Crashes Life after traumatic brain injury...SO YA DON'T WEAR A HELMET?!?!

[Chalo]

Just like with drivers' attitudes to cyclists wearing helmets-- some say that a cyclist with a helmet gets more respect from cagers, others think that a cyclist with a helmet is "ignored" by drivers because the drivers assume the rider is less likely to do something stupid...

Experimental research in the UK has demonstrated that motorists give less space to a cyclist wearing a helmet (and more space to a female cyclist).

I think you have some catching up to do on your reading, if you want to speak on this subject from an informed viewpoint. Here's a decent place to start:

http://cyclehelmets.org/

Chalo

 

[RedBaronX]

A bicycle helmet is designed to partially mitigate (that is, to make survivable) a 14mph impact (velocity of a freefall from 6 feet; basically the speed your head hits if you collapse from a standing position). That is what the tests are designed to mimic, and that's all bicycle helmets are certified to do for you.

that's why I wear a DOT certified motorcycle helmet... and yes, I know, helmets won't protect you from neck injuries, which can be just as fatal as head injuries. A friend of mine who ALWAYS wore his helmet was killed on his motorcycle from a neck injury.

I don't feel stupid wearing one and I don't feel like I've been "taken" for buying one.

 

[RedBaronX]

I think you have some catching up to do on your reading, if you want to speak on this subject from an informed viewpoint.

In my post, I essentially stated "there are many opinions on how safe helmets truly are," and you reply by calling me uninformed. Are you just so anti-helmet that you aren't actually reading what people are saying?

 

[RedBaronX]

And yes, I get it. It's like with cars-- you'd think with the stacks of safety features available on today's cars, accidents in the first place are a thing of the past, let alone fatal crashes. But people are still getting into accidents and people are still getting killed in them. Why? Because the PERCEIVED sense of safety makes people take more risks-- driving faster, paying less attention-- because they think that the car will not only protect them in a crash, they think that the car will prevent the accident from even happening.

I GET IT.

 

[Chalo]

In my post, I essentially stated "there are many opinions on how safe helmets truly are," and you reply by calling me uninformed. Are you just so anti-helmet that you aren't actually reading what people are saying?

I can't speak to what you believe you said. I have no personal beef with you-- only with erroneous information, which is much of what passes for facts about bicycle helmets these days.

One of the things you actually said was "helmets don't cause accidents", but the data suggest that paradoxically, they do. Or to be more specific, the presence of bicycle helmets has some accident-promoting effect that more or less completely offsets their injury-reducing properties.

There are some unscientific and plainly contrived studies, such as the one by Thompson, Rivara & Thompson that claims 85% reduction in head injuries from cycle helmets. If you look deeper into this study, you find that it was a very small self-selected group of children, and that by applying the same methods TR&T did, you can make their same data "prove" that helmets reduce leg injuries by something like 75% too. Yet this single bunk study is quoted more often than any other to support bicycle helmet laws and other such programs, just because the so-called results say what helmet promoters want them to say.

I'm not anti-helmet. Helmets have an important place in activities that present a high risk of head impact. I am anti-bicycle-helmet because I have done my research and discovered that not only are cycle helmets pretty ineffective, but marginalizing cycling (which is a safe activity, judged by the numbers) by getting a lot of people to believe that a helmet is necessary to do it, makes cycling more dangerous in the real world. It also makes cycling seem like a less legitimate transportation choice than it is.

Having had a look at many of the MBs in this little community here, I think it would be completely appropriate for many of us here to wear motorcycle helmets. The speed capabilities, marginal braking, improvised mechanical systems, and iffy construction of many MBs make them inherently more accident-prone than normal bicycles or MBs that fit within the normal bicycle performance envelope. But those helmets should be quality motorcycle helmets because the implied risks are motorcycle-like.

Chalo

 

[RedBaronX]

If you read through the safety posts, MOST people on this forum who advocate wearing helmets at all times while riding MBs also advocate that one should wear DOT approved motorcycle helmets. I've even seen posts from people here who wear full-faced motorcycle helmets. Few here settle for bicycle helmets.

And no, helmets don't cause accidents. Faulty equipment, careless riding, poor road conditions, bad weather, and dangerous cagers cause accidents. I'm sure very few people wearing helmets of any sort on any sort of two-wheeled vehicle have spontaneously gotten into an accident BECAUSE of their helmet (unless the helmet was horribly faulty or improperly fitted to the rider-- which still falls under "faulty equipment"). "Studies have shown that drivers get careless around cyclists who happen to be wearing helmets"-- that's still not the fault of the helmet, that is the fault of the driver. And it's not even an absolute cause and effect.

But here is a point that you and I probably come close to agreeing to-- in a car vs. two-wheeled vehicle crash: 1. the car always "wins"; 2. either you are going to get hurt or you are not going to get hurt, helmet or not. Even with a helmet, you risk severe bodily injury, including the possibility of fatal neck injuries.

 

[Sgt. Howard]

A medical POV

I work in surgery. I spent 8.5 years at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. 'Trauma One' for the south San Fransisco Bay Area. I saw many injuries from helmeted motorcyclists, some of them pretty gruesome. I never saw an un-helmeted motorcyclist from an accident... never. I've done this trade for 33 years. As I said, I work in surgery. None of the latter catagory lived long enough to see me. Not one. Play with your numbers as much as you want- I'm wearing a helmet with DOT approval.
the Old Sgt.
PS- cops are less likely to pull you over if you are wearing a DOT helmet. You want the law to allow us this privilage? Here's a good start...

 

[Turtle Tedd]

I work in surgery. I spent 8.5 years at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. 'Trauma One' for the south San Fransisco Bay Area. I saw many injuries from helmeted motorcyclists, some of them pretty gruesome. I never saw an un-helmeted motorcyclist from an accident... never. I've done this trade for 33 years. As I said, I work in surgery. None of the latter catagory lived long enough to see me. Not one. Play with your numbers as much as you want- I'm wearing a helmet with DOT approval.
the Old Sgt.
PS- cops are less likely to pull you over if you are wearing a DOT helmet. You want the law to allow us this privilage? Here's a good start...

.....Now , That about sums it up , Don't it.....

 

[jackofalltrades]

One more personal story. A close friend's son and his buddies were riding their BMX bikes and Shaun went down a paved street on a hill. His friends caught up with him at the bottom finding him heaped up in a pile his helmet busted up into three pieces. They got his mom who picked him up in her car. On the way home he went into convulsions and the trip diverted to the E.R. Emergency surgery to relieve pressure from brain swelling saved his life (NOT TO MENTION HE WAS WEARING HIS HELMET!!!). He was 3-4 weeks in the hospital.
His uncle works for a lab that tests helmets and was amazed that Shaun lived through this after examining the broken helmet. He is fine now several years later and when he goes to parties he entertains folks by passing a metal detector over his scar (and the metal plate in his head) and hearing the alarm go off. It is a pain at the airport he told me!

 

[Chalo]

Are you offering evidence that the helmet helped, or that the helmet failed to help? Your story could be interpreted either way, depending on whether or not you believe in helmets as an article of faith.

I don't just believe. I require proof, which is strongly inconclusive in the case of cycle helmets.