Britain’s rising multidisciplinary star Zoe Bäckstedt has urged her fellow cyclists to “wear a helmet, please” after a training crash on Friday left her with fractures in her hand and wrist – and a cracked and badly scuffed helmet which she claims “saved my life”.
21-year-old Bäckstedt, who has long been touted as one of the most exciting prospects in women’s cycling, has now been forced to postpone the start of her cyclocross season after being treated in hospital following the spill.
“A perfect month of training and ‘holidays’, but a crash for me in training yesterday resulted in two small fractures in my hand and wrist,” the Canyon-Sram rider posted on Instagram on Saturday, alongside photos of her hospital stay and her damaged Giro helmet.
“It’s a shame to have this outcome and to miss the first races of the season but give me time and I’ll come back stronger.
“One thing I know for sure, my helmet saved my life. Thank you Giro Cycling. Wear a helmet, please.”
The Welsh star’s crash means her upcoming return to the cyclocross field, which many observers are hyping up as a potential breakthrough campaign at elite level for Bäckstedt, will be delayed by at least a few weeks.
> “It’s Paris-Roubaix!” Zoe and Magnus Bäckstedt on “blood, mud, and tears”
Last winter, Bäckstedt was impressively consistent on the cyclocross bike, never finishing outside the top ten throughout the entire season, while securing three World Cup podium places at Maasmechelen, Zonhoven, and Dublin, before winning her second consecutive U23 world title in Liévin.
Bäckstedt then followed up that successful cyclocross campaign with her best season on the road yet, winning three stages and the overall at the Baloise Ladies Tour, winning a stage and finishing fourth at the Simac Ladies Tour, and dominating the national time trial championships on home roads in Wales, beating Olympic medallist Anna Henderson by 20 seconds.
And in September at the world championships in Kigali, the Welsh wonderkid underlined her supremacy at U23 level by destroying the field in the time trial to win the rainbow jersey, topping every intermediate check and catching her cyclocross rival Marie Schreiber and Julia Kopecky along the way to win by almost two minutes.
Slovakia’s Viktória Chladonová was, in fact, the only rider to get within two minutes of Bäckstedt, finishing 1.50 down, while Italy’s Frederica Venturelli took bronze, 2.11 behind the flying Welsh star.
That time trial domination in Rwanda means that Bäckstedt now has nine world titles to her name at junior and U23 level across road, cyclocross, and track.
> Perhaps my helmet did save my life — but that doesn’t mean you need to wear one
Bäckstedt isn’t the first professional cyclist, of course, to encourage the use of helmets while cycling.
Last December, Tadej Pogačar was unveiled as an ambassador for the United Nations’ global road safety campaign, which aims to promote road safety by recruiting celebrities and sportspeople to deliver messages “focusing on reducing risk factors” such as drink driving, texting at the wheel, and not wearing a bike helmet.
According to the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Road Safety, Jean Todt, who launched the Make a Safety Statement campaign in 2023, Pogačar’s involvement in the initiative would act as a “game changer” to help raise awareness of the need for drivers to respect cyclists, follow the rules, and protect people on bikes from “preventable and predictable” collisions.
> Why is Dan Walker’s claim that a bike helmet saved his life so controversial?
The campaign, which has been advertised on street furniture and billboards in 80 different countries throughout 2025, sees celebrities and sportspeople such as Pogačar and tennis legend Novak Djokovic, focus on what the UN says are the “main aspects” which can help reduce risk factors on the road.
These include “wearing a seatbelt, driving sensibly, wearing a helmet, not texting while driving, not driving under the influence of alcohol, not driving while tired, and respecting pedestrians and cyclists”.
After being announced as part of the campaign, Pogačar said: “As a professional cyclist the open road is my workplace, and I live the reality of the danger of cycling in traffic almost every day.
“I am not alone, as millions of people around the world ride their bikes to work, school or just for leisure. The ability for people to ride their bikes safely is something we need to protect.
“I am happy to support this campaign and believe that together we can help to make the roads safer for everyone, cyclists and motorists alike.”
> Road safety organisation accused of “victim-blaming” over cycling helmet campaign
News of the Slovenian’s involvement in the campaign came in the same week that Pogačar’s classics and Tour de France rival Remco Evenepoel suffered multiple fractures after a postal worker swung open the door of their van into his path during a training ride.
However, world champion time triallist-turned-road safety campaigner Chris Boardman is arguably the most high-profile former pro cyclist to minimise the importance of wearing a helmet while cycling, famously declaring in 2014 that wearing helmets is “not even in the top 10 of things you need to do to keep cycling safe or more widely, save the most lives”.
