The quesiton is not “who will win the car VS bike battle?”, but “can it safe your brain?” And the answer is… YES! Helmets can sometimes prevent serious accidents from becoming worse tragedies, whether a cyclist goes down by its own or if involved in a car collision. I know many cyclists who could testify on that one, based on experience. It’s like cars without seatbelts, drinking alcool while driving, cigarette, etc. It all used to be perfectly safe, until…
Cycle helmets are only designed to withstand an impact equivalent to an adult falling from a STATIONARY standing position to the ground. They are not designed for high speed impacts. What you are wearing is, in fact, just a placebo.
The gold standard for cycle helmets id the Snell B90 standard. That ensures a helmet will survive an impact of “100 J for all testing regardless of headform size or weight. Given an ideal frictionless mechanical test facility, this impact energy represents a 2.2+ meter drop of 5 kg”
I will never trash anybody for not wearing a helmet, nor do I disagree with you.
However I gotta say this: The vast majority of bicycle accidents ARE people “falling from a STATIONARY standing position to the ground”.
It’s the times we fall off on our own due to some handling error or mechanical breakdown. That is when a helmet may help us.
I don’t think anybody will admit to believing that cycle helmets as they are sold today are anything more than s sort of ‘Red Flag’ to help us be seen?
It doesn’t matter what we do, motorists still won’t see us. The military should make their tanks, planes, and ships out of bicycles, they’d be more invisible than any ‘stealth’ technology yet known.
I have to say that once, years ago while I was riding my Schwinn LeTour up a hill one wintry day on a very crowded road at my college, I hit a patch of black ice and went down instantly. A car coming up behind actually stopped completely - and allowed me to get up with my bruised dignity (and the other physical bruises) and continue on my way. I did have a helmet on. Sometimes there are good folks behind the wheel – but try to ride as if they’re all homicidal maniacs.
There is an answer to the invisibility of cyclists to motorists – ride a recumbent. Drivers see, and more to the point notice, and then because it is unusual they give a safe wide berth. Even when I’m stationary and parked in the gutter, cars going past go to the extreme edge of the other side of the road. Its like magic.
Another way to huarantee being seen by motorists is to ride without lights at night… (<— joke folks, don’t actually do this!)… Because I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen and heard motorists complaining about the amount of cyclists they see without lights on their bikes at night…
You’re right, helmets are sold to protect cyclists from themselves. Should a motorist take it in mind to target a cyclist, there’s damned little that the cyclist can do about it.
But I will continue to wear my little skid-lid of perforated polystyrene for a couple of reasons:
• Because I do want to protect myself from the rest of cycling’s little mishaps, such as falling due to weather, poor road conditions, a lack of good judgment, or an overdose of testosterone.
• Because I truly believe that there are very few motorists (despite the vitriol we see online) that really *will* zero in on a cyclist with the intent to cause GBH or death…and as noted above, if I ever run across one of those I might as well just bend over and kiss my butt goodbye because there’s not a whole lot else I’m gonna be able to do about it.
• Because if I’m ever in an accident, I’d rather be standing there wondering if the helmet was really necessary than having the cops/my family/fellow riders saying “if only he’d been wearing his helmet”.
I didn’t need one forty years ago, and I don’t need one now. So I ride without. And quietly mourn a society that has become so cringingly afraid that they won’t engage in any kind of activity without the guarantee that they are absolutely safe. Assuming that “safe” is actually possible. Or at best a self-inflicted delusion.
Forty five years ago, this was a society that was capable of going to the moon. Now, we can’t even pedal around the block without having to be absolutely safe. Obviously, I am not expecting any more Americans on the moon in my lifetime. As a society, we don’t have the guts anymore.
Just as a reminder — when the US set and achieved a ten-year timetable to put men on the moon we utilized systems that had been designed literally from scratch, analyzed them, tested them, redesigned them, analyzed them again, and retested them before they finally resulted in the launch and crew vehicles. And even then, the systems had redundancies built in for safety’s sake. It was not just a case of “hey guys, let’s build a rocket, fire it at the moon, and see what happens”. The fact remains that until the Challenger explosion following liftoff in 1986, we had a program that saw no American astronauts lost over a 25-year period of manned spaceflight beginning with Alan Shepard’s Project Mercury flight in 1961, through both Project Gemini and Project Apollo, and on into the era of the shuttle program. Even the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission had a happy ending due in no small part to the thorough planning and research that had gone into the construction of the vehicle and the training and resourcefulness of the crew.
