My helmet (probably) saved my life today

"In 20 years of Intensive care I've seen two cyclists…. and about 100 pedestrians and car occupants."

So that probably actually illustrates that in terms of patients you've seen vs miles covered by form of transport makes cyclists statistically far more likley to be in your care than car occupants and pedestrians?

As for the 'medics said it saved me' line, again, it's rubbish.

Whether they said it or not, that's what I would have believed anyway. And I did say "(probably)" in my thread title, and "likely" in my post, both of which aren't definites.

Besides, what do we mean by 'life' anyway. Sure, I may not have been killed without a helmet but maybe I could have ended up in a coma, or paralysed, or loss of memory which could have effectively ended my 'life' as I currently know it. It doesn't have to be about dying…

Cookeaa

I have said all this repeatedly but as Rob seems to have grasped many folk don't actually bother to read what I write.

I own two different helmets and wear them as appropriate. Pisspot helmet for jumping and some days at trail centres where I will take it off for the climb ( its too hot to ride uphill in) and a vented XC type when I am wearing it all day. The pisspot type would appear to give greater protection from my understanding of the evidence and have less of the risks of helmet wearing.

The science on both sides of the argument is weak at best and biased at worst.

For the very last time I will try to sum up my position.

Cycling is a safe activity. Some forms of cycling are riskier than others. When the risks are low I don't wear a helmet as I am prepared to accept the level of risk – it is millions to one in some circumstances I simply don't like wearing a helmet so would rather not do so as I find them uncomfortable, sweaty and restrictive. I come from a generation that was cycling before cycle helmets were developed.

The protection that helmets give is often overstated as you seem to agree. They are good at protection from minor injuries – bumps scrapes and so on. They are not good at protection from major injuries. They might mitigate some major injuries but also exacerbate some and there is some good real experimental evidence to show this. This is my understanding of the evidence. The mechanism whereby helmets can make injury worse are thru increase in rotational forces. This has been shown experimentally. The result can be either broken necks or what is known as a diffuse axon injury. Cycle helmets are worse for the increase in rotational injury than many other sports helmets.

So when wandering around the countryside on low risk trails I don't wear a helmet as I am prepared to accept the very small risk of injury

When the risk of crashing is high I wear one as I want the protection from minor injuries.

Across the whole population there situation is slightly different. Helmet wearing puts people off riding bike. The health benefits from riding bikes outweighs the risk from riding bikes without helmets. To oversimplify more people will avoid heart attacks form the exercise of riding bikes than will die from head injuries. This is why the "you must wear a helmet" evangelicals annoy me so much. There is much evidence to support this.

There is also evidence to support that individuals who wear helmets are more likely to crash and that populations who have high rates of helmet wearing have higher rates of crashing and of head injuries and death

I like evidence based practice so I try to look at the evidence and to make valid assessments from following the evidence. Other people can
read the same evidence and reach other conclusions.

What we as cyclists should be agitating for IMO is:
Better research into what actually happens when people crash
Root cause analysis for crashing
Better testing and design for cycle helmets

Nonk – you are correct in that science can never prove this – all you can do is consider the evidence and make your own mind up. And you are absolutely right in that it was foolish of me to get involved in this again.

Tj – we are all entitled to our opinions but do us all a favour and STFU!
Ps..glad your ok kit

For the very last time I will try to sum up my position.

Can we hold you to that on this forever if so we have done some good today STW

Junkyard – Member

"For the very last time I will try to sum up my position."

Can we hold you to that on this forever if so we have done some good today STW

Yup.

There's evidence that the seatbelt laws have not saved nearly as many lives as claimed/thought.

What evidence?

Lots on seat belts here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt_laws

Not going to argue about it though, and I always wear a seatbelt.

Does anyone actually care whether TJ wears a helmet or not? Ultimately, it's his decision. There is no compulsion for him to wear one nor should he if he doesn't want to. However, it would be a cruel irony were he to suffer a serious head injury when out on the bike on a low risk ride.

While it may be easy for TJ to take comfort from the science and statistics to justify not wearing a helmet, I'll continue to stick to wearing one in the event that the statictics end up not being in my favour and a perceived low risk ride ends up going wrong. I'd rather place my faith in a helmet to protect me than the science! Tree stumps and rocks are a lot less pointy and sore when there is something between you and them! 😀

Oh and Kit

Get well soon mate! Glad your helmet did the job!

I love the bit in TJ's article that says that a helmeted head is twice as big as a non-helmeted head….and hence is more likely to hit something..

who, ever, in the history of anything has had a bike helmet which makes your head twice the size?!!

glad you're OK though

From cyclehelmet.org's policy statement:

In particular we seek to provide access to a wider range of information than is commonly made available by some governments and other bodies that take a strong helmet promotion stance.

So its fairly clear where they stand then…

who, ever, in the history of anything has had a bike helmet which makes your head twice the size?!!

