Quoted message said:
Hmm...I do not get it, maybe you know more details about this than I do.
Is it not quite possible that a helmet might have saved her,
if she was not run over by the cement mixer, but just knocked down?
Tapio
1) The ability of a cycle helmet to absorb impacts is very limited.
They are designed to absorb a 12.5 MPH impact onto a flat surface
-about 14 MPH for the highest rated helmets. These sort of impacts
very rarely lead to a fatality.
2) In high impacts helmets tend to fail catastrophically, rather then
absorbing a significant proportion of the overall impact.
3) If she just fell from her cycle she would have been most unlikely
to suffer a fatal head injury.
3) Whatever the individual circumstances of this case it was wrong to
place more emphasis on what the victim might or might have not done
then the negligent behaviour of the driver who killed her.
4) The 'Would have saved her' and 'a helmet could have saved her'
headlines were simply made up by the 'journalist' involved. No
actually made such a claim.
5) This sort of victim blaming would not be done if the victim was
another driver. Imagine the outcry if a court made more of the fact
that a motorist drove a car that was not fitted with airbags then the
fact they were hit and killed by a negligent lorry driver. Similarly,
imagine the outcry if the perceived 'solution' to 'pavement cycling'
was to argue that pedestrians should wear helmets and any who did not
and were hit by a cyclist were negligent and at least as much to blame
as a law breaking cyclist!
6) This issue has been tested in the high court and it was accepted
that it is not possible to claim that a helmet could have reduced
serious head injuries. To quote Edward Leigh, Conservative MP, quoted
in Hansard, following the April 23rd debate on Eric Martlew MP's
helmet bill.
"[Helmet expert] Brian Walker [ quotes] a High 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 '
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.' Brian Walker continues: ‘Referring back to the Court
case mentioned earlier, 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 do so, stating th at 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."
7) We might add to the above that the mechanisms of brain injury are
also too complex to allow such a claim to be made. It is often said
that the brain has the consistency of porridge and many serious brain
injuries result not from direct impacts but from the brain rotating or
‘swirling' within the skull, suffering tears where it is more firmly
attached or suffering damage from impacting against the inside of the
skull. Helmets do little to prevent such injuries and may even make
them worse. No one ever died from a ‘fractured skull' unless this had
brain injuries associated with it.