96 thoughts on ““Wear a helmet, please”: Zoe Bäckstedt says “my helmet saved my life” after suffering hand and wrist fractures in training crash”
Yet another evidence-free
Yet another evidence-free statement about bicycle helmets.
Only one rider has been
Only one rider has been killed in the Tour de France from a head injury, then when it was made compulsory to wear a helmet, lots of lives were definitely saved because “look at my helmet, look how it’s broken, it must have saved my life”
kingleo wrote:
Actually two, Casartelli in 1995 but also Francisco Cepeda who died in 1935 from a fractured skull after crashing on a descent.
Yep, that disproves KL’s
Yep, that disproves KL’s point.
RayG wrote:
I wasn’t trying to disprove their point, just mentioning it as a matter of interest.
I’ve been cycling for 67
I’ve been cycling for 67 years, never knew that – shows how safe the Tour is.
It’s got anecdata
It’s got anecdata
Benthic wrote:
Not quite. It’s actually a claim about bicycle helmets (“It saved my life”) that goes against the evidence. The evidence is the condition of that bike helmet involved in the crash. It shows scuffs and scratches but no compression of the polystyrene. For a helmet such as this to have absorbed any significant force of the kind that would cause head damage, the polystyrene would have to be crushed flat. Itseems to have no crush at all, never mind a flatten.
The evidence, then, suggests a glancing slide of littel impact – perhaps one that would have missed her head completely if she hadn’t had a helmet sticking out all around her head.
You can’t see if it is
You can’t see if it is crushed or not by that picture. If you want to your own life at risk by not wearing one, crack on it isn’t going to stop me wearing mine, however much you argue your point
Not going to debate helmet or
Not going to debate helmet or advocacy, but couple of observations.
* If you believe the picture shows only some “scuffs and scratches”, then look again.
* “For a helmet such as this to have absorbed any significant force of the kind that would cause head damage, the polystyrene would have to be crushed flat.” So, no;you may not understand the physics involved, nor the non-binary nature of protective equipment like this. Also, as mentioned by Geordiepeddeler , you can’t see the crush damage in this photo – most of it is behind the shell apart from anything else.
Cugel wrote:
One doesn’t have to be rabidly pro helmets to recognise this as one of the silliest claims of the anti-helmet lobby. She has come down on her head with sufficient force to crack her helmet and then clearly slid along with sufficient downward force still applying to scuff the helmet severely, but if she hadn’t been wearing a helmet she would miraculously have stopped an inch or so off the ground? The laws of gravity are not suspended for non-helmet wearers. By all means argue that the helmet did not mitigate her injuries (though looking at the scuffing I’d say it’s clear that she was saved from some fairly severe facial/scalp lacerations at least) but to claim she wouldn’t have touched the ground with her head if she hadn’t had a helmet is, in light of the obvious significant impact force, just absurd.
Rendel Harris wrote:
It seems one does have to be rabidly pro-helmet to not-see the trivial helmet scuffs rather than the results of a high impact force in that helmet pic; and to also imagine that the extremely thin plastic shell around the polystyrene has anything much of a force absorbancy function itself. It’s not a motorbike helmet, you know.
Another poster imagines a crush around the back of the helmet although all the scuffs appear to be on the front. Was she caught by the head in the two-jaw crusher of a bin lorry? No.
Face it – helmet buyers hate to have to admit that their purchase is a result of being hypnotised by adverts and peer pressure rather than being based on any sort of objective analysis of the efficacy of the things at absorbing killing head blows that would “Save my life”. There’s always a desperate scrabble to justify the cycling helmet no matter how obviously it did nothing but disintegrate at the slightest touch of summick.
Still, Rendered in never wrong so everyone else must be. 🙂
In fairly typical fashion you
In fairly typical fashion you have not addressed the actual point in any way, which was your claim that without a helmet there would have been no impact. “Trivial helmet scuffs”? Let’s suppose for one moment that your magical suspension of the laws of gravity for non-helmet wearers didn’t happen and the same impact that scuffed and cracked her helmet had been applied to her face and scalp. Would they still be “trivial”?
“One thing I know for sure,
“One thing I know for sure, my helmet saved my life.”
Oh dear. Well, she’s young, so probably hasn’t looked at the data, and has been convinced by the decades of helmet promotion.
“….which aims to promote road safety by recruiting celebrities and sportspeople to deliver messages “focusing on reducing risk factors” such as drink driving, texting at the wheel, and not wearing a bike helmet..”
