Sussex Police tell us we should be wearing helmets – shouldn’t they be staying out of this?

nextSibling wrote:

The only way to know if a “helmet saved my life” would be to have exactly the same crash twice, once with a helmet and once without.

it doesn’t have to be a crash. You could drop a kerbstone on someone’s head from 1.5 metres.

You have to do the first part of the experiment when they’re wearing the helmet. You may not get the opportunity to run the second part.

Yorkshire wallet wrote:

Still in two minds about helmet use. Been using a cotton cap all week as I just sort of felt like it but this weekend I’m off on a climbing route and I’ll probably hit 50 on the downhills so I guess I’ll put the helmet on. 

My mate has spent two weeks in a coma after a helmetless accident but he still won’t wear one so I guess once you’ve really made your mind up there’s no changing. 

At 50mph a helmet aint goig to do dick if your head hits a solid object, this is a plain and simple fact, what it will do is lure some into doing higher speeds when it isn’t safe to do so/take more risks on descents etc and thus why helmet wearers crash more often and have more injuries and from that why increases in helmet wearing do not equate to lowered injury/death rates. 

The logic of I’ll wear a helmet for higher risk cycling is bonkers, it simply does not add up, not when the helmet itself is incapable of preventing hardly any of the forces involved when doing those riskier/higher speed types of riding.

I’ve been hitting 40+mph almost every weekend since the late 80s, I don’t see how wearing a helmet is going to make me safer when in the professional (and indeed amateur) ranks all it has done is increase crashes, injuries and deaths. 

hawkinspeter wrote:

Simon E wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

I’m guessing that you’re not married.

Nearly 18 years.

My wife knows that I am far better versed on this topic than she is and that it is a waste of time arguing with me about it; though I always acknowledge her and others’ concern. She respects that it is my considered choice and not merely a stubborn refusal to bow to convention or pressure. I would take offence at being told what to do in the manner described by brooksby, however well intentioned.

In the wider context I find that the people with the most firmly held beliefs are invariably the least informed, whether it is about helmets, chain lube, pedals, immigration, politics, religion etc etc. As time goes by I am less and less willing to engage with narrow-minded people that refuse to acknowledge another point of view. My time is better spent doing something else.

Fancy doing a trade?

Hey, that’s not fair! I wanted to!! (I’ve known my wife for 25 years, been married for 15, and in all that time I have never ever managed to win an argument, never made her change her mind on something she already thought… EVER.)

Simon E wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

I’m guessing that you’re not married.

Nearly 18 years.

My wife knows that I am far better versed on this topic than she is and that it is a waste of time arguing with me about it; though I always acknowledge her and others’ concern. She respects that it is my considered choice and not merely a stubborn refusal to bow to convention or pressure. I would take offence at being told what to do in the manner described by brooksby, however well intentioned.

In the wider context I find that the people with the most firmly held beliefs are invariably the least informed, whether it is about helmets, chain lube, pedals, immigration, politics, religion etc etc. As time goes by I am less and less willing to engage with narrow-minded people that refuse to acknowledge another point of view. My time is better spent doing something else.

Fancy doing a trade?

Yorkshire wallet wrote:

Still in two minds about helmet use. Been using a cotton cap all week as I just sort of felt like it but this weekend I’m off on a climbing route and I’ll probably hit 50 on the downhills so I guess I’ll put the helmet on. 

My mate has spent two weeks in a coma after a helmetless accident but he still won’t wear one so I guess once you’ve really made your mind up there’s no changing. 

I was in two minds, but have had four accidents, all my own fault, all involving the front wheel going from under me when there was either ice mud or wet/frozen white lines on the ground.  Every time I banged my head, on top of the excuriating road rash and in one case broken wrist, so for me, it’s a case of that would have been a lot worse.  I guess in these cases, it happens so fast you can’t stop yourself from hitting the ground once the front wheel slips out, so not sure what else I could have done. 

This is in a four year period, all on the road bike.  I ride 5,000 miles a year, probably 65/35 road v off road.  From my own personal experience, the chances of banging your head are much worse on a road bike than an mtb, although I can’t count the low branches I have scraped under or bits of stone that could have pinged off the helmet.

I’m passionately against compulsory helmet use, but still wear one on every ride I do.  The non-cycling public just don’t get it though, they think anyone without a helmet is a fool waiting to be crushed to death.  

madcarew wrote:

nextSibling wrote:

The only way to know if a “helmet saved my life” would be to have exactly the same crash twice, once with a helmet and once without.

Which would discount the predictive effects that modelling gives us, which enables us to predict an awful lot of things rather accurately as it turns out (that’s why they train pilots in simulators, run computer modelling stress tests on critical components for all sorts of things, and have computer modelling in side CPR dolls to predict the effects of someone’s actions.) It is not difficult to demonstrate the effectiveness of many life saving devices (bullet proof vest) without having to run exactly the same ‘accident’ twice. 

Look at an NCAP crash test. The dummies have recording devices which accurately predict the likelihood of failure of certain human parts, in a less technical way we drop heavy weights on helmets  in such a way that we know that that force applied to a skull would generally cause damage to the skull, we also know that a certain amount of deformation associated with an impact implies damage to a skull. We can know these things with a certain degree of confidence. So, I’m not arguing that helmets save lives on a regular basis, just that your argument ignores an enormous amount of work and data that has been accrued over the years in safety research, and is used to accurately predict the outcome certain actions without having to kill people just to make sure it’s right. 

Personally I went all the way through a car windscreen some years ago (from the outside to the inside) and although knocked out briefly, my skull and all the skin on it was intact. The helmet was badly deformed and then broken by a later impact. Research shows that people who penetrate windscreens with their head with the amount of force that I did (buried up to my shoulders) rarely escape a broken skull, and with it all the concommitant dangers. So, although I wouldn’t claim my helmet saved my life it is undeniable that it saved me from some fairly serious injuries (I didn’t need a single stitch on my head, other parts of my body which weren’t protected in the same way needed dozens) including the high likelihood that it saved me from a fractured skull. Considering a large proportion of people who contact a car at the closing speed that I did die as a result of the collision, and the majority of those deaths are the result of head injuries, it’s not a long bow to draw to say that on the balance of probabilities the helmet may have been instrumental in saving my life.

Not ignoring the data and the hard work etc etc etc, all very valid. From modelling, research and anecdotal evidence we can say that a helmet ‘possibly’ or ‘probably’ saved a life – but never that it actually *did*.

Simon E wrote:

brooksby wrote:

(I wish I could explain it like that to my wife, who went ballistic when she discovered I’d not been wearing a helmet for my commute, not even on “busy city streets”.)

It’s sad that your wife doesn’t trust your ability to research a topic, assess risk and come to your own conclusions.

I’m guessing that you’re not married.

Yorkshire wallet wrote:

Still in two minds about helmet use. Been using a cotton cap all week as I just sort of felt like it but this weekend I’m off on a climbing route and I’ll probably hit 50 on the downhills so I guess I’ll put the helmet on. 

Isn’t that the very point?  If its a glorious sunny day with dry ground, or you’re just pootling around (or whatever counts as pootling for you) then you wear a cap.  If you open the door and there’s snow and ice (hence a greater chance of falling off?) or you are planning on some downhill MTBing, then maybe you decide to wear a helmet.   If  Its all down to your assessment of the likely conditions/risks that you’ll encounter, isn’t it?

(I wish I could explain it like that to my wife, who went ballistic when she discovered I’d not been wearing a helmet for my commute, not even on “busy city streets”.)