Cycle helmets save lives says Neurosurgeon - in ongoing helmet row

kevinmorice wrote:

As for the idea that helmets being mandatory would put people off cycling. The same nonsense was spouted in the early 80's when seatbelts became mandatory. Did anyone give up their car? Not a single one. Would you expect to drive around today without a seatbelt? No, and let's face it, if you got in a taxi tomorrow and there were no seatbelts you would probably get straight back out.

And the evidence we have from Australia and NZ is that compulsory helmets led to less cycling. Driving is normal, cycling is something weirdos with a death wish do...

Do the dutch and the danes wear helmets?

Do we want to encourage utility cycling or not?

Is cycling, utility cycling, dangerous?

Yeah I noticed that. Interesting that there's a recent study out of the States that looked at compulsory helmet wearing for children. That study found that States with a compulsory law for children had a drop in cyclist numbers as kids changed from biking to other wheeled devices... and the head injury rate remained unchanged.

Apparently scooters and skates cause head injuries as well...

nitram wrote:

I hit a rut in the road, I fell and severely wacked the side of my head, people following said I was out for a minute or so, once up and about slurred speech made it was obvious I was suffering concussion, an ambulance was called CT scan followed no lasting damage except for a bust helmet, me just a couple of weeks off the bike for the concussion.

First of all, I'm glad that you're OK. And I'm just trying to make a rational point here, not trying to have a go, so don't take the following personally, but...

nitram wrote:

The fact is the helmet gave me a vital margin of extra protection.. worth it you bet it was and is, otherwise I might be dead now. Martin

The problem with drawing conclusions from anecdotal experience like this though, is that no, that's not a fact; not a proven fact anyway. It's conjecture. Without reconstructing the exact circumstances of the accident, down to the speed and trajectory of your fall, only this time without a helmet, you can't know for sure whether the helmet made a significant difference or not. It's a natural assumption to make, that things would have been worse without the helmet, but think of it a different way for a moment. The fact that you were wearing a helmet but were knocked out and concussed anyway, raises a question over whether your helmet worked at all. Maybe it was subjected to forces beyond those it was designed for, failed and you suffered basically the same injuries you would have done without the helmet.

I'm not saying that's definitely the case, but it's a possibility. Others further down the thread have explained the crash physics to support that possibility better than I could. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't wear a helmet either. Another possibility is that your helmet did help to protect you, and you're clearly happier wearing one, so you should. What I am saying is that, when we get as far as discussing a compulsory helmet law, laws have to be based on more than just assumptions drawn from isolated incidents. The science and statistics need to unequivocally support the case for a helmet law, and at the moment, neither one of them do.

surly_by_name wrote:

Stop it, all of you. Just stop it.

Is there some equivalent to Godwin's Law for cycling articles ? I dunno, maybe something like "That's the sort of thing i'd expect from Boris Johnson" ?

Here in New Zealand we've had a compulsory all age helmet law since 1994. As a percentage, cyclist fatalities have remained unchanged at 4.6% of road fatalities and injuries have INCREASED. Meanwhile cyclist modal share has dropped from 4% to 1%.

90% of cyclists killed are wearing helmets.

I was a little surprised to find a couple of deaths in a recent coronial enquiry involved helmet wearing cyclists hitting objects at relatively low speeds (32 and 45 kph).

I commute 20 kms on a main road without much in the way of cycle lanes. A helmet for me is a complete waste of time as any accident will involve a vehicle weighing anything from 1 tonne to 50 tonnes travelling at 100 kph.

It's really interesting that here, we have widespread support for compulsory helmet wearing for cyclists but almost nothing for a minimum passing distance. I'd much rather not be hit by 40 tonnes of moving steel than try and mitigate that sort of force by wearing a couple of cms of polystyrene.

surly_by_name wrote:

Stop it, all of you. Just stop it.

You could always just stop reading it...

kevinmorice wrote:

1.5. Pro helmet. Particularly the one that save my head, and possibly my life, whilst I was smashing up my collar bone. And not opposed to compulsion.

