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photo-42 by double*u, on Flickr[/img]

Just to add some fuel (not that its needed) to the ever-raging helmet debate. I got knocked off my bike last Sunday. Oncoming driver “didn’t see me” (I know I’ve lost a few kilo’s on iDave but I’m not THAT tiny) and turned right across my path taking my front wheel with him. Wheel: pringled, carbon road bike: smashed, me: supermanned across junction with direct blow to the top of my head from his car/road (I’m not sure). Picked myself up and walked away from accident. Witness called ambulance and police. Paramedics took one look at the helmet and stuck me on rigid board with collar. I had a few abrasions on limbs and additional bald spots from where I got “scalped” as I blew through the helmet, broken L ring finger and spent hours in A&E getting my c-spine (thankfully) cleared, then spent a few more hours on an observation ward after the consultant saw the helmet and thought I might need a CT (I didn’t).

Driver got done for driving without due care and attention (to give him his due he was very shaken up, but admitted full liability to me, witnesses, paramedics, police and his own insurance co). I missed 1 day of work because I was achey and had to go to fracture clinic about the broken finger.

Do you really think I would have got off so lightly without the helmet?

I don’t think there’s much doubt about that one!

falling off your bike doesn’t happen, the crash was purely anecdotal. 😀

glad your ok though

Christ alive!

It seems you are a lucky man.

Glad to hear you are mostly ok.

glad your ok glad you had a lid on.

the other argument go’s along the lines of the fact that you had a helmet on and you are ok means nothing really, which is kind of true i suppose but i will be wearing mine all the same.

PeterPoddy – Member
I don’t think there’s much doubt about that one!

Don’t worry, he’ll be along soon.

Wow, you’re a lucky man! Lucky enough to have the sense to be wearing a helmet.

Did they check out the whole of your spine? I went headfirst into a wall and my helmet had just a scratch on it, nothing compared to yours. I was badly concussed and had a mashed face. It wasn’t till the second day in hospital after complaining of a lack of breath that a consultant decided they needed to do a sideways MRI scan of my back and only then did they find that I’d fractured my T8 (just above your imaginary bra strap) vertebra and that my spine was poking the back of my lungs inwards. Spent the next three months in a back brace off work.

Like I said: you’re a lucky guy! ( I count myself lucky too, btw)

TJ to the forum, please.

I’ll summarise for him though until he gets here

– Glad you’re ok
– The helmet snapped so it didn’t work (this is incorrect as it goes)
– You don’t know for sure that the helmet did work because you’ve not had the same accident without it.

Tea anyone. Earl Grey with milk and one sugar for me ( 😉 )

Lucky chap, hope you’re not rotationally injured 😉

CaptainFlashheart – Member

Don’t worry, he’ll be along soon.

Daytime is :big hitter safe: now he’s got a job 😀

– Glad you’re ok
– The helmet snapped so it didn’t work (this is incorrect as it goes)
– You don’t know for sure that the helmet did work because you’ve not had the same accident without it.

Additional to above, and further proof that the helmet failed to work:
If the helmet had worked you’d know because you’d have suffered a severe spinal injury due to the additional torque applied to your neck by the weight of the helmet.

And glad you’re largely ok.

TJ got a job, ah, that’s good news all round 🙂

I’m sorry, but:

…Wheel: pringled, carbon road bike: smashed, me: supermanned across junction…

There’s a peak on that helmet, you Philistine.

p.s. glad you’re ok.

And the important message from this is:

Driver got done for driving without due care and attention

A couple of Devil’s Advocate / TJ answers before the inevitable helmet yawnfest:

1) I don’t think even TJ would say that a helmet never helps.

2) most of the anti-helmet-compulsion debate focusses on the health impacts to the population as a whole, not individual crashes.

3) your head isn’t made of polystyrene. A bike helmet is designed to break and crumple like that. A skull isn’t. So a destroyed helmet doesn’t necessarily mean you avoided a destroyed skull. Would definitely have nipped tho!

4) they stuck you on a board with a collar. A helmet didn’t help your neck/spine. So neck braces and spine protectors should also be compulsory.

There. Fire stoked. 😈

Anyways, looks like a chuffin nasty one. Glad you’re (more or less) okay fella and that the driver got done for it.

tj-signal by j.buckle, on Flickr

Ok, I have a helmet almost as bad from a high speed crash off road. Quite frankly after destroying my third you would have to be an imbecile to ride off road without one. I feel quite naked riding without one, its just instinctive now.

….and I think the case or roadies has just been made 🙂

I feel quite naked riding without one

Opened yourself up for a line of attack on risk-taking there… 😉

Jeebus!

Just for TJ’s benefit, I re-created the accident without a helmet. The results were pretty graphic, so here’s a toned down reconstruction.

😀

Looks very much like a MET Parachute? If so what happened to the chin bar?

Glad you’re ok.
A question for all the helmet evangelists; if the the government decided that helmets should be compulsory, but that current bicycle helmets were largely useless, instead passing a law that you must wear an approved motorbike helmet if cycling on the road (minimum 1500g and no vents), would you still happily wear one and continue to chastise those that chose not to?
I just wonder, theoretically like.

Do people genuinely give a toss what that antagonistic idiot thinks?

Maybe start a fan club called the helmet headz

Opened yourself up for a line of attack on risk-taking there…

True dat I’m afraid.

If you ever say things like “I’d never ride that without a helmet” then you are admitting that wearing a helmet is allowing you to take more risks.