And when setbacks did occur (such as the Apollo 1 fire on the pad, or the loss of Challenger) the result was not just “tsk, tsk; accidents will happen” and then carry on with business as usual. Everything came to a screeching halt while causes were determined, and corrections were designed, tested, etc. and then implemented.
Syke – you hit the nail on the head. It never ceases to amaze me of the rise of cradle to the grave nanny stateism, and the fools it breeds. Let Darwinism work!
A company I worked for years ago had a “safety slogan” contest. The winner was, “Safety at work, safety at play, safety in all you do or say.” At the company picnic they put it up on a big banner at the entrance. It turned my stomach so that I could barely keep my food down.
I could say I didn’t need one 45 years ago when I got hit by a car and spent a week in the hospital with a fractured skull. But I don’t think I would have had to spend that week in the hospital if I was wearing one – I don’t know for sure. But I do know several riders that have had contact with automobiles where they did have helmets on and they cracked the windshield with their head and did not have any damage to their head. If you want to go helmetless go ahead.
I read the newspaper every Monday about a weekend boating accident and the headline says: Drowning victim “was not” wearing a life preserver.
Helmets are a personal choice just like “wearing” a life preserver. Code calls for the boat to have one for each passenger, not actually having it on.
It’s just so sad when family members are standing around the coffin saying – “if only”.
38 years ago, a motorcycle helmet definitely saved my life. I wouldn’t have met my wife without it. A couple of years later, I bought my first bike helmet, a Bell Biker. 32 years ago, the doctor said, “Good thing you were wearing a helmet.” My kids wouldn’t have known me without it. 8 years ago, a fork broke, dumping me on my head. My grandkids wouldn’t know me without it.
No car contacts in 60 years of cycling, just ‘minor mishaps’
Yeah, I’ll keep wearing mine. Still aggressively riding a Madone 5.9 and dropping riders half and a third my age now! Rode with my two oldest grandkids (5 & 5) this summer. Didn’t drop them.
I’ve been hit by a truck in my head and hit a cable for a totally unforeseen endo in the last year. I’m definitely sticking with foam hats. The first time I would have had severe brain damage, and there is no doubt in my mind that a dump truck hitting me in the back of a bare head would have killed me. Instead I replaced two helmets and spent Thanksgiving strung out on Vycodin (for other injuries, my helmet absorbed most of the impact to my head both times).
I agree with something Yehuda said a while back; wear a helmet if your riding is dangerous or risky. On streets choked with huge vehicles piloted by idiots and drunks, ALL riding is dangerous and risky. If you live in a city without cars, vandals (cable) or drunk people, do what you want. If you only ride slowly along MUPs, do what you want. Otherwise, you WILL eventually hit your head, and a helmet goes a long way toward making it bounce.
I agree with Stu. In 1984 a motorcycle helmet saved my life. In 2000 a bicycle helmet saved my life. At least the head injuries I sustained were minimal and nothing worse than a concussion. If anyone was watching the Tour de France last week I doubt that Mark Cavendish will doubt the value of the helmet he was wearing. It saved him from serious head injury. As for helmets vs cars. Not much probably. Most of my crashes where a helmet has given its life in the line of duty were me myself and I crashing on my own or in a race with other cyclists. The only time a crash was involving a car was the motorcycle accident. Anyhow, helmets can reduce injury. It should be an individual choice for adults. I work in bicycle event production and we require all participants to wear a bike helmet, but that is requirement of our insurance provider. I personally will always wear a helmet. Anyhow, cheers to all. Ride and be safe.
You wanna wear a helmet? wear it. You don’t wanna wear a helmet? Don’t. Simple as that.
6 years ago I did a classic flying W dismount, cost me 2 cracked teeth and a new helmet. 3 nights ago, almost a repeat under different circumstances, that one i recovered from, ( more by luck and instinct than skill ) but for a moment i thought I was eating my teeth for supper, the only likely additional injury would have been a sore neck and lost skin, because i was wearing my helmet.
