Forum menu
Heavily (but necessarily) summarised quote in the subject, but here's an interesting piece on bike helmets:
https://ecf.com/what-we-do/road-safety/ecf-position-helmets
I bet these reports don't consider mountain biking accidents though, which are more frequent.
It won't be inteseting.
Just make your own mind up using common sense.
TurnerGuy
Member
I bet these reports don’t consider mountain biking accidents though, which are more frequent.
Actually they will do as they look at hospital admissions for casualties - but MTBing is a very small part of cycling europe wide.
Just make your own mind up using common sense.
Yeah! Haven't you heard that we've had enough of experts? You can prove anything with facts.
geex
It won’t be inteseting.
Just make your own mind up using common sense.
My lordy. Apart from the spelling of 'interesting', I totally agree with geex.
and will now let this uninteresting thread run it's course.
Its really important to differentiate between what happens to individuals and to populations. The effects are very different.
I'm pretty sure that if I fall off my bike for what ever reason and hit my head on a rock/kerb/other hard object, it will hurt more if I am not wearing a helmet.
That'll do for me.
Definitely doesn’t apply to the protection full face provides to your teeth when hitting rock gardens, wet off camber roots or misjudging the height of tree branches...
Mandatory helmets for pedestrians.
ads that might be so - but in some types of collisions helmet wearing makes outcomes worse. ( high speed oblique impacts)
here’s an interesting piece on bike helmets
It wasn't interesting. Can I have my money back?
🙂
13 posts so far (not including this one), 4 of them by TJ. Who would've seen that coming?
EDIT: 14 - 5 now
TJ - I'm sure you're right, you've certainly done more research than I have, but i've had a fair few crashes on (or off!) bikes and I'm happy that wearing a helmet helped prevent any further injury and will continue wearing one during certain types of cycling.
Do I think they should be mandatory? **** no!
Mashr - that gets another 🙂
Actually they will do as they look at hospital admissions for casualties – but MTBing is a very small part of cycling europe wide.
precisely - so the stats for whether a helmet is beneficial whilst mtbing are lost within a sea of stats from accidents sustained on the road.
Pull out just the mtb stats and I bet the results would look very different.
I’m pretty sure that if I fall off my bike for what ever reason and hit my head on a rock/kerb/other hard object, it will hurt more if I am not wearing a helmet.
That’ll do for me.
And if you trip over when walking it is somehow different? This is why, as Geex says, we just need to make up our own minds.
I think most of us are aware they offer limited protection but most still choose to take it up despite the lack of compullsion "just in case"...
You might call that individuals making informed choices rather than believeing all the hype...
The arguments against helmet compulsion are pretty well established now, and there's not much real appetite to impose it beyond the odd shouty DM reading Mondeo man...
TBH it's not really cycling forums where these dull, stat-fest studies need to be linked now, it's in the comments on the next click bait piece the DM/Sun/Express run about cyclists without Lids and hi-viz...
Just make your own mind up using common sense.
Isnt the point of the article that we should be free to decide. Bit like all the times I get abuse for not using poorly designed cycle lanes the weight of society seems against choice.
This hoary old chestnut again! I'll bite. Modern MIPS helmets reduce the dangers of rotational force injuries, which weakens the "oblique impact" injuries argument. As a pedestrian I don't think I've ever fallen and bashed my head in the way that I've done when coming off a bike (road or mountain and more often than I care to dwell on) at speed and onto a hard, unforgiving surface. \even when drunk. For sure, if I find myself under the wheels of an HGV (yet to happen, but can't rule it out) a helmet probably isn't going to be much good (deliberate understatement), but then what is? Undoubtedly if you're cycling much above walking pace, fall off and hit your head on something hard, you're going to be better off with a helmet on 99% of the time. Should they be mandatory? Of course not! For all the reasons previously listed, but if you're riding on a busy road, or anywhere off-road, or in wet or icy conditions, imho you'd be an idiot not to wear one.
And finally, because it still amuses me, the story of a very right-on ex-colleague (new job, he's still very much alive) who we'll call Andy (for 'tis his name) who took every opportunity to announce how he would never succumb to pressure from the man to wear a helmet (personal freedom and that) and then turned up to work one Monday morning with a massive scar on his hairline (many stitches). Turned out he'd knocked himself out cycling under a bridge on the canal towpath. Not surprisingly there were quite a few helpful colleagues happy to point out that "If he'd been wearing a helmet.."
