The utility cyclist wrote:mjr wrote:Bonefishblues wrote:My now wife was knocked unconscious in an accident in about 1984-5, spending a night in hospital. On balance I would have preferred her to be wearing a helmet at that point.
But what about all the extra times she would've crashed if she had've been wearing one? It's not fair to justify them on the basis of how they might/should have mitigated some crash because you can't just pop it on mid-fall and avoid all the drawbacks that probably undermine their impact protection to result in the approximately-no-effect we see in the real-world casualty figures.
Exactly, this post crash thinking is replicated everywhere, 'post hoc ergo propter hoc' springs to mind yet nearly everyone ignores the facts that they would in many instances not be in that position to start with sans helmet, their head would be a smaller target/be further away from the solid object, the kinetic energy of the head is changed, these are particularly important when considering helmets or children.
Personally I'd never want my child wearing a helmet and my 5 and 9 year old grandkids don't wear them and I've explained to the 9 year old why I don't wear one, not that he wore one to start with. A child who thinks they are all but invincible as it is are badly affected by feeling safer, this is proven many times over in studies.
This is replicated to a similar level by the racing/competition riders, this is why the only real study done on racing cyclists has shown that riders of the 80/early 90s are half at risk of traumatic injury than those of 2003-2009, we can see how many more dead riders there are, how many more retirements due to crashes and indeed the numbers of crashes has increased dramatically in the last 10-15 years. That's despite better brakes, better/grippier tyres, more on course safety protocols - more barriers and hugely more marshals warning riders of tight turns etc and still they crash more. Classic risk compensation in action.
In my one major off I'm damn glad I wasn't wearing a helmet, i wouldn't be writing this today, in fact I can say that with far more certainty* than the classic helmet saved my life pony
*tucked and rolled, impact on rear of shoulder, head would have been snapped backwards at speed if wearing a plastic hat
Indeed you can.