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. The UN really, really should know better, as should Pogačar. It’s always better to treat the cause rather than the symptoms, causes like drink-driving and text-driving, but not not wearing a helmet. Since the evidence shows that helmetted cyclists are more likely to have a collision, exactly the opposite in fact.
Buy your popcorn now, before the rush.
Glad she wasn’t more badly
Glad she wasn’t more badly injured / best wishes with recovery (no doubt plenty on here can relate).
Now – “last night a DJ saved my life”…
The longer this debate goes
The longer this debate goes on, and the more I look at the data, I become surer that everyday cycling carries less risk than racing.
If you race or ride in large groups then a helmet may help you.
Unfortunately non-targeted helmet promotion simply says “cycling is dangerous” and puts off ordinary people from hopping on a bike to go to the shops.
The “data” might say that
The “data” might say that statistically a helmet saves few lives but for her sample of one, judging by the state of her helmet, it’s certainly saved a pretty unpleasant head injury if not death.
I wear a helmet when cycling in the full knowledge that it’s highly, extremely, unlikely to save my life but knowing that it is likely to save a nasty head injury in the event of a fall involving contact with my head.
It doesn’t have to be useful in specifically preventing death to be something worth using, which I’m certain Zoe would agree with.
OK, wear one as a pedestrian
OK, wear one as a pedestrian or when travelling in a car.
As an occupant of a motor
As an occupant of a motor vehicle, the appropriate analogy is wearing a seatbelt. As a pedestrian, the impact energies and crash speeds can be mitigated by either learning judo breakfalls, or by the elimination of personal motor vehicles
So racing drivers only need
So racing drivers only need seatbelts?
RayG wrote:
That’s as absurd a proposition as kingleo’s suggestion that every pedestrian should be cosseted and armoured up like bibbendum.
My point is that protections should be proportional to the actual risk, not the perceived risk. Mandatory helmets [b]for racing[/b] is equivalent to mandatory seatbelts in a car.
Helmets for everyday cycling is rightly a personal choice.
The only way that works is if
The only way that works is if car occupants don’t suffer from head injuries.
Btw cyclists can suffer from injuries that are not head related.
Hirsute wrote:
There’s no need to be so deliberately literal. I said they were analogous scenarios, not identical.
And FWIW, I absolutely agree with you, that’s why back protectors are so widely used in DH racing. Head and spine injuries can be life-altering from levels of severity well below life-threatening.
But forcing everyday car passengers to wear helmets as well as seatbelts would be [b]analogous[/b] to mandating [I]all[/I] cyclists should wear back protectors and helmets. That’s obviously farcical
No you said the appropriate
No you said the appropriate analogy.
You did not explain or justify this claim.
Your current post has the analogy in the opposite direction.
Seatbelts actually have good
Seatbelts actually have good evidence for their effectiveness, so not really an appropriate analogy.
sigirides wrote:
No, they don’t have good evidence.
Before the seat belt law was enacted in the UK, parliament commissioned a report to examine what had happened in countries which had already introduced such a law, called The Isles Report. It was never published, even though it was completed before the vote in parliament, because it showed that while it would save some car occupants, more vulnerable road users would die, and the overall death rate wouldn’t fall. There are copies on the web if you look hard enough.
One of the biggest problems with road safety is ignoring the effects of measures that make drivers feel safer, like seat belts, air bags etc, which drivers use as performance benefits. The safest car would have none of them and a rusty 14″ bayonet sticking out of the steering wheel.
Yah, I never wear a seat belt
Yah, I never wear a seat belt because I know the door will pop open in a crash and I’ll be flung to safety, landing upright at the side of the road with nary a scratch on me.
Some people at the time were saying things like that. I know, because I was there before seat belts and motorcycle helmets were compulsory, and I recall the statements from eejits.
However, I will concede that the use of a seat belt does lead to compensatory behaviour, in tending to go a bit faster.
Some people at the time were
Some people at the time were saying things like that
The one I hear from dimwits more often is: the seatbelt will trap you in the vehicle when it catches fire
Daclu Trelub wrote:
Thank you for admitting that risk compensation is a fact, but no thanks for your straw man argument.
About a thousand pedestrians
About a thousand pedestrians a year are killed falling down stairs, plus pedestrians are also killed crossing the road, which is very dangerous. Making it compulsory for pedestrians to wear crash helmets would save a lot more lives, especially for elderly people. It will never happen because they were never targeted by American helmet makers with their ludicrous sales campaign, like the cyclists to make them wear helmets for the company’s profits. They give good protection from minor head injuries, that’s all, a few strips of brittle and soft polysyrine are not going to stop a lot of head injuries. I cycled to work and back in London for 48 years and only saw one cycling accident with somebody with a head injury (he hit a car window screen with his head). For me, cycling has been very safe. I’ve done about 500 thousand miles on my bike. I had 2 years racing in Belgium and only crashed once – got a puncture in the front wheel when we were going flat out on the cobbles.
