+1 - the stats on this 'helmet' are very impressive and much better than a traditional helmet. You get neck protection, full-face protection, and better impact absorption.

This goes with my own experience and with other riders I've seen fall or spill.

I got got convince of the protection of the helmet when a friend rider got blown by riding behind a jet engine (30 years ago on a military base) that was almost at max power and fell on the side with force and slit across the Tarmac. He was the poster child for wearing helmet while riding. He showed his helmet and how it protected him from sure skull fracture.

Met someone a few years back that had some brain damage from a bike fall. He suffered from occasional headache after that fall. His helmet was intact, except for a few scratches on the back of the helmet

My last and only accident (may God protect me from others), hit by a car on the rear tire at high speed, left me in the air to fall and slide in the pavement. My head never hit the pavement. My lawyer and I couldn't find any marks on the helmet. But the force was big enough to make a hair line fracture on my hip, beside road rash it left me with a headache for a couple of days (probable mild concussion).

Very compelling argument for the airbag! Even if it comes from the makers of it. The number spread is very big not to pay attention!

Nice finding [MENTION=158672]FBinNY[/MENTION]

Except, of course, that part of being safe on a bicycle is not getting hit by a car. Covering my ears would eliminate one of my senses.

The best way to survive a crash is not to get into one in the first place.

Life is inherently dangerous.

How dangerous is bicycle riding? If I thought it was so dangerous that I'd need to wear a motorcycle helmet to feel safe, I'd stop riding.

I hate to say it, but I'm with Grant Petersen on this one. Let it be a personal choice. My choice is to wear one. I choose to purchase the cheapest helmet that fits me comfortably and properly.

Guess which US city the following picture is from:

Surely you realize I was kidding...

Yea, no doubt about it, bottom line is ,any "helmet" is better than no helmet when head does "actually bounces" off the pavement... It's just the way it is... If you don't believe that, bounce your head off the pavement without a helmet and then do that with a helmet, come back and tell us the number in pain difference between the two outcomes from 1 to 10... Some helmets may protect you more than others but the bottom line here, is that wearing any helmet is better than not wearing a helmet when the old head bounces off the pavement... The question of safer riding, paying attention, following the rules of the road, and basically looking out for your safety so your head doesn't bounce off the pavement is an entirely different scenario... As I see it... JMO And yes, that is more important to avoid said head bouncing off pavement, but Shiite happens... So PPE in the end can save your bacon where everything else fails... So, any helmet that you "actually wear" is the best helmet...

The thing I don't like about cheap helmets is the difficulty of adjusting them to get a good fit and they rarely feel comfortable to me. I'm not one to spend a lot of money on anything but it's better to spend $200 on something you'll actually wear than $20 on something that you won't.

I don't remember what I spent on mine but I'm sure it was well under $100. Probably between $50 and $75.

Downhill MTB helmets, preferably one with MIPS. Better "Enduro" helmets are not designed for "if you crash" they're designed for "when you crash". They're starting to design for the small crashes instead of just one big crash like a road helmet.

Kali has a DoT approved (motorcycle) bike helmet which ways 600g and designed for DH biking.

Some argue that helmets, in a some cases, actually cause your head to hit something. Such as the pavement. I mean, wearing a helmet does add anywhere from half an inch to an inch+ of foam to the sides, top, back, and front of your head.

Whether this effect makes a big difference or not, I don't know, but I do find this to at least be a possibility.

I know the other day I was wearing my helmet as I came into the house and managed to hit my helmet (and by extension, my head) with the freezer door as I opened it.

I've never once hit my bare head with the freezer door.

Damn me, hit my head just the other night on the freezer door. Wish I were wearing a helmet!

Postscript: no concussion, only embarassment when my wife and daughters laughed at me.

Unfortunately sarcasm doesn't transmit well over the internet. Check out the emoticons buttons, you might think it's overkill, but...

From text messages, sometimes I think my wife is about to leave me...

