Why I am amazed by people being put off by helmets

[Nearholmer]

Therein lies part of the rub.

“Cycling” is a broad church, encompassing pootling to the shop on a reserved cycleway at one end of the scale, and belting downhill through a dense forest, leaping deep chasms, or hurtling along in a tight-packed peloton at forty miles an hour, at the other. And, unlike most walking, it often involves deliberately mingling with motor vehicles that are quick moving and blooming heavy.

So it can either be “walking-like”, or it can be “downhill slalom like”, or it can be “motorcycling-like”, or somewhere between the three.

Usually, these debates involve trading assertions where one party has an apple in mind, and the other a wombat.

[rareposter]

Does this level of debate exist in other potentially helmetted two-wheeled activities?

Helmets seem ubiquitous for downhill MTB despite no compulsion. I've not looked very hard, but I don't get the impression there is a raging debate over their effectiveness.

We're going back to Page 1 of this debate.

Cycling - as a SPORT / enthusiast hobby etc, a helmet is "part of the uniform" almost. You are taking part in a sport, you're voluntarily choosing to take on a fairly risky activity in the name of fun / recreation etc.

So part of it is you wear the kit appropriate to that sport. You want to at least appear like you "belong", same way that you wear smart clothes to the theatre.

Cycling - as a means of TRANSPORT / utility / getting around, you're essentially an upwardly mobile pedestrian. The risks you experience from pottering a mile to the shops on a sit-up-and-beg bike are nowhere close to what you experience hurtling through steep woodland as fast as possible. The former, you can wear your normal pedestrian clothes.

[Mike Sales]

Those who urge us to wear a helmet do not add, but only when you are indulging in riskier varieties of cycling. No, they tell us that whenever we get on two wheels we need to put on the lid. Utility cycling is not excepted from the need to put on a helmet. On the contrary, it is when we are using the public highway that we are exhorted to wear one, to protect us from the hurly burly of motor traffic. This does give the impression that road cycling is rather dangerous. That it is similar to an adventure sport, not like an everyday trip to the shops.

[multitool]

Surely arguing that pedestrians face risks and should wear helmets is an argument for cyclists wearing them too for same/similar risks.

Equally, what is the difference between hitting a tree at 30mph on a downhill run, and a car doing 30 mph hitting a commuting cyclist ambling along on their way to work? These arguments can be used in both directions.

I have a lot of sympathy with the view that helmet use shifts the responsibility for cyclist safety onto the cyclist, who is not in a strong position to mitigate those risks, rather than onto drivers who are, and are the likely origin of the risks.

Having said that, a helmet did once save me <possibly not my life, but arguably considerable harm>

Isn't it a shane that a less polarised and more productive discussion cannot be had on pretty much any aspect of bikes used as road transport.

[Mike Sales]

Try arguing that pedestrians should wear a helmet. You won't get far. It would be seen as ridiculous.
Yet it is conventional wisdom for many that cyclists should.
If we are to approach Dutch levels of cycling, it will be by seeing cycling as more efficient walking, rather than something for intrepid young men with helmets.
The good reasons for reversing motanormativity should not need rehearsing here.
I hope that by putting the unfashionable view I am not seen as polarising, but as widening the discussion.

[cyclist]

Certainly your anecdote has made me consider whether I should wear a helmet when I'm riding at night.

My daughter does not wear a helmet, and on a steep downhill she landed head first grazing her face.

[drossall]

Those who urge us to wear a helmet do not add, but only when you are indulging in riskier varieties of cycling. No, they tell us that whenever we get on two wheels we need to put on the lid. Utility cycling is not excepted from the need to put on a helmet. On the contrary, it is when we are using the public highway that we are exorted to wear one, to protect us from the hurly burly of motor traffic. This does give the impression that road cycling is rather dangerous. That it is similar to an adventure sport, not like an everyday trip to the shops.

But there's still the odd thing that helmets are designed much more for the low-end cases than for adventure cycling or even traffic. Sometimes it seems as though nothing about the whole debate makes any sense.

[cycle tramp]

Certainly your anecdote has made me consider whether I should wear a helmet when I'm riding at night.

My daughter does not wear a helmet, and on a steep downhill she landed head first grazing her face.

Yes... that does happen. Unless one wears a full face like, which may increase both the risks of conclusion or neck injury due to the increased diameter of the helmet increading the rotational loading of the skull and spine.

..generally speaking I fore go helmets, and manage not to fall from my bike by descending like Thora Herd on a stair lift.

[pjclinch]

Certainly your anecdote has made me consider whether I should wear a helmet when I'm riding at night.