Groaster wrote:
— GroasterIt’s interesting that, since it’s been proved that helmets don’t save lives, the helmet promoters have switched to “it might save you being scratched”. This despite thirty years of saying that helmets saved lives: why would you believe someone who has been proved utterly wrong on the subject?
Self proclamation comments
Self proclamation comments like this mean ‘hey i wear a bicycle helmet im not 100% sure if i need to but this incident has proved to me that the people that have forced uon me these views of cyle helmets are right.’ i now distrust my own judgment even more and become more insecure and will follow the masses unquestioning onto the path of walking over a cliff without thinking for myself.
A sad state of what humanity has become.
No one is forcing you to wear
No one is forcing you to wear a helmet, so why all the drama. I was riding my bicycle on a camping site on holiday this summer when a child ran out in front of me. I hit the brakes. Slid fell off my bike and hit my head. I wasn’t wearing a helmet because I was on the camping site. There is no doubt in my mind the wearing a cycling helmet can and does save lives and when professional cyclists give their opinions on safety, I listen.
Hang on, but you were ok, yes
Hang on, but you were ok, yes? You’re not writing this from your hospital bed?
Humans are gullible. Not
Humans are gullible. Not much we can do about that until AI takes over, and from what I’ve seen, it isn’t any better.
Every time you get a close
Every time you get a close pass think about how we could of educated the driver s with all the time and energy thats been wasted on the helmet debate.
Another helmet debate….
Another helmet debate….
I wear a helmet when I’m riding trails on my MTB or training/racing on my BMX. Those are inherently risky activities, the latter particularly so. I don’t bother when I’m cycle commuting.
Likewise. I commute to work
Likewise. I commute to work with my kids at about 10mph. I can’t see an issue arising in that time that I couldn’t protect myself from using my hands. Runners go faster, I don’t see anyone suggesting they wear helmets.
Slartibartfast wrote:
Runners aren’t mixing it with hundreds of people of limited competence and often high aggression levels piloting heavy machinery that’s capable of exceptionally fast acceleration. I don’t wear a helmet because I’m worried that I’m going to fall off of my own volition at 10 mph, I wear one to hopefully offer me some protection if I’m hit by a driver. If cyclists are given separate infrastructure as far away from cars as runners are using the pavement I’ll happily forgo the lid.
I ride across a park then
I ride across a park then along quiet back streets then back onto a park. I usually go the whole way seeing maybe one or two people in cars.
Slartibartfast wrote:
Fair enough. On the days I commute I ride 50kms in the day across central London so my protective needs are somewhat different!
I liked that just because
I liked that just because your name made me smile.
Helmet evangelist incoming
Helmet evangelist incoming
David9694 wrote:
Well, this is always said when helmets come up and it’s generally not supported by the evidence. There are twenty unique posters on this thread so far: fourteen of them can definitely be described as “evangelically” anti-helmet as in they definitely do no good whatsoever in any circumstances, anyone who says otherwise is a blind sheep etc, three have said they choose to wear a helmet but it’s up to everyone else to make their own choice and three have commented on other matters without saying much pro or anti.
three have said they choose
three have said they choose to wear a helmet but it’s up to everyone else to make their own choice…
Four
and they’re opposed (I hope) to the increasingly fashionable notion supported by the police and justice system that any driver is entitled or even obliged to KSI a cyclist without a helmet and driver-approved HiViz, whatever the facts may be, using the standard incantations ‘I didn’t see him’ and ‘I didn’t mean to do it’
Rendel Harris wrote:
I’ve never seen anyone on this site who is evangellically anti-helmet. There are many here who are evangelically anti-compulsion, anti-lies and anti-false, evidence-free statements. Methinks your description of anyone who doesn’t share your evangellical pro-helmet views is more in your eyes than reality.
