Helmets – personal experience

Envee NV wrote:

Mid winer in devon. Tried to make the green light so i can make the right turn. Helmet strapped to the handlebar. I know. Dont say anything. Slipped on ice going around the corner. Came down just as you did. Smacked my head near the temple. I woke up once when the paramedics were there attending to me and i said i was cold. Next thing i know is that i woke up in the hospital in a bed. I was out for three hours. This injury, smacking my head on the asphalt, disturbed the three pools of water in your ear that are responsible for your equilibrium. Now every time i turn my head in a funny fast way at a certain angle i start spinning like i drank too much and am just about to puke. Let this be a lesson to you all about, not, wearing a helmet

Can I suggest that if you weren’t trying to beat the lights and n the depths of winter you would never have dropped your bike.  There is absolutely no guarantee that you would have escaped damage to your inner ear through the wearing of a helmet. 

All sports that require the wearing of a helmet still see the players suffer from head injury. Some of these sports are better regulated than others in the dealing with such cases.

It is kind of ironic that it is stipulated that a helmet should be worn when cycle racing yet there is no check whatsoever after a crash. How many riders do you see carry on whilst still stunned without their being checked by either their own medic or the race doctor?  Or how many do you see swap out their helmets after a crash? After all we are told that a helmet is only good for one crash.  I actually don’t even think the team cars carry extra helmets. 

At last count I’ve had three
At last count I’ve had three offs on my bike, and on none of those occasions was my helmet of any use, as I didn’t land on my head. First time was literally my first time riding a road bike – I massively understeered on a right hander, hit the kerb and went head over heels into a thorn bush. I spent the next five miles pulling thorns out of my hands with my teeth. Second time I slid on some ice and went down hard on my right hip which caused a spectacular bruise. Third time, a car coming the other way turned across my path and I somersaults bike and all over the bonnet. I was fine, my bike was wrecked. So yeah… I can’t say a helmet has ever been of use to me as such.

Mid winer in devon. Tried to
Mid winer in devon. Tried to make the green light so i can make the right turn. Helmet strapped to the handlebar. I know. Dont say anything. Slipped on ice going around the corner. Came down just as you did. Smacked my head near the temple. I woke up once when the paramedics were there attending to me and i said i was cold.

Next thing i know is that i woke up in the hospital in a bed. I was out for three hours. This injury, smacking my head on the asphalt, disturbed the three pools of water in your ear that are responsible for your equilibrium. Now every time i turn my head in a funny fast way at a certain angle i start spinning like i drank too much and am just about to puke. Let this be a lesson to you all about, not, wearing a helmet

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

I concede the point about the drop in car occupant deaths in that one year – I was looking at the previous figures you linked to, and not taking into account that the seat-belt law actually came in in January, so the relevant year-on-year comparison would be 82 and 83, rather than 83 and 84, which is what I looked at (on the assumption that law went into effect some time later during ’83).  So for that single year you are correct.

 

However, firstly I simply disagree that the ratio is meaningless, becuase there is obvious reason to beleive that death rates for different modes have some common factors and are not completely independent.  And that ratio not only jumps in that particular year, but shows a clear inflection point and change in trend, that is sustained for many years.

 

And that is not only the case for the ratio, but also for the absolute number of fatalities, as seen in the first graph on the original article I linked to.  There is no decline in overall casualties from ’83, in fact it _was_ declining up till that year, but then flatlines till around 1991, something that is also visible on the figures you just linked to above.

 

So I still see no strong evidence that the seat-belt law had much beneficial effect, and there’s some evidence that overall it had a negative effect on safetly for those outside the vehicle.  Personally I don’t really care about the safety of the driver – that’s under their own control and up to them.  It’s their choice how much risk they want to take with their own safety, but it should not be their choice to take risks with the safety of others. 

And even a small increase in risk for those outside would be a strong argument against compulsory seat-belt laws.

 

Edit – in fact this debate makes me more inclined to be anti-compusory-car-safety measures, insofar as there’s even a possibility of side-effects causing harm to third-parties (see also A-frames that reduce visibility). 

 

I recall being very much in favour of the seat-belt law back when it came in, but these days I’m much more skeptical about it, partly as a side-effect of the bike helmet argument.  Risk-compensation appears to be an undeniable fact of human psychology – if you reduce the risk of negative concequences for doing something people will be more likely to do that thing (see also speeding and lack of legal enforcement of speed limits).  And if doing that thing has harmful effects on others, that is a potential problem.

 

 

The difficulty with the risk compensation argument in both this context and the context of bicycle helmets is the lack of real world data to support it.

If risk compensation actually existed in these contexts then a large increase in the use of protective equipment would cause an increase in risk taking and an increase in accidents.

That wasn’t the case with either seat belts or bicycle helmets.

If the increase in risk taking is not sufficient to affect the accident rate then it either doesn’t exist or is so small as to be inconsequential.

The change in ratio you refer to cannot be reliably attributed to an increase in danger to cyclists, it may also have occurred due to a safer environment for motorists.

As such it is of no value in this discussion.

The shared environment argument doesn’t change that. While some elements of road safety are shared, others are unique to motorists/cyclists etc.

The law changes in 1983 may have disproportionately increased safety for motorists therefore changing the ratio.

This does not necessarily mean that cycling became any more dangerous.

