"I had cyclists telling me I was a disgrace for saying my helmet saved my life": Dan Walker recalls helmet backlash after being knocked off bike by driver

TL:DR - (I) it would far be better to ride and not to be hit in the first place; (ii) driver behaviour, especially around vulnerable road, users is the key.  

If I express any anti helmet (anti hi viz) sentiments, it is because they are a distraction from the above and are the wrong side of that fine line between victim blaiming and crime prevention. 

David9694 wrote:

TL:DR - (I) it would far be better to ride and not to be hit in the first place; (ii) driver behaviour, especially around vulnerable road, users is the key.  

If I express any anti helmet (anti hi viz) sentiments, it is because they are a distraction from the above and are the wrong side of that fine line between victim blaiming and crime prevention. 

Are you against helmets, or against people compelling others to wear them? Two totally different things.
I'm not sure many, if any, are actually against helmets or letting people choose whether they wear one.

Against compelling cyclists to wear them - a position which gets polarised into being "anti-helmet" by the "pro" brigade who are happy to see responsibility for safety passed on to others. 

Hope that helps.

while I've got the mic: "no hard hat no work" ItSAYs at A Buiding site" -

great, let's have a proper a Health & Safety safe system of work for the roads - let's work out where the hazards are coming from and implement controls accordingly. 

So for starters, that's aGPS black box in every car (no speeding, no unqualified, drunk, shuts down if driving is inadequate, no MOT or insurance or if requested by police etc), mandatory driver competence re-tests every five years, disqualifications of many years' duration for convicted drivers, proper recording and reviews of safety incidents with preventative actions taken,  20 mph limits anywhere there are people around. 

When performing a risk assessment PPE is the last resort - All other reasonable attempts at mitigating risks must first be taken before giving the instruction of wearing PPE, if those risks cannot be managed to a satisfactory standard.

Hi-viz and bike helmets are equivalently items of PPE. Therefore all other hazards must meet satisfactory measures before you blame the cyclist.

Was the vehicle fit to be driven (mechanically sound, insured, taxed etc)?
Was the driver in a fit state to drive?
Was the driver in full control of the vehicle, and driving in a safe and legal manner (to the speed limit, leaving sufficient gaps, not distracted?
Are the driving environmental conditions sub-optimal for control/visibility?

If all four questions above can be answered "Yes" then you can question whether the actions, or conspicuity, of the cyclist was a predominant factor in a collision. However this is somewhat a sliding scale. There's a difference between a middling colour jacket and reflectors in daytime downpours and wearing all black with no lights in pitch black.

If the answer to any question was no, then the driver of the vehicle was at fault. Either by 1) driving a car that is not legally on the road, 2) illegally driving whilst impaired, 3) driving carelessly or dangerously, or 4) Same as 3, or just not looking where they were going. In those instances, conspicuity does not matter because either the car or driver should not have been on the road, or it would have been extremely unlikely that the driver would have behaved differently had a cyclist's actions or conspicuity been different at the time of incident.

Matthew Acton-Varian wrote:

Hi-viz and bike helmets are equivalently items of PPE.

Many years ago, the Health & Safety Executive deemed that cycle helmets were not PPE, which our H&S "expert"* at Bristol City Council didn't know, but he still forced through helmet compulsion on council business.

*No he wasn't.

David9694 wrote:

Against compelling cyclists to wear them - a position which gets polarised into being "anti-helmet" by the "pro" brigade who are happy to see responsibility for safety passed on to others. 

Hope that helps.

while I've got the mic: "no hard hat no work" ItSAYs at A Buiding site" -

great, let's have a proper a Health & Safety safe system of work for the roads - let's work out where the hazards are coming from and implement controls accordingly. 

So for starters, that's aGPS black box in every car (no speeding, no unqualified, drunk, shuts down if driving is inadequate, no MOT or insurance or if requested by police etc), mandatory driver competence re-tests every five years, disqualifications of many years' duration for convicted drivers, proper recording and reviews of safety incidents with preventative actions taken,  20 mph limits anywhere there are people around. 

This.

Banksman required when reversing...

ChrisB200SX wrote:

Are you against helmets, or against people compelling others to wear them? Two totally different things.
I'm not sure many, if any, are actually against helmets or letting people choose whether they wear one.

There's a lot of very anti-bike helmet folk out there, who forth at the mouth at the idea of helmets. And make up all sorts of nonsense why they are pointless. They are on a par with anti-vaxxers in my view. 
And yes complusory wearing and simply wearing helmets [or not] are two very diffrent things. 
I personally wear one, but am dead against complusory wearing because of complex epidemiological reasons, it backfires from a safety point of view. 
 

Incorrect.

imajez wrote:

There's a lot of very anti-bike helmet folk out there, who forth at the mouth at the idea of helmets. And make up all sorts of nonsense why they are pointless. 
I personally wear one, but am dead against complusory wearing because of complex epidemiological reasons, it backfires from a safety point of view. 

Have you got any evidence to back up this assertion of many very anti-bike-helmet folk and how they behave?

I don't believe these people really exist and it's just a straw man for helmet evangelists to have an argument with. The irony is that many of the helmet evangelists will try to paint your position as anti-bike helmet.

