BBC programme in the Sliced Bread series: "Cycle Helmets"

[colin54]

Thanks for the enlightenment all.

[Steady rider]

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... _stability
British Standards on helmets have no information on helmet weights on riding stability. The trick cyclists practice their moves and provide no data on falls with and without helmets.

[Nearholmer]

^^^
That is one strange old paper, IMO:

- it contains a “kite flying” statement that doesn’t seem to be supported by any evidence, which I’m surprised got through peer review: “Therefore, the increased "other" rate for New Zealand, mainly falls, is what could be expected from helmet use”; and,

- it doesn’t report any new work, or table any new knowledge or well-argued new insights from existing knowledge, it’s no more than a call for further work, with some outline suggestions about how part of that work might be undertaken. That’s the sort of thing that in my experience (which is in applied engineering and in applied safety, rather than academia) is usually dealt with through less formal discussion articles, the correspondence pages, or calls for papers to conferences.

Am I doing it an injustice?

[Jdsk]

You're overestimating it! It isn't been published in anything resembling a journal and it hasn't been peer reviewed. And it couldn't pass the first stage of review.

There are no contact details for the author.

The author's affiliation in ResearchGate is "Cycling UK". Cycling UK describe that as "erroneous" (11/7/22).

In the content you've spotted the biggest problem. There are many others.

Jonathan

[Steady rider]

Sometimes there are areas that require extra research and the author considers this may be needed.
Ben Goldacre Wellcome and David Spiegelhalter reported,
With regard to the use of bicycle helmets, science broadly tries
to answer two main questions. At a societal level, “what is the
effect of a public health policy that requires or promotes
helmets?” and at an individual level, “what is the effect of
wearing a helmet?” Both questions are methodologically
challenging and contentious.

The suggested research may assist with the second part, "what is the effect of
wearing a helmet?"
https://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f3817.full

[Nearholmer]

It might. Or, it might not.

As the wise men say, this is “methodologically challenging”, and even assuming that a method to measure differences in forces at the head as between people wearing and not wearing helmets could be devised, we’d still be left with an “and, so what?” question in respect of whether that makes any material difference to their ability to control their bikes.

Anyway, the author does himself no favours when it comes to being taken seriously in a call to research the topic by publishing something as peculiar as that.

[pjclinch]

Sometimes there are areas that require extra research and the author considers this may be needed.
Ben Goldacre Wellcome and David Spiegelhalter reported,
With regard to the use of bicycle helmets, science broadly tries
to answer two main questions. At a societal level, “what is the
effect of a public health policy that requires or promotes
helmets?” and at an individual level, “what is the effect of
wearing a helmet?” Both questions are methodologically
challenging and contentious.

The suggested research may assist with the second part, "what is the effect of
wearing a helmet?"
https://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f3817.full

A bit of an elephant in the room there is the same editorial you quote also says, "the current uncertainty about any benefit from helmet wearing or promotion is unlikely to be substantially reduced by further research"...

That's not to say further research is pointless, but if you've tried to do something 500 times and it's run in to methodological problems that produce wildly varying results then the 501st go at it with methods subject to the same problems probably won't turn much up that's new/useful. If you're trying to measure the speed of sound with only a hand-held stopwatch and a 1m rule it's not going to go that well, and trying a different stopwatch isn't going to change that.

I applaud the dedication and effort in wanting to do research, but a bit like me trying to understand quantum mechanics properly, an 'A+' for effort can still be well short of useful results.

Pete.

[jb]

Maybe lessons could be learnt from the sports of American Football V English rugby union. One sport has opted for full body armour whilst the other is largely at the discretion of the player. Whilst they are different games and rules they are both heavy contact sports.
Is there a significant difference in injuries?
Is there a significant difference in violence of contact and risk aversion?

[Jdsk]

Maybe lessons could be learnt from the sports of American Football V English rugby union. One sport has opted for full body armour whilst the other is largely at the discretion of the player. Whilst they are different games and rules they are both heavy contact sports.
Is there a significant difference in injuries?
Is there a significant difference in violence of contact and risk aversion?

There's lots published on effects of helmets in American Football.

I don't think that direct comparison of rates of injury between those sports will will help much, as there are so many other factors. But comparison of the effects of interventions might.

Jonathan

[pjclinch]

Maybe lessons could be learnt from the sports of American Football V English rugby union. One sport has opted for full body armour whilst the other is largely at the discretion of the player. Whilst they are different games and rules they are both heavy contact sports.
Is there a significant difference in injuries?
Is there a significant difference in violence of contact and risk aversion?