Is TJ working as Beta tester for Wikipedia ?

Had a close call with a motorist overtaking and then turning left in front of me this morning. What with that AND this, I think i’ll go back to wearing the noggin plastic…

Looks like you left it sitting on a heater that was on full skelp!

I wear a helmet 95% of the time, just to the shop or pub I may leave it off

but ………

If you ever say things like “I’d never ride that without a helmet” then you are admitting that wearing a helmet is allowing you to take more risks

I’d never say that, I may say I would have felt more comfortable with a hat on, but I don’t think there’d be anything that I’d refuse purely because I didn’t have a helmet

I can understand the public health argument. Helmets put people off cycling, they are than fatter than they would be otherwise (contentious argument in its own right) and suffer more ill health than they would otherwise.

That is the population based argument… however on an individual basis the helmet probably saved my skull on this occasion (no, TJ I am not prepared to act out some sort of freakish control experiment where I rig up the same crash without the helmet – you however are welcome to). The personal choice argument is a bit naff: as one’s actions clearly affect others: the widow you leave behind (financially cheap but emotionally costly option), the NHS bill thats higher since I’m on ward drinking through a straw for 6 months, the witness who has flashbacks about holding my brains in Jackie-O style and the driver who gets a more severe sentence, loses job, wife and kids.

I’m loaning out my smashed lid to concerned mothers for their kids to take to show and tell at school. I’m sending it with the slogan “Wear a helmet – don’t be one”

I once had a pretty nasty over the bars onto pointy rock when wearing a similar helmet and it didn’t destroy it anything like as badly (hairline cracks only) so that looks like a pretty serious impact and I don’t think there is much doubt at all it saved the rider from serious injury or death.

Met parachute- correct. Can be worn with or without chin-guard. Not using as interferes with camelbak use when mountain biking.

Wore chin guard on previous Met that “literally” saved my face in The Alps. (That’s a whole other story involving a QR that came undone whilst airborne… and also I’ve had 4 bikes stolen in that last year too… I think I might give this game up… work colleague was just about to get himself a bike in the sales but when his wife saw this helmet, he came home to find an iPad and pair of slippers had been bought for him with bike cash)

That is the population based argument… however on an individual basis the helmet probably saved my skull on this occasion

Agreed (I was just subbing for TJ – someone has to).

The personal choice argument is a bit naff: as one’s actions clearly affect others: the widow you leave behind (financially cheap but emotionally costly option), the NHS bill thats higher since I’m on ward drinking through a straw for 6 months, the witness who has flashbacks about holding my brains in Jackie-O style and the driver who gets a more severe sentence, loses job, wife and kids.

But the same could be said for not wearing a neck brace or spine protector.

Or someone could argue that the accident was made worse by your personal choice not to wear a high-viz jacket; not have lights and multiple reflectors front and back; not using an airhorn; not carry a large flag; cycle too quickly; not choose a safe off-road route; not drive…

Point being that the “personal choice” thing is often used to apportion part of the blame onto the cyclist, when this accident sounds like it was clearly the drivers fault.

I’m loaning out my smashed lid to concerned mothers for their kids to take to show and tell at school. I’m sending it with the slogan “Wear a helmet – don’t be one”

Nice. Like it 😀

I think I might give this game up… work colleague was just about to get himself a bike in the sales but when his wife saw this helmet, he came home to find an iPad and pair of slippers had been bought for him with bike cash)

In ten years you will have a healthy heart and lungs (but a few scars). Your colleague’s wife will be taking those slippers into hospital for him as he recovers from first heart attack.

Your colleague’s wife will be taking those slippers into hospital for him as he recovers from first heart attack.

Ed Zackerly.

That’s the population-based / public health argument right there.

Actual risk of serious injury is far lower than the long term health risks of inactivity.

Good thing it wasn’t too serious in the end.
I got hit from behind by a car last year – catapulted me over the top of the car and I landed on the road behind. My bike broke the cars windscreen and the impact was so hard the rim on my rear wheel split. I ended up with 11 stitches in the back of my knee because my foot was pushed off the pedal by the upwards force and the pedal went up the back of my leg. I had a week off work because I couldn’t walk.
What hacked me off was that the driver wasn’t charged with anything and then disputed it was his fault. The Police just said he hadn’t been drinking but this was on a clear road in town with a 30mph limit so he, at least, wasn’t driving with due care and attention.
I got a good settlement from his insurance but I wouldn’t have pushed it so hard if he’d been charged.
(Mini rant over!)

the driver wasn’t charged with anything and then disputed it was his fault

😯

He hit you from behind. How could it be anything other than his fault??
You’re damn lucky you went over, rather than under, his car.

: reverse TJ argument :

given the apparent propensity for ‘over biked weekend warriors’ to get ‘all storm troopered up’ does anyone think that donning bike protective kit may actually encourage some people to take up cycling ????

He hit you from behind. How could it be anything other than his fault??

I once hit a motorbike from behind – it was his fault
He came out of a side road in front of me and pretty much stopped for some bizarre reason

Yes, the first I knew about him being there was a massive bump and then I was in the air. I reckon he was going more than 30, but no way to prove that. He sent his insurance policy a photo of his car after respraying it and replacing the windscreen to hide the damage, then claimed I swerved to avoid a drain and went into his wing. Pretty stupid as the police report stated the damage.

‘all storm troopered up’

Ruroc full face helmet anyone?

http://www.ruroc.com/store/2/rg-1/core/white/