacks the last bastion of the person who has nothing left. Coffee and reading comprehension are your arguments against helmets now? Please do your homework. It isn't mine, I am not trying to prove to anyone that helmets are unsafe in fact nobody in this conversation is trying to prove helmets are unsafe but you, you are it the only one clinging to that notion.

So we should be unsafe because of this "perceived danger"? Sounds like a good solid argument. Let's actually be unsafe to prove that their is a "perceived danger". I know you think not wearing a helmet is some how magically going change people's perception but sadly that is not the case. If we work on changing people's driving habits and try and prevent distracted driving and driving while intoxicated that will help but not wearing helmets is just your own personal vanity. Don't want to get that dreaded "helmet hair" I read that article and again not once was mentioned helmets beyond helmet hair and the first part of it alluded to Buzzfeed. You can say the source is the best but when it has to go to Buzzfeed for data that is NOT a peer reviewed study.

No I am not agreeing with you I am saying science and medicine have moved on from believing tobacco is good for you not that they are saying helmets are unsafe. Again nobody aside from you here is saying helmets are unsafe and the few internet crackpots trying to claim they are unsafe really don't have much.

I am still awaiting those peer reviewed studies? Right now you have helmets are being tested articles or the testing needs to improve but that is not really a great treatise against helmets. It is saying that things need to be updated testing wise and that VA Tech is doing some better testing and many manufacturers do their own separate testing so they can exceed CSPC. Also saying because someone is wearing a helmet and potentially getting passed at a closer distance in a car is not a reason to not wear helmets that is beyond stupid victim blaming. It is the same thing as if she didn't want to get violated she shouldn't have worn that dress...It is poor logic and doesn't make anyone safer.

in terms of online giants known for selling fakes and knockoffs and cheap products selling un-rated helmets, again not a treatise against helmets but a we should go after these mega corporations for selling unsafe products especially without any warning. We should stop wearing helmets because some billionaires sell bad ones? That sounds rather silly and could be applied in a lot of situations that would sound equally silly. We should stop posting in online forums because some of them are terrible. We should stop looking at email because some of it is spam. We should stop breathing air because some of it is polluted. We should stop drinking water because sometimes it can drown you. I can go on and be more silly but I think the point is made.

You have no real good data none of your articles really say don't wear a helmet and you have yet to show any of these peer reviewed studies you claim exist in droves. I would think in the many posts you have made talking about them you would have found them by now they are super easy to find you said but you can't even find them! Heck you couldn't even use the better article on Bicycling for your point against helmets, it was a link at the bottom of the article you posted. It's OK though you still have loads of personal attacks, you can use those and continue to circle drain for a little while longer.

With one more faulty leap of logic or fabricated datum, this thread can attain full absurdity !!!

It wasn't my foresight and intelligence. I bought that early Bell simply because I'd ridden a first season of club racing wearing the required leather hairnet. (Peloton joke i heard many times - we wore those so we could have open casket funerals.) Vowed to myself if I raced another season, I'd by that goofy Bell. Next March, I decided to race and bought it, wearing always so I'd be totally used to it come July and the high 90sF. That November I was wearing it simply because it was like putting on my shorts.

That crash was from my fork breaking at the crown, no warning at close to 30 mph coming off a routine bunny hop. I never got my hands off the bars. I'm no gymnast. It was a head hit, then shoulder.

"In your case, in all likelihood, your helmet made no difference whatsoever and you would have been injured with or without it." Umm, yes. Injured to the life of a vegetable or dead without it. Unless you are much smarter than the best at Massachusetts General Hospital's ICU where they had one of the early CAT scanners. The hit was a couple of inches above the corner of my eye. Broken skull there just might be traumatic, maybe? True, I probably don't have the thick skull you do.

