gds said:Well the extant helmet thread is getting quite long and the "debate'
remains quite heated. I've raised a point (in favor of voluntary
helmet use) a number of times and it has never had a direct response.
So I thought I'd try it again in a new thread.
I'm not at all convinced a new thread was necessary. But:...
Quoted message said:
For a moment let us put aside all of the published research - both pro
& con. My issue is the personally witnessed events where a helmet is
percieved to have prevented or reduced an injury. aI think that this
type of data is improtant in individual decsions on helmet use.
In my own case I have seen many crashes over the years but only two in
which I am completely convinced that a helmet prevented injury. In one
instance I was the rider. I came off my bike on a single track and my
head smashed into a large boulder alongside the trail. The helmet
worked as designed. The hard shell shattered and the foam inner had a
large dent. I had no injury to my head whatsoever.
I witnessed a similar case in which a companion came off his bike and
his head impacted the curb. This was long ago and the helmet was the
type with the styrofoam core with a nylon cover. In this instance the
helmet also performed as designed and the foam broke up absorbing the
shock of the strike but there was no injury.
Let me tell two crash stories, one short and one long.
The first is the last time I hit my head falling off a bike. It was
about 40 years ago. I was delivering newspapers by bike in the winter.
I slipped on some ice, slid sideways then fell directly backwards.
The back of my head hit the sidewalk, but not very hard. I remember
thinking "Ouch. I wonder if I'll have a bump on my head from that?"
But I didn't.
If I _had_ worn a helmet? The thickness of the helmet would have
guaranteed a much harder impact between the helmet and the ground. I
would have had a less concentrated load on my scalp, but I can't say if
the acceleration suffered by my brain would have been greater or less -
I suspect it might have been greater. I'm _sure_ the stress on my neck
would have been much higher, perhaps seriously higher. All in all, I'm
glad I didn't wear a helmet. But if I'd worn one? I'm _sure_ you'd
say it had protected me.
Second, longer story. Others have read this before:
My family and a some friends were leaving a restaurant in a nearby big
city, walking back toward our car. We saw a bus at the side of the
road just ahead, and we saw a car going the same direction pass the
bus.
Just as the car got to the front of the bus, a college kid zoomed
across in front of the bus, going about 12 mph. The car hit him
broadside.
We saw the impact from behind the car and we heard the sickening crash.
The car screetched to a halt. We saw the kid's body tossed into the
air, completely above the car. We heard later that he landed on his
head on the street in front of the car.
As soon as I saw the impact, I ran back to the restaurant and called
911 to report the fatality, then I ran back to reluctantly view the
carnage. But there was no carnage, no fatality. The car's grill was
destroyed, the hood smashed, the windshield destroyed, but the kid was
sitting on a wall at the sidewalk. He'd walked their on his own power.
An off-duty EMT who happened to pass by was holding his neck to
immobilize it. Cops and ambulance arrived, and they strapped him to a
board to take him to the ER. But except for a scratch on his head from
the windshield wiper (Head injury!!!!) he was perfectly fine. We
called the next day, and he was back in classes.
If he'd been wearing a helmet, EVERYBODY would have said the helmet not
only helped, but it saved his life. It was obvious from the damage to
the car, the height to which he was thrown, the subsequent landing on
his head...
But he had no helmet.
What's weirder, nobody even mentioned the lack of a helmet. Not the
EMT, the cops, the ambulance guys - nobody. Why? Because the kid
wasn't on a bike. Like the great majority of non-motorist traffic
victims, he was on foot. He'd jogged across in front of that bus.
When you see a bike incident where you _know_ a helmet helped, think
about this example. Think about what you _really_ know.
Quoted message said:So, my thought is that modern, light weight helmets can, in some cases
prevent head injuries. And modern light weight helmets now are so light
and have so much air flow that the "discomfort factor" is very low.
Thus, I don't see much of a down side.
I'll agree they _can_ help. And although the discomfort varies greatly
from person to person and situation to situation, they're certainly not
uncomfortable when you're not exerting yourself in the heat. So I
don't see much downside either... meaning, of course, I don't see why
people don't wear them all the time!
Oddly, it's a rare helmet promoter who uses that idea. Most people
think they should be used _only_ while riding a bike. I think they
have the mistaken idea that cycling is an unusual source of serious
head injuries. I think they got that idea from the helmet salesmen.
Of course, it's false. Cycling is no worse for serious head injuries
than many other activities for which helmets are _never_ proposed.
Quoted message said:All this argument over study methodolgies, compulsion causing less
cycling, and the idea that there are more head injuries in motor
vehicles seem to me to be simply changing the subject.
Not at all! That is, not if what you're really worried about is head
injuries. If you're simply bent on making cycling look bad, whether or
not it causes such injuries, then I suppose concentrating only on
cycling makes sense. But if two different activities both cause, say,
0.5 serious head injuries per million hours activity, why promote a
helmet for one, but not the other?
(BTW, that number isn't the correct one; my data on that is in my other
office. I'll double check it later, if you like.)
Quoted message said:Bicycle helemts
do add some measure of observable benefit. Now the debate of just how
much that benefit might be is valid.
Sorry, you are confidently excluding the possibility that they provide
no measurable benefit. You must understand that some studies have
found exactly that: no measurable benefit.
Quoted message said:But as I and others have witnessed
events with such benefit and the citations of helmets causng accidents
are extremely rare or invole unsupervised childrren (another separate
issue) it goes against all intuiton that there is NO benefit.
Intuition ain't science! If you want to judge things based on
intuition, give up penicillin for your next infection; go with Bach
Flower Remedies instead. (Google it.)
I prefer science.
- Frank Krygowski
