Often poorly acquired meaningless statistics, are the refuge of those seeking to make sense of this hugely chaotic universe with relatively very limited human intellectual capacity, when it is simply not possible, and demonstrate some sort of control over the unknown.

Sometimes we just don't know, so luckily a majority of us use commonsense when deciding, and more often that not get it right. We do wear helmets. I can't accept cyclists not using helmets, so I can't stand by at say a bike shop when a Mom or Dad is deciding on a helmet purchase, fortunately it's a 'no brainer' while the brain is still intact from helmet use, so I'll always advise likewise.

It is Day 5 after my 'minor' incident and finally, finally my nausea and dull headache has gone!

Thanks all for your good wishes.

Maybe you also missed my obviously easy to answer question since you're mr. helmet testing guy.
And I'll ask again, out of curiousity, you know, from one testing guy to another, how did you "personally" test the helmets, what equipment did you use, and how did you sample and record the data? Just out of curiosity, since you seem to know oh so much about medical injuries and have all kinds of fancy terms for what defines a serious injury or not and have a lot of insight on the effectiveness of helmets, you know, through your "personal" testing. You weren't using yourself as the test subject in these helmet tests were you?

>>In spite of all the naysayers they just do.<<

'Naysayers'? You MUST be joking. Those people are *******. Forget 'em.

Let me explain a simple reality to the morons who try to rationalize riding without helmets: while they won't save you from every disaster, a HUGE percentage of fatal injuries in cycling accidents are head injury related. YOU ride without a helmet.

My Giro helmet has absolutely saved me from death or serious injury twice in a year. It's the biggest 'duh' in cycling to me. And anyone else with a gram of common sense. It's your life weenies. There are lots of ways to die, but having your widow explain to your kids that Daddy died because he was too STUPID to wear a bike helmet would be right up there with 'Daddy died from a cocaine lnduced heart attack Junior'.

But by all means, ride without a helmet. Good grief, why do we waste time debating with these lunatics?

It's pretty pathetic to listen to arguments that wearing helmets is actually worse then not for example. But it's even worse to listen to the rantings of helmet nazi's. I mean come on are you going to call this guy a ******? Are you gonna force this gentleman to wear a helmet?

http://www.tameside-owl.org.uk/images/man_bike.jpg

Force no. Should he yes.

No, but in engnieerig, there are 2 ways to be wrong.
In scenario A, I assume helmets work and I wear one. I am WRONG. I end up with a stupid bucket on my head and I lose $50 or so.
In scenario B, I assume helmets don't work and I don't wear one. I am WRONG. I end up injured more than I should be but I saved $50 and my head's a little cooler.

In hindsight, how would I could've been wrong either way but which would have been the larger mistake?

WOW! How did you make the time machine? Wormholes or Quantum Entanglement?

You are sane and obviously don't understand the people around you. Talk to them and you'll find that they all parrott the words: "I know a helmet won't prevent injury in ANY accident, but it will work in most."

Here's the problem - a helmet absorbs a TINY amount of energy compared to what is on tap in an Arty Johnson fallover. What saves people is the way that the human body is constructed - The head is pretty carefully protects by shoulders wider than your head (discounting of course Clint Eastwood), reactions that cause you to twist your body in such a way as to protect your head in a fall and that sort of stuff.

I know that I wear a helmet because I'd just as soon not whack my head and have a lump, abrasion or perhaps even a concussion. To me that's important because those are the sorts of injuries a helmet can prevent or mitigate.

Myu objections to the helmet hysteria is that it ends up completely masking the real dangers in bicycling and nothing ever gets done about them because it's MUCH easier to blame the victim.

You are a nutty person.

Translation: (fingers in my ears, eyes closed, loudly humming the star spangled banner).

I'm certainly very glad you weren't injured any worse that you were but I would have prefered you not to be injured at all.

You previously claimed that you were familiar with testing procedures. Perhaps you can explain to us something - let us assume that I did NO tests at all (since my claim was that my testing showed that helmets couldn't reach their claimed levels of protection).

Using the PUBLISHED data on helmet design available from Bell Sports and the Snell Memorial Foundation you could easily see why Dr. Shively, the original driving force at the Snell Foundation, said, "... it is impossible to build a helmet that will offer significant impact protection"

So, why would my data be important at all when the data published by all of the helmet manufacturers and SIMPLE MATHEMATICS would demonstrate a few truisms:

1) A helmet can't be made significantly more protective. In order to do so they'd have to be larger in diameter. And they are already too large in diameter and the helmet now tends to hit in many falls in which the bare head would never had struck.