Do I always wear one? No. Do i think we should be made to wear one? No. They have some negatives, the often cited study that indicates closer passing from cars when wearing one is one of those. Overall though, *MY* vote says better on than not. Your choice.
Shaggy, I’m having trouble visualizing a “flying W dismount.” Could you elaborate?
BTW, I (almost) always wear a helmet. If I had an accident without it my wife would kill me!
If I feel a helmet is necessary, I will wear one that is DOT approved so I know it will actually protect me. However, I do not wear a flame retardent suit, elbow/knee pads, Hahns Restrait, steel toed boots, and many other safety equipment articles I don’t think are necessary. Sure they’d protect me in an accident and sure I could get injured without them. It’s called “risk management” where you assess the level of risk and compare it to the discomfort and difficulty of wearing protection, and make an adult decision whether or not you feel the protection warrants the discomfort.
It’s just too bad our society keeps trying to preserve life at the cost of quality of life. Anyway, stupidity should be fatal, there’s too many humans.
And after 38 years of cycling I’ve yet to actually hit my head when I have the rare opportunity to fall. Wait, no, I hit my face once when the forks broke. Mostly when I fall I tuck and my shoulder hits, not my head. From riding motorbikes I can definitely say the helmet makes my head much more likely to hit something.
When I fall–whether on a bike or in any other way–I usually end up with a very sore neck. That’s because my instinct is to throw my head violently away from the ground. I’ve never hit my head in a fall on a bike, but several times I’ve had a neck cramp for a couple of days from snapping my head sideways (I almost always land on my side when I fall) to avoid it making contact with the ground. It’s not something I choose to do, just a reflex action. The last time it happened I had trouble with dizziness, tunnel vision and ringing in my ears for several hours afterward, but my head never touched the ground. I can’t see how a helmet could have improved that situation.
On a Motorcycle, the crash is usually so violent and things happen so fast that human reactions don’t come into it once the machine is beyond control IMHO.
1. Crossing on lights recently changed to Green – Lady Teacher in a hurry jumped her Red and took the front of my m/c away at about 40-50MPH. I got a colles fracture and bruising of the right calf. I was luck that was all as the car made contact a few inches from my knee! Helmet was scratched and visor needed replacing. No helemt and the injuries?
2. Riding a sick Gold Wing 1000c on a damp, cold evening. Learner ignored his Dad’s shout of ‘stop’ and turned right in front of me. The ‘Wing’ used the ‘Mini’ as a parking stand and almost cut the front off. I went over the top getting another colles on the way. The helmet definitely saved me as when I came down the helmet got fractured! My head? Not even a headache…
In neither case did I have any say in what happened – I was riding, then waking up…
So I am in favour of helmets but am dubious about the ability of a polystyrene ‘condom’ to anything but reduce road rash and maybe limit the G-force of the landing.
Basically I agree. On non-cycling risk management, a study some while back found that ¼ inch of foam neoprene worn over the head of the femur by the elderly (who are prone to falls and tend to have more brittle bones) made a significant difference to the incidence of broken hips. If you are old a hip fracture with its sequels can sometimes be a death sentence. Is it legislated for? Is it even advertised? Health benefits could perhaps equal that of cycle helmet wearing, but the answer is, I think, no…. Would that be because it’s cheap, easy to make, but can’t be made to look “sexy” like a cycle helmet in an advert? I wonder….
@ Tencon – you won’t see this unless you look back on previous days for late comments, but:
Full body neoprene coverall – try watersports shops. They’re called wet suits. (I think most recreational wet suits are less than quarter inch thick – you need one for diving) – but if you wear it out of the water and especially for anything active (like cycling) you will stand a risk of hyperthermia.
You know, a lot of folks don’t like to get their kids vaccinated either so is it any surprise some don’t like helmets? Personally, if my noggin is going to get hit I would like just about anything to be between it and whatever is hitting it. As far as weren’t the good old days wonderful, well, yeah for the folks that were lucky enough not to fall on their head. A helmet is there for folks that believe the odds of a a one time head hit due to a fall off the bike during their life are high enough to justify it (caused by a car or otherwise, if the car goes straight into your head at 60 theres not a lot it can do obviously but fortunately I haven’t heard of a lot of cars dropping out of the sky straight onto people’s heads lately).
