Your getting close Pcad... I do have a hidden agenda... but that isn't it. There are plenty of good reasons to dispell the false notion that bike riding is dangerous, and that helmets are necessary. I'd like to see more US cities that resemble this:

https://copenhagengirlsonbikes.blogspot.com/
https://www.ski-epic.com/amsterdam_bicycles/

You don't like all the ones that show no reduction in fatalities or serious head injuries when MHLs are introduced? What do you suppose would be better evidence than that?

My head.

get a clue. I mispelled.

And yes, most do wear helmets, because the parks require them. And when in competition, it's also required. Even the guys who get serious wear them, knowing they crash quite often.

I'd say the jury is still out.

https://www.cyclehelmets.org/mf.html?1139

Regarding the "star" "Western Australia" case, it appears the bicycle helmet law also significantly reduced the number of pedestrians too. Amazing!

The "New Zealand" graph is weird. What does 100% "head injury" mean?

====================

Anyway, it appears that the so-called Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation (BHRF) is agenda-driven. It is trying to pass itself off as "balanced" but appears to be rather one-sided. It appears to be a "con" masquerading as a "pro". It's "link bait" that doesn't appear to smell entirely clean.

Clearly, they can find references that support their side (anti-helmet) but it's strange that no studies appear to indicate that helmets have value.

One might expect that some studies exist which conclude that helmets have value concidering the complexity of the situation and the relative-rarity of head injuries. That is, it would be highly surprising if all of the evidence was so overwhelmingly anti-helmet.

I think this guy was glad he was wearing a helmet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvmhv...eature=related

If I was ever crazy enough to try something that extreme, so would I. No question.

Forget the helmet - if you want the traffic to stay away from you - an imitation machinegun strapped to your bike does wonders. You want the imitation because a real one weighs too much.

I assume we could come up with an inflatable version and fill it with helium, which would render a negative weight - you have to watch those ounces!

Or you can just look like Chipcom which scares people away. Notice in this study a man with a long haired wig - why don't just say a man riding a bike with lycra in drag - and he was surprised that people kept their distance.

I've slammed my head on the pavement sans helmet and I've done it with a helmet on. I found the latter preferable due to the fact that it didn't hurt (my head, anyway). The former, that didn't feel so good.

Of course, that's just anecdotal. I'm sure there are lots of cyclists who slam their unprotected heads on the pavement and don't feel a thing.

Sigh - I really shouldn't say anything but.... why not. If you do smack your head sans helmet get yourself checked out. The rattling of your brain inside your skull can kill you (i.e. internal bruising) even if you don't have road rash on your noggin.

Less pain - but more dangerous. Helmets help primarily to prevent road rash and sharp object trauma - they don't do a whole lot for the force of impact being transferred to you brain inside your skull.

Go ahead and wear the helmet - we are ugly enough already.

After my cat scan, the technician asked to see my helmet. When I handed it to her, she blew a whistle and told me that I was lucky to have it on to "take the impact."

I have a hard time believing that helmets don't do a whole lot for the force of impact being transferred to your brain inside your skull. And no one on this forum (or off it for that matter) has ever provided clear, precise proof that they don't. A pebble embedded in my helmet is all the proof I need of the contrary.

For those who have friends or relatives or work with people who are handicapped due to head injuries please stop reading. I'm not attacking you or them but trying to make a point.



Personally I'm all for people not wearing their helmets. Or not wearing their seatbelts.

The only thing to balance out is if it's more expensive to have to help support a vegetative human (through my health insurance rates) or if the likelihood is greater that the person simply dies. Dying is much, much cheaper. It's probably easier on family and friends too, more closure, less decisions.

Either way, it's an excellent way of thinning out the species in this day and age.

The only time I don't like when people do stuff like this is when it affects me. Like blowing red lights or driving into a line of cars waiting for a light. If they smack into me, or almost smack into me, then I get a bit hissy.

The problem is that many people don't realize the consequences of their actions. Heck, I didn't realize the consequences of a lot of things I did. I was lucky and I could have easily been a body in a morgue. I feel lucky that I now have some inkling of what might happen if I do certain stupid or ignorant things. A kid (he was 21 or so) died around here recently, taking three of his friends with him. His car, on a 25 mph road (or was it a 35 mph road?), crashed with his tach jammed at 5500 rpm and his speedo at 140 mph. A few minutes before she died, one of his passengers texted that she was on such and such road "at 110". I don't think she mean the time of day. Did the driver fully comprehend what might happen if he lost control at such speeds? I honestly think he had no clue. It doesn't absolve him from blame but I could see how a young person with no serious "bad experiences" might think that bad things can't happen to him. I felt that way when I was his age. My guardian angel just worked overtime or something.

That's changed now. Because of the realization of the consequences of those prior escapades, I'm now risk averse in general. When I do something that could be construed as risky (sprinting with cars, crits, descending in a tuck, etc), it's a calculated risk, a low one, which I'm willing to accept. Helmetless riding is not one of them.