My daughter does not wear a helmet, and on a steep downhill she landed head first grazing her face.

Most helmets give very limited face protection. I have a faint scar on my chin from an OTB when I was wearing a helmet. My chin was not fine (didn't need a stitch but I did go to A&E and have them decide), my helmet was as it never touched the ground (probably made the cut a little worse as it added a little to overall mass and thus energy of my head).

Pete.

[Nearholmer]

Once you get to hardcore downhill MTB, most people seem to wear helmets that are much more “motorcycling-like”, so they’ve recognised that things like the BS EN weren’t drafted with their sport in mind. They also wear bits of body armour, and round here they all seem to ride e-assist bikes, so the whole thing drifts very much towards motorcycling.

Road racing and sporty road riding in general involve accepting risk in exchange for speed at multiple levels: the helmets used offer only partial protection against head injuries, rapidly diminishing as speed increases, and the rest of the rider’s body is almost completely unprotected from the consequences of a sudden unplanned dismount, especially in summer. I very much doubt that participants would opt for better helmet protection if it decreased their speed, and they clearly don’t all want to wear super-aero TT helmets, otherwise they would be already. None of this is the much-discussed “risk compensation”, it’s about knowingly taking risks, and using a helmet to shave a bit off the magnitude. People have been taking risks in sporty road cycling since it was invented!

Then when you look at many of the other forms of cycling, so CX/gravel/rough-stuff, touring, commuting on the road, other utility on the road, ditto on cycleways, they’re a bit of a mish-mash in terms of forms of risk, energies involved in SUDs etc, so wearing a helmet might offer some to high protection depending upon the scenario, and it’s noticeable that varying proportions of riders in the slower, not-sporty forms of these activities opt not to wear a helmet. I would argue that to a noticeable degree people use their common sense, or personal risk assessment capabilities.

So, to me it does all make some sort of sense if you assume that most sporty cyclists know that they are taking risks in exchange for fun, and know full well that their helmet offers only partial, but worth having, protection, the same as they know that a set of bib-shorts and a short-sleeved top only offer very partial protection against hitting the deck at 30mph. People aren’t quite as daft as some posters here serm to assume.

Personally, I think that dragging any form of sporty cycling into a debate about whether helmet compulsion/advice deters people from cycling is a complete and utter red-herring, because it clearly doesn’t: sporty cycling is very popular, with no shortage of new participants. The deterrence question is important around utility cycling, which is very unpopular in most of the UK.

[pjclinch]

Surely arguing that pedestrians face risks and should wear helmets is an argument for cyclists wearing them too for same/similar risks.

Equally, what is the difference between hitting a tree at 30mph on a downhill run, and a car doing 30 mph hitting a commuting cyclist ambling along on their way to work? These arguments can be used in both directions.

That depends whether you take the arguments as pro/anti, but they're typically not.

The counter argument generally isn't saying "don't wear a helmet", it's saying "this example demonstrates the argument you're making for pushing helmets isn't sound".

Bringing up pedestrian helmets is a demonstration that proponents of cycle helmets don't follow their own reasoning in terms of absolute risk, and thus that the arguments underpinning that reasoning aren't the slam-dunk it's often assumed to be.
Nobody much is particularly wanting pedestrian helmets (a study was made years back in Japan of school children walking to school in helmets, you'll note it hasn't really caught on...).

Pete.

[pjclinch]

Does this level of debate exist in other potentially helmetted two-wheeled activities?

Helmets seem ubiquitous for downhill MTB despite no compulsion. I've not looked very hard, but I don't get the impression there is a raging debate over their effectiveness.

See also motorcycling. (and yes, I realise they are compulsory on road, but they are not when off road).

Downhill and MTB have other things in common that don't apply to most other cycling, like full body cover, meaty gloves, often body armour and extra joint padding.
It's also more or less a given that falls will significantly often be at relatively high speed so between the off and rest there's more chance of hitting one's head.
Motorcycling uses an engine for power, downhill MTB is significantly powered by gravity and what pedalling there is tends to be short bursts, so in both cases the rider generally isn't that concerned with overheating from effort compared to most sport cyclists.

Accidents appear common in downhill MTB. Champion riders have interesting lists of injuries, as do BMX Supercross riders. One of the riders in the JCC I coach at is very good (she won her age group in the national mini-downhill at the Glasgow Worlds) but she's had quite the list of broken bikes and bones.

