cycle helmet

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers!

biscuitdunker wrote: »

As I understand it, full face helmets, apart from protecting the face, also protect the chin area. This is an important area to protect, but nowhere near as important as protecting the brain. You may die from an injury to your chin, but it's not as likely as death from a brain injury. What I am saying, and keep trying to say but obviously am not being clear enough, is that protecting your brain is more important than protecting your face or chin. While wearing a full face helmet may provide more protection to your head overall, they do not provide anymore protection for the brain, as far as I'm aware.

Really, so a full face helmet doesn't protect the back of the head any more than a fruit bowl? It doesn't keep foreign objects from entering around the ears, or upwards through the cheek? What about objects that might hit the top of the neck, around the spinal cord?

No? Those areas aren't important, are they? Well done, I wasn't aware the brain was only about 3 inches tall. :rolleyes:

biscuitdunker wrote: »

I must admit, I don't understand your intent when you berate a parent for making their child wear a cycle helmet. This sort of mentality must be beyond my understanding.

Clearly.

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers!

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

:mad::mad:What makes you feel it is appropriate to joke like this in response to my post talking about the death of a member of my family?:mad::mad:

You are an absolute idiot - I hope you NEVER come to find out that your clever theories fail in practice..... as it will be your family that will have to cope with the resulting pain and loss.

What makes it appropriate for you to start talking about some family member of yours in a thread about road safety? Is your post some kind of hallowed ground, where no response is allowed? Must we all bow at your feet, and presume that because somebody you knew died in a cycling accident - "Oh, she's lost a family member, that means we can't tell her she's talking bo11ocks."

Keep your nonsense out of here please. Some people are intelligent enough to be able to debate such subjects without descending into typical emotional hysteria. If you don't like the truth, don't bother posting.

DaveMacD

biscuitdunker wrote: »

Having cycled in Amsterdam, I don't think their lower levels of cycling related deaths is down to the lack of helmets and hi vis. They have an entirely different situation to us, cyclists are respected by motorists, cycling is part of their national culture and often cyclists are kept entirely separate from cars. If we had all this, perhaps we could safely cycle without helmets, but unfortunately, we don't live in a utopian cyclist friendly society.

The theory is that a helmet will protect you if you fall off and hit your head on a flat surface. It will not help if you get flattened by a car! Therefore, if you believe the premise that helmets are a good thing when falling off, then your statement that you could safely cycle without a helmet is at odds with that belief.

For the record, I've fallen off a bike several times (once over the handlebars onto my front, and once over the handlebars with the bike somersaulting over and hitting me TDC and splitting my head open) And I still don't, and won't wear any of the stupid thin shell/quarter inch polystyrene helmets because they are IMHO useless (and that is after checking out the available stats and info). I've also crashed motorbikes at various times both with and without helmets, and to date, no head impacts (although both knees and my right ankle are knackered) and the difference between m/cycle and regular cycle helmets are like night and day. But a m/cycle helmet still won't help if a car runs you over.

Cyclists ARE vulnerable, but crash hats are only effective in a small number of situations. For everything else, they're just a waste of cash.

sebdangerfield

I'm an avid cyclist and this topic has been done to death over at Bikeradar. The general concensus is that the manufacturers of cycle helmets design them to be most efficient in impacts of less than 12 mph against a flat surface as that is the most common impact a cyclist has that helmets can be designed for i.e, a cyclist falling from the bike and hitting his head on the road/bike, it would be impossible to design a helmet sutable for the types of impact found against a car and as a result the helmets on sale at the moment are as good as usless in these types of crash.

I personally always wear a helmet whether i'm riding to work on the road, doing cross country or some serious downhill but I understand people who ride on the road who don't wear one. The only time I think it's silly is when people riding single track don't wear them but it's still their choice, everyone has their own acceptable level of risk after all.

biscuitdunker

DaveMacD wrote: »

The theory is that a helmet will protect you if you fall off and hit your head on a flat surface. It will not help if you get flattened by a car! Therefore, if you believe the premise that helmets are a good thing when falling off, then your statement that you could safely cycle without a helmet is at odds with that belief.