Yehuda needs to ride with headphones too. There’s a lot of passionate people on that subject as well. Make sure they are the ear buds designed to let background noise in though, that should really get some debate going.
I had a lassiez-faire attitude about it until I remember clipping in at the start of a group ride and only remember waking up in a ER bed. I have a nice cracked polystyrene helmet and a few hours of memory loss; and am still assessing lingering effects to this day.
All I’ve been told is that I went over the handlebars during a sprint and that I was still conscious at the end of it. Considering the total memory loss associated with the event, and the real risk of a subdural hematoma (and the expensive-without-insurance CT scan to verify)…
Perhaps the real lesson is to have health insurance, but that might be more molly-coddling than the helmet statement. Both are incindiary at this point.
I feel like these discussions often end in anger because one side hears “I’m going to force you to wear a helmet now, and kneepads, elbowpads, flame-retardant suit etc. later” and the other hears “I don’t care about your injuries, you should just get better at falling/riding/not crashing and then you won’t need a helmet.”
I think they are both erroneous. There are fervent believers in wearing a helmet, often because of personal experience (like me) and people who hate having a big stryofoam mushroom hat on their head because they feel it’s uncomfortable and unnecessary. We don’t have to agree, and we don’t have to attack each other, but let’s keep talking about it, respectfully.
PS to Anon’s point, even with insurance, getting in a crash with a motor vehicle is a long, drawn-out mess. (In my personal experience, anyway.)
Too true. Perforated polystyrene vs 2 tons of speeding metal, it’s a no-brainer (and not just the nut behind the wheel).
The quesiton is not “who will win the car VS bike battle?”, but “can it safe your brain?” And the answer is… YES! Helmets can sometimes prevent serious accidents from becoming worse tragedies, whether a cyclist goes down by its own or if involved in a car collision. I know many cyclists who could testify on that one, based on experience. It’s like cars without seatbelts, drinking alcool while driving, cigarette, etc. It all used to be perfectly safe, until…
Cycle helmets are only designed to withstand an impact equivalent to an adult falling from a STATIONARY standing position to the ground. They are not designed for high speed impacts. What you are wearing is, in fact, just a placebo.
The gold standard for cycle helmets id the Snell B90 standard. That ensures a helmet will survive an impact of “100 J for all testing regardless of headform size or weight. Given an ideal frictionless mechanical test facility, this impact energy represents a 2.2+ meter drop of 5 kg”
You can read the standard for yourself here: http://www.smf.org/standards/b/b90astd
The sections you’re looking for are E 4.3 and E 4.4.
I will never trash anybody for not wearing a helmet, nor do I disagree with you.
However I gotta say this: The vast majority of bicycle accidents ARE people “falling from a STATIONARY standing position to the ground”.
It’s the times we fall off on our own due to some handling error or mechanical breakdown. That is when a helmet may help us.
I don’t think anybody will admit to believing that cycle helmets as they are sold today are anything more than s sort of ‘Red Flag’ to help us be seen?
It doesn’t matter what we do, motorists still won’t see us. The military should make their tanks, planes, and ships out of bicycles, they’d be more invisible than any ‘stealth’ technology yet known.
I have to say that once, years ago while I was riding my Schwinn LeTour up a hill one wintry day on a very crowded road at my college, I hit a patch of black ice and went down instantly. A car coming up behind actually stopped completely - and allowed me to get up with my bruised dignity (and the other physical bruises) and continue on my way. I did have a helmet on. Sometimes there are good folks behind the wheel – but try to ride as if they’re all homicidal maniacs.
There is an answer to the invisibility of cyclists to motorists – ride a recumbent. Drivers see, and more to the point notice, and then because it is unusual they give a safe wide berth. Even when I’m stationary and parked in the gutter, cars going past go to the extreme edge of the other side of the road. Its like magic.
Another way to huarantee being seen by motorists is to ride without lights at night… (<— joke folks, don’t actually do this!)… Because I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen and heard motorists complaining about the amount of cyclists they see without lights on their bikes at night…
You’re right, helmets are sold to protect cyclists from themselves. Should a motorist take it in mind to target a cyclist, there’s damned little that the cyclist can do about it.
