Should you wear a bike helmet?

Pitbull Steelers wrote:

don simon wrote:

Pitbull Steelers wrote:

This is my first post so please be gentle with me.

I recently retired after 30 years in the Police and during that time i’ve dealt with fatals, serious and generally basic rtc’s. I helped scrape bits of scalp off the road after cyclists have skidded along after coming off a bike, some through vehicles hitting them and some from generally not being careful and / or observant and obviously they haven’t been wearing a helmet.

But in the same breath i’ve dealt with cyclists with rotational injuries and strap burns who were wearing a helmet.

After seeing this i always wear a helmet as i’d rather have a rotational strain than lose part of my scalp or worse. 

Ultimately though it’s the individuals choice and should stay that way.  

 

Agreed. But I am interested in the circumstances around cyclists leaving bits of scalp on the road in sufficient quantities to require scraping up. I’ve seen many professional riders come off, and they travel significantly quicker than me and therefore will skid along the road further, without the need for a broom wagon to pick up the skin they’ve left behind.

 

After accidents we used to assist cleansing to make sure the road was clear of blood etc, on occasion that has been bits scalp where a cyclist has hit the ground head first and scraped along the road.

i think you might be a bit confused with my responce as i was not talking about pro riders who have to wear a helmet, just general public, hope that helps 

You haven’t addressed my query in the slightest. Could you try again, please? Why is a recreational cylist leaving more skin on the road than a pro cyclist (that has a greater speed and therefore will skid further down the tarmac). I was looking for the circumstances behind your comment. There’s a whole lot of inconsistency in what you’re saying there. What sort of accidents are they? Speeds? What type of car has knocked them off? Etc.

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

Pitbull Steelers wrote:

This is my first post so please be gentle with me.

I recently retired after 30 years in the Police and during that time i’ve dealt with fatals, serious and generally basic rtc’s. I helped scrape bits of scalp off the road after cyclists have skidded along after coming off a bike, some through vehicles hitting them and some from generally not being careful and / or observant and obviously they haven’t been wearing a helmet.

But in the same breath i’ve dealt with cyclists with rotational injuries and strap burns who were wearing a helmet.

After seeing this i always wear a helmet as i’d rather have a rotational strain than lose part of my scalp or worse. 

Ultimately though it’s the individuals choice and should stay that way.  

Given the stats I posted upthread you will of course have seen many thousands more scalps being removed, many more fractured skulls, many more serious head injuries and deaths by head injuries outside of cycling. That from children in a playground to people on ladders, to pedestrians on the street, people on a night out and the big one people in motorvehicles.

Why do you not wear a helmet for any of these clearly dangerous activities (walking/driving/other), ones we know are the direct cause of approximately 161,000 hospital admissions for serious head injuries (which is not all serious head injuries as obviously many tens of thousands do not require an admission into hospital), or is it that the group with a relatively very low number of serious head injuries (circa 1000) would be the only group to make you feel the need to wear one, if so why?

Did you victim blame people on bikes for no his-vis and no helmet when struck by criminal motorists which is the usual police stance and has been for decades? 

Do you have to be sarcastic when all i did was offer my own view ? 

Clearly you have a dislike for my previous profession, which is entirely your choice so i’ll leave it at that. 

Pitbull Steelers wrote:

This is my first post so please be gentle with me.

I recently retired after 30 years in the Police and during that time i’ve dealt with fatals, serious and generally basic rtc’s. I helped scrape bits of scalp off the road after cyclists have skidded along after coming off a bike, some through vehicles hitting them and some from generally not being careful and / or observant and obviously they haven’t been wearing a helmet.

But in the same breath i’ve dealt with cyclists with rotational injuries and strap burns who were wearing a helmet.

After seeing this i always wear a helmet as i’d rather have a rotational strain than lose part of my scalp or worse. 

Ultimately though it’s the individuals choice and should stay that way.  

Given the stats I posted upthread you will of course have seen many thousands more scalps being removed, many more fractured skulls, many more serious head injuries and deaths by head injuries outside of cycling. That from children in a playground to people on ladders, to pedestrians on the street, people on a night out and the big one people in motorvehicles.

Why do you not wear a helmet for any of these clearly dangerous activities (walking/driving/other), ones we know are the direct cause of approximately 161,000 hospital admissions for serious head injuries (which is not all serious head injuries as obviously many tens of thousands do not require an admission into hospital), or is it that the group with a relatively very low number of serious head injuries (circa 1000) would be the only group to make you feel the need to wear one, if so why?