As for the idea that helmets being mandatory would put people off cycling. The same nonsense was spouted in the early 80's when seatbelts became mandatory. Did anyone give up their car? Not a single one. Would you expect to drive around today without a seatbelt? No, and let's face it, if you got in a taxi tomorrow and there were no seatbelts you would probably get straight back out.

The culture has to change!

And if anyone is going to quote the studies, read all the data sources in them before looking at the conclusions of someone who had grant money to spend proving a case in the first place. The countries that enforce helmets all have completely different cultures of cycling and driving to the UK. Not least, most of them drive on the wrong side of the road meaning 90% of them are steering primarily with their weaker hand whilst we drive on the sensible side and only the 10% of lefties are steering with their weaker hand.

The two countries that have a compulsory all age helmet law are both essentially English (Australia and New Zealand) and drive on the same side of the road as you do. Both countries have considerably worse accident rates than England (probably due to the roads and the number of English tourists).

It's interesting that in both countries any study that claims a reduction in head injuries always fails to mention the dramatic drop in cyclist numbers after the introduction of the law... wonder why that is?

I'd be really interested in hearing about a country that has increased ridership after helmet laws were introduced... after all there's plenty of information about dramatic increases in safety and ridership after infrastructure is built - surely it must be the same for helmets?

Wesselwookie wrote:

There's an easy way to test their beliefs. Tell them you're going to throw a ten pound chunk of concrete at their head at 14MPH and ask if they'd like to put on a "foam hat" or not.

Trouble is, the cars that worry me are going at 50mph or higher, not 14mph.

rich_b wrote:

as for this argument about drivers give less space to cyclists wearing helmets; seems like a bit of a red herring if you ask me, the driver that sees you isn’t the one you need to worry about!

Correct it is:

Myth 10: Helmet wearing causes more car/bicycle accidents

Fact 10: One person in the U.K. measured the distance vehicles gave him when he was wearing a helmet versus not wearing a helmet and proclaimed that he got 3.5” more space when he was un-helmeted. Of course no cars hit him in either case. This is another “study” that has taken on a life of its own and that is constantly taken out of context by those opposed to helmet use.

Wesselwookie wrote:

rich_b wrote:

as for this argument about drivers give less space to cyclists wearing helmets; seems like a bit of a red herring if you ask me, the driver that sees you isn’t the one you need to worry about!

Correct it is:

Myth 10: Helmet wearing causes more car/bicycle accidents

Fact 10: One person in the U.K. measured the distance vehicles gave him when he was wearing a helmet versus not wearing a helmet and proclaimed that he got 3.5” more space when he was un-helmeted. Of course no cars hit him in either case. This is another “study” that has taken on a life of its own and that is constantly taken out of context by those opposed to helmet use.

See, this is the sort of thing that makes me suspicious of the pro-helmet contingent. Its the unnecessarily loaded way they make their case.

Note the use of the disparaging 'proclaimed' rather than 'reported'. That's quite obviously highly loaded language. Note also the use of 'person' and careful elision of the fact the 'person' was an academic and the study was published in a peer-reviewed journal.

This was not 'one person' 'proclaiming' something, this was one paper appearing in a journal, reporting the results of a study.

Now I absolutely accept that is far from conclusive evidence - one single paper does not constitute an established 'fact' (not usually, anyway). Science doesn't really work that way. I'd want to see repeated by others before accepting it as necessarily a real effect.

But why try and minimise it even further than that with the borderline-insulting language?

And the argument that it only matters if they hit you doesn't do it for me- if they'd hit the guy he wouldn't have finished the study at all, so any such study that gets published is going to be biased towards the not-being killed case.

And forgive me if I find close passes objectionable even when they graciously fail to hit me. Its not just the drivers who don't see you who can be a danger, there's the one who sees you but passes close anyway just as you hit a pothole.