I appreciate this helpful tip. Thank you. While we are sharing, I suggest if you comment about a posting you should actually read what was posted... In my original post I did use an emoticon smiley face with its tongue sticking out. Like this:

It's interesting how head shapes are different. I went the other direction. I bought a spendy helmet for around $100. It felt fine when I first put it on but after about 10 minutes of wear it felt like a crown of thorns. Then I stumbled across a $15 Schwinn helmet at K-Mart and I've been wearing it for about seven years. Extremely comfortable. Sometimes I'll even be riding and think, "Whoops! I forgot to put on my helmet this morning!" Then I'll reach up and realize I'm wearing it.

My 12 year old son is now big enough that he's wearing the fancy helmet.

32% of fatalities (and I think less than 1% of critical injuries) are due to head injuries therefore in nearly 70% of fatalities a helmet doesn't even come in to play. Of the 32% many of them were wearing helmets (and over 90% in OZ) and still died of head trauma.

The rate of fatalities due to head trauma is still the same in the U.S., Australia, and Canada with very high helmet use as in The Netherlands with zero helmet use. Helmets don't appear to be doing anything. If helmets were effective then head trauma rates (e.g., head trauma as a percent of all bicycle injuries) should be much lower in countries with high helmet use.

MIPS was designed to overcome a flaw in standard helmets that was causing rotational injuries. EG, in certain crash scenarios, someone wearing a helmet received rotational injuries that they likely would not have if they were not wearing a helmet. These rotational injuries have resulted in death and permanent disability such as paralyzation. In these cases the rider would likely have been better off not wearing a helmet.

Do helmets make people feel more protected than they really are and lead to more dangerous maneuvers? Do they have any negative impact on sensory perception?

To me helmets don't appear to provide much if any positive benefit. And a number of negatives such as making your entire body hotter (and not in a good way), helmet hair, one more item to keep track of and complicate life. I'm not sure they provide anything beyond fashion (for people who think they're fashionable).

All that said, the safest helmet is the one you never need. Ride safely and work with local governments to build safe protected bicycle infrastructure.

It's unfortunate that the CPSC standards were enshrined in law. They pretty much stopped a lot of safety innovation in helmets.

If you believe that the CPSC drop test on top of the helmet from a proscribed height translates into equivalent safety in all such rated helmets, then this is true. A helmet with more coverage of the head will protect from more intrusive injuries from aspects other than a straight down from the top. So it's not true that all CPSC helmets provide identical protection or performance. It is true that they all pass the same test. The question is whether that test is representative of what the helmet is actually called upon to do in real life. I don't think it is. In point of fact, I'd wonder if the test they use bears any real resemblance to even the most common hits that helmets take. Let's just say, I'm not impressed with the CPSC methodology or testing.

This is hopefully the start of some real innovation in helmet design. The "conclusively shown" method generally requires a number of real life statistics to prove their efficacy. I think it's possible to be able to make a studied decision based on engineering and science and have a pretty good idea of increased safety or TBI protection capabilities and increase one's safety. I don't think I need to wait for some number of head injuries to occur (or not occur) before I can make a pretty reasonable decision about better protection.

If, for example, if you look at the mechanism that the MIPS helmets use to deal with oblique hits, I think it's pretty obvious to see that at the worst case, it will do no additional harm. Best case and based on their FEM data, I think it's pretty clear that there is a significant benefit to using a MIPS helmet in the event of a crash involving an oblique hit to the head. What's also interesting is that you can get this technology at a pretty small premium in some helmets out now (Scott, I believe has some very cost effective MIPS helmets).

I don't think there is any question that helmets reduced the number of penetrating injuries to the skull and skull fractures which often have high mortality associated with them. What they have not done is much (at best very little) to reduce the effects of shearing style concussions (e.g. "Shaken Baby Syndrome") style traumatic brain injuries (TBI). These injuries can be and many times are more debilitating than a skull fracture. Now that some manufacturers are venturing past the CPSC requirements, we're hopefully going to see real improvement in this area (finally).

