Quoted message said:I know two cases in which the absence of a helmet costed 2
lives; one is 6 feet under and the other is a vegetable
plugged to a respirator. The latter is 17 years old, left
like that by a hit and run - with a stolen car, but that's
not the issue now.
(there used to be a big paragraph here, but have a look at
these two pages instead - they're better written :-)
www.cyclehelmets.org/mainframes.html#1054.html I am a senior
solicitor for Cycle Aid Ltd. Over the past 14 years I have
dealt with numerous cases where, despite safety helmets
being worn, cyclists have suffered head injuries of the
maximum severity.
I am currently acting in three cases. One cyclist has
sustained a fracture of the medulla, rendering him totally
paralysed with eye movement only, whilst being constantly
alert. A motorist travelling at 70
m.p.h., who failed to brake prior to impact, hit him
from behind.
Second, a cyclist who was struck by a lorry emerging from
a side road, who, as a result of a head injury, has a
cranial lobotomy.
Third, a cyclist cycling across a pelican crossing was hit
by an oncoming vehicle chancing the amber lights. This
cyclist sustained a serious and permanently disabling head
injury, which has left him with profound reasoning problems.
I quote from the reports of one of England's most eminent
neurological surgeons, who advised in two of these cases:
"Turning now to the question of the cycle helmet. The BMA
has recommended that cycle helmets should be worn by pedal
cyclists but the evidence in support of this recommendation
is at best slim and does not give the whole picture relating
to head injury and cycle helmets. Most experienced trauma
surgeons believe that cycle helmets give only very limited
head protection. Studies in Australia have shown that they
give only marginal prevention of mild head injury and no
effect on severe head injury, or death.
"That is certainly my own position ... They may be useful
in preventing scalp lacerations, provided the helmet stays
on the head.
"[Mr. X] had a really severe serious closed head injury. I
think a cycle helmet would have made no difference of any
significant nature."
Accordingly, it is my view and experience in dealing with
head injured cyclists that the conclusions reached by this
neurosurgeon are correct. When there is a major impact, a
cycle helmet offers little protection.
I would add that it is my experience that the defendant's
solicitors are abandoning allegations of contributory
negligence for failure to wear cycle helmets.
Simon Holt
www.cyclehelmets.org/mainframes.html#1081.html Helmet
standards and capabilities The opinion of Brian Walker, one
of the leading experts on the mechanics of helmets, and
whose company Head Protection Evaluations is the principal
UK test laboratory for helmets and head protection systems
of all kinds
Cycle Helmets I have read so many opinions over the past few
years on this subject, which in the main have been
technically adrift of reality or based on misinformation. I
felt that it was time to respond.
Helmet standards Having personally conducted or supervised
thousands of impact and other tests on cycle helmets, all of
which were recorded, I note the following:
1. The manufacturers of all forms of safety helmet have to
sell their goods in a brutally competitive global
market. With very few exceptions, safety helmets are
made down to the lowest standard permitted within a
given 'local' market.
2. Due in the main to the introduction of the weak
harmonised EN1078 European standard, present day cycle
helmets generally offer a lower level of protection than
those sold in the early 1990s.
In the early 1990s, market research suggested that in excess
of 90% of the cycle helmets sold in the UK were certified to
the Snell B-90 standard, at that time the most stringent
cycle helmet standard in the world. In 1998, Head Protection
Evaluations (HPE), my safety helmet laboratory, conducted a
test programme for the Consumers Association (reported in
Which? October 1998) to assess cycle helmets available in
the UK. By that year all of the helmets were labelled to
EN1078. The results showed that, with only one or two
exceptions, the helmets tested were quite incapable of
meeting the higher Snell B-90 standard, to which many of the
models had been previously certified. Some helmets were even
incapable of meeting the weak EN1078 standard.
Some people argue that helmets are effective if 'properly
worn'. How those words have haunted me through many years!