What such close passes do is make cycling less attractive to people, which in turn adversely affects health in any number of other, non-impact-related, ways.

rich_b wrote:

2 - Pro choice, pro helmet

Like others all I can talk about is personal experience (I’m not a professor!) I've been riding bikes and commuting to work in London for 25 years. In that time I've had quite a few scrapes and been knocked off my bike a couple of times; a few years back I came off my bike on black ice and literally did a complete 180 and smashed my head shoulder and arm on the tarmac, it caused a sizable dent in my helmet and I’m pretty sure if I hadn’t been wearing it that dent would have been in the side of my skull. Oh before one of you professors tells me ‘NO NO NO your helmet didn’t absorb the impact and I have a graph to demonstrate the fact’, it did, I was there and I felt the force as I hit the ground (btw my unprotected shoulder and elbow didn’t fare so well, they were heavily bruised and hurt for work weeks after, unlike my head). I’m all for wearing helmets and certainly wouldn’t try and persuade someone not to (although if you don’t feel the need then good luck to you) as for this argument about drivers give less space to cyclists wearing helmets; seems like a bit of a red herring if you ask me, the driver that sees you isn’t the one you need to worry about!

if your helmet didn't split or break and has a dent in it then it worked. ipso facto the impact was ~ 30 - 100 joules depending on whether it was an old cheap helmet badly worn, or a top notch helmet straight out of the box and perfectly fitted.

It did protect you from a minor impact, and the "off" that you described is roughly what it was designed to mitigate. ie your own body weight (low mass) at reletively low speed (low velocity).

The issue is not that they don't protect you against anything, it's that they don't protect you against the things that most people think they do or to the level that they think they do.

Some confusion comes from cycle racing. I raced many a season and cycle helmets protect most racers from most the sort of offs and impacts that they might have from a bike race though not by any means all. Most of the offs I have ever seen or had have resulted in the rider sliding along the road or track. The main impact has been, as in your case, a shoulder more usually a knee, thigh or hip. (ie very few are head first) The last thing to hit the deck is the side of the head. By the time that it does most of the impact energy is gone. But they'll stop you getting a head wound or a maybe a pedal in the head. Now if you are racing that sort of thing can happen quite often. It's sensible to do somtheing to mitigate it.

If you are talking about the real dangers to cyclists on the road it doesn't come from regular sliding offs. If you are off and sliding the big danger is anycase any following vehicles or road furniture. The main danger is an impact with a vehicle. In that case even a small vehicle at low speed is generating tens of thousands of joules of impact energy. Your helmet is good for 50 to 100. so utterly useless.

I don't wear a helmet riding on the road. I do wear one riding MTB on trails where I am more likely to be off and at the low speeds where a helmet might save me a small bump. On the road the chances of being off where a helmet can help are slim to nil. And last winter I was off and sliding twice. No impact to my head whatsoever. So it's a small chance of being of limited use in an infrequent sort of of specific accident at low impact.

oozaveared wrote:

if your helmet didn't split or break and has a dent in it then it worked.

Even if it broke it will have worked to a degree, what that degree is is impossible to say from anecdotal evidence.

oozaveared wrote:

The issue is not that they don't protect you against anything, it's that they don't protect you against the things that most people think they do or to the level that they think they do.

I think that's fair to say in general. As far as the audience on here is concerned, I think that is less of an issue.

oozaveared wrote:

Some confusion comes from cycle racing. I raced many a season and cycle helmets protect most racers from most the sort of offs and impacts that they might have from a bike race though not by any means all. Most of the offs I have ever seen or had have resulted in the rider sliding along the road or track. The main impact has been, as in your case, a shoulder more usually a knee, thigh or hip. (ie very few are head first) The last thing to hit the deck is the side of the head. By the time that it does most of the impact energy is gone. But they'll stop you getting a head wound or a maybe a pedal in the head. Now if you are racing that sort of thing can happen quite often. It's sensible to do somtheing to mitigate it.

It can happen quite a bit when not racing.

oozaveared wrote:

I don't wear a helmet riding on the road. I do wear one riding MTB on trails where I am more likely to be off and at the low speeds where a helmet might save me a small bump. On the road the chances of being off where a helmet can help are slim to nil.

Interesting statistic - citation ?

oozaveared wrote:

And last winter I was off and sliding twice. No impact to my head whatsoever.

