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.
4) 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.
5) 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.
6) 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!
7) 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."
8) 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.