For our family, after some up close and personal experience with severe TBI, we've chosen to go hard into the MIPS style helmets. I've spent a lot of time working through the engineering aspects of this with some of the suppliers and with MIPS in general to gain an understanding of how and why it works. I'm pretty comfortable with the idea that it works well but that even if it turns out it doesn't, it will do no harm. We've replaced our skiing helmets all with MIPS now and will are in the process of converting all our bike helmets over to MIPS this year as we go through the recommended replacement cycle on helmets due to age and usage. I'd hypothesize that we are going to see some good numbers on MIPS equipment as time passes. If we don't - which is the least likely outcome in our view - we'll have invested about two hundred dollars in protection that didn't come to pass (premium for 8 MIPS helmets over regular helmets). That's a pretty good risk proposition in our view.

J.

I keep seeing people touting MIPS.
Yes, it sounds good in theory, but read about how it is actually being implemented: MIPS and Sliding Resistance of Bicycle Helmets

Can you explain the rationale (besides marketing) for the so-called "recommended replacement cycle on helmets due to age and usage"? Is there any existing evidence of degradation in helmet effectiveness (such as it is) due to age or usage without visual indications of degradation?

Actual testing has disproved the myth: Update: Helmets Proven to Perform for Decades

Helmet manufacturers recommend replacement after a time period due to material aging, UV, and experience with their products from field evaluations. Every time your helmet takes a hit - thing like dropping it on a hard surface - you cause compressive damage to the material of the helmet that can cumulatively lessen it's ability to provide protection.

Qualitatively, as a ski patroller, when I look at my helmet after three or so years of use, it's got dings all over it from my handling of it and from getting normal bumps in the head in the course of it's skiing usage. Same goes for my bike helmets. We use them a lot and they are not babied but used in real life. The material in them is designed to crush on impact and it does not spring back, hence the damage is cumulative.

Furthermore, our son had a bad ski crash that resulted in a severe TBI. His helmet was obviously no longer any good based upon the crash that he experienced. However, fairly involved inspection of his helmet revealed no apparent damage other than that caused by first responders (cut chin strap). The only way to tell was to have the helmet examined by the manufactured to make sure that the foam had not been crushed significantly - in other words, the assessment tools and processes are pretty much out of the scope of being done by an end user. There is no way to really tell if your helmet has retained its full protection capability without sending it in the the manufacturer for testing (which they will do). But in the meantime, you have no helmet.

For those reasons, and because the testing is difficult, it's a reasonable thing to replace helmets on a schedule or after they are involved in a crash. In our case, we choose to follow the manufacturer's recommendation because we think it's prudent and because we're seeking the maximum effective protection (why wear one otherwise?). Materials age and we don't necessarily take care of things in an ideal manner. Our helmets are heavily used.

In a crash, there is a non linear response of the brain to injury. As the acceleration and forces on the brain increase, the damage is relatively low as the normal protections of the head mitigate injury. As the accelerations and forces reach the point at which damage starts to accelerate, the damage increases disproportionately to the increase in accelerations. As a result, a little decrease in the accelerations can pay a significant dividend in the reduction of severity of the injury. This suggests that little decreases in the effectiveness of the helmet can be significant.

Then there is the impacts of a TBI - even a mild to moderate one - which can have lasting and permanent impacts on the patient. The cost of the helmet is, by far, the least important piece of that equation. Cognitive issues, motor control, and virtually any operational system of the human body, all can be permanent disabled to a greater or lesser degree. Even a mild impairment is not worth the risk to me/us. The risk/reward equation - after having first hand experience with this - tips heavily for us to agreeing with replacing helmets on a schedule. The probability of a problem is relatively low but the potential for catastrophe is high should the circumstance arise.

This doesn't disprove anything. It simply proves that a collection of helmets of which there is nothing known about their use or maintenance were shown to be able to pass a test that has been increasingly seen to be non representative of actual use in practice.

For example, if I had a bike helmet and I rode my bike once a year and the helmet was then safely stored in a closet the rest of the 5 years minus 5 days it was used, I'm positive it would pass this test. I'm also sure that a huge percentage of the helmets tested were used in a similar manner rather than the level of use by, say, a cycling enthusiast who rides several thousand miles a year like I do. So what does this then mean to someone like me? Little to nothing.

More significantly, they "eliminated any that showed damage." Seriously? Wasn't that part of the point to see how many helmets in use were still effective?
J.

Ah crap, sorry! Sometimes I'm my own worst enemy!