There are many people who are helmet zealots, who ignore the evidence that helmets don’t save lives and their promotion/mandation has deleterious effects, when those effects are documented and proven. Why they do so is hard for me to fathom, but given that humans are extremely gullible, I can only surmise that they’ve been suckered in and even though the evidence proves them wrong, they can’t admit that they’ve been had. They will continue to insist that the “answer” to cycling safety is magic plastic hats, when what we need is proper cycling facilities and proper laws.
eburtthebike wrote:
Evangelical, Burt, means zealously devoted to the promotion of a particular viewpoint or message. Given the many hundreds (thousands?) of posts you have made on this website and elsewhere promoting your viewpoint that helmets are worthless and insulting anyone who doesn’t agree with you by calling them gullible, suckers, zealots et cetera I think the word fits you very well. By contradistinction, I have always made clear in my comments here on this issue that I do not believe helmets are a panacea and I fully acknowledge that they are useless in a wide variety of crash scenarios; I have always stated that wearing a helmet is a matter of individual choice and that I choose to wear one because I think, on balance, it has the capacity at least to offer me some protection from facial and scalp lacerations in a crash. I have always made clear that I am deeply opposed to any form of legal compunction to wear a helmet. So I’m not quite sure from where you get the evidence to call me a helmet evangelist; if you wish to continue the religious terminology, a helmet agnostic at best.
Rendel Harris wrote:
Or more that you don’t *only* go for Midnight mass, but you wouldn’t sign up for a mission?
A pedant writes: technically,
A pedant writes: technically, evangelical means spreading good news. In this case, I suppose, the good news that you don’t need to wear a helmet?
“Given the many hundreds
“Given the many hundreds (thousands?) of posts you have made on this website and elsewhere promoting your viewpoint that helmets are worthless….”
If you read my posts, you’d know that I acknowledge that helmets prevent minor injuries, and that I’ve never stated that helmets are worthless, just that they are completely over-hyped as “the” answer to cycling safety, and their promotion deters people from cycling and is a distraction from what really makes cycling safe.
“……and insulting anyone who doesn’t agree with you by calling them gullible, suckers, zealots et cetera I think the word fits you very well.”
Are you suggesting that calling people gullible is in some way inaccurate? Being gullible is part of being human. I don’t think I’ve called people suckers, but I have certainly called some people zealots, because they try to present their opinions as fact, and the only acceptable view.
If you’re calling me an evangelist of truth and fact, then it’s a badge I’ll wear with pride.
eburtthebike wrote:
In the post directly above, “I can only surmise that they’ve been suckered in” – people who have been suckered in are, by definition, suckers, no?
Rendel Harris wrote:
Depends – sometimes the suckers are on the ones doing the suckering.
Ah yes, the Helmet Octopus!
Ah yes, the Helmet Octopus! Famous for making other benthic fauna flee in terror by impersonating cyclists, by using discarded plastic it finds. Also does a good impression of the knights in “The Holy Grail” with a pair of coconut shells.
eburtthebike wrote:
Um…
Brain damage evangelists
Brain damage evangelists already here
I unsubscribed from /r
I unsubscribed from /r/bicycling as I was sick of seeing these sort of posts.
“Hey I just crashed downhill mountain biking”/”Hey I just crashed in a crit race”/”Hey I just crashed doing tricks at the skate park on my BMX”
“Always wear a helmet!”
Always? Why do people who in partake the more dangerous aspects of the broad subject that is cycling feel the need to tell those who ride a bicycle that they should “always” wear a helmet?
Does Lewis Hamilton ever tell drivers to always wear a helmet? No, and he’d be ridiculed if he did.
Do I wear a helmet when on a club ride? Yes. Do I wear a helmet when riding half a mile in to town? Not usually. Painting all cycling pursuits as equally dangerous is unhelpful.
Helmet wearing is a personal choice based on level of perceived risk. Everyone should just encourage others to cycle, not imply it’s dangerous by saying they have to wear a helmet, let them decide that for themselves. Everyone who operates in civilisation knows cycle helmets exist.
Anyway, glad she came out of the crash relatively unharmed.*
*She broke some bones, why isn’t she suggesting everyone should wear protective arm pads too?
Comparing Lewis Hamilton to
Comparing Lewis Hamilton to an average UK driver is hardly accurate is it considering the speeds he does compared to UK drivers. Helmets are personal choice and not law but what professional riders do in this case is to try and hit home how important they are to your safety that’s all. Stop slating the professionals for trying to keep people safe
Whoosh. You’ve completely
Whoosh. You’ve completely missed my point.
Comparing Lewis Hamilton to the average driver is exactly the same as a pro-level cycle racer comparing the risks they take racing to the risks taken by someone cycling a mile to the local shops.
I’ll continue to slate professionals who heavily imply their high risk cycling is just as dangerous as the low-risk cycling most of the public take part in, thank you.
P.S – I said myself “Helmet wearing is a personal choice based on level of perceived risk.” yet you go ahead and repeat it as if disagreeing with me. Did you even read my whole comment? ?