I wear a helmet (after a silly off in Wales could have been fatal) and if I'm guiding or riding with a group where I have any responsibility then I insist every one wears one.
If I see folk riding without one it's up the them but a give a little hope that no harm come from not wearing one.
And yes TJ is correct about individuals and populations.
Don't need to share it with DM/Sun/Express comments, just need to make sure those in power are aware of it.
Will I wear a helmet MTBing? Pretty much yes except in exceptional circumstances. Sometimes full face.
Will I always wear a helmet to the shop/pub? Nope, it's a bit of a pain.
Do I crash a lot on the road? No, but of 2 times I hit my head, one was against a pedestrian's head.
Individual choice isn't it? Off road perhaps a case, along with knee pads, hip protectors, etc. On road, depends on your riding style. If you crash regularly maybe wear one. On road, aside from minor bruises I've never injured myself in 40 years of touring and commuting. No head injuries.
Another stat - the London Bike Hire scheme, used by riders of mixed abilities in a busy city had it's first fatality after 34 million miles were clocked up. General cycling isn't really that dangerous. I don't wear a helmet for other safe activities.
https://understandinguncertainty.org/fatality-risk-boris-bikes
And if you trip over when walking it is somehow different? This is why, as Geex says, we just need to make up our own minds.
Which i have. I'm not telling any one else they should wear one....
this old chestnut, personally i wouldn't ride with people who don't wear helmets. its all personal choice.
when you go to A&E and mention bicycle/ being knocked of a bike, every admin / nurse / doctor / consultant you meet will ask you the same question 'were you wearing a helmet'
hence with all these studies and papers saying helmets dont make a difference
it seems a strange question to ask
stupid is as stupid does.. not to judge $;0)
The report they referenced (Elvik2011) is interesting because the detail is often more interesting that the summary. It concludes that there is absolutely no doubt that helmets reduce the severity of head injuries. However for other sorts of injuries it really isn't clear that helmets help. You combine that with a change in the population who would cycle if you make it a legal requirement then yes it is possible there is no net protective effect. However, for those of us who aren't put off cycling by wearing a helmet it is quite clear that wearing a helmet is safer
Still, as with others here, I don't always wear a helmet when skooting around town. I always wear one when riding off-road
We4aring a helmet only reduces minor injuries - not major ones. Major ones can be made worse also helmets can create risk factors that increase your chance of crashing
Well I would have been deaded only a week back had I not been wearing my helmet. Simple easy innocuous little ride. That is enough reason for me to wear one always.
No cycle helemt will turn a life threatening injury into no injury - they are simply incapable of this. the forces involved are too big.
when you go to A&E and mention bicycle/ being knocked of a bike, every admin / nurse / doctor / consultant you meet will ask you the same question ‘were you wearing a helmet’
hence with all these studies and papers saying helmets dont make a difference
it seems a strange question to ask
Do they? I can't remember the last time I was asked. (Minor Injuries Unit for a shoulder injury recently, foot injury, gash in hip, broken wrist, broken thumb and others at various times over the last twenty five years.)
I do remember being asked how I did the injury - can't remember which one - and replying 'mountain biking', at which the nurse said 'motor biking' and walked away. I wonder how many injuries are filed under the wrong activity.
We4aring a helmet only reduces minor injuries
Nowt wrong with that, though there's a few folk wouldn't consider dental reconstruction to be that minor.
No cycle helemt will turn a life threatening injury into no injury – they are simply incapable of this. the forces involved are too big.
You can't say that. All it takes is a badly placed object or certain amount of force in a specific place or an edge case, and a helmet would turn a life threating injury into no injury. Prove me otherwise.
It's an odd perspective to have.. but maybe Helmets are just a 'marekting' campaing to drive sales.
Do you drive a car without airbags or seatbelts too?
Do you not wear gloves/respirators when dealing with hazardouse substances?
[strong]tjagain[/strong] wrote:
No cycle helemt will turn a life threatening injury into no injury – they are simply incapable of this. the forces involved are too big.
Not ture. I firmly believe I could have died the other week, simply due to the impact sustained on a sharp edge rock (enough to give me compression pain in back and shoulders and completely crack my helmet through), compounded with the fact I was well off any sort of beaten track, hidden from view in a gulley, and no-one would have had any idea that I was riding there.