Apart from some racing cyclists, I hardly ever see a cycle
helmet worn properly. Cycle helmet retention systems are the
worst of all. I consider it one of my biggest failings that
I have not persuaded the helmet industry to come up with
something much better. God knows, I have tried! Anyone who
wears a cycle helmet will know just how long it takes to
adjust the chin strap so that the helmet is both reasonably
comfortable and sits firmly in place on the head. Try
adjusting a cycle helmet on a infant's head – it's a
nightmare and in my experience hardly ever achieved
satisfactorily. In the HPE laboratory we have examined many
cycle helmets that were manufactured in such a manner that
correct adjustment was completely impossible.
Clinical studies Medical case studies are often referred to
as evidence for the effectiveness of cycle helmets. My own
experience of studies in this field is that they very often
arrive at erroneous conclusions. Certainly my ten years' of
involvement with the Medical Commission on Accident
Prevention at the Royal College of Surgeons in London
illustrated that the recording of accident data in A & E
departments is often limited in both detail and accuracy. It
also varies enormously from one authority to another. In
fairness, that this is hardly surprising when one considers
that the priority must always be patient welfare, coupled
with working within a highly stressful environment.
Many studies ignore completely the differences between
impacts involving only the injured cyclist and those
resulting in collisions with motor vehicles, yet it is
fundamental to assessing cycle helmet effectiveness.
Evidence in court In a recent Court case, a respected
materials specialist argued that a cyclist who was brain
injured from what was essentially a fall from their cycle,
without any real forward momentum, would not have had their
injuries reduced or prevented by a cycle helmet. This event
involved contact against a flat tarmac surface with an
impact energy potential of no more than 75 joules (his
estimate, with which I was in full agreement). The court
found in favour of his argument. So a High Court has decided
that cycle helmets do not prevent injury even when falling
from a cycle onto a flat surface, with little forward
momentum. Cycle helmets will almost always perform much
better against a flat surface than any other.
In other legal cases with which I have been involved, where
a cyclist has been in collision with a motorised vehicle,
the impact energy potentials generated were of a level
which outstripped those we use to certify Grand Prix
drivers helmets. In some accidents at even moderate motor
vehicle speeds, energy potential levels in hundreds of
joules were present.
Concluding remarks My purpose is not to dissuade people who
wish to, from wearing cycle helmets. They do, I promise,
work a little better against a flat surface, than the Court
decided in the case I cited above. After all the Snell B- 90
standard called for four impacts on each test sample, two of
which were tested against flat surfaces with an impact
energy of 100 joules each. The tragedy is you cannot buy
helmets to this standard any more. Manufacturers prefer the
easier standard that they helped to write.
Rather my purpose is to illustrate that the whole cycle
helmet issue contains many hidden issues of which most
researchers are quite unaware.
Referring back to the Court case mentioned early, the very
eminent QC under whose instruction I was privileged to work,
tried repeatedly to persuade the equally eminent
neurosurgeons acting for either side, and the technical
expert, to state that one must be safer wearing a helmet
than without. All three refused to so do, stating that they
had seen severe brain damage and fatal injury both with and
without cycle helmets being worn. In their view, the
performance of cycle helmets is much too complex a subject
for such a sweeping claim to be made.
Brian Walker Head Protection Evaluations Farnham, Surrey, UK
March 2004
Quoted message said:I use a helmet myself, doesn't bother me.
Good for you.
Quoted message said:I got to admit that I'm quite surprise by the controversy
surrounding this!
Everyone says that :-)
Quoted message said:Anyway, I just wanted to know what you guys think, so I'll
just go and read the other threads.
If you haven't already visited it
ctc.org.ukCTC12ppleafOpen ↗
leta_w.pdf
will give you pretty much the same arguments, but it's
better written (and has those magic citations!). In the
interests of not annoying any passing Net Nazies any more
than I already have I won't cut and paste the whole thing.
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:I'm interested to know your views on the other debates on
the law, particularly whether you think mandatory helmet
laws have worked well in other places that have
introduced them.
I don't know where else has it been introduced.
www.Cyclehelmets.org would be good for a bit of
research then.
Quoted message said:Wow, tough one, especially at quarter to 1 am! Can I
answer tomorrow?
Quoted message said:2) Is the proposed legislation going to work? (i.e. has
similar legislation worked elsewhere where it has been
tried?).
There's no way we'll know that till it's in place.
But we can get a good idea by looking at what happened in
other places where similar laws were passed...