I wear a helmet If I fall or
I wear a helmet If I fall or get hit and it works protecting my head then good, If it doesnt at least I tried. Helmets are like saftey glasses There useless untill something happens.
Blimey – not just “Helmet Row
Blimey – not just “Helmet Row” but bystanders getting hit by crossfire. I’ll need some kind of PPE!
And there was I thinking that the majority of folks had settled on “to each their own” no matter what their personal policy…
There’s no way she can be
There’s no way she can be sure that the helmet saved her life, but would I have wanted not to be wearing a helmet if I crashed like that? Not a chance
AidanR wrote:
Thus neatly demonstrating risk compensation. Without the helmet, she probably wouldn’t have been riding so hard and taking more risks, which caused the crash.
My post demonstrates no such
My post demonstrates no such thing.
There have been periods in my life where I’ve worn a helmet, and periods where I haven’t. When I’ve gone from wearing a helmet to not, I’ve felt a bit exposed and ridden more carefully… For a day or two. Then I forget all about it and go back to normal.
I’m not saying that risk compensation is not a thing, but do we have any evidence for it in the case of cycle helmets?
“I’m not saying that risk
“I’m not saying that risk compensation is not a thing, but do we have any evidence for it in the case of cycle helmets?”
Well, the fact that helmetted cyclists have a higher risk of collisions is pretty good evidence. Allied to the fact that the helmet promoters denied risk compensation for many years, but now acknowledge its existence.
“Then I forget all about it and go back to normal.”
Risk compensation is a subconcious effect, you don’t think about it. I wouldn’t mind betting that all those drivers who use safety features as performance enhancements don’t actually think that way: it’s subconcious.
Since risk compensation is subconscious it seems inevitable that if it affects all other fields of human activity, it’s going to affect bike riding. Do you have any evidence that a universal effect, risk compensation, doesn’t affect cycling? Why would cycling be unique?
“Risk compensation is a
“Risk compensation is a subconcious effect, you don’t think about it.”
So how exactly did my decidedly conscious original post demonstrate a *subconscious* effect?
Again, I’m not suggesting that risk compensation doesn’t exist, but you seem to be treating it as a universal truth, when in fact it’s a contested theory.
It’s interesting that there is evidence of higher risk of upper limb injuries for cyclists wearing helmets. But how much of this is risk compensation, and how much can be attributed to other factors such as cyclists doing higher risk activities are more likely to wear a helmet?
eburtthebike wrote:
Anti-helmet evangelists frequently like to deride helmets as “magic hats”; it appears from your statement that they are magic hats, all you have to do is not wear one and you won’t crash! Surely you can see how absurd your statement is there: without any knowledge of the circumstances of her crash, how hard she was riding, what risks she was taking, you’re trying to claim that she “probably” crashed as a result of taking too many risks because she was wearing a helmet? That’s ridiculous.
Rendel Harris wrote:
Wow! so many falsehoods in one post!
I’m not an anti-helmet evangelist, I’m anti-lies, anti-fake news, anti-time-wasting on things that don’t make cycling safer, deter people from cycling and just distract from the things that actually do make cycling safer.
Likewise, the absurd statement “….all you have to do is not wear one and you won’t crash!” that you so rightly deride, is yours, not mine, so by your own definition, you’re absurd.
You’re getting a bit desperate now Rendel, try taking a few deep breaths and going out for a ride.
eburtthebike wrote:
Your own words are literally there for all to see, you said that if she wasn’t wearing a helmet she wouldn’t have taken so many risks and that was what caused the crash; ergo if she hadn’t been wearing a helmet she wouldn’t have crashed. Please don’t accuse me of lying when all I’m doing is quoting your own words, stand by them or not as you please.
Rendel Harris wrote:
You didn’t quote my own words, you used the ridiculous debating technique of reductio ad absurdum by paraphrasing what I said into an absolute, and something I never said, you did.. You’re getting really desperate now.
Go for a ride.
A pedant writes (again): That
A pedant writes (again): That isn’t a reductio ad absurdum (which is a perfectly valid form of argument); it’s a strawman, possibly with a side-helping of appeal to absurdity.
mdavidford wrote:
Thanks for the clarification.
Your words are still there
Your words are still there for all to see, I quoted them verbatim in my previous post. You said that she crashed because she was taking risks that she wouldn’t have taken without a helmet. In case you need reminding:
If you now think those words are stupid, I don’t blame you, but don’t blame me for the fact that you said them. I’ll let others judge them.
Just repeatedly saying “You’re getting desperate go for a ride” is indicative of nothing so much as your own desperation and your frustration at having your own foolish words quoted back at you.