This may sound half sarcastic because that's exactly what it is. Half sarcastic. Although I believe that helmets are good, if someone insists on not wearing a helmet, I express my disapproval, my lack of knowledge when it comes to head injuries, and ride. I've given up trying to preach to the heathens (if helmet wearers are the choir). Seatbelts - I do insist people wear them in my car, I have more control over that.

cdr

Does this mean we can smoke cigarettes too? Please say we can.

Regarding impacts - a cycling helmet will absorb a decent hit from a baseball bat. I forget the Gs and all that but that's the picture I remember from the bike helmet lecture I got from some "authority" on the topic. If you've ever been hit by a bat (I have, go figure) it hurts so much that, well, I don't really remember much of it. It hurt a lot afterwards. And it took a week or so before I could even open the eye again.

If I'd been watching the game with my bike helmet over my right eye, then maybe I wouldn't have been so badly hurt.

cdr

Light up! I own stock.

Okay, I don't. But Philip Morris pays a lot of taxes in CT.

cdr

No. But you do get to drink as much Diet Coke as you'd like. Or at least, that's what I do.

It isn't that helmets don't help at all - they do. So much so that I think people should wear them all the time. Especially when walking down the street and the sidewalks are slick.

That was only slightly said sarcastically. Here is my take - ride with the helmet - and then ride like you don't have one. This will give you the best of all possible results.

Why should an old geezer who putters around on a bike be considered foolhardy for not having a helmet (I am think of Chipcom ) but someone ripping down a hill at 40+ MPH is considered doing something not foolhardy because they have a helmet on? Helmets are rated to 14 MPH if people didn't know it.

And with all respect to your nurse - it doesn't mean she understands vectors and forces. The helmet may well have saved your life - just like I am sure my life has been saved many, many times by going fairly slow.

Helmets don't make you superman (or women) - lets keep that in mind. Safe riding will do a lot more for you than any kind of protective gear.

And it appears from the report - dressing like a transexual bike rider in lycra might really help - but I am not sure it is worth it.

As much as I enjoy riding without a helmet around my neighborhood, I have to disagree with your assessment.

Helmets are specifically designed for absorbing impact. That's what the foam is for. It compresses to absorb, and it does not bounce back into shape. Once it's used, it's no good. So, toss the helmet after an accident.

Also, I suppose a helmet will help quite a bit with road rash. However, the last time I slid down the road on top of my head.....

Meaning, preventing road rash isn't the main reason they make them. Otherwise they would wrap around your whole face like a Downhill helmet.

You've misapplied the burden of truth. It is NOT on helmet skeptics. The burden of proof is upon those claiming safety benefits for helmets.

Okay, this is a pointless three-ring circus, but I have opinions! So I'll share 'em. Keep in mind: I regularly wear a helmet (on road rides) and am NOT anti-helmet.

1. The only studies that have been done on helmets (because they are the only practical ones) are population-based statistical analyses, which attempt to measure incidence of head injury in the population before and after the passing of helmet legislation, and case-control studies which compare the average degree of head injury severity between cyclists who had been wearing a helmet and those who had not. These are not super-reliable studies, because there are any number of confounding variables that cannot be accounted for. So that's one problem. In any case, the statistical studies generally show no benefit to helmets, while case-control studies generally show some benefit. No matter which kind of study you look at, the results are inconclusive. My interpretation of the general results from each kind of study is that helmets probably make little difference on a population basis, but may save your bacon in the event that you are actually in an accident with a serious head impact. Maybe.

On a related note, there is some possibility that helmets could actually increase the risk of certain kinds of head trauma. It is torsional forces that are the real killer when it comes to head injuries, and helmets may make it more likely for an impact to result in severe torsional forces on the brain. The tendency of helmet manufacturers to put all kinds of doo-dads on their helmets and to mold them in non-round shapes really bothers me. A helmet should be a roundish dome! Pointy streamlined bits coming off the back of a helmet constitute a safety risk. I'll happily make an exception for TT helmets, though.

2. The plural of anecdote is not data. No one should be impressed by "my helmet saved my life!" stories. Well, maybe it did. And maybe it didn't. There are way too many variables in any accident, including ones that are severe, to draw any kind of consistent conclusion about the efficacy of helmets. I don't care if you couldn't see straight or were knocked unconscious or got a concussion or what. It's not research, and it's not data.

Think about this one. It seems that 1 in every 10 cyclists has a story about how a helmet has saved his or her life/saved them from serious head injury. There's simply no way to take this seriously - the sheer volume of these anecdotes would have us convinced that, before helmets arrived, cyclists were dropping like flies. Either there is an unambiguous, statistically significant difference in the number of head injuries received by cyclists in, say, 1985 versus 2005, or most of the people walking around who think that their helmet saved them from serious injury or death are mistaken. The former is not the case.

3. Related to #2. I am amazed that I continue to see the broken helmet myth trotted out here on BF, though I suppose I shouldn't be. It's been explained a million times that a cracked helmet has failed. Helmets work by crushing. The foam does NOT absorb energy through brittle failure. Cracking is an undesirable failure mode that reduces the effectiveness of your helmet. A cracked helmet is a helmet that has not done its job well.