There's a useful lesson that safety equipment can have unintended side-effects. In gridiron football it seems fairly common (at least as my limited understanding of the game goes) for players to use their heads as battering rams which I think isn't so much the case in rugby.

As a comparison to cycling it doesn't work so well because it's pretty much never an advantage to hit something with your head (sort-of exception is knocking low branches aside on off-road singletrack, but that's more about abrasion avoidance than trying to knock down something substantial). A cycle helmet is in case it All Goes The Way of the Pear, while a football helmet is potentially useful in actually scoring points and thus worth using actively in the game.

Pete.

[drossall]

I don't know too much about American football. But this subthread reminded me of (old) news that that sport might ban helmets. In fact, what they seem to be doing is to test and approve, or ban, specific models.

Not really seeking to draw any specific conclusions from that for cycling.

[mattheus]

As a comparison to cycling it doesn't work so well because it's pretty much never an advantage to hit something with your head (sort-of exception is knocking low branches aside on off-road singletrack, but that's more about abrasion avoidance than trying to knock down something substantial). A cycle helmet is in case it All Goes The Way of the Pear, while a football helmet is potentially useful in actually scoring points and thus worth using actively in the game.

Pete.

Well .... sort of agree, but ...

As we've had at least one forum member state that he wears a helmet to enable him to do more dangerous things. [e.g. race downhill off-road, as I recall.] So not a sporting tactic, but still using a helmet to do something you wouldn't otherwise do. Or so he said!

[pjclinch]

As a comparison to cycling it doesn't work so well because it's pretty much never an advantage to hit something with your head (sort-of exception is knocking low branches aside on off-road singletrack, but that's more about abrasion avoidance than trying to knock down something substantial). A cycle helmet is in case it All Goes The Way of the Pear, while a football helmet is potentially useful in actually scoring points and thus worth using actively in the game.

Well .... sort of agree, but ...

As we've had at least one forum member state that he wears a helmet to enable him to do more dangerous things. [e.g. race downhill off-road, as I recall.] So not a sporting tactic, but still using a helmet to do something you wouldn't otherwise do. Or so he said!

That's pure psychology though, one isn't using a helmeted head to actually bat mere trees out of the way on a descent and thus cut a few seconds off.
If you're battering through a human wall to try to get your points though, armour that turns you in to battering ram is a psychological and physical asset.

One is telling yourself it's okay if you crash, the other is encouraging to batter on through using your head.

Even the least crash-averse cyclists don't gain anything by crashing. On the other hand, bashing on through the opposition is something that can be easier if you actively use an armoured head to do the bashing.

Pete.

[mattheus]

As a comparison to cycling it doesn't work so well because it's pretty much never an advantage to hit something with your head (sort-of exception is knocking low branches aside on off-road singletrack, but that's more about abrasion avoidance than trying to knock down something substantial). A cycle helmet is in case it All Goes The Way of the Pear, while a football helmet is potentially useful in actually scoring points and thus worth using actively in the game.

Well .... sort of agree, but ...

As we've had at least one forum member state that he wears a helmet to enable him to do more dangerous things. [e.g. race downhill off-road, as I recall.] So not a sporting tactic, but still using a helmet to do something you wouldn't otherwise do. Or so he said!

That's pure psychology though, one isn't using a helmeted head to actually bat mere trees out of the way on a descent and thus cut a few seconds off.
If you're battering through a human wall to try to get your points though, armour that turns you in to battering ram is a psychological and physical asset.

One is telling yourself it's okay if you crash, the other is encouraging to batter on through using your head.

Even the least crash-averse cyclists don't gain anything by crashing. On the other hand, bashing on through the opposition is something that can be easier if you actively use an armoured head to do the bashing.

Pete.

Given that very often the impacts are head-to-head, helmet-to-helmet, they've gained ZERO advantage - so it's still just psychological!

I agree they are slightly different scenarios, but there are more similarities than differences; in each case, choosing to wear helmets has changed the participant's behaviour; demonstrably - not just in the lab.

[pjclinch]

Given that very often the impacts are head-to-head, helmet-to-helmet, they've gained ZERO advantage - so it's still just psychological!

I agree they are slightly different scenarios, but there are more similarities than differences; in each case, choosing to wear helmets has changed the participant's behaviour; demonstrably - not just in the lab.

That's a very reductive view of the possible range of impacts!

As to more similarities than differences, I disagree. An American football player will, I imagine, expect to actively use the protection of their helmet and padding during a game because of the way their game is played. A cyclist, even in the more crash prone side of things like BMX, doesn't expect to crash and certainly doesn't try to hit things that stand between them and their objective (and the concept of defence, actively getting in the way of a heavy, relatively fast and armoured object, doesn't exist).

Pete.