2) Helmets SHOULD BE HEAD SHAPED but such helmets are considered ugly and don't sell. The "aero" shape in fact causes twisting moments in the head in crashes and actually increases the chance of rotational injuries which are many times more dangerous than linear impacts. Because of 1) above this implies that there are now head injuries being CAUSED by helmets.

3) The level of protection of a helmet is pitifully small. I don't really understand why someone would believe that a 160 lb man falling on his head could be protected by 6 ounces of foamed plastic but perhaps you could explain this physical impossibility with enough verve to give us a good laugh.

The heart of this matter is that you are attempting to discredit the real information about helmets by implying that I don't know what I'm doing. That's fine - but try explaining helmets themselves by the rules of the testing laboratories that you are relying upon.

Again, fallacies would be funny if no one believed them.

Most pro-helmet statistics are too self-interested and are thus suspect—to actually quote Bell rationalizing their own product is absurd. Comparing motorcycle helmet research to bike helmet reality is also absurd. The helmets themselves are too different in construction and weight while the conditions and expectations are different as well. This line of reason should be avoided. Ad hominum attacks are useless as well, blathering idiots can make salient points and geniuses can be wrong. To descend into such attacks basically concedes an argument.

Real scientific research into the effects of helmet effectiveness is problematic because most cycling accidents are not reported and subjecting real humans to accident like trauma to the head is highly unethical. Bike helmets have their uses but mostly, the helmet argument circumvents real safety advocacy by focusing on the easy solution rather than real solutions for cycling/road safety.

On the other hand, pro-helmet advocacy definitely has problems. Two reports I have seen on helmet advocacy show a problem with the methods of advertising helmet use. The first, from Australia, show a decrease in cycling popularity following passage of mandatory helmet laws- attributed not to the wearing of helmets but rather to the portrayal of cycling as dangerous enough to merit a law mandating helmets. The second was a study of risk behavior with and without helmets. The study basically suggested that the mere act of wearing a helmet alleviated riders fears making them subconsciously more bold and thus more of a danger. Again, this increased risk taking could be attributed to the pro-helmet propaganda (stating that helmet mitigate all the danger of cycling) rather than the actual helmets.

I wear a helmet mostly because I have to in order to ride with the local group and while it offers some protection, I would never suggest that it offers substantial protection. A guy fell last week into a ditch, broke his collar bone (4 places), two ribs, and his helmet (very little visible damage). Had he not been overlapped and touched wheels (multiple times) nothing would have been damaged at all—those however, are the risks of a paceline. Luckily, he was the only one to go down. This is not, however, proof of anything but the rules against overlapping wheels in a paceline.

If you fall on your head,its better to have a helmet on,period...

These are certainly good arguments but I think that while you're correct that MOST people don't report MOST bicycle accidents because they're minor is missing the point.

No one is failing to report serious and fatal head injuries and those are occuring at the same rate per population as before. Significantly the statistics show bicycle head injuries slowly dropping without any jogs at periods when helmet use dramatically increased. Moreover, the same slow reduction is observed in pedestrians deaths and injuries suggesting this is a combination of road design improvements and an aging population becoming more aware of their responsibilities. (I might add that I went to a 30 miles ride through San Francisco yesterday and wasn't threatened by a single car:eek: )

It is MY opinion that road bicycling has increased over the last decade but that might be offset by the fact that bicyclists are a great deal more experienced now than they obviously were a decade ago.

You seem to be arguing that the studies of helmet use aren't as useful as they could be simply because each author suggests different reasons for failure to demostrate reductions in rates of head injuries with helmet use.

I think that the important thing is that in every case regardless of the assumed causes, that helmet use didn't change the numbers of fatalities or serious injuries. To suggest that helmets ARE working would be to suggest that for some reason there's been a significant increase in head injuries that helmets are offsetting. Occam's razor has something to say about that. :-)

If anyone should ride without a helmet it's YOU Euro. They're uncomfortable, ungainly, and most importantly won't fit in with your 'top 1000 cyclists in UK' self image. And they don't really make you safer. So by all means, leave it home.

Maybe there's hope we'll stop reading these ridiculous ego rants of yours some day : ). Although with our luck once you've suffered severe brain damage we'll be reading about how you want to be in the Special Olympics.

Yes, please...do us all a big favour.

I seem to be arguing no such thing. I am arguing that poorly developed arguments made for helmet use hurt cycling- both safety and participation. Many pro-helmet arguments are fallacious at the core in that they primarily appeal to emotion (fear) in order to achieve questionable results rather than doing in depth study of real accidents and trauma and publicizing the results. I also feel these efforts would be better spent trying to address the rather difficult task of improving the general safety of our streets and the specific habits of cyclists and drivers (in their relationship to cyclists). Constructing arguments for helmet safety that demonize all cycling as a dangerous sport is akin to applying a tourniquet to a head wound.