4. Cognitive dissonance is not grounds for dismissing the passing study linked by the OP. True, the results doesn't jibe with what most of us "know" about helmets. That does not make it invalid! It's not a perfect study, but that 3.5" difference has been tested, and it certainly is statistically significant. I also happen to agree that the fact that the scientist was hit twice while wearing a helmet has little bearing on the results - being hit twice is NOT statistically significant. What does this imply about your risk when wearing a helmet vs. not wearing a helmet? Uh, not a lot. Drivers give less passing distance when you wear a helmet, which probably slightly increases your risk of being struck by a vehicle. Okay, so what? That doesn't tell us anything about whether a helmet is effective in preventing injury or not. Where's the controversy?

Anyway, like I said, I wear my helmet. I figure it's cheap insurance that probably won't hurt. But choosing not to wear a helmet is far from stupid, on the evidence. We all like to think that we're smart and reasonable people, but helmets have little to do with rationality.

Now, from this point further I will refrain from any more beating of this dead horse .

She isn't a nurse. She's a lab technician who only runs the cat scans at the hospital. She wasn't even dressed in scrubs. However, she has seen many bike accident victims over the years (as has the ER doctor who examined me. How do I know this? Well, I was there for six hours and I like to talk). Ojai, CA has one of the worst maintained bike paths around (my bad for riding on it, something I will never do again) and many cyclists go down on it (or so I was told at the Ojai Community Hospital, located about 1/2 mile from the path). They were not surprised to see me and their care was excellent. Anyway, my point is, I'm much more likely to believe a cat scan technician and an ER doctor at the emergency room of a hospital than I am strangers on the internet - and both of them made comments about how the helmet may have saved my life. Neither woman was hysterical or emotionally tied to me or the accident, so I don't think either was being melodramatic. They were rather matter of fact about the whole thing and sent me on my way with a prescription for powerful pain killers.

As for the superwoman theory – just because I or anyone else emphatically supports helmet use, it doesn’t mean that there is a sense of being super protected. I realize that I can still be killed and/or badly injured wearing a helmet. But as a friend said to me recently, there has doubtfully ever been an accident in which a person landed on his/her head where witnesses walked away shaking their heads saying, “such a pity, if only he/she hadn’t been wearing a helmet. Without it, he/she might have lived.”

good

posting

dude


edit--- to the above see: 2. The plural of anecdote is not data.

How is 20 people in a row screaming at you that helmets are beneficial, everywhere you go... how is that not evidence? I think you've got a lot of evidence screaming in your face about what situations a helmet is useful in and exactly how they are useful.

A study like this is extremely hard to do. I'd guess that the safest way would be to look at cycling helmet statistics in an area in america right before and right after a mandatory cycling helmet law goes into place.

If those numbers still contradict me, we can talk.

Did these same 20 people have the same crash withOUT the helmet? How do they know the helmet helped exactly? Because it was broken?

If you actually read the links, you would see that is the type data being pointed to.

Good post to the above... I do agree with what he said. I almost want to repost it as the second post, every time someone starts acting like we bought into a pyramid scheme by wearing helmets.

The data is just not there. I would think that if you are riding with groups or racing a helmet would be even more beneficial, which might have an effect on roadies more. It seems like packs of riders are more likely to go tumbling and hit their heads on other helmets/bikes/the ground than just getting smushed by a car.

That's just me theorizing, though.

This is incorrect. The burden of proof is on the holders of the most-unlikely position. It's not clear that "no helmets are safer because magic will help you" is less extreme than the "wear a helmet" position.

And this one study doesn't invalidate "what most of us know" either. It's an interesting start to other studies but I'd be a bit cautious in drawing any firm conclusions from this one.

Anyway, this study does not address whether helmets reduce the severity of accidents on a per-accident basis. If fhey increase the frequency of accidents (no data is provide), it is because there is a weird interaction between drivers and cyclists. That is, the study revealed not a primary failure of helmets but a secondary failure of driver education/perception.

It's possible that drivers would give all cyclists the wider berth if every cyclist used a helmet! This might mean that cyclists would be more safe overall if all of them wore helmets than they would if none of them did.

I can pretty much guarantee that the helmet helped in all of those cases, to be honest. Statistics are one thing but on the individual basis of each person who has posted with a helmet story, absolutely they helped those people.

The rider fell on the helmet. The helmet was between the ground and the rider's skull. There is a post above about a hammer that may help solve this mystery for you.

To my knowledge no one except Rruff is actually pretending that a helmet won't help in a situation where you hit the portion of your head that is protected by the helmet. In my mind the rational argument has always been: If you are in an extreme enough crash - which is a lot of them, if not most of them - the only thing that separates you from death is luck. That's fine - we take that risk every time we go outside or strap into a car.

Whether or not they would have died is of course speculation used for hyperbole. Did it make their crash more comfortable? hell yes it did.