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

[mattheus]

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.

Then we will have to AGREE to disagree

My additional riposts to your wise, but imperfect post:
- The football players had a working game before helmets, and then without face-guards. The face-guards changed the way they played, but they were certainly impacting each-other before then [actually deaths were common-place in the VERY early days of the sport, it's a fascinating and mind-boggling history! But I digress ...]
- BMX racers very much expect to crash - rewatch any race from the last Olympics. As do professional roadies, but much less often.

But this is all details, we're broadly saying the same thing. Unless you disagree ...

[pjclinch]

Then we will have to AGREE to disagree

My additional riposts to your wise, but imperfect post:
- The football players had a working game before helmets, and then without face-guards. The face-guards changed the way they played, but they were certainly impacting each-other before then [actually deaths were common-place in the VERY early days of the sport, it's a fascinating and mind-boggling history! But I digress ...]
- BMX racers very much expect to crash - rewatch any race from the last Olympics. As do professional roadies, but much less often.

But this is all details, we're broadly saying the same thing. Unless you disagree ...

We are, for the most part, in Furious Agreement

My point is that a game where using a helmet to cushion a blow is pretty much always a bad sign will use protective equipment (both physically and psychologically) in a different manner to a game where using a helmet to cushion a blow can be used to get ahead.

You can learn lessons, but you need to be very wary of direct comparison and inferring too much.

Pete.

[Jdsk]

...
My point is that a game where using a helmet to cushion a blow is pretty much always a bad sign will use protective equipment (both physically and psychologically) in a different manner to a game where using a helmet to cushion a blow can be used to get ahead.

You can learn lessons, but you need to be very wary of direct comparison and inferring too much.
...

Yes.

Jonathan

[jb]

The question of whether enforced cycle helmet laws would have a negative effect on overall public health - in other words let some people die for the benefit of many, IMO lies very close to other topics such as questions regarding geriatric suffering or overpopulation.
There is no mechanism for discussing these topics in a meaningful way due to our one sided view of life being sacred regardless of suffering.

Not that I know the answers but I do notice how certain topics are skirted round or blanked out even in the face of very real issue's.

[Jdsk]

The question of whether enforced cycle helmet laws would have a negative effect on overall public health - in other words let some people die for the benefit of many, IMO lies very close to other topics such as questions regarding geriatric suffering or overpopulation.
There is no mechanism for discussing these topics in a meaningful way due to our one sided view of life being sacred regardless of suffering.

Not that I know the answers but I do notice how certain topics are skirted round or blanked out even in the face of very real issue's.

It's actively and openly discussed across health economics. In the NHS in England that's commonly in terms of the financial threshold for Quality Adjusted Life Years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-a ... _life_year
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_ ... life_years

Of course consistent methods and thresholds should be used across sectors.

Jonathan

[jb]

Yes, I expect so, but you don't seem to get much discussion in politics or mainstream media.
At least not well balanced discussion.

[harriedgary]

And knowing that a helmet offers little protection against an actual collision with hard object by heavy head moving at 10 metres per second, I don't think wearing any helmet would improve my chances.

Depends partly on what you mean by "your chances" and also not so much on how fast you're going but how fast you stop.

Look at this, and ask yourself if racing leathers are rated to protect at this sort of speed...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZZTapcPRSk&t=37s

Because he kept most of his energy when he fell and scrubbed it off relatively slowly he got away with it, and with some style. Had he hit a wall at that speed he'd quite probably have smashed his body well beyond jogging away.

Similarly, a cycle helmet can do a useful job at speeds well over the oft-quoted 12 mph as long as the rider keeps going (which they often will if the hard object is a horizontal(ish) road), because it's not how much kinetic energy you have when you hit that matters so much as how much you lose very, very quickly.

As for "your chances", the sort of energy you lose in a hurry from gravity, whatever your horizontal speed, is the sort of energy that can kill but typically doesn't: it's not that different in terms of bone-breaking energy to tripping over walking. So the helmet might typically save you gravel rash and a very, very bad headache. It could do a useful job without much affecting your chances of death.

Pete.

you raise a good point there.
I noticed on the ITV coverage Le Tour, I think Millar said how you're more likely to break a bone in a slow speed crash, than a fast crash where you slide a bit.

[jb]

You could wear a knotted handkerchief and it might offer protection in certain circumstances.
Provided you are aware of the risk, and it's not causing a huge burden to the national health service then it nobody else's business how much protection you choose to wear.

[Blondie]

The protection when sliding along the road on a bicycle is mostly from grazing the scalp and mostly minor scrapes, not life threatening major ones. Plus you also need to account for the simple physics that a helmet will contact the road in circumstances where an unhelmeted head would not. Plus in other circumstances not wearing a helmet would have meant the shoulders contacting the ground first slowing the speed of the head considerably should it then subsequently impact the road.

Matheus does raise a point where some riders think their bicycle helmet protects them and make no effort to avoid their head hitting the ground if they come off. They go down like a sack of spuds rather than defensively protecting their head as they go down.