There are several people who post here who have very strongly held views on the efficacy or not of cycle helmets.  (or have posted, e.g. ShutTheFrontDawes)

As people have said there are several helmet issues which might be debated but if you want a binary I'd suggest "no protection at all" or even "may make crashes worse" on the "anti" side and "you're a complete idiot / should pay your own medical costs if you don't wear one" on the other.  (I'm not sure even Australian posters on here have declared "thou shalt" by legal compulsion but I stand to be corrected!)

imajez wrote:

There's a lot of very anti-bike helmet folk out there, who forth at the mouth at the idea of helmets. And make up all sorts of nonsense why they are pointless. They are on a par with anti-vaxxers in my view.

How are you with people opposed to helmet compulsion who quote facts, not made up nonsense?  In the long history of the cycle helmet debate, only one side has made up nonsense, starting with the notorious Thompson, Rivara and Thompson paper of 1989: it's carried on ever since.

Zero comparison with anti-vaxxers.  Vaccines are overwhelmingly a huge public and individual/self-help benefit, with negligible risk. Helmets are at best of dubious benefit in any sort of crunch with a motor vehicle, and there's a case to be made that they only raise the danger level. 

Anti vaxxers have swallowed evil and nonsense conspiracy stuff, a lapse into the type of folklore that existed before mass education.  But talk to me about no cars by 2030, 15 minute cities, though: where do I sign?? Those remain annoyingly elusive. 

A V Lowe wrote:

The video clip is dark, but appears to show a lack of road awareness from both parties involved in the collision on their converging paths in the central lane on the roundabout, with the cycle being struck from the rear offside by the front nearside of the car, when the cyclist was moving closer to the centre of the roundabout and centre of that centre lane and the driver seems to be maintaining a steady position in the lane, but not reacting to the closing course with the bike

- cyclists must learn the lifesaver, that is a detail drummed into motorbike riders, and ALWAYS be aware of what is happening behind you. 

So watch the video again and ponder on whether Dan Walker was actually aware of the impending collision by checking behind as he moved into the lane ahead of the car driver

I agree that both parties seem to be unaware of their converging paths. I agree on the importance of having some awareness of what's going on behind you as a cyclist (though quite how you could 'always' be aware I don't know).

But the driver did not, as you say, hold a steady position in the lane, and Dan did not move into the lane ahead of the driver. The driver changed lanes on the roundabout, and that's where the conflict occurred. It's unrealistic to suggest a lifesaver would have helped Dan much, particularly as at the time their paths converged, he had another vehicle inside him and so limited room for manouvre. 

A V Lowe wrote:

I survived with minimal injuries because I wasn't wearing a helmet - although it was a little worrying watching the white line pass inches below my head as I cartwheeled past the side of the car.

It's truly impressive that as you flew from your bicycle during the course of a high impact collision you were able to calculate the exact distance your head was away from the tarmac and ascertain that it was definitely less than the thickness of a bicycle helmet. Kudos, not many people could manage that.

Rendel Harris wrote:

A V Lowe wrote:

I survived with minimal injuries because I wasn't wearing a helmet - although it was a little worrying watching the white line pass inches below my head as I cartwheeled past the side of the car.

It's truly impressive that as you flew from your bicycle during the course of a high impact collision you were able to calculate the exact distance your head was away from the tarmac and ascertain that it was definitely less than the thickness of a bicycle helmet. Kudos, not many people could manage that.

I often doubt "I chose to..." stories of people's awareness and degree of mental control in a short moment BUT some things you can (inadvertently) train for (so thought not required).  I suspect if you did e.g. serious parachute training or regularly practiced falling safely - e.g. some martial arts or indeed rugby! - at the very least you'll be relaxed in these situations and probably tuck up or fend off as appropriate.  Being relaxed on its own may reduce injury as your body naturally crumples and absorbs energy more gradually.

EDIT also this sort of training can improve / maintain core strength which is also probably a win in lots of ways!

I don't doubt that, as a former rugby player I certainly learnt a lot about how to protect myself in high-impact collisions. I have no doubt that the original poster saved themselves from harm by knowing how to fall, I wasn't arguing with that, I was questioning their assertion that as they flew over the tarmac they were able to judge precisely that they were so close to it that had they been wearing a helmet the helmet would have made contact. This seems dubious to me.

A V Lowe wrote:

Not the first time either that not having a bulky enlarged head form has avoided more serious harm, allowing for a tuck in & roll, for example when I went over the 'bars at around 30mph and did a double roll before getting up and cursing migthily after a loose strap on my front bag caught in the wheel. Rather like parachute jumping, in 60 years of cycling you fall off a few times and learn how to land without getting hurt.