The fact that both motorcycles and downhill MTB involve two-wheeled vehicles is somewhat beside the point of why helmets are probably a good idea for each. Rally drivers have the same number of wheels as a driver in a traffic jam. Similar levels of protection are not used...

Pete.

[drossall]

My daughter does not wear a helmet, and on a steep downhill she landed head first grazing her face.

That's another interesting factor in understanding statistics in evidence. I'm told (I'm not a medic) that that would probably be classed and reported as a head injury. It's plainly impossible for helmets to affect injuries in parts of the head that they do not cover so, for example, an 80% success rate in preventing injuries looks pretty odd when the face is forward and likely to hit first.

(Of course, if we get complicated about crash dynamics, a helmet could hit the ground, resulting the head twisting so that the chin got injured when that would not otherwise have happened, or there could be some kind of reverse effect in which the helmet contacting the ground meant that the chin did not, but let's not go there as it's too speculative.)

[[XAP]Bob]

Surely arguing that pedestrians face risks and should wear helmets is an argument for cyclists wearing them too for same/similar risks.

No it's saying that if you are arguing for cyclists to wear helmets then the same logic should apply to pedestrians, who face very similar risk profiles.
Since no-one seems to be willing to actually start suggesting that all pedestrians should wear helmets it's astonishing that anyone should be thinking the same about cyclists.

Equally, what is the difference between hitting a tree at 30mph on a downhill run, and a car doing 30 mph hitting a commuting cyclist ambling along on their way to work? These arguments can be used in both directions.

The energy involved is very different:
- Person hitting a tree = ~100kg at 14m/s = 9.8kJ
- Car hitting a person = ~1000kg at 14 m/s = 98kJ
There is also all the difference in the world in terms of control... there is very little you can do to avoid a motorist barreling into you, whereas riding along and having a tree jump in front of you is really very rare (more likely during Éowyn than at other times).

I have a lot of sympathy with the view that helmet use shifts the responsibility for cyclist safety onto the cyclist, who is not in a strong position to mitigate those risks, rather than onto drivers who are, and are the likely origin of the risks.

It also perversely increases the chances of collision, because motorists perceive that the cyclist is "safe" and so leave less room, making for a much smaller margin for error. Additionally the cyclist is likely to take more risks, with the same "I'm protected" feeling, and the same result.

Having said that, a helmet did once save me <possibly not my life, but arguably considerable harm>

Quite possibly - but a stopped clock is right twice a day, and cycle helmets also cause death.
I've crashed, and been hit, a few times whilst commuting, and the only times a helmet has ever been damaged is at home, on the garage walls/door - because my head was bigger than I know it is.
I've come off on ice, I've been rear ended on an A road, I've had all manner of smaller incidents... and my head is the thing I've always managed to protect - not surprising because riding a bike is a human scale activity, and we know how to protect ourselves when we fall.
If you want to advocate for safety wear on a bike, then it has to be gloves.

Isn't it a shane that a less polarised and more productive discussion cannot be had on pretty much any aspect of bikes used as road transport.

The issue is usually one of helmet zealots who don't realise what they're advocating for, vs people who know what the design limits of a cycle helmet are, and the mechanism by which they are designed to protect the user.
If you get hit at 30mph, that lid isn't going to do much - because the energy involved is so much higher than it's designed/tested for, so it will fail, and fail without absorbing significant amounts of energy. If you get run over by a lorry or a bus the lid isn't going to do anything. In fact it can give an inexperienced rider confidence to go alongside a larger vehicle, and get into a position to be squished.

The statistics from all over the world agree that the difference cycle helmets make to cyclist safety is approximately zero. It might be insignificantly positive or insignificantly negative, but it's basically zero. The *real* bugbear of those who know this is (e.g. Chris Boardman) is that the obsession with helmets is actively harmful - not because helmets are necessarily harmful, but because they are a distraction from things which could actually improve cyclist safety.

[pjclinch]

The statistics from all over the world agree that the difference cycle helmets make to cyclist safety is approximately zero.

"The statistics from all over the world" widely disagree amongst themselves, so e.g. stats professor Jake Olivier says it's clear cut the stats show significant benefits and disagreeing with that is tantamount to Holocaust denial, while e.g. stats professor Dorothy Robinson feels the stats show no clear benefit at all. That's not what I would call agreement! So you need to be careful to pin down which stats make up "The statistics from all over the world".

My personal favourite take (taken from a poster to the old uk.rec.cycling Usenet group) is that cycle helmet effectiveness at population level is about zero, plus or minus error bars.

It's further worth bearing in mind that what's generally true across a population doesn't necessarily apply to specific individuals within it.

Pete.