so – west Kipper – shall we organise a "wind in your hair" ride? Or wind across your balding skull if thats the case? Helmet wearers will be allowed to join but will have to run a gauntlet of tutting.

I have the perfect route without rocks / steep descents / or anything you can jump off – but more scenery and history than you can shake a stick at.

Ha Ha!, good plan, though I'm happy to leave the rocks'n steepness in.
BTW, as I alluded, I never cycle without my woolie beanie, after a high speed road crash where it certainly saved my life! 😉

Obviously my Jersey/children comment was too subtle…

I always wear a helmet mtb-ing, especially having previously broken them, but never when on-road on my hybrid. My children wear them mtb-ing, often full-facers, but its their choice on-road and when out with their friends – and they've also broken helmets/faces/bones in the past too. Also I've been known to wear a full-face, in the Alps, on uplifts etc.

Its about choice and risk assessment.

Compulsary helmets on bikes are no different to compulsary dog insurance – it will only affect the law-abiding.

I always wear gloves and sunglasses – even in the dark. They saved my life!

Must admit the Aussie issue has always confused me – did lots of cyclists just give up their hobby/mode of transport because the mean ole government told them to wear helmets? I can imagine someone flaunting the law if they didn't like it but not waking up one day and deciding to sell on the bike because they just can't face the 'shame' of a helmet, I wonder if there isn't more to the Australian issue than helmets.

Well compulsion means more helmet sold, so better margin for LBS and cheaper helmet for regular cyclist too.
Plus lets face it:
*/CFH mode on/*
I will mean chavs on the pavement will be fine for riding a bike then they won't ride bike anymore hence less bike theft
*/CFH mode off/*

Like I said before where's the actual science? and what exactly does "Up to 50%" mean? anything from Zero to a 1 in 2 chance that my helmet might kill me? in what particular circumstance? and based on what? some forms filled in in an A&E dept by concussed people with sore necks? or Doctors who never saw the accident scene? what precisely is the Evidence and how was it gathered?

Stats mean just about sweet FA, malleable data that can be presented to prove just about anything…

I want to see the test report with photo's of dummies heads twisted the wrong way and a caved in Giro/MET/Bell strapped on and a proper scientific methodology and analysis, statistics are just a round up of similar anecdotes, presented so as to "prove" the arguments of whoever writes the report, in this case apparently some conspiracy theorist who believes bicycle helmets are a cunning plot to kill as many as half of those that manage to fall off a bike…

Don't get me wrong I believe in rotational injury, but I also believe in Impact trauma and abrasion, twisting your neck isn't the only injury you can receive when cycling…

Post a link to a factual scientific study or test please, and I might be swayed…

Rotational injury is not just about your neck – the bigger aspect is diffuse axon injury or subdural haematoma instead of focal brain injury.

Focal brain injury **** up a bit of your brain totally – so you might forget how to add up or how to express emotions. Diffuse axon injury stirs the whole brain – its a much worse injury

Ignore the analysis – or at least accept its bias. The references to the original research are there. Like all stuff on this look for the bias and discount it and go to the sources – the references are there

This evidence led the authors to conclude that injuries from this type of impact are more likely to be due to rotations than linear impacts. In other words, for an impact speed of 19 miles/hr, Report PPR213 shows that helmet wearers may have a significant risk (35-50%) of serious head injuries due to rotational acceleration.

The whole page is worth reading so long as you have your pinch of salt

Summery at http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1182.html
original refs
[1] Corner JP, Whitney CW, O'Rourke N, Morgan De. Motorcycle and bicycle protective helmets: requirements resulting from a post crash study and experimental research. Federal Office of Road Safety, Report CR55.
[2] Janssen EG, Wismans JSHM. Experimental and mathematical simulation of pedestrian-vehicle and cyclist-vehicle accidents. Proceedings of the 10th International Technical Conference on Experimental Safety Vehicles; 1985; Oxford.
[3] Gennarelli T, al. e. Diffuse axonal injury and traumatic coma in the primate. Annals of Neurology 1982;12:564-574.
[4] National Health and Medical Research Council. Football injuries of the head and neck: Australian Government Publishing Service, GPO Box 84, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia, 1994.
[5] Bloomfield A. Cycling: your health, the public’s health and the planet’s health. Making Cycling Viable New Zealand Cycling Symposium; 2000; Palmerston North 14-15 July 2000.
[6] Maimaris C, Summers CL, Browning C, Palmer CR. Injury patterns in cyclists attending an accident and emergency department: a comparison of helmet wearers and non-wearers. BMJ 1994;308:1537-40.
[7] Kraus JF, Fife D, Conroy C. Incidence, severity, and outcomes of brain injuries involving bicycles. Am J Public Health 1987;77(1):76-8.
[8] Click the inspiration tab at http://www.abc.net.au/tv/newinventors/txt/s2006698.htm .
[9] see: Phillips Helmets.

Anyway back to the original subject

FWIW I lived in Jersey for 6 years during the 1990's and the place may have changed a bit since then,but, their police have sweet FA to do so this is probably going to be enforced. Theres no real off road riding there anyway so unless your worried about some idiot running you down on the road (40 mph limit on the "open" road there anyway 🙄 )

Mind you due to total lack of real world experience native Jersey drivers are quite possibly (definitely IMO) the worst drivers in the world anyway so this law could save lives!

"This evidence led the authors to conclude that injuries from this type of impact are more likely to be due to rotations than linear impacts. In other words, for an impact speed of 19 miles/hr, Report PPR213 shows that helmet wearers may have a significant risk (35-50%) of serious head injuries due to rotational acceleration."