As someone who has actually spent many years teaching thousands of folk to land safely, what utter tosh! The reality is that folk when falling off a bike or simply falling, they go splatt and learn nothing about how to fall. It takes considered and frequently repeated good practice to learn how to fall safely. Something made harder because you also have to unlearn some reflexes that don't actually help and can in fact cause injury. Unlearning is very hard for most folk to do. Even then once you have learnt these skills, you need to keep practicing them to keep them usefully functional. Unless you spent a very long time practicing these sometimes counterinuitive skills. 
Also, because I learnt how to fall correctly, a helmet is not an issue at all when hitting the deck or rolling. And yes I have used my falling skills a fair bit when cycling, because as someone who also MTBs, coming off one's bike is a not exactly unusual. I went tumbling off bike in the snow only a couple of weeks back. Plus there's been weird mechanicals and greasy surfaces when on paved surfaces. These skills have saved me many a hospital visit. 

Reseach by pathologists who are actual experts in trauma injuries and death, discovered that helmets would have prevented over a third of deaths casued by head injury in fatal incidents.  That's a hugely significant positive benefit. 

Quote:

with a high % of London victims being female, the findings from the 5000 cyclist study over a decade ago align with the reported detail that female cyclists said thay had difficulty looking behind, and also had more incidents arising from not knowing what was behind them. Several RTC details bear this out as well, and the picture released after the Bank fatal RTC (2015) shows how many such deaths arise

So watch the video again and ponder on whether Dan Walker was actually aware of the impending collision by checking behind as he moved into the lane ahead of the car driver

A TfL investigation [not a survey] into actual cycling deaths concluded that a major part of the disparity in gender fatalities differences was down to males being more likely to go forwards at lights or even proceeding on red. This is because being crushed by left turning vehicles at lights is the major cause of bike deaths. 
Walker was cycling in correct lane, the driver wasn't and then carved up Walker up. Looking behind would have made zero difference because Walker could not alter what the impatient/incompetent driver was doing. That'll often be the case. The person behind who hits the one is front is at fault anyway. Walker may well have looked behind, we simply cannot tell because of poor video quality. But again it doesn't matter, because it would have made little or no difference. 

check12 wrote:

picture of helmet that saved his life? 

Probaby in pieces, which means it did very little.

Benthic wrote:

check12 wrote:

picture of helmet that saved his life? 

Probaby in pieces, which means it did very little.

Except that's how it is meant to work. The energy that broke the helmet was energy not trasnitted to you head. That's like saying that a crumple zone in a car didn't protect the passengers because it was all mangled.  

imajez wrote:

Except that's how it is meant to work. The energy that broke the helmet was energy not trasnitted to you head. That's like saying that a crumple zone in a car didn't protect the passengers because it was all mangled.  

No, its like saying that the crumple zone split in two and went either side of the tree that killed/injured the passengers, helmets are supposed to compress to absorb the energy of impact in the same way that crumple zones crumple to absorb it.

imajez wrote:

Probaby in pieces, which means it did very little.

Except that's how it is meant to work. The energy that broke the helmet was energy not trasnitted to you head. That's like saying that a crumple zone in a car didn't protect the passengers because it was all mangled.  

[/quote]

How to say I know nothing about cycle helmets without saying I know nothing about cycle helmets.

Cycle helmets are supposed to work by aborbing energy by compressing the layer of polystyrene, which could absorb a significant amount of energy, not by breaking which absorbs very little.  Take a piece of expanded polystyrene packing and try compressing it between your fingers, it's difficult and takes a lot of energy.  Now try snapping it, which is very easy and take relatively little effort.

Any helmet which has shattered has not worked as intended and has absorbed little energy, and provided very little protection.  If you look at all the pictures in "helmet saved my life" stories, they are broken, with no evidence of compression, but people still claim it saved them.

I've never found the popular notion of "energy absorbed" much help in thinking about how helmets work. What energy, how much, where did it come from, where does it go, and how much is too much - all imponderables. And didn't my head actually lose energy by coming to rest?

Acceleration is much more accessible. Your head goes from velocity A to zero in x amount of time. That's for a simple hit-the-deck type event. Obviously if your head is ricocheting around like a pinball there's more maths to do.

Velocity A and zero are fixed. The only thing the helmet can do is extend time x.

Instead of coming to an almost instantaneous halt, the head is brought to rest over the distance (hence time) it takes to crush the thickness of the EPS. So it replaces a brief high acceleration with a longer lower acceleration. The key is to keep peak acceleration below the threshold the head/brain can tolerate. If that mechanism fails then the helmet has done very little.

The shell of the helmet is there to distribute the force of a point impact over a larger area to prevent the EPS being penetrated rather than compressing under load.

If the shell cracks open then it can't prevent penetration. Unless the EPS compresses then it has not reduced the head's acceleration.

posters below with chat but no picture... 

I mean, what is normal. If its the behaviour that the majority of people engage in and have no real issue with then yes, dangerous driving is normal. 

mctrials23 wrote:

I mean, what is normal. If its the behaviour that the majority of people engage in and have no real issue with then yes, dangerous driving is normal. 

And it should be addressed by the means society gives us for punishing wrong-doing, not airily dismissed with a wave of the hand.

mctrials23 wrote:

I mean, what is normal. If its the behaviour that the majority of people engage in and have no real issue with then yes, dangerous driving is normal. 

...which is what drivers want you and everyone else to think, including themselves. 

A massive part of the problem is that drivers no longer see these things as wrong: they increasingly see themselves not as perpetrators, but as victims.