Edit: The CAT scan showed just a small blood clot on my hypothalamus and a bruise on the base of my motor nerves. 5 days later, next scan showed those healing well. The consequences to me were the big deceleration my brain took (and rebound as that was the early firm polystyrene(?) foam). Skull was fully intact. That hit was exactly what those helmets were designed to deal with. I lived and I'm here. I would challenge you to do the same crash without helmet and report back but my faith won't allow me.

From the Forbes article...“The materials that are used in most of today’s helmets are engineered to absorb the high impact energies that can produce skull fractures and severe brain injuries”.

Impact energy absorption is what I've been talking about, and the fact that it's happening is evidenced by the resulting crushed EPS foam. That means 100% of the impact energy was not transmitted directly to my/your head. That's a good thing. This is simple stuff.

If someone is going to hit you on the head with a 2x4, and you have a choice between wearing a bicycle helmet or nothing, which do you choose?

It truly baffles me that someone can talk themselves into the conclusion that bike helmets are useless...harmful, even.

Yep that's why the thread is hidden away in A&S. Not really a lot to say unless some troll wants to stir stuff up. Now where is the flat earth sticky...?

It is crazy and they couldn't really back up their opinion either. It is one thing to hold an opinion and back it up but to hold an opinion so strongly and claim the evidence exists and then not provide any of it Is ridiculous. I mean to post an article in the helmet thread trying to say helmets are bad where the only mention of helmets at all was "helmet hair" and that is the strong argument against helmets just really iced that already glazed cake.

Heck I understand not wanting to wear a helmet they can be big and bulky and aren't really a sexy look and could certainly be hotter in the summer and all of that sort of stuff but to say it is unsafe and harmful just blows the mind completely.

Well I mean everyone knows the earth is flat that is a universal truth that everyone holds. What next are they going to say that JFK wasn't shot by Elvis using a secret laser ray developed by Bob Hope and Lena Horne? What crazy times we live in,,,LOL

Among the people/groups I tend to ride with, not wearing a helmet would look more odd than wearing one, but those folks all tend to be experienced and skilled riders who understand the simple factors of why wearing a helmet is a good choice.

Our new shop will have a policy of wearing helmets at all events we are a part of. There is no ifs ands or buts in this situation. There is just no point to not wear one unless you are riding on soft fluffy clouds in dreamland and your bike is made of air (but plenty stiff). I have a brain and it ain't perfect but unfortunately I won't be able to get another one and really don't want to have to do that ever. It would be miserable to have any brain damage especially as a result of cycling. I love eating vegetables but I don't want to become one unless it were a cartoonish version and I was a crime fighting habanero pepper with garlic bulbs for fists...HAHAHA

All of our local club and shop rides require helmets. Might be an insurance thing. I rarely see an adult w/o a helmet other than DUI types riding Salmon against traffic or on the sidewalk.

As I already explained at least once, very few -- potentially no -- studies have been able to accurately study cycling injury rates, for very well-known ethical reasons.

Even countries that take their cycling very seriously struggle massively to accurately count cycling injuries. So attempting to analyze cycling safety using such numbers, that necessarily have huge error bars, is essentially pointless. This is why, for example, the previously-referenced studies estimate large improvements in cyclist fatality rates could be caused by helmet usage, while our actual real-world statistics have never shown even the slightest such improvement. When you attempt to study a problem using junk data -- which virtually all cycling injury data is, unfortunately -- your results are going to be garbage, due to GIGO.

While not ideal, that means that any accurate safety analysis must be done using fatality statistics -- which are vastly easier to compile accurately.

Well, you've demonstrated a critical need for improved reading comprehension about a dozen times now -- I was being charitable and hoping your problem was a lack of coffee. Turns out, it may be a lack of ability to understand, which you continually demonstrate as well.

68% of American cyclists do not wear helmets. I am far from the only person who is aware that they do not work -- I'm just one of extremely few willing to attempt to educate persons like yourself.

Again with the lack of comprehension. You are no less safe with the wind in your hair versus wearing a bicycle helmet.