Though in the link they also say

"Overall, it was concluded that for the majority of cases considered, the helmet can provide life saving protection during typical linear impacts and, in addition, the typical level of rotational acceleration observed using a helmeted headform would generally be no more injurious than expected for a bare human head."

Quite an unusual thing that report, it actually seems to be interested in laying out both sides of the case and admitting the weakness of the research. Interesting reading.

Northwind – its also interesting in that cyclehelmets.org highlights the one side of the debate and TRL is evangelical on the other side.

TRL research and reviews make for interesting reading – the analysis is good then they extrapolate from that and ignore things that don't support their view that helmets are good. As in they ignore or discount risk compensation and in the full version of that they decide that rotational injuries don't happen

Edit – it also backs up my frequently stated point that the research is pish. We need more and especially on this specific point

MrSynthpop – Member

Must admit the Aussie issue has always confused me – did lots of cyclists just give up their hobby/mode of transport because the mean ole government told them to wear helmets? I can imagine someone flaunting the law if they didn't like it but not waking up one day and deciding to sell on the bike because they just can't face the 'shame' of a helmet, I wonder if there isn't more to the Australian issue than helmets.

Who knows? As far as I can see there is no explanation of this at all.

We dont know why this happened. My guess is that the experienced cyclists stopped cycling but risk compensation on behalf of the cyclists or less consideration from car drivers could be a part of it.

It could also be that helmets don't offer much protection and make serious injuries worse – so less minor injuries that don't show in the stats?

all feasible explanations but no real evidence

No one has bothered to find out

Its about choice and risk assessment.

Exactly. I wear a helmet for some rides, but to compel me to wear one for pootling along a towpath is absurd.

I'm in Australia and the situation is ridiculous. They're trying to launch a Velib-style citybike scheme… except the riders will have to wear a helmet. So they'll have to go to a bike shop, buy a helmet, return to station, rent bike for their 20min journey… There's a $50 (that's about £2583 these days) fine.

Cycling did drop off after the law was introduced. In Melbourne it has picked up a lot and doesn't seem to put off most people. Sydney, however, was described by an academic recently as having the most cyclist-hostile drivers he'd ever experienced. A state transport minister last year suggested cyclists should not even be on the roads… I suspect if they made cycling in Australian cities a little safer the helmet issue would be irrelevant. I also think that it's well established that a greater number of cyclists on the road makes cycling safer – in which case helmet laws that put off new cyclists (and they do) make cycling in general less safe.

I got a ticket for riding without a helmet here – $40 or $50 i think it was. Police stopped me and ticketed me for it. Fair enough, its the rules and I had left my helmet at work the night before. Main thing for me was it felt weird riding without a helmet on ! I'm so used to it I wouldn;t even think about not wearing one now irrespective of the 'facts' as well as they are presented. Like all great arguments its all about the presentation of the facts …

OK TJ I’ll grant you there appears to have been a tad more research done that I thought, I also agree that it doesn’t seem complete and a lot is out of date by now, the conclusions as presented do leave a little to be desired, like you say both sides of the debate can and do put their own spin on it…

I read it as the balance of probability still being that a helmet will reduce the riders risk of brain injury, primarily through impact, however there is some evidence to show in certain circumstance it may exacerbate rotational injury, the 35-50% chance while it may sound like quite a broad spread is actually pretty precise given the massive list of variables affecting a cycle accident, so ‘m not too sure their analysis is wide ranging enough, the TRL testing only looks at one set of crash geometry (8.5m/s at 15º as they describe it), it would be good to see simulations for various differing types of cycle crash, with a full dummy not a dismembered head form; obviously resources, time and the scope of the research all affect this…

I took from what I read that the bigger your noggin the greater risk you are at (helmeted or un-helmeted) of rotational injuries, due to larger head mass and providing a bigger moment, it sort of suggested that large head size (which you can do very little about) provided as much of a potential risk to a cyclist as a Pin head wearing a bulky helmet…

It also suggests to me that more rigid shells (Dirt jumpy piss pot style ABS jobbies perhaps) could be better with Oblique impact from a rotational injury POV as the outer shell deforms less in and oblique impact giving less transfer of liner-rotational motion, making them closer in some ways to a Motorcycle helmet than a “traditional” XC style, thin shell lid, have I understood that correctly?

Question; would I be right in believing all current Standard helmet tests (Snell, ANSI, etc) only look at direct impacts, nothing oblique?

I have to say I’m still in favour of compulsion, as I think on balance helmets reduce injury risk more than they exacerbate it, however I will admit that neither position is totally unequivocal…
I do still think all of the evidence is insufficient…

Cookea – pretty much as I understand it. Motorcycle helmets now have an oblique blow test and TRL recommended that cycle helmets do but currently they dont. More reseasrch and evidence is really needed – a lot of what we see is pish

I think that 35-50% risk of rotational injury is overstating it and we need more and better research but while the helmets are so limited in usefullness and can in some cases increase harm there can be no case for compulsion – especially against the background of so few accidents.

Helmets are good at preventing minor injury – so when the odds are high – trail centres and gnarly trails – I wear one as there is a significant risk of minor injury – cuts bumps and bruises. When I am out for an RSF style "wander round the scenery" the odds are so low that I am prepared to accept the risks of not wearing a helmet.

Coffeeking, I don't know what aspect of the report caused my colleague to stop wearing a helmet. He just said it influenced his choice and he has leant me the report to read, but as I said, I have not read any of the report yet myself, so I don't know its slant, context or conclusions as I have not even opened the cover yet.

cookeaa – on the pispot style helmet – I believe they are more protective both for impact as they extend further round the head and against rotation due to the smoother shells as well as the more rigid shell. I wear it sometimes but its too hot to wear for long – good for trail centres where you can take it off for climbs and put it on for descents.