But I will continue to wear my little skid-lid of perforated polystyrene for a couple of reasons:
• Because I do want to protect myself from the rest of cycling’s little mishaps, such as falling due to weather, poor road conditions, a lack of good judgment, or an overdose of testosterone.
• Because I truly believe that there are very few motorists (despite the vitriol we see online) that really *will* zero in on a cyclist with the intent to cause GBH or death…and as noted above, if I ever run across one of those I might as well just bend over and kiss my butt goodbye because there’s not a whole lot else I’m gonna be able to do about it.
• Because if I’m ever in an accident, I’d rather be standing there wondering if the helmet was really necessary than having the cops/my family/fellow riders saying “if only he’d been wearing his helmet”.
Yep
(But I still occasionally sneak a ride in without mine)
I didn’t need one forty years ago, and I don’t need one now. So I ride without. And quietly mourn a society that has become so cringingly afraid that they won’t engage in any kind of activity without the guarantee that they are absolutely safe. Assuming that “safe” is actually possible. Or at best a self-inflicted delusion.
Forty five years ago, this was a society that was capable of going to the moon. Now, we can’t even pedal around the block without having to be absolutely safe. Obviously, I am not expecting any more Americans on the moon in my lifetime. As a society, we don’t have the guts anymore.
Just as a reminder — when the US set and achieved a ten-year timetable to put men on the moon we utilized systems that had been designed literally from scratch, analyzed them, tested them, redesigned them, analyzed them again, and retested them before they finally resulted in the launch and crew vehicles. And even then, the systems had redundancies built in for safety’s sake. It was not just a case of “hey guys, let’s build a rocket, fire it at the moon, and see what happens”. The fact remains that until the Challenger explosion following liftoff in 1986, we had a program that saw no American astronauts lost over a 25-year period of manned spaceflight beginning with Alan Shepard’s Project Mercury flight in 1961, through both Project Gemini and Project Apollo, and on into the era of the shuttle program. Even the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission had a happy ending due in no small part to the thorough planning and research that had gone into the construction of the vehicle and the training and resourcefulness of the crew.
And when setbacks did occur (such as the Apollo 1 fire on the pad, or the loss of Challenger) the result was not just “tsk, tsk; accidents will happen” and then carry on with business as usual. Everything came to a screeching halt while causes were determined, and corrections were designed, tested, etc. and then implemented.
Syke – you hit the nail on the head. It never ceases to amaze me of the rise of cradle to the grave nanny stateism, and the fools it breeds. Let Darwinism work!
Safetycrats make me sick.
A company I worked for years ago had a “safety slogan” contest. The winner was, “Safety at work, safety at play, safety in all you do or say.” At the company picnic they put it up on a big banner at the entrance. It turned my stomach so that I could barely keep my food down.
I could say I didn’t need one 45 years ago when I got hit by a car and spent a week in the hospital with a fractured skull. But I don’t think I would have had to spend that week in the hospital if I was wearing one – I don’t know for sure. But I do know several riders that have had contact with automobiles where they did have helmets on and they cracked the windshield with their head and did not have any damage to their head. If you want to go helmetless go ahead.
I read the newspaper every Monday about a weekend boating accident and the headline says: Drowning victim “was not” wearing a life preserver.
Helmets are a personal choice just like “wearing” a life preserver. Code calls for the boat to have one for each passenger, not actually having it on.
It’s just so sad when family members are standing around the coffin saying – “if only”.
38 years ago, a motorcycle helmet definitely saved my life. I wouldn’t have met my wife without it. A couple of years later, I bought my first bike helmet, a Bell Biker. 32 years ago, the doctor said, “Good thing you were wearing a helmet.” My kids wouldn’t have known me without it. 8 years ago, a fork broke, dumping me on my head. My grandkids wouldn’t know me without it.
No car contacts in 60 years of cycling, just ‘minor mishaps’
Yeah, I’ll keep wearing mine. Still aggressively riding a Madone 5.9 and dropping riders half and a third my age now! Rode with my two oldest grandkids (5 & 5) this summer. Didn’t drop them.
