Helmets: Do you wear one? Why? When?

i used a helmet when i was learning to ride which i found out was a good
chose when i did a front flip off my uni landed on my head almost broke
my neck, skull, and elbow then slid about 5ft on gravel.
but i don't ware one now because i don't like them and i get to hot
when i ware them in the summer.


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warlord14 wrote:
i used a helmet when i was learning to ride which i found out was a good
chose when i did a front flip off my uni landed on my head almost broke
my neck, skull, and elbow then slid about 5ft on gravel.
but i don't ware one now because i don't like them and i get to hot
when i ware them in the summer.


wait, so you found out that using a helmet was a good thing in a
accident, but then decided they were to hot? why would you do that?
I guess I would rather have some discomfort while riding, then to find
out that I needed a helmet on a ride.

I think even Ian would agree that if you determine that a helmet is an
asset, you should wear it.

I understand that if you determine that it is more dangerous to wear a
helmet, not to wear one. I don't believe that it is more dangerous,
but at least he has made a logical decision based on his beliefs. To
me it seems illogical to determine a helmet is safer, then not wear
one.


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surfcolorado
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MuniAddict wrote:
Should be: "try _to_ explain it...."



That's dialect. Both "try to" and "try and" are common. In mediaeval
English, "and" had a conditional sense, similar to word "if". With
this in mind, "try and" makes perfect sense as a contraction of "Try
and see if I can..."

I am sure that this is what Kilian had in mind.


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surfcolorado wrote:
wait, so you found out that using a helmet was a good thing in a
accident, but then decided they were to hot? why would you do that?
I guess I would rather have some discomfort while riding, then to find
out that I needed a helmet on a ride.

To me it seems illogical to determine a helmet is safer, then not wear
one.



Really. So wearing full body armour (as worn by MTBers) would be safer
than not wearing it, so, in pursuit of logic, you wear full body armour
on every ride, without fail?

Rational decisions are made by comparing complex sets of benefits and
disadvantages and choosing an appropriate balance for the
circumstances.

On a hot day, I might rationally decide that the certainty of being too
hot for comfort in a helmet outweighed the very small probability of the
helmet being needed for protection on the ride I have planned.

On a technical ride or in heavy traffic, I might decide that he helmet
is essential despite the discomfort - or I might even choose not to
ride.


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Either you understand the concept of a false dichotomy perfectly, or you
don't understand it at all.
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Mike you got me on that one. I don't wear full body armor all the time,
only when I want to push my limits and that increases my chance of
crashing.
I guess I should have asked for more information. Do you wear it when
you are at the edge of your limit, as you may have been when you
crashed the first time or do you not wear it all the time.


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And if I'm only driving my car a couple blocks to the store, I don't
wear my seat belt, and I disable the airbags. I only need those things
when I'm driving further distances, or in heavier traffic.



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MuniAddict

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don't most car accidents happen close to home? Or was I just told that
when I was young so I would wear my seat belt all the time.


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Going against my better judgement, I'll feed the troll now...


Ian Smith wrote:
Almost certainly, but is a slightly greater chance of being a
vegetable an acceptable trade-off for a greater chance of reducing
non-life-changing injury like concussion or merely painful and/or
embarrassing injury like scalp cuts?



This sounds like the same "argument" the anti-seatbelt crowd uses...
the slight chance of being trapped in one's burning automobile is
enough to keep them from wearing their belts.

You seem to be producing all sorts of observational evidence to support
your "argument", but where is common sense? Perhaps you lost that with
a head injury on a helmetless ride some time long ago? Common sense
tells us not to touch the stove when it's hot, and not to play in
traffic... but does it tell us to undertake a risky activity without
readily available safety gear?

I've skinned my palms when I didn't wear gloves, I've bashed my shins
when I don't wear my leg guards, why should I ever suffer a head
impact? Common sense says "cover those things you don't want to
injure". Plain and simple.

Whip out as much scientific jargon as you like, as many statistics as
you like, you still can't beat out common sense. With one swift stroke
of Occam's razor, your long-winded rants fall to pieces.

The thin ground beneath your weak argument is crumbling, Ian. What is
your motivation, here? Run out of dogs to kick? Stolen the lunch
money from all the kids on your block?


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maestro8 wrote:
Whip out as much scientific jargon as you like, as many statistics as
you like, you still can't beat out common sense. With one swift stroke
of Occam's razor, your long-winded rants fall to pieces.

The thin ground beneath your weak argument is crumbling, Ian. What is
your motivation, here? Run out of dogs to kick? Stolen the lunch
money from all the kids on your block?

Unfortunately for everyone, common sense is uncommon, which is why some
of us need helmets. Ians argument seems to be full of common sense to
me- the statistics suggesting helmets to be compulsory for bikes don't
add up, even less so for unicycles. A unicycle lacks the pivot point
(handlebars) that bikes have that causes people to be flipped onto
their head. You are morelikely to faceplant than land on your head- so
where are the full face helmet advocates? Common sense is what helmet
wearers lack- which is why they need to overcompensate with protection
anyway.