It is amusing that you are so completely uninformed that you think peer review has value.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...l-hoax/572212/
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/...s-and-scholars
https://www.forbes.com/sites/geoffre...h=450ccbd5463e
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2...iew-statistics
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8877864/

68% of American cyclists do not wear helmets. You hold the minority opinion.

It is a great argument to illustrate that you are completely clueless on this topic -- since you were just preaching about manufacturers rigorously testing their helmets. That is precisely not the case, which is why Virginia Tech University has had to step into the breach and develop a test program.

And you had absolutely zero clue about that, until I educated you. As with the remainder of this entire topic.

So are you willing to accept my challenge, or not? If I provide the statistics that I previously referenced, will you be an honest person and admit that you have been wrong?

So is it your contention that no one has ever survived an OTB at 30 mph sans helmet, without at least vegetization? That's the necessary conclusion from your claim, and it is incorrect. Unhelmeted motorcycle riders survive crashes like that frequently, as have bicycle riders.

Doctors at Mass General, and everywhere else, are not trained in accident reconstruction, and even if they had been, they likely would not have had the necessary evidence to make that judgement. Among other things, they would need to know the angle and speed at which your head contacted whatever it hit -- because as previously-explained, the increased effective size of your helmeted head changes the impact situation substantially.

Did anyone get your crash on video?

All that said, I worked with some of the finest physicians in their fields at the University of Chicago, and while they are very good at their specialty, they were almost universally useless at anything else. One industry-wide example of this is the persistence of hand-written medical charts -- which cost many lives unnecessarily.

Why did professional cycle racing see an increase in fatalities when helmets became mandatory?

And, more to this specific point, why can no statistical evidence to support your claim be found? Why do helmeted cyclists still die at precisely the same rate which bare-headed ones do?

This really doesn’t help your case. VT’s testing finds that some helmets offer BETTER PROTECTION than others.

As are the materials used in proper helmets that exhibit an improvement in wearer protection. Why don't you wear one of those helmets, instead of a bicycle helmet that exhibits no benefit?



It is nowhere near as simple as you seem to think, as evidenced by the fact that you got your calculation wrong -- it's not 100%. Hint: Consider what happens when the foam is fully compressed.

And again, you are missing half of the equation. The increased size of your effective "head" necessarily results in more and more-severe impacts. So the question is not "Does foam absorb some energy?" It is "Does foam absorb sufficient energy to offset the increase caused by the effective head-size increase?"

That question is anything but simple to answer -- and statistics indicate that the answer is most-likely "No".



Depends on how good their aim is. I'd rather they just barely miss my head than solidly contact my helmet, and so would you.

If bicycle helmets save lives, why then are they unable to leave any trace whatsoever of their effect in the United States fatality statistics? This is the crux of the problem with your claim. You believe that helmets work. If they do, evidence should exist. It does not. In fact, evidence that they do not work exists, and could scarcely be more clear.

Again, helmet usage in the United States precisely matches the percentage of cyclist fatalities who were helmeted when they crashed -- currently both numbers are 32%. That is the precise signature of a placebo. This has been the case for many years.

Given that situation, there are only three potential high-level explanations:

Answer 1: Bicycle helmets are placebos.
Answer 2: Bicycle helmets save riders' lives, but some unknown force prevents this effect from appearing statistically.
Answer 3: Bicycle helmets cost riders' lives, but some unknown force prevents this effect from appearing statistically.

For the moment, let's ignore the third option, since it really doesn't matter because any unknown force that could satisfy A2 could apply to A3 as well, with the opposite sign.

So I will offer the helmetista crew here an olive branch, and I won't even ask for proof that A2 is the case, I will just ask for a hypothesis that could explain how A2 could be the case. Offer a plausible explanation, and maybe we can investigate it together, and determine its veracity. To date, no one has even been able to offer such a hypothesis, despite repeated requests. What could be this unknown force that prevents helmet effectiveness from leaving a statistical signature?