I’ve been hit by a truck in my head and hit a cable for a totally unforeseen endo in the last year. I’m definitely sticking with foam hats. The first time I would have had severe brain damage, and there is no doubt in my mind that a dump truck hitting me in the back of a bare head would have killed me. Instead I replaced two helmets and spent Thanksgiving strung out on Vycodin (for other injuries, my helmet absorbed most of the impact to my head both times).
I agree with something Yehuda said a while back; wear a helmet if your riding is dangerous or risky. On streets choked with huge vehicles piloted by idiots and drunks, ALL riding is dangerous and risky. If you live in a city without cars, vandals (cable) or drunk people, do what you want. If you only ride slowly along MUPs, do what you want. Otherwise, you WILL eventually hit your head, and a helmet goes a long way toward making it bounce.
When I hear stories like this, I simply don’t believe that the outcome would have been any different without a helmet than it was with the helmet.
I suppose you need to experience the injury to ‘get’ the idea?
Helmet is to cycling discussions as jumping the shark is to TV.
My take? Unless Yehuda has a most unusual head shape he’s wearing some kind of a helmet under that huge cap.
I agree with Stu. In 1984 a motorcycle helmet saved my life. In 2000 a bicycle helmet saved my life. At least the head injuries I sustained were minimal and nothing worse than a concussion. If anyone was watching the Tour de France last week I doubt that Mark Cavendish will doubt the value of the helmet he was wearing. It saved him from serious head injury. As for helmets vs cars. Not much probably. Most of my crashes where a helmet has given its life in the line of duty were me myself and I crashing on my own or in a race with other cyclists. The only time a crash was involving a car was the motorcycle accident. Anyhow, helmets can reduce injury. It should be an individual choice for adults. I work in bicycle event production and we require all participants to wear a bike helmet, but that is requirement of our insurance provider. I personally will always wear a helmet. Anyhow, cheers to all. Ride and be safe.
You wanna wear a helmet? wear it. You don’t wanna wear a helmet? Don’t. Simple as that.
6 years ago I did a classic flying W dismount, cost me 2 cracked teeth and a new helmet. 3 nights ago, almost a repeat under different circumstances, that one i recovered from, ( more by luck and instinct than skill ) but for a moment i thought I was eating my teeth for supper, the only likely additional injury would have been a sore neck and lost skin, because i was wearing my helmet.
Do I always wear one? No. Do i think we should be made to wear one? No. They have some negatives, the often cited study that indicates closer passing from cars when wearing one is one of those. Overall though, *MY* vote says better on than not. Your choice.
Shaggy, I’m having trouble visualizing a “flying W dismount.” Could you elaborate?
BTW, I (almost) always wear a helmet. If I had an accident without it my wife would kill me!
If I feel a helmet is necessary, I will wear one that is DOT approved so I know it will actually protect me. However, I do not wear a flame retardent suit, elbow/knee pads, Hahns Restrait, steel toed boots, and many other safety equipment articles I don’t think are necessary. Sure they’d protect me in an accident and sure I could get injured without them. It’s called “risk management” where you assess the level of risk and compare it to the discomfort and difficulty of wearing protection, and make an adult decision whether or not you feel the protection warrants the discomfort.
It’s just too bad our society keeps trying to preserve life at the cost of quality of life. Anyway, stupidity should be fatal, there’s too many humans.
And after 38 years of cycling I’ve yet to actually hit my head when I have the rare opportunity to fall. Wait, no, I hit my face once when the forks broke. Mostly when I fall I tuck and my shoulder hits, not my head. From riding motorbikes I can definitely say the helmet makes my head much more likely to hit something.
When I fall–whether on a bike or in any other way–I usually end up with a very sore neck. That’s because my instinct is to throw my head violently away from the ground. I’ve never hit my head in a fall on a bike, but several times I’ve had a neck cramp for a couple of days from snapping my head sideways (I almost always land on my side when I fall) to avoid it making contact with the ground. It’s not something I choose to do, just a reflex action. The last time it happened I had trouble with dizziness, tunnel vision and ringing in my ears for several hours afterward, but my head never touched the ground. I can’t see how a helmet could have improved that situation.
