Helmet Debate

paulfg42: Also, regarding making children wear them. You really have to be careful about forcing them. Firstly, kids are really great at smelling bullshit - why is it you make them wear helmets, if you don't make adults? Next: You're sending the message to them that cycling:

a) Requires inconvenient and uncool helmets. You're training to believe that cycling is inconvenient and dorky. E.g. teenage girls really care about their hair, so if you make them feel cycling is so dangerous that it requires a helmet, they're likely to not cycle at all. In Australia cycling participation rates dropped particularly heavily amongst girls after compulsory helmet laws.

b) You're teaching them that cycling is uniquely dangerous. Some will be put off - indeed, you may also be reinforcing their parents views of cycling being dangerous. The truth of course is that walking by the road is also dangerous (not really much safer than cycling by it!), as of course is travelling by car.

Be careful about the message you're sending to the next generation of cyclists - if indeed you're not actually putting some of them off cycling in the process.

paulfg42: Please don't take this wrong way but.... You simply can not know that helmets saved you in previous tumbles - UNLESS you had the *exact* same tumble without a helmet OR you had a large number of tumbles with and without helmets and did a scientific statistical analysis of the results.

If you had a few tumbles with helmets and were fine, well I've had tumbles without helmets (including at speed) and also been fine. On their own, your experience is no more indicative of helmets being useful than mine is of them being needless. To be meaningful they must be analysed properly - going by anecdotes can lead to poor conclusions & decisions.

One common argument is "I fell off my bike and my helmet was broken! It must have saved my head!". However, this is a nonsensical argument - you could strap any fragile thing to your head and have it break in a fall. With that kind of logic, you could end up strapping an egg to your head and believing it was protecting you.

Further, the way polysterene helmets absorb energy is through crushing. If a helmet has worked, it should have *dents* on the *inside* of the helmet. Indeed, if a helmet splits apart before it can crush, it will have worked *less* well, if at all.

If you examine motorcycle helmets (which must pass much much more rigorous safety standards) and heavier duty mountain-biking helmets, you'll see they have near-continuous expanded-polysterene inside a full, hard shell. The hard shell helps spread force further across the expanded-polysterene, prevents it from splitting, and generally allows it to do its job of absorbing force by crushing. If you really want head protection, you should wear a helmet with a full, hard shell.

I don't expect a helmet to save my life if I get hit by a car. Wearing a helmet doesn't make me feel safer when a lorry thunders past a few inches away from me. However, I know from experience that wearing a helmet has saved me from more serious injury when I've lost control on a couple of occasions and taken a heavy tumble.

That doesn't mean I want helmets to be made compulsory for adults although I do insist on it for children at our primary school bike club.

Campaigning for safer cycling conditions is the way forward.

I dont wear a helmet if im just going around town, no busy roads, no problems. If i go further afield, downhills, round corners, on busy roads, then for me its a no-brainer ( ). <-- see what I did there?

I have to say that a legallity or not I always wear a helmet - always have done.

Thankfully, not seen too many road accidents with bikes that can make me believe they are a benefit or not - though I can think for myself and I would rather have some cushioning benefit, my head is not as hard as a kerb for example - that's beyond debate.
However, on the off road stuff I am more than convinced they are a life saver,,,, whatever the statisticians say. I can speak from first hand that several bad crashes off road witnessed by myself where the non-use of helmets would have resulted in almost certain death or brain damage - including my Daughter recently.

I dont think it should be compulsory but I would always recommend one.

Trikeman.

http://road.cc/content/news/34847-cyclist-who-died-after-being-hit-three...

Aldecycle: Actually, all the evidence does not point to that. Indeed, the evidence for overall injury outcome is "no net benefit", according to good meta-studies. Helmets definitely reduce head injuries (but not as significantly as thought), while *increasing* other injuries (facial and neck). See http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000145751100008X.

Further, injury outcome amongst those who suffer an accident is too restricted a view of things. It's biased towards finding in favour of helmets, while ignoring what really matters: people's overall health.

The *really* interesting outcomes to consider are: a) overall bicycle safety; b) overall public health.

On the former measure, the safest place for cycling in the western world, and with the highest participation, sees the lowest rates of helmet use - the Netherlands. Therefore, it is a certain *fact* that helmets are NOT a pre-requisite for safe cycling. Rather, participation and the engineering of the environment *around* the cyclist (not on them) appear to the most important factors in safe cycling.

On the latter measure, even in the not-as-safe cycling environment of the UK, the health benefits of cycling *greatly* outweigh the risks (which are still pretty low, compared to other activities people do without thinking they need safety equipment - like walking or driving).

Helmet promotion, for ordinary, day-to-day, about town cycling, is unnecessary. Helmet promotion, I suspect, puts people off cycling, e.g. because it "dangerises" cycling.

That kind of talk is particularly irritating.

Cycling for 40 years sans helmet doesn't mean you'll never crash or bash your head on something.

You don't get a halo, visible to passing road users saying:

I've been cycling for four decades, ergo, don't hit me.

In all honesty, you probably won't just crash and kill yourself, that's pretty unlikely.

But I'd like to know what's harder, your skull, or the bumper of an HGV.

Answers on a postcard.

Just don't.

All evidence seems to point to the fact that if involved in a crash where your head is, its safer to wear a helmet.

Duhh.

But, you're 50% more likely to be involved in a car accident than a bicycle one, and in that instant, another 50% more likely to receive impact to the head.

But you don't wear one while driving.

But that's not going to help you when your brains are scattered across the A40, the tread of a Lorry imprinted on your mug.

Nice.