..and I had an off winter before last and another this spring and in both cases had a side head impact. Eventually our anecdotes will become statistically significant, but we're quite a way off from there currently, aren't we ?

oozaveared wrote:

So it's a small chance of being of limited use in an infrequent sort of of specific accident at low impact.

a falsis principiis proficisci.

fukawitribe wrote:

oozaveared wrote:

if your helmet didn't split or break and has a dent in it then it worked.

Even if it broke it will have worked to a degree, what that degree is is impossible to say from anecdotal evidence.

oozaveared wrote:

The issue is not that they don't protect you against anything, it's that they don't protect you against the things that most people think they do or to the level that they think they do.

I think that's fair to say in general. As far as the audience on here is concerned, I think that is less of an issue.

oozaveared wrote:

Some confusion comes from cycle racing. I raced many a season and cycle helmets protect most racers from most the sort of offs and impacts that they might have from a bike race though not by any means all. Most of the offs I have ever seen or had have resulted in the rider sliding along the road or track. The main impact has been, as in your case, a shoulder more usually a knee, thigh or hip. (ie very few are head first) The last thing to hit the deck is the side of the head. By the time that it does most of the impact energy is gone. But they'll stop you getting a head wound or a maybe a pedal in the head. Now if you are racing that sort of thing can happen quite often. It's sensible to do somtheing to mitigate it.

It can happen quite a bit when not racing.

oozaveared wrote:

I don't wear a helmet riding on the road. I do wear one riding MTB on trails where I am more likely to be off and at the low speeds where a helmet might save me a small bump. On the road the chances of being off where a helmet can help are slim to nil.

Interesting statistic - citation ?

oozaveared wrote:

And last winter I was off and sliding twice. No impact to my head whatsoever.

..and I had an off winter before last and another this spring and in both cases had a side head impact. Eventually our anecdotes will become statistically significant, but we're quite a way off from there currently, aren't we ?

oozaveared wrote:

So it's a small chance of being of limited use in an infrequent sort of of specific accident at low impact.

a falsis principiis proficisci.

Good post. I am probably getting a hard time from some because my proposition is in 3 parts.

Part 1 that for most cyclists (and a lot of people here are the more adventurous or avid cyclists rather than average ones) a helmet offers such little protection that it is hardly worth bothering. The facts is that most people over estimate their efficacy.

Part 2 based on the over estimation of their efficacy a lot of people even cyclists advocate compulsory use. I heard one mouthy chap at the Charlotteville call an old bloke twiddling along on a touring bike a "numpty" for not wearing a helmet. Totally out of order.

Part 3 Compulsory helmet wearing for cyclists is an overreaction to the relative risk and has the effect of making cycling, ordinary everyday cycling, appear to be a dangerous activity requiring special protective gear. This appearance is likely to deter more people from cycling.

I am quite happy to get as detailed on the science as anyone wants regarding rotational forces or oblique impacts or secondary impact mitigation when it comes to the helmet itself. But whatever way you slice it the fact is that most people massively over estimate the protection that is provided and thay also massively overestimate the risk of head injury whilst cycling which runs at about the same as for pedestrians.

I have been cycling properly now for 40 years most of it without a helmet. In my early days racing in the 70s the helmets were simple soft foam in various quality of plastic. I have phots of cyclo cross races in Wessex Region in the mid 70s which show none of the competitors wearing a helmet. I cannot remember a single incident in either Cyclo Cross, Track, or Road racing nor any any club run or anywhere else where a cyclist has suffered a major head wound. It happens sometimes of course.

But my point is that currently damage to helmets is seen as averting serious damage to skulls. The same crashes decades ago didn't result in serious head injuries.

I am not against helmet use. I am against compulsory helmet use on a false prospectus which overestimates the risk of head injury and and then compounds that by over estimating the efficacy of helmet wearing.

oozaveared wrote:

I am not against helmet use. I am against compulsory helmet use on a false prospectus which overestimates the risk of head injury and and then compounds that by over estimating the efficacy of helmet wearing.

I'd go along with that.