Risk compensation is also very much real both from riders wearing helmets, and drivers who see a helmeted cyclist.

[drossall]

Risk compensation is also very much real both from riders wearing helmets, and drivers who see a helmeted cyclist.

Related, I think, to risk compensation is the distraction effect, for want of a better term. I'm not a safety specialist, but I came across, years ago, the hierarchy of controls, where PPE (helmets, in our case) is at the bottom. That doesn't mean not wearing them, but simply that you consider everything else first, and don't get distracted by helmets.

So, as I've mentioned before, I've encountered a youth activity where bad crashes were happening in spite of helmets, and the reaction was to get full-face helmets. When running my sessions, I rejected that option in favour of what amount to controls higher in the pyramid, and the worst we've had have been some knee injuries from falls - helmets don't cover knees (I know that's obvious, but it seems to bypass those who argue that this ride would be safe if only helmets were worn).

In cycling terms, I'd see the pyramid as something like:

• Do we need to do this ride? (Probably, remembering that the benefits of cycling are so massive that stopping rides would, as a general rule, be a really bad idea in health terms.)
• Could we substitute a safer/wiser route? (Possibly)
• Are participants' bikes safe and is the route well-maintained and suitable? (Because, once done, such measures work - pro tem - without further intervention)
• Should we be requiring training of participants, organisers or the wider public, or splitting into smaller groups, or doing other things? (But remember, these measures rely on people following them consistently)
• Helmets etc.

Again,the immediate point is not whether helmets are worn, but whether an undue focus on helmets leads to all the other steps being forgotten.

[pjclinch]

So, as I've mentioned before, I've encountered a youth activity where bad crashes were happening in spite of helmets, and the reaction was to get full-face helmets. When running my sessions, I rejected that option in favour of what amount to controls higher in the pyramid, and the worst we've had have been some knee injuries from falls - helmets don't cover knees (I know that's obvious, but it seems to bypass those who argue that this ride would be safe if only helmets were worn).

In cycling terms, I'd see the pyramid as something like:

• Do we need to do this ride? (Probably, remembering that the benefits of cycling are so massive that stopping rides would, as a general rule, be a really bad idea in health terms.)
• Could we substitute a safer/wiser route? (Possibly)
• Are participants' bikes safe and is the route well-maintained and suitable? (Because, once done, such measures work - pro tem - without further intervention)
• Should we be requiring training of participants, organisers or the wider public, or splitting into smaller groups, or doing other things? (But remember, these measures rely on people following them consistently)
• Helmets etc.

Again,the immediate point is not whether helmets are worn, but whether an undue focus on helmets leads to all the other steps being forgotten.

My wife raised these very points & ideas with her club recently. She only wears a helmet for racing or practising silly stuff, and seems to crash rather less than a lot of the other members.
It pretty quickly descended to all her actual points being ignored and a chorus of "I can't believe anyone wouldn't wear a helmet!"

Pete.

[Stevek76]

Matheus does raise a point where some riders think their bicycle helmet protects them and make no effort to avoid their head hitting the ground if they come off. They go down like a sack of spuds rather than defensively protecting their head as they go down.

Not sure this is intentional. The time between starting to fall and actual impact makes such deliberate actions fairly unlikely.

Some people just apparently got to adulthood without developing the instinctive use of arms etc! Also the strongest helmet advocates tend to be road enthusiasts in my experience. A low and forward riding position makes handling crashes trickier and being pure roadies I think they don't tend to have much experience of spills, like those partaking in the rowdier types of non utility cycling have. Which is possibly also why some can stack it badly in situations others might not (eg fancy hollow crank arms delaminating or a nasty pothole). Also such longer distances probably induce a degree of 'zoning out' that isn't found in other situations.

It could quite possibly be the case that this subset of riders actually has significant gains from helmet use but that's really the nub of this whole issue, a conflation of a subset of sports cycling with anyone using a two wheeled pedal powered device to get from a to b.

[Blondie]

Not sure this is intentional. The time between starting to fall and actual impact makes such deliberate actions fairly unlikely.

But instinctive reactions and belief on the consequences are not entirely unrelated. If you believe it will hurt, as you would if you’ve hit your head coming off unhelmeted. Then firstly you ride in such a way as to avoid coming off to start with, much more defensively, not head down a couple of inches off someone’s wheel as a roadie much do even when not racing. If you think the helmet will protect you, and it won’t hurt, you don’t work so hard to protect your head.

I disagree that you go down without warning. If you think it’s without warning, you weren’t paying attention.

[Blondie]

MIPS is also an interesting one as it’s a problem introduced by wearing a helmet. Without the helmet you wouldn’t suffer those rotational brain injuries or at least a very much reduced likelihood. Rotational / torsional injuries being the more serious brain injuries.

[jb]

The one and only time I got actual protection from a helmet it happened so fast I didn't even know if my head had hit the road until I saw the crack in the polystyrene.
The front wheel had fallen into a thin crack in the road under a puddle and stopped instantly throwing me over the top of the bars.