TEAM MCCOY[/b]

double post

My full face makes my head 1.5x bigger tops, so how does a polystyrine lid double it?

I agree everything is all down to the individual, but let's be honest, they do reduce the effect of injury most of the time, but if you feel like you have a low risk of crashing I can understand where you're coming from.

However having cylced on the road a lot to get places, I will always wear one even though I like to think I am a good cyclist. The reason being this: Sh*t Happens!

Case in point: came down a hill, with easily my braking distance between me and the car in front, and I'm having to feather my brakes to keep this distance. Some goon then overtakes me and tucks in within a meter of my front wheel. I'm rather annoyed and begin to back off, so that I have a sensible distnace between me and him. Before I can do this however the guy in front of him did an emergency stop (**** knows why), and I slam on my brakes but still smash into this twerp's rear end. My helmet hit his rear window and stopped my head doing so, and given I was still recovering from a mild concussion the helmet did it's job. It did not make me invulnerable, but I'm still glad I wore it.

Kit's accident is a much more extreme example, and the same happened to a mate of mine (though not as badly as Kit). The cyclists were not at fault in these crashes, therefore it makes sense to wear the helmet all the time as things beyond your control can happen. I am not an evangelical "wear the helmet or you DIE!!!!!" person, but common sense states that surely you might as well wear it for when things like this do happen, and given how many cr@p drivers there are out there these accidents are more common that most of us would like.

I'm with TJ on this!

I do wear a helmet. However people seem to have misconceptions as to what a helmet is designed for. A standard bike helmet is tested fo impacts up to 12 mph which roughly equates to going over the bars whilst riding slowly NOT being hit by a car, flying into a tree or rock off road etc.

Helmet wearing is a personal choice and should be based on an understanding of what they are designed to do. I really don't want legal compulsion and nor should you!

Edit! Can someone provide the stats showing that helmet compulsion in Australia made no difference to head injuries?

With a helmet on, one has a problem inserting head up ones ****….

adstick

Its linked to off the cyclehelmets.org site.

It is flawed research as well – there are some vilid critisims of it

A standard bike helmet is tested fo impacts up to 12 mph which roughly equates to going over the bars whilst riding slowly NOT being hit by a car, flying into a tree or rock off road etc.

So all instances of being hit by a car, flying into a tree or rock off road etc are at 12mph+

😆

If you value life and you have a family then its a no brainer for me to wear a helmet to reduce or avoid a serious head injury. If you feel your riding skills and ability do not warrant wearing then thats your personal choice, however even if you have been lucky for many years and come off or been knocked off without injury whilst not wearing a helmet you then start to become complacent until the worst happens, I have a short ride to my local leisure centre and thought I would be okay not wearing a helmet until I nearly got knocked off by numpty drivers, suffice to say I wear my lid now.

i don't know much, but i do know that the dude on the far left, backrow of this pic:

is probably the most experienced trauma paramedic in the uk and is the lead paramedic for the London HEMS team and has been for many years

in his view EVERY cyclist must wear a helmet

FACTOID

i'm outta here~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>

The reason why most MTBrs including TJ should wear helmets is because they HAVE NO STYLE ARE BALD OR HAVE NAFF haircuts

So what bit doesn't make physiological sense? Slowing the deceleration rate of the brain inside the head is a good thing… As in you make it go from whatever speed it was doing to rest in as long a time as possible, thereby cutting down the damage that the inside of the skull does to the brain.

Kit: I'm glad that you were not seriously injured helmet or not.

IMHO and its just that MHO…..

I would rather wear my helmet on even the "lowest risk rides" as:

a) something completely unexpected may happen
b) my maths is too poor to continually work out probabilities for every eventual riding environment
c) I ride for fun, I don't want to risk loosing that fun for even the shortest period of time and if a helmet MAY preserve this fun then thats the route I will always look to take

Remember kids, don't lean safety by accident. 😆

On a sidenote TJ would you use similar probability theory, or suggest it be used, in the use of a condom? Low risk sex vs high risk sex.

BTW this isn't meant to antagonize or lower the tone just interested* 😀

*please keep experiences to an overview 😆

letmetalktomark… yeah, not sure your condom argument is a good one there… as in low risk would be having sex with a long term partner whereas high risk would be having sex with a stranger, or during that time of the month?

I think I may be able to guess what a lot of peoples answers would be there!

Hmmm, in fact it shows exactly what TJ is talking about, making a decision based on the percieved risk of the activity… who'd have thunk it!

More than 100 posts about a helmet saved my life post… Never! 😉

Anyway, I've not read it because undoubtedly it's the same old guff about how they don't do anything for you being spouted out by the same usual suspects, same as it was on my Helmet thread the other week…

So…

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Stop the thread someone now!