That last bit was a bit about living in a utopian society was a bit of a throw away statement and wasn't meant to be taken seriously. Even those in utopian societies can benefit from cycle helmets, IMO.

For the record, I've fallen off a bike several times (once over the handlebars onto my front, and once over the handlebars with the bike somersaulting over and hitting me TDC and splitting my head open) And I still don't, and won't wear any of the stupid thin shell/quarter inch polystyrene helmets because they are IMHO useless (and that is after checking out the available stats and info). I've also crashed motorbikes at various times both with and without helmets, and to date, no head impacts (although both knees and my right ankle are knackered) and the difference between m/cycle and regular cycle helmets are like night and day. But a m/cycle helmet still won't help if a car runs you over.

Cyclists ARE vulnerable, but crash hats are only effective in a small number of situations. For everything else, they're just a waste of cash.

Totally up to you not to wear a helmet, but would you suggest a parent who insists upon their child wearing a helmet, is in the wrong?

biscuitdunker

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

:mad::mad:Another idiot typing before engaging brain - thanks for your utter lack of care as to how I might feel about someone making a joke out of the death of my relative.:mad::mad:

I don't think you should get annoyed with these guys, they're clearly only out to wind people up. Pew Pew's most recent comment is really best ignored, he's obviously got some issues he needs to deal with.

DaveMacD

biscuitdunker wrote: »

Totally up to you not to wear a helmet, but would you suggest a parent who insists upon their child wearing a helmet, is in the wrong?

Nope, but I wouldn't say they're in the right either. That's why I've suggested some other things that could be done in other posts. I personally don't think that the evidence for wearing helmets is good enough to justify forcing people to wear them, but it's a judgement call for every individual and parent to make for themselves, and I'm not going to criticise those who feel they are doing everything they can to protect their kids.

BillScarab

biscuitdunker wrote: »

That's untrue, there have been many studies which have shown that increased use of cycle helmets is linked to a lower number of head injuries in cyclists. Obviously statistics can be flawed and manipulated and cannot be trusted 100%, but I think overall, there is enough evidence to show that CORRECT use of good quality helmets can prevent severe head injuries.

An example from the BMJ "Trends in serious head injuries among English cyclists and pedestrians" A Cook1, A Sheikh2

"Among cyclists admitted to hospital, the percentage with head injury reduced from 27.9% (n = 3070) to 20.4% (n = 2154), as helmet wearing rose from 16.0% to 21.8%. Pedestrian"

So how come whenever cyclist head injury trends are plotted aginst pedestrian head injury trends there is no sudden improvement in the figures for cyclists when helmets are introduced? The trends in the graphs are in sync.

Heres the stats for the UK

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1071.html

Similar stats are available for New Zealand and Australia where helmets are compulsory.

biscuitdunker

BillScarab wrote: »

So how come whenever cyclist head injury trends are plotted aginst pedestrian head injury trends there is no sudden improvement in the figures for cyclists when helmets are introduced? The trends in the graphs are in sync.

Heres the stats for the UK

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1071.html

Similar stats are available for New Zealand and Australia where helmets are compulsory.

The study I quoted was plotted against pedestrian head injury trends. The pedestrian head injuries also dropped during this period but not to the extent of cyclist head injuries:

"Among cyclists admitted to hospital, the percentage with head injury reduced from 27.9% (n = 3070) to 20.4% (n = 2154), as helmet wearing rose from 16.0% to 21.8%. Pedestrian head injury admissions also declined but by a significantly smaller amount. The wearing of a cycle helmet is estimated to prevent 60% of head injuries."

It's on the BMJ website should you wish to look at it.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/321/7268/1055

Unfortunately, all such studies are ultimately flawed because they all fail to consider other factors, such as changes in traffic control, introductions of cycle lanes, safe cycling education etc. but I do think I'm safe in my belief that helmets have at least contributed in some significant way to the drop in serious head injuries in cyclists.