Helmets – again

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

OldRidgeback wrote:

brooksby wrote:

The Bristol Post is running a story about a woman up north (how does that work?) who’s telling everyone they must wear a helmet when riding a bike.  This is because her son was doing stunts on his bike and face planted and had to go to hospital for very serious cuts and scrapes and stuff all across his face.  She cannot see a difference between riding to the shops and teenagers stunting.  Plus, I hadn’t realised that a bike helmet would protect me from cuts and scrapes on my face…

 

Me and my son were BMX racing this weekend. He crashed out in his final and I’m glad he was, as is a BC requirement, wearing his full-face lid. He also had on knee and elbow pads. Despite the padding, he did fracture an elbow and has had to have surgery. He was also mildly concussed.

But this was a BMX race. It is an inherently dangerous sport, pretty much like MTB racing.

We both have been BMX racing a while and know the risks and wear the kit. But it’s a lot different from riding to the shops.

so the helmet didn’t prevent a concussion and that wasn’t even involving a motorvehicle, doesn’t sound good does it! What if by not wearing the helmet your sons head would have not actually come into contact with whatever it was he struck, you know because you increased his head circumference significantly?

How many times have you or son crashed out (in all cycle riding wearing a helmet), how many times have you hit your head between you?

Do you not see that taking more risk means more crashing/injury and you take more risk because you feel more protected? Given we know that more children die in motorvehicles solely from head injuries in E&W only than all child cyclists by all injury types in the UK would you ensure your child wears one whenever in a motorvehicle, if not why not?

Risk compensation ?  It happened during the final of a BMX race.. and as for head injuries in  kids in vehicles go and have a look at your statistics for the details such as retention system (e.g. seat belt on or off), safety features (e.g. air bags – active when they shouldn’t or not present), physiolocal factors (e.g. age of child/head to body ratio) and child seats – you want prevention of deaths in infants ? How about you bitch about the historical lack of action on rear facing child seats. FFS

OldRidgeback wrote:

brooksby wrote:

The Bristol Post is running a story about a woman up north (how does that work?) who’s telling everyone they must wear a helmet when riding a bike.  This is because her son was doing stunts on his bike and face planted and had to go to hospital for very serious cuts and scrapes and stuff all across his face.  She cannot see a difference between riding to the shops and teenagers stunting.  Plus, I hadn’t realised that a bike helmet would protect me from cuts and scrapes on my face…

 

Me and my son were BMX racing this weekend. He crashed out in his final and I’m glad he was, as is a BC requirement, wearing his full-face lid. He also had on knee and elbow pads. Despite the padding, he did fracture an elbow and has had to have surgery. He was also mildly concussed.

But this was a BMX race. It is an inherently dangerous sport, pretty much like MTB racing.

We both have been BMX racing a while and know the risks and wear the kit. But it’s a lot different from riding to the shops.

so the helmet didn’t prevent a concussion and that wasn’t even involving a motorvehicle, doesn’t sound good does it! What if by not wearing the helmet your sons head would have not actually come into contact with whatever it was he struck, you know because you increased his head circumference significantly?

How many times have you or son crashed out (in all cycle riding wearing a helmet), how many times have you hit your head between you?

Do you not see that taking more risk means more crashing/injury and you take more risk because you feel more protected? Given we know that more children die in motorvehicles solely from head injuries in E&W only than all child cyclists by all injury types in the UK would you ensure your child wears one whenever in a motorvehicle, if not why not?

CygnusX1 wrote:

Oooh I feel a graph coming on…

iihs.org wrote:

A total of 835 bicyclists were killed in crashes with motor vehicles in 2016. That is the highest number of bicyclist deaths since 1991.

More than half of those killed in 2016 weren’t wearing helmets. Helmet use has been estimated to reduce the odds of a head injury by 50 percent.

Nice conflation of figures there.

1) Over half – so are we talking 50.00001% ?  51% ? 99% ? L

2) reduces odds of head injury by 50% Oh , estimated. Guessed, more like. 

3) And how many of those 835 deaths with/without helmets were from head trauma and how many were crush/internal organ injuries?

iihs.org wrote:

The Virginia Tech Helmet Lab currently rates football and hockey helmets, as well as soccer headgear

Who on earth wears (protective) headgear to play soccer*  ?!?!?!

Apparently, the yanks do. Jeez. Quick google for Soccer headgear reveals its rebadged rugby scrum caps or  a padded headband 

Some fine (5 star) reviews for this on their website:

“I don’t know if they actually work, but I look so hardcore in them that it makes people think that I’m better than I really am.”

“My daughter has used your protective headgear since her 2nd concussion and I have to say I wish more goalies and field players would wear it. When she got her 3rd concussion she hit her head against the goal post and I swear that her headgear took most of the blow. Unfortunately she just received her 4th concussion and can no longer play contact sports, but it wasn’t for a lack of headgear, she got kicked in the head.” 

I think the author of the first review can find the answer to whether they work in the second testimonial.

(*or football as the rest of the world calls it) 

I just can’t get over ‘field players’.

This could be really useful!

This could be really useful! The first sentence in that article sums it up nicely – “consumers who want to buy one that offers the best protection have had little information to go on”. All we, as consumers, know is that helmets have passed the tests required to be certified. But there’s been no (or very little) objective information beyond that. Some sites (e.g. helmets.org) have done a reasonable job of compiling what little evidence there is and generally trying to provide information, but with no rigorous testing mechanism it’s mostly hand-waving. And of course there are manufacturer’s claims – you could try coating your head in snake oil…

With regards to the Big Helmet Debate, this doesn’t really add much. It’s always been painfully obvious (if you pardon the choice of words) that IF you’re involved in a crash in which you hit your head, you’re likely to have a better outcome if you’re wearing a helmet. This research just adds a bit of nuiance to that.

What this research doesn’t address is all the other factors that go into the Debate, such as risk compensation, or that any requirement (or even encouragement) of cyclists to wear helmets acts as a barrier to cycling and therefore causes both more harm overall (through inactivity) and more risk to cyclists (reduced safety in numbers).

brooksby wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

brooksby wrote:

The Bristol Post is running a story about a woman up north (how does that work?) who’s telling everyone they must wear a helmet when riding a bike.  This is because her son was doing stunts on his bike and face planted and had to go to hospital for very serious cuts and scrapes and stuff all across his face.  She cannot see a difference between riding to the shops and teenagers stunting.  Plus, I hadn’t realised that a bike helmet would protect me from cuts and scrapes on my face…

The number of people who don’t know how to wear a helmet correctly is staggering

 

Wot, no squirrel? 

I find your lack of faith disturbing

brooksby wrote:

The Bristol Post is running a story about a woman up north (how does that work?) who’s telling everyone they must wear a helmet when riding a bike.  This is because her son was doing stunts on his bike and face planted and had to go to hospital for very serious cuts and scrapes and stuff all across his face.  She cannot see a difference between riding to the shops and teenagers stunting.  Plus, I hadn’t realised that a bike helmet would protect me from cuts and scrapes on my face…

The number of people who don’t know how to wear a helmet correctly is staggering

All these sciency people with

All these sciency people with their, facts. Pah!

Who needs facts when you’ve got keyboard warriors waiting to twist the most innocent topic into outright WAR.

Seriously, I’m glad someone is testing MIPS alongside standard lids. Perhaps then we can discover whether it’s more than just marketing hype.