Rendel Harris wrote:
You didn’t quote my own words, you twisted them into a ridiculous absolute which you then called absurd: you called your own words absurd.
Never mind the bike ride, just lie down in a darkened room for a bit.
eburtthebike wrote:
Because people never took risks and rode hard before helmets exist, goodness me, no
SecretSam wrote:
Try reading a bit about risk compensation before posting again and maybe you won’t embarrass yourself again.
I wondered quite how she
I wondered quite how she managed to crash in a way that caused that much damage to the helmet, its like she slid along on her head or something.
I’m yet to find anyone
I’m yet to find anyone willing to have the same crash/collision sans helmet for comparison use.
You would have thought that if people are so confident that helmets are not beneficial, they would be falling off their bikes left right and centre to prove their case.
I had a small TBI as a result of a serious collision that gave me with 14 broken bones, a punctured lung, internal bleeding as well as the TBI.
In all likelihood, the TBI would have been far greater had I not have been wearing the helmet.
Did it save my life … no. The paramedic that gave me CPR did that.
It *may* however, have stopped me from needing 24hr care, 7 days a week.
Waiting for the ‘your tale of woe doesn’t matter crowd’ to step up, as they normally do.
I remember way back in the
I remember way back in the day when compulsory seatbelts were introduced there was a feature on Nationwide (definitely showing my age) in which they went out with a contraption which rolled a car seat down a track at 15 mph until it hit a buffer. Every member of the public who was given a go on it was offered the choice of wearing a seatbelt or not; they all, even those who opposed seatbelt laws, chose the seatbelt and they were all surprised at how violent the impact was. I have sometimes asked those who say cycle helmets have no efficacy under any circumstances what they would do if they had to participate in a similar experiment simulating the effect of a low speed crash (or the end of a high-speed one): if you were strapped to a trolley that was going to be pushed towards a brick wall at 10 mph with your head protruding so that it was the first point of contact, given a choice would you wear a cycle helmet or not? Funnily enough I’ve never been given a straight answer, any of the antis here care to give a simple yes or no?
Funnily enough I doubt anyone
Funnily enough I doubt anyone wearing a helmet would be dumb enough to try your experiment either, your helmets no good to you if you break your neck, or compress your spine showing how marvellous it is, is it?
Why not try a more realistic crash example you fall of your bike on a trail and your head glances a rock, helmet or no helmet.
stonojnr wrote:
Of course I’m not suggesting that anyone, helmeted or not, would try it, it’s just a thought experiment, if you were forced into that situation by an evil scientist, would you take the helmet or not? But yes, okay, we could simulate hitting a rock, someone is going to chuck half a brick at your head, do you want the helmet?
Rendel Harris wrote:
Isn’t that just a cunning way of removing the opposition?
Of course, those were the days before all this ‘elf and safety nonsense and “duty of care”. It made a man or woman of you! Or alternatively you wouldn’t need to worry…
Just out of interest, do you
Just out of interest, do you wear a helmet when travelling by car or when walking? There’s plenty of evidence to show that there is a greater risk of a head injury during either of those activities than there is riding a bike so it would seem silly to advocate for the wearing of a helmet during cycling, but not walking or riding in a car
djgorey wrote:
I’d personally take the advice of ED trauma doctors – they all say “wear a helmet”.
SecretSam wrote:
You might want to check out the phenomenon of observation bias.
Emergency doctors only see the people who have been in an incident, and their view is heavily coloured by that experience. They don’t see the millions of people who are chronically sick and die early because they don’t ride a bike.
djgorey wrote:
No, I don’t, because for me personally the risk when cycling is far higher than for either of those activities. To explain: I virtually never ride in cars, probably this year maybe half a dozen times a friend has given me a lift, always in suburban low-speed environments in which a head injury to a person wearing a seatbelt is very unlikely (most head injuries in cars occurring in high-speed crashes when the roof is crushed). In terms of walking, the vast majority of head injuries caused to pedestrians are suffered by the elderly and infirm who are far more likely to trip and fall than someone like me who is (relatively) young and healthy. So for me, neither of those activities carry a high risk of head injury. By contrast, virtually every single time I take my bike out in London I will experience a near miss of some sort, whether it’s a pedestrian stepping into the road right in front of me looking at their phone, a lorry left hooking me, a car driver jumping the lights…so from my personal perspective I am in far greater danger of bumping my noggin when cycling than I am when walking or on the very rare occasions I travel by car. So from my personal risk assessment I wear a helmet. I don’t think they should be compulsory for anyone, walking, motoring or cycling, everyone has the right to make their own risk assessment and decide on the appropriate level of protective equipment for themselves. Why this gets other people so irate I’m not sure.
