I would rather ride with a helmet that has passed *SOME* sort of testing protocol and met a certain set of standards, weak though they may be, than just snap some styrofoam beer cooler on my noggin and figure that it’s good enough.
Or even worse, go bare-headed because someone else feels the existing standards aren’t good enough.
The helmet you ride with has not passed the standards tests because those tests render it unsaleable. A similar helmet may be claimed to, but yours could be defective and how would you know before it’s too late? The biggest risk to helmet makers is if underfunded overworked government consumer protection testers pick theirs as one of a random sample to test, it fails and they’re minded to prosecute rather than negotiate.
I do agree that lack of faith in the current weakened standards aren’t a good reason to discard them, though. Better reasons to ride ordinarily (no armour) is that cycling is safe enough, safer than many other things we do without donning armour, or if you feel that the impact protection offered is more than outweighed by the harm they do.
The problem is, reality shows that helmets help as little as they do harm*). So in the end they have no other effect but someone has your money and you probably sometimes feel a little too save…
*) in daily life… even I would not ride a serious race off- or on road without one.
Helmets are made to prevent skull fracture at 12.5 MPH. You can survive an impact of 10 MPH bare headed (concussion, but not a broken skull). That helmet is completely used up by 19 MPH, that’s a window of 9 MPH between something you can survive without a helmet to something you can’t survive with one.
Helmets do ZERO harm except for the ” I don’t wanna,” crowd. I watched a guy on a bicycle run a stop, broadside a minivan, and go head first through the passenger window. His helmet saved his ass. I’ve bounced my head off the ground a couple times in accidents having nothing to do with cars, in fact one was caused by a wrong way rider. Helmet saved me from more injury than I got. One of my best friends was just sitting still on his bike waiting for the light to change, and a car brushed him just enough for him to loose his balance, fall over, and hit his head on the curb. No helmet. His parents pulled the plug on him a week later.
You want to be an organ donor, fine. But don’t ever try to tell people helmets are unsafe because of some bogus stats you found somewhere you’ve searched for just to make a nonsensical point.
I would rather ride with a helmet that has passed *SOME* sort of testing protocol and met a certain set of standards, weak though they may be, than just snap some styrofoam beer cooler on my noggin and figure that it’s good enough.
Or even worse, go bare-headed because someone else feels the existing standards aren’t good enough.
The helmet you ride with has not passed the standards tests because those tests render it unsaleable. A similar helmet may be claimed to, but yours could be defective and how would you know before it’s too late? The biggest risk to helmet makers is if underfunded overworked government consumer protection testers pick theirs as one of a random sample to test, it fails and they’re minded to prosecute rather than negotiate.
I do agree that lack of faith in the current weakened standards aren’t a good reason to discard them, though. Better reasons to ride ordinarily (no armour) is that cycling is safe enough, safer than many other things we do without donning armour, or if you feel that the impact protection offered is more than outweighed by the harm they do.
The problem is, reality shows that helmets help as little as they do harm*). So in the end they have no other effect but someone has your money and you probably sometimes feel a little too save…
*) in daily life… even I would not ride a serious race off- or on road without one.
Helmets are made to prevent skull fracture at 12.5 MPH. You can survive an impact of 10 MPH bare headed (concussion, but not a broken skull). That helmet is completely used up by 19 MPH, that’s a window of 9 MPH between something you can survive without a helmet to something you can’t survive with one.
The window is also limited by the angle you hit, the part of your head and the target. In the end it is a pretty small window.
Helmets do ZERO harm except for the ” I don’t wanna,” crowd. I watched a guy on a bicycle run a stop, broadside a minivan, and go head first through the passenger window. His helmet saved his ass. I’ve bounced my head off the ground a couple times in accidents having nothing to do with cars, in fact one was caused by a wrong way rider. Helmet saved me from more injury than I got. One of my best friends was just sitting still on his bike waiting for the light to change, and a car brushed him just enough for him to loose his balance, fall over, and hit his head on the curb. No helmet. His parents pulled the plug on him a week later.
You want to be an organ donor, fine. But don’t ever try to tell people helmets are unsafe because of some bogus stats you found somewhere you’ve searched for just to make a nonsensical point.