We've heard it all before!!! 🙄

Stupid for following the scientific evidence? The science is not good but it is clear that if you are uninjured after an accident wearing a helmet then you would not have been killed with one. You might have been injured.

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1019.html

Stupid for believing that a load of guff from a website with an obvious agenda is science. Besides, if you refer to the first line of tosh on their website, any fool will realise that you can't prove a negative. It is clearly possible to prove that someone has died due to head injuries, it is equally possible to prove whether they were wearing a helmet or not. What isn't possible is to account for all those people who do not get onto any statistical data simply becuase they haven't reported that nothing happened when they bashed their head.

In the meantime I'll go with my personal experience which is :-

3 smashed helmets in my garage, no head injuries apart from self inflicted (mainly an assault on brain cells through alcohol and drugs)
3 people known personally to me dead as a result of head injuries, none of them wearing a helmet
Nil people known to me seriously hurt or killed due to a head or neck injury whilst wearing a helmet

QED in my world.

Is it stopped? Oh no.. still going…

In my experience…. my chain slipping and me piling into the ground without a helmet hurt an awful lot (I was pootling to work in cycle lane in Cambridge.. stoopid really).

however, sliding at 20mph across a pavement into a bin head-first, with a lid on, hurt a lot less..

ergo, scientificness says helmets = good idea

While we're bringing in personal experience and spurious research…

A friend of a friend** studied coroners reports on people killed by head injuries in bike accidents over x years in y town/city. In every single case, the other injuries sustained would also have killed them.

* a doctor
** retired orthopaedic consultant with years of A&E experience, former doctor to British Cycling and the Milk Race, long time cyclist
IIRC, x = 1 year and y = Manchester, but this may be wrong.

i suffered a blood clot on the brain and quite a long recovery having fallen off without a helmet. I survived having being given 33% chance of doing so and a much higher chance of severe difficulties afterwards (much like Micheal Watson the boxer). I sustained no other life threatening injuries.

With a helmet the worst I have done is shaken myself up a bit and bled from my knees and elbows.

Why would anyone ride a mountain bike without a helmet on?

Goan – Member

So what bit doesn't make physiological sense? Your second post does make sense – your first does not.

Goan – Member

TJ – that is about the biggest crock of shit i've ever heard.

The helmet has more functions that absorbing impact. It also reduces the deceleration of the brain inside the skull by moving when you have an impact,

The helmet moving in what way where? Utter nonsense.

Teh helmet reduces the linear acceleration of your head It works best when in continuous contact with your head and does not move relative to your head.

thereby reducing the extent of internal injury to blood vessels etc. I'm pretty sure I dont really need to tell you about the benefits of that….

total confusion. The tearing of blood vessels happens with a rotational acceleration not a liner one – Tearing of the blood vessels is precisely the sort of injury that is caused by rotational forces that can be exacerbated by a helmet.

Focal head injury from liner impacts or diffuse axon injury from rotational forces from oblique impacts..

Berm Bandit

Yes the cycle helmets org site is obviously biased – however it does have references to real peer reviewed research and meta studies. Follow the links to the science

to all the people with me to tales your all wrong as its not science 🙄

Why would anyone ride a mountain bike without a helmet on?

What's the most commom cause of head injury?

Motor Vehicle Accident.

Why would anyone drive without a helmet on?

Half of all Traumatic Brain Injuries involve alcohol.

Why would anyone drink without a helmet on?

Anecdote is not the same as data…

http://cyclehelmets.org/papers/c2022.pdf

Read this. Properly read it, and try to understand what the figures show.

This is the perfect scenario; before and after helmet compulsion laws…

when will everyone realise TJ will never let it go?, i'm off to other threads, enjoy your bantering

when will everyone realise TJ will never let it go?

he'll be the last standing for sure

However – I have noticed a softening of his position over the last year or so

Mate -did she run you over because you're a ginger. If you can prove this you'll be sorted for a few quid for sure! xx

TJ is an self-confessed anarchist so why even argue, he'll disagree out of principle.

If nobody wore helmets I'm sure he WOULD wear one himself. 😀

TJ, do you like CountryLife butter, and if so what are your reasons?

Does TJ have a brain injury for not wearing a helmet! :lol:Or is perhaps his brain rattles around in his skull so It doesnt reduces the deceleration of the brain inside the skull by moving when you have an impact. 😆

I've read a couple of these helmet threads, and there seems to be more rational thought behind TJ's responses than a lot of his detractors'.

Risks of head injury related to activity are on a big smooth curve from staying in bed at one end to jumping out of a 5 storey building headfirst at the other.

It's up to each individual to decide at what point they start protecting their head. For people to say that doing any activity involving balancing on 2 wheels crosses some sort of Rubicon past which only the stupid don't wear helmets is ridiculous, as there are plenty of activities on the curve which are far more dangerous, which the same people don't wear hemets for.

All the science guff is by the by.

nedrapier +1