On a Motorcycle, the crash is usually so violent and things happen so fast that human reactions don’t come into it once the machine is beyond control IMHO.
1. Crossing on lights recently changed to Green – Lady Teacher in a hurry jumped her Red and took the front of my m/c away at about 40-50MPH. I got a colles fracture and bruising of the right calf. I was luck that was all as the car made contact a few inches from my knee! Helmet was scratched and visor needed replacing. No helemt and the injuries?
2. Riding a sick Gold Wing 1000c on a damp, cold evening. Learner ignored his Dad’s shout of ‘stop’ and turned right in front of me. The ‘Wing’ used the ‘Mini’ as a parking stand and almost cut the front off. I went over the top getting another colles on the way. The helmet definitely saved me as when I came down the helmet got fractured! My head? Not even a headache…
In neither case did I have any say in what happened – I was riding, then waking up…
So I am in favour of helmets but am dubious about the ability of a polystyrene ‘condom’ to anything but reduce road rash and maybe limit the G-force of the landing.
Basically I agree. On non-cycling risk management, a study some while back found that ¼ inch of foam neoprene worn over the head of the femur by the elderly (who are prone to falls and tend to have more brittle bones) made a significant difference to the incidence of broken hips. If you are old a hip fracture with its sequels can sometimes be a death sentence. Is it legislated for? Is it even advertised? Health benefits could perhaps equal that of cycle helmet wearing, but the answer is, I think, no…. Would that be because it’s cheap, easy to make, but can’t be made to look “sexy” like a cycle helmet in an advert? I wonder….
Where can I get a full body Neoprene coverall?
(Please don’t mention a sex shop
@ Tencon – you won’t see this unless you look back on previous days for late comments, but:
Full body neoprene coverall – try watersports shops. They’re called wet suits. (I think most recreational wet suits are less than quarter inch thick – you need one for diving) – but if you wear it out of the water and especially for anything active (like cycling) you will stand a risk of hyperthermia.
Look in a dive shop or a tri shop for a wet suit or a dry suit. I would suggest saving the dry suit for winter as they are made for cold water dives.
You know, a lot of folks don’t like to get their kids vaccinated either so is it any surprise some don’t like helmets? Personally, if my noggin is going to get hit I would like just about anything to be between it and whatever is hitting it. As far as weren’t the good old days wonderful, well, yeah for the folks that were lucky enough not to fall on their head. A helmet is there for folks that believe the odds of a a one time head hit due to a fall off the bike during their life are high enough to justify it (caused by a car or otherwise, if the car goes straight into your head at 60 theres not a lot it can do obviously but fortunately I haven’t heard of a lot of cars dropping out of the sky straight onto people’s heads lately).
Yehuda needs to ride with headphones too. There’s a lot of passionate people on that subject as well. Make sure they are the ear buds designed to let background noise in though, that should really get some debate going.
Ok everyone, flame on….
I had a lassiez-faire attitude about it until I remember clipping in at the start of a group ride and only remember waking up in a ER bed. I have a nice cracked polystyrene helmet and a few hours of memory loss; and am still assessing lingering effects to this day.
All I’ve been told is that I went over the handlebars during a sprint and that I was still conscious at the end of it. Considering the total memory loss associated with the event, and the real risk of a subdural hematoma (and the expensive-without-insurance CT scan to verify)…
Perhaps the real lesson is to have health insurance, but that might be more molly-coddling than the helmet statement. Both are incindiary at this point.
I feel like these discussions often end in anger because one side hears “I’m going to force you to wear a helmet now, and kneepads, elbowpads, flame-retardant suit etc. later” and the other hears “I don’t care about your injuries, you should just get better at falling/riding/not crashing and then you won’t need a helmet.”
I think they are both erroneous. There are fervent believers in wearing a helmet, often because of personal experience (like me) and people who hate having a big stryofoam mushroom hat on their head because they feel it’s uncomfortable and unnecessary. We don’t have to agree, and we don’t have to attack each other, but let’s keep talking about it, respectfully.
PS to Anon’s point, even with insurance, getting in a crash with a motor vehicle is a long, drawn-out mess. (In my personal experience, anyway.)