Did you victim blame people on bikes for no his-vis and no helmet when struck by criminal motorists which is the usual police stance and has been for decades? 

Pitbull Steelers wrote:

This is my first post so please be gentle with me.

I recently retired after 30 years in the Police and during that time i’ve dealt with fatals, serious and generally basic rtc’s. I helped scrape bits of scalp off the road after cyclists have skidded along after coming off a bike, some through vehicles hitting them and some from generally not being careful and / or observant and obviously they haven’t been wearing a helmet.

But in the same breath i’ve dealt with cyclists with rotational injuries and strap burns who were wearing a helmet.

After seeing this i always wear a helmet as i’d rather have a rotational strain than lose part of my scalp or worse. 

Ultimately though it’s the individuals choice and should stay that way.  

 

Fair enough. But what proportion of your observations come from on- versus off-road settings? If I cycle up to the Thames path (3 miles on the road from my home) and then cycle on the path for 20 miles, shared only with walkers, I understand that you’re recommending (but no more than recommending) that  I should wear a helmet on the road – but would I be OK, in your view, to take my helmet off on the shared use path? Would it depend on how fast I cycle?

bikeman01 wrote:

bikeman01 wrote:

Natrix wrote:

bikeman01 wrote:

Seeing that helmets obviously reduce head injuries on impact I’d say it is foolish not to wear one.

 

But bike helmets make other road users act more recklessly towards you as a cyclist if you are wearing a helmet…………..

Personally I think that is utter nonsense. Many people I have mentioned that to say that thay don’t even notice the helmet.

The teeniest amount of googling would turn up a study that shows exactly what Natrix suggests.

But who needs google when you can think ‘facts’ that are then confirmed by your social circle, and who needs experts and studies and inconvenient shit that disagrees with you, when you obviously have common sense on speed dial.

Natrix wrote:

bikeman01 wrote:

Seeing that helmets obviously reduce head injuries on impact I’d say it is foolish not to wear one.

 

But bike helmets make other road users act more recklessly towards you as a cyclist if you are wearing a helmet…………..

Personally I think that is utter nonsense. Many people I have mentioned that to say that thay don’t even notice the helmet. More likely for drivers to notice you’re lycra’d up, and that set an expectation that you’re a) a more experienced rider or b) a stereoytpe that can cope with or deserves a close pass.

Of course your statement omits the fact that that vast majority of drivers are not influenced by your headwear and you might just get in to an accident with one of them, in which case you’d be better off wearing a helmet.

I don’t know why I’m even bothering to respond to theis debate. It’s plainly obvious that helmets help reduce head injury and only a f’kin moron would argue against that.

I don’t necessarily care one way or the other if helmets are made compulsory, but I lean towards that they should be – I don’t care much if the stupid get hurt but I do care about the impact on teh public purse treating them and I very much care when parents push their naive views on their kids and put them at risk.

madcarew wrote:

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

bikeman01 wrote:

 

Seeing that helmets obviously reduce head injuries on impact I’d say it is foolish not to wear one.

 

…. Wear it if you wish, it’s not the wearing of it I have a problem with, it’s the collusion with victim-blaming and the supression of non-motorised modes of transport that is implicit in the relentless public promotion of it, including foolish comments like your final one here.

I don’t think that’s fair. His statement is far from foolish. 

Wearing helmets is sensible. They do some good, and the actual wearing of a helmet does the wearer no harm. The …victim blaming and …. relentless pubic promotion  are a different matter entirely. For many many cyclists, wearing a helmet is a good idea. For all cyclists and most non-cyclist, the mandating of wearing helmets, and the relentless promotion etc is a really really bad idea. 

Perhaps an incomplete analogy is that for many many people drinking some alcohol is a very good idea (with a myriad of conflicting approaches to research and possible lifestyle benefits etc) , but the relentless promotion and victim blaming associated with it is bad for the population as a whole, and often for those engaged in the activity.

Your statement about wearing a helmet doing no harm is somewhat contentious. Look at the studies on increased risk taking by helmet wearers and closer passes by bigger vehicles – pretty damn far from being harmless. When you weigh up the evidence, wearing a helmet is NOT a good idea (unless you plan on crashing anyway in which case it’s probably better to be wearing the helmet for the crash).

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

I wouldn’t ride around a blind bend at 30mph

I wouldn’t drive a car around a blind bend at 30 mph.