I also wonder about the helmets Bell, Giro, and others collect, post-accident. Neither the data nor the results from the study of these helmets is readily obtainable—I would think that if the study of these damaged helmets made the helmet manufactures look good we would see the results proudly posted on their sites. However, the inverse cannot be assumed, perhaps they just throw the helmets away and only collect them as a public relations ploy—I just don't know.

Helmets do work to offset minor head wounds (abrasions, bumps, and the like) but, as I stated earlier, I would never suggest they prevent more serious injuries—in fact I am fairly convinced that helmets, through increased risk taking and the whole causing rotational injury through shape, are overall as harmful as they are helpful. However, to ride in most group rides, one must don a helmet so I do.

Ahh, sorry I misunderstood. I agree that the basis of helmet promotion is fear and that in itself generates a whole lot of counter response. Who wants to be thought of as a coward? (I mean aside from the obvious pocket-protector kind of guy.......)

I don't believe that it would be helpful to advertise the helmet damages since we already know that it takes essentially tiny amounts of energy to totally destroy a helmet. Advertising that wouldn't gain the helmet industry anything and could discourage people who already wear them to beleive that since they can't save you from major injuries that they aren't of any use in minor injuries either.

While I tend to agree that helmets MUST work for minor injuries the hysteria generated by the helmet zealots makes it almost impossible for the helmet companies to investigate this. They'd be skewered by their most extremist promoters.

Regardless of my stand on helmets, this thread has reminded me of why I stopped frequenting this forum.

Goodbye,
Rob
:)

Ha. Why does everyone get so damn worked up about this?? I mean if was a thread about killing other people, i could understand, but jesus, people, let everyone do what he/she wants. Darwin is a powerful force, and we'll see who survives, helmet weareres or non (and honestly, i'm really not sure who would).

In the mean time, what we all need is not helmets...

we need SAFETY 'FROS!!!!

http://www.spotlitemagic.com/spotlit...rge/HIAFRO.jpg

:):):)

This reminds me of the anti-motorcycle helmet whackos who actually try to justify their stance with bogus 'statistics' and logic. I would support them if they'd simply say 'we know it's more dangerous but we want to feel the wind in our hair'. OK. I can accept that. But trying to rationalize that behavior as somehow not being MUCH more hazardous than riding with a helmet is beyond moronic. It's insidious and deceptive. Profoundly so.

You think bicycle helmets suck? I don't even feel mine. It weighs 8 oz or so. My MOTORCYCLE helmet is like wearing a refrigerator on your head. And I DO wear one. Every time I ride. If I'm on two wheels I have a brain bucket on. Period.

Thats the truth. We know stupits wont and smarts will.

Real logic would demand valid reasons for adopting a behavior (since we are born without helmets that is the initial state). That is, it is the burden of those who wish to change the initial state (helmet-less) to prove their point (helmet use).

Again, motorcycles are so vastly different in so many ways that using those studies to justify anything in cycling is absurd. For example, motorcycle helmets with their increased protection (as compared to cycling helmets) while defending a human head in a much more dangerous activity justifies their personal adoption while the public-born financial costs associated with motorcycle accidents justifies their mandatory use. Cycling isn't nearly as dangerous as motorcycling nor are the helmets nearly as protective. The public cost of the treatment of cycling injuries (the ones helmets could prevent) could probably be covered by the amount we spend on helmets themselves. The differences between motorcycles are bicycles are vast as are the difference between their corresponding helmets. Arguments for either one do not prove or disproves the other's case.

I often feel that the helmet zealots need to justify their hefty expenditures and their wholehearted acceptance of helmet industry propaganda (all writing is propaganda for something) while refusing to seriously question the source of their convictions. It would be a scary world indeed, if we all just readily accepted advertising as "truth."

I say again: Safety 'Fros.

(...this is such an idiotic thread... why do i keep reading it???)

Your argument goes hand in hand with cyclintom's cut & paste nonsense in every helmet related thread.
Were you born on a bicycle, or motorcycle permanently attached to your crotch? We're using appropriate tools to provide reasonable safeguards to a lifestyle that we've drastically modified in just a hundred years. Given ten thousand years of a similar lifestyle, I have no doubt that our bodies would evolve suitably for these relatively new tasks.


There's no real reason for you to get on a bicycle in the first place is there, better to stay home and watch others ride!