People always say "why don't we wear a helmet to walk" when these threads come up, but you only have to watch bike "crash" videos for 30 sec on you-tube to see two major kinesiological differences between falling off a bike, and falling when walking, namely:
1) "Going over the bars" is a common accident, and means you are likely to land less obliquely to the ground, because you go up and over the (tall) front wheel. Stumble when walking and your instinctive reaction is to try to get your feet back under your body (ie put in a quick stride), meaning even if you fall, assuming you are not infirm or elderly , chances are you go down with a lower vertical velocity and a larger horizontal one.
and
2) Most people who cycle aren't experienced Mountain bikers who have learnt (often the hard way) how to 'bail' and to bail early. Watch the videos of people falling off bikes, especially on road bikes, and they pretty much never let go of the bars, meaning the first thing that hits the ground is unlikely to be hands /arms, but head / face.
Here's a load of people hitting the ground head/face first, despite still death gripping the bars:
Why then do the actual science and research say that walking is as dangerous for head injury as cycling ( per mile)
In other news: Bike helmet discussions summarised... Indicate no detectable change in opinion of participants about bike helmets.
🙂
I am still waiting for someone to suggest trying hitting me with a baseball bat helmeted and unhelmeted - usually have that by now
I am not anti helmet. I am pro INFORMED choice and against helmet promotion let alone compulsion.
Where do they get the data they use in these studies? If it's based on A&E visits, then it's obviously flawed as not many of us who've totalled helmets, and walked away relatively unharmed, don't tend to go to hospital, so will be missing from these statistics. I'm neither pro, nor anti on the compulsion front btw.
Read them? I can point you in the direction of multiple studies and analysis of these studies.
Its one of the flaws with the data. We only have those injured either helmeted or unhelmeted so what we do not know is are unhelmeted folk less likely to have accidents - seems some data points this way and also as you point out - we don't have a comparison between crashers unhelmeted and helmeted who crash but are uninjured - again some data suggests helmets make hitting your head more common Certainly minotrr injuries appear to be more common without helmets but major injuries - no proper data on that at all that I have seen and some studies have seen 30% of all accidents a helmet makes it worse.
the other major flaw in most of the data is it uses very broad definitions for head injury and assumes that minor and major head injuries have the same sort of causes - this is not so.
So yes - data is flawed and inconsistent. Most of the research is of a pretty poor standard and much of it ( from both sides) done on the basis of making the data fit the hypothesis
While I don't understand why people wouldn't wear a bike helmet, I respect their decision not to. However, I do think they reduce the severity of head traumas (or probability of doing yourself some serious damage) and probably help the A and E staff have to deal with less serious injuries. This is based on 20 years of MTB, and falls and hitting my head several times to the point of cracking through the helmet. There's no way I wouldn't have had a skull fracture without a helmet on.
To the argument "well, why don't you wear a helmet walking down the street in case you fall and hit your head?". Maybe because walking generally isn't perceived (by me) as an inherently dangerous activity (unlike MTB), and in my 42 years, I've never tripped in the street and banged my head. If I was falling and hitting my head a lot, then a) I would consider wearing a helmet, and b) I'd be more worried about the pathology that's causing it!
Both my brother and I would very likely not be here now if it weren't for a decent helmet, I for one wont be leaving mine at home anytime soon
There is an argument about their use on the road. Properly protective helmets are going to be way too heavy and uncomfortable for us to wear (ever tried a motorbike helmet on which is only a compromise) so if you get ****ted by a car at speed and bounce off the road its value is probably limited to making it easier for the emergency services to scoop up your brain.
However I have a nice scar when I went out to test some gear tweaks and slid out on some roots. A helmet would have probably saved me from that.
There is also the question whether it would lessen the chances of concussion which can be really weird.
On the flipside there are a couple of studies which seem to indicate drivers are less cautious passing someone wearing a helmet.
By default I will keep to wearing a helmet (after the embarrassing incident in A&E where I went "no I wasnt wearing a helmet since I was just checking some gear tweaking") but I wouldnt treat it as a saviour and likewise I wouldnt want it as law.
Although that said I would want it as a law if you have it with you then wear it. What is it with people who have one dangling from their bars?
Why then do the actual science and research say that walking is as dangerous for head injury as cycling ( per mile)
Drunk people
Elderly people
People cycle further than they walk
EDIT just noticed who the OP is quoting. Might as well cite ‘cyclehelmets.org’ as an unbiased authority.