In the helmets that we have, they seem to be very slippery and implemented well. We have all POC (various) for skiing and POC Octals or Scott (can't recall the model) for cycling and recommend them.

J.

I don't want to turn this into a helmet debate but I find this kind of argument deceptive if not outright disingenuous. There are a lot of differences in cycling in the US vs the Netherlands aside from helmet use, infrastructure being one of them as you've pointed out. You can not compare the head trauma rates between the two countries and come up with any meaningful conclusion regarding helmets. There are simply too many other variables.

If you don't want to use a helmet that's fine, but please don't twist facts in order to convince others to do the same. Pushing for better infrastructure is a worthy goal that ultimately will make everybody safer than any helmet would. However, most places in the US are not there yet. Using a helmet is a reasonable choice even if it violates the image of what cycling should look like in some peoples' minds.

According to the CDC, head injuries are involved in about 60% of cycling deaths. And only about 19 percent of adults and 15 percent of children wear helmets all or most of the time. I wouldn't consider that "very high use".

Look, statistics can be argued back and forth. I'm not going to get on somebody's case for deciding not to wear a helmet (unless they're one of my kids), but I do get irked when shaky arguments are used to try and talk people out of using one.

The facility they are riding on is substandard by current Dutch standards and is not unusual in Denmark, Finland, or Sweden. In Denmark however there would be more bikes with front baskets, Finland doesn't use the black/white poles and they are rare in Denmark. About 1 in 50 people in Sweden wear a helmet so you'd likely see a helmet or two in a group this size. My guess is an older facility in Amsterdam or Rotterdam. There are few substandard facilities like this remaining outside of those two cities (and those like this that remain are disappearing quickly).

I agree with everything you wrote except the first sentence. Based on the study, it would seem that material aging and UV probably are not a factor They didn't control for UV exposure, but the large data set would suggest that they would have captured at least some "UV damaged" helmets. Is there any data from manufacturers to support the recommended replacement interval?

I think that helmet manufacturers recommend replacement to sell more helmets, using safety as an issue.

All of this points out that time is not a factor. So why replace a helmet after a certain time period at all?

I think this points out that a good "pre-flight check" should include a helmet inspection, along with air pressure in your tires, brakes working, quick releases secured, etc. I've banged a helmet twice in 40 years of riding. Each time I replaced it.

One thing that isn't mentioned is that the fitting systems seem to degrade over time. I replace my helmets when the nylon webbing starts to get gunky and start to slip, making it more and more difficult to put it on and adjusted correctly. Most thelmets nowadays have a plastic thing in the back of your head. I had one on an older helmet snag and break awhile back. I have two helmets, I rotate them so they dry out. I find that the pads last longer when given a chance to dry, which is part of the fitting system.

Let's say you take a helmet into a shop, like I did a few years ago just to see what they would say. They didn't really inspect it, but they did ask how old it was. They recommended I replace it becuase it was over 5 years old. Why? Manufacturer's recommendation-the same guys that want to sell you a new helmet. And it was the right thing to do at the shop. To say otherwise might lead to a future lawsuit. I wonder if they would have inspected it if I said it was 2 years old. I'll try that experiment some other time.

The differences in infrastructure and overall danger is the reason to use the rate rather than any other number. You are roughly 9 times as likely to be involved in an injury/fatality crash riding a bicycle in the U.S. as in The Netherlands. But the types and percent of injuries are fairly consistent. Regardless of how many total crashes there are you'll have a relatively certain percent of broken collarbones, broken wrists, broken femurs, etc. The larger the sample the more consistent these become country to country. So for every 1,000 crashes you'll have about 70 broken collarbones and this will be consistent in the U.S. and NL and DM and DE and wherever. So while the infrastructure in The Netherlands reduces the total number of severe or fatal crashes it doesn't have much impact on the types of injuries sustained in those crashes.

The same happens with head trauma. For every 1,000 fatalities about 320 will involve TBI or Traumatic Brain Injury. It's actually a bit higher in the U.S., about 36% I believe, but this is not a significant difference. If helmets were effective then the number of TBI's per crash, the rate, would be significantly lower.