By all means wear one if it gives you a false sense of safety... I
think we are more likely to die of America's nuclear paranoia and
anti-terrorist bombs than falling on your head.


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Rowan
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On Thu, 7 Aug 200800, surfcolorado wrote:

Ian Smith wrote:

Have you tested it?

No, but I'll try later. you jump to a lot of assumptions about me.

Ian Smith wrote:

Now, you will presumably say that your no-test is much more
accurate than my test (most people do, for no coherent reason),
but why would your guess be more likely to reflect reality than my
approximate test?

Why would you assume that I will jump to the conclusion that my
hypothesis is more accurate than your test.

For the reason stated - because most people (the vast majority, in
fact) do. I can't state my reason any clearer than I did before -
because most people do, for no coherent reason.

So, If I am understand what you are saying. If I'm not please
correct me. The reduction in torsional injury from not wearing a
helmet outways the reduction in impact from wearing helmet.

Well, for a pure tangential impact (or nearly purely tangential) I
think there is no reduction in impact - the helmet _may_ reduce the
acceleration of the normal component, but it will probably (or at
least, I believe it would probably) increase the rotational
acceleration. Given (for now) that rotational acceleration can be at
least as damaging as linear, we have 'safety' gear that potentially
causes as much harm as it protects. So yes, in approximate terms, the
average increase in torsional damage from wearing a helmet _may_
balance the average reduction in linear damage.

It is worth noting that (so far as I am aware) _none_ of the helmet
test standards test anything other than normal impacts, so there are
no pressures on manufacturers to mitigate the torsional behaviour.

But note - I'm not saying that this _is_ the cause of the observation
that increasing (sometimes dramatically) the proportion of people
wearing helmets has no detectable effect on head injury rates. The
limit of what I'm suggesting is that there are reasonably plausible
mechanisms by which helmets could exacerbate injury. It happens that
the injuries in question are of the most serious class, but that is
not directly relevant. The situations in which such increase in
severity could occur are not particularly unusual - in fact, an impact
with at least some tangential component is probably more likely than a
purely normal impact. I think it is cherent (though not necesarily
right) to conclude that such a mechanism _could_ explain why injury
statistics do not support the claims made for cycling helmets.

That is, this mechanism is suggested only as a possible cause of the
population level statistics observations that helmets have negligible
effect on head injury rate. It doesn't need to be the true mechanism,
for purposes of coherency of the argument, in only needs to be _a_
_coherent_ explanation. Given at least one possible cause, the
statistical data cannot be discarded out-of-hand.

However, there are so many confounding factors it's not funny. In
particular, much of the information comes from data before and
after compulsion is introduced, and the behaviour of a cyclist
compelled to wear a helmet may be different from that of a cyclist
who makes a free choice to do so.

IMO, the most likely other effects are risk compensation by the rider,
risk compensation by motorists (a link suggesting this has already
been posted) and changes in the number of cyclists. The first two of
these would probably apply to both compelled and 'free choice'
wearers, but the last would only be relevant where compulsion is
introduced.

Where the 'true' mechanism is relevant is in trying to decide if the
statistics from bicycling populations can be extrapolated to
unicycling. If the cause is rider risk compensation, they almost
certainly can; if the cause is torsional impacts they possibly can,
but it's not so clear-cut because of difference in exposure to motor
vehicles, difference in typical speeds and so on; if the cause is just
change in the number of bicyclists on the roads, I would expect they
probably cannot.

Where I believe and I have observed. That a helmet can protect you
from cracking your head like an egg on a rock or reduce the impact
to your skull and brain by absorbing some of the impact.

There are several assumptions in that. In particular, heads don't
crack like eggs. Heads are remarkably good at surviving impacts.

both of the above can be life-changing, and that outways the
increase in torsional injury from wearing a helmet, which I believe
to be relatively low.

Why? Why do you believe torsional injuries are of low severity? (Or is
it that you belive they are of low likelihood)? Do you have any
evidence that tangential impacts are less common or less severe than
normal impacts? It would certainly be interesting to see such a
study, but I can't imagine any remotely reliable methodology for it.

Plus as an added bonus, you are protected from low lying branches
and small crashes that would give you non life-changing injuries to
the head.

I think this is the only thing that is universally accepted - helmets
do seem to do a good job of protecting against minor, embarrassing and
sometimes painful injuries.

When I used to wear a helmet religiously, it once took a blow from a
low-hanging garage door. Had I hit the door with my unprotected head,
I expect it would have split the scalp and been painful and quite
bloody - I might even have attended A&E, because it's difficult to
patch up your own scalp (IME). Of course, had I not had a helmet on
with a brow and peak obscuring forwards upwards visibility, I might
have seen the door and not walked into it at all.

personally it also allows me to ride with more confidence, knowing
that it is unlikely that I will have a head injury at all.

As I said - risk compensation is potentially another explanation.
It may be the only one necessary.

regards, Ian SMith
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