“I have sometimes asked those
“I have sometimes asked those who say cycle helmets have no efficacy under any circumstances….”
I don’t recall anyone saying that, so could you give us a list of names please? In fact, I’m pretty sure no-one has ever said it, but hey, when all else fails, put up a straw man.
eburtthebike wrote:
You have said helmets don’t reduce deaths, don’t reduce rotational impacts, don’t prevent concussions, and there’s no other metric you would consider acceptable in demonstrating that helmets have any effectiveness.
I think it’s pretty fair to paraphase your position as “cycle helmets have no efficacy under any circumstances”.
OnYerBike wrote:
Nonsense. I have always agreed that helmets are effective at preventing minor injuries.
“It *may* however, have
“It *may* however, have stopped me from needing 24hr care, 7 days a week.”
It may, but it’s unlikely. If helmets did prevent such outcomes, they would also prevent deaths, but they don’t.
They also increase the radius of the head, increasing the turning moment and increasing the risk of the most dangerous injury, rotational. I know that helmets which claim to reduce that risk have been developed, but until it’s proved that they work in the real world, not just the laboratory, that remains unproven.
Ordinary helmets were supposed to reduce the death rate of cyclists by 85% but completely failed to do so, not even reducing it by 1%, so it’s best to take any such claims with a barrel of salt.
Where and when can we watch
Where and when can we watch you replicate the collision that happened to me, or sit in Rendel’s sledge [which I am also of age to remember].
Until you’re willing to do that, I’ll treat your statement with the same barrel of salt.
Oldfatgit wrote:
I may be old and stupid, but not that stupid. As false analogies go, it’s up there with saying that a dove is white, and so is snow, so the bird must be made of snow.
Oldfatgit wrote:
Whatever your view on the efficacy of helmets, this perennial is an extraordinarily silly ‘argument’. No-one would volunteer to have a collision wearing a helmet either, so the only thing you can conclude from that is it’s advisable not to have collisions.
Helmet debates inevitably
Helmet debates invariably focus on the wrong question; do helmets save lives?
The right question is, does making helmet wearing compulsory (by law) save lives? That question can be answered (it doesn’t), whereas the first question … generates more web traffic and clicks.
So let people judge for themselves whether “helmets save lives”, and make their own choice accordingly. The only certainty is that you save lives by not making helmets compulsory.
Very much so. But that also
Very much so. But that also highlights another key aspect about people’s perspectives on safety. Emotionally we are all intensely focused on our *own* safety (and then our nearest). Beyond that it becomes increasingly abstract and loses emotional intensity. It’s all very well cycling being statistically safe but there is only one of me!
PPE fits neatly here – it offers to preserve *us*, and is something *we* can do *.
Meanwhile – from the bigger picture PPE drops right down the scale of most important things to do for cyclist safety. And certainly seems unlikely to promote more cycling (which is usually found to correlate with a significant positive effect on health – even at the low exercise intensity of “mass cycling” countries). And which may then feed back into demands for more safety measures / make people more aware of / sympathetic to those on bikes etc.
* And perhaps that explains some of the emotive responses to others’ choices here. So eg. those choosing not to wear helmets become “reckless”, “stupid” or are seen as outsourcing responsibility for any putative future care needs on others. They’re “cheating” by not paying the (fairly small) costs of being part of the in-group plus of course being a “bad example” to those we want on “our” side eg. children.
Precisely why I wear a helmet
Precisely why I wear a helmet, but would not endorse a helmet law.
(ignoring your last paragraph)
Oh dear – looks like we’re
Oh dear – looks like we’re falling into the old trap of spending lots of energy on bike helmets which aren’t even in the top ten of things that would keep cyclists safe.
The issue some of us have with people harping on about helmets is that they are not designed to provide protection in multi-vehicle collisions (yes they provide some protection for minor head trauma) and yet that’s the most common collision that we are likely to encounter.
Separated infrastructure, junction design and driving standards are important to avoid collisions whereas helmets arguably do less than nothing to reduce collisions – see https://helmets.org/walkerstudy.htm for some details on limited research that appears to show that female wigs would reduce close passing whereas helmets seem to increase close passing (though cyclist distance from the kerb seemed more important).
Also note that risk compensation is a recognised phenomenon (though not well studied specifcally with bike helmets) that may mean that wearing a helmet will lead to cyclists taking greater risks. This is likely less relevant to most of us who face the greatest risk from drivers rather than our own behaviour, but certainly seems relevant in this instance of a single vehicle incident.