All a ratio change tells us is that one group has been affected by a new factor more than the other group. It doesn’t tell us which group or if the factor was positive or negative.

ClubSmed wrote:

ClubSmed wrote:

Xenophon2 wrote:

ClubSmed wrote:

I am (un)lucky/stupid enough to have fairly good data on a scenario similar to the OPs both with and without a helmet

Last year in winter (a few months apart) I came off my bicyle when hitting black ice in the exact same location on my way home from work. The 1st time I was wearing a helmet and the 2nd time I wasn’t.

The first time my helmet hit the ground, was damaged and resulted in some pain in the head for me (along with some neck pain & similar road rash described by the OP).

The second time my head did not impact with the ground as the reduced circumference meant that it did not get past my shoulder. I still had road rash & neck pain but no head injury or headache.

 

Takeaway:

Just because you damage your helmet does not mean that it saved your head.

 

Hmmm, I’m not argueing the point and you’ll understand that I have zero inclination to attempt a rerun sans helmet.  When it happened it was simply so fast that I can’t honestly say if my head would have made that bounce on the tarmac without wearing one.  What I do concede is that I was simply going too fast, slippery tyres or not.  I took a look at my Edge data and the last speed recording before speed dropped off a cliff and yours truly on the tarmac was 36 kmph.  That was foolish.  I appear to have been hitting that speed routinely in that spot, traffic allowing…but last time the road was wet and the tyres new. The laws of physics remained the same.

I too was going at speed, it is at a spot after a steep downhill and imediately before a steep uphill so I get my speed up considerably to enable me to make it up the hill. I would assume I was probably going around the same sort of speed as you if not a little faster. I know on the reverse way (I only record in one direction) I get up to 25mph so ~40kph

Try this simple excercise,  lie on your side on the carpet with a helmet on and try and hit your head on the floor hard. It is pretty easy. Now try the same again without a helmet and you will see it is practically impossible to create a big enough impact.

I’m not sure if I’m following correctly.
With a helmet =impact.
Without a helmet and including momentum = a force of great mass (we all have big heads) generated at a distance from a neck. Surely such a lever is reduced hence not only does a helmet protect ones noggin it also helps reduce torque on a vulnerable portion of ones spine. At slow momentum speeds, yay.. Slight damage on a perishable item such as a helmet in lue of a complete avoidance. At larger momentum moments, maybe such is why we walk as well as continue to coordinate ourselves.

I knew a man that had coordination to the 31st degree. He’s so happy using 1 dimension coordination.. Eg a unit.
I like your point about helmets reducing neck torque. I hadn’t thought about that.

4 dimensions. Point, line, shape, time.
Happy to wear a helmet, happy to ride less hazardous journeys without. Risk of hurtful injury is reduced with the wearing of a helmet..
Inclusive if your a taxi driver although your helmet is more of a drivers cage with a poking hole to place money in. 🙂

60 comments and nothing being

60 comments and nothing being said by BTBS.  When will he return?

Cars used to kill their occupants, and especially the drivers, at an astonishing rate.  Yet they still drove them like idiots.  Admittedly less acceleration, but also worse brakes and traction from the tyres and suspension.  And a lot more drunkeness, with no seatbelt and a steering wheel that would decapitate you.

Taxi driver drive like idiots and they refuse to wear seatbelts with great pride.

It’s where the big spike in the steering wheel arguement kind of falls down, yes they’d be extra careful for a while, but hey driving and speed.  And they would still text.

The spike would obscure the screen a bit though.  So they might have to hold the phone higher.

They hold the phone so low to avoid being caught rather than being able to see where thy are going, what does that tell you?

Rich_cb wrote:

Rich_cb wrote:

burtthebike wrote:

Which bit of “Do try to keep up.” did you miss?

I asked you a simple question Burt.

You can try to deflect but the fact is that, as with almost everything else you post, your seatbelt claims don’t stand up to scrutiny.

You’ve got 10,000+ fewer accidents in the year after seatbelts became compulsory even once you account for a reduction in drink driving.

How do you account for that?

If you can’t account for it then your the argument that increased seatbelt use led to more risk taking by drivers is baseless.

Bump bump. Bumper cars were often used as drivers Ed. Maybe there were more accidents than the bother of reports..
Ignition systems were also on a fast learning curve of ability to keep up. Primary take off sensors, points heading towards a childs view of, “what do they do? Where did they go? Watt bridge! Wow you’re old too, just like that, why didn’t you use lines and night mares with a flash light? ” Hence with electronic enhancements in engineering converting liquid gold into torque, by the time ABS had stopped the vehicle, everyone had time to read something stupid like this hence seatbelts reduced accidents because it took longer to operate the vehicle with pre, post seat belt movement therefore less driving was done and done in more advanced vehicles regarding primary safety. (The avoidance of collision).
Glad my bicycle hasn’t a seatbelt, please don’t tell the government.

:). (Probably won’t make sense to me when I read but posting..)

alansmurphy wrote:

alansmurphy wrote:

Rich, flip your ‘argument’ on it’s head – how do you propose that seatbelts reduced the number of accidents? Are seatbelts reducing speed, increasing visibility, improving the brakes on cars? Groundbreaking stuff!

I haven’t proposed that seatbelts reduce the number of accidents.

I’ve merely observed that after a huge increase in seatbelt wearing rates there was no increase in the accident rate.

Which doesn’t really fit with the idea that seatbelts increase risk taking.