Helmets...Wear Them!!!
- Thread starter Dirty Cash
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FlatSix911
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highpockets
Member
Glad I had mine on!
Unfortunately this is one of these topics where people feel like they have the only answer regardless of what scientific evidence shows. You'll have the usual "why if I wasn't wearning a helmet I would have died" responses. I think that if it makes you feel good by all means go ahead and wear a helmet, it's your choice. Every study done on it however shows that the overall results don't show helmets as being a whole lot of good. What I don't get however is why if one really thinks they're so great they don't wear a full face helmet - why risk a flimsey helmet? For that matter why not wear one when you're jogging or riding your car - you're much more likely to have an accident during those activities. I guess the idiots in places like the Netherlands and Denmark just don't have the wisdom to require their use. After all, the EU is much more protective of individual freedoms than the US. Kind of reminds me of when seatbelt use first became compulsary and you would hear people talking about how they knew someone who would have drowned if they were wearing a seatbelt when they drove into a river. Common sense would seem to make helmet use seem like a good idea, but real life tests don't back up "common" sense.
BBassett
Active Member
Bull.
You sound like my 45 YO son. I can't get him to wear a helmet when he rides with us. Can you give some references for those studies that "don't show helmets as being a whole lot of good"? I know my son would like some additional information that supports his point of view. I did find this one that seems to somewhat agree with you: https://sciencenordic.com/cars-and-...mets-are-less-effective-than-we-think/1394145
tomjasz
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Maybe your son read the studies and understands the data. Sorry friend but there’s good data indicating a helmet can offer overconfidence. It’s a choice. Read motorcycle helmet reviews and data. Our bicycle helmets are sorely lacking. Do we retire our bike helmets once they reach their five year mark from manufacture date? A modicum of research reveals they lose effectiveness AND do nothing to protect any more than the top of our skulls. Seems you son may be more willing to avoid the moral high ground. Live and let live. My helmet or no helmet has no affect on your life. All good, support choice.
GregGritton
Member
I totally agree.
The article at https://www.bicycling.com/news/a24110027/bike-helmet-safety/ gives a good overview of the pros and cons of helmet use and requiring helmets. It references a 2017 study review (https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/46/1/278/2617198) that found that helmet use significantly reduced the chance of head injuries. On the other hand, it points out that countries that have implemented protected cycling infrastructure and have high rates of cycling (such as Denmark and Netherlands) are far safer for cycling overall despite very low rates of helmet use.
Thus, it does seem quite clear that helmet use improves safety, just like speed reduces it, but also that there are more significant ways to improve safety than helmet use, such as protected infrastructure and safety in numbers (i.e. getting drivers to expect bicyclists). Requiring helmets tends to to reduce cycling and thus is probably counter-productive.
Some people end up breaking their necks because they were wearing a helmet ( or so the choice crowd says) so no-one should ever wear one because this happened one or two times? Support choice? If you choose not to wear a helmet, you should also choose a very good insurance policy so taxpayers don't end up footing the bill for your years on life support as a vegetable. I also feel sorry for the EMT's that have to deal with the brain matter scattered all over the pavement from people who crash on two wheels w/o wearing any head protection.
BBassett
Active Member
Research? Or just another way for money-grubbing business people, backed by even More money-grubbing stock-holders riding couches, employing any means possible to spur on turn-over of perfectly good products just to capture more dollars through manipulative marketing and inciting fear. It's hard to believe that a couple of inches of air and manmade materials (mostly comprised of a witches brew of synthetic molecular chains), no matter how old, could be considered ineffective at mitigating cranial injury.
Riding with a damaged helmet is stupid (not as stupid as riding with no helmet but still stupid), telling riders to buy a helmet every 5 years (on a modicum of research) for their own safety rather than just building/selling a better #%@&?!* helmet should be criminal. But... we all know anything is acceptable in business today even lying to and preying on the gullibility of your customer base.
P.S. In the mid 80's I knew a guy in Germany that came off his bike and was sliding across the Autobahn in a brand new set of leathers, over the ankle leather boots, great riding gloves, and a DOT-approved 1/2 lid. After separating from the bike, sliding to the end of the road surface and probably mentally patting himself on the back for investing in high-quality safety gear the edge of his helmet caught on some protrusion snapped his neck and he was probably dead before he stopped moving. There are people that could argue very easily that if he hadn't been wearing a helmet that day he would have survived... I don't believe that, but I do believe it should be the riders choice. Using that faulty logic riding any bike or a motorcycle is WAY more dangerous than not riding at all, if our personnel safety can be dictated to us then how long before they (bikes) are banned for our own good?
Cheers Tom.
tomjasz
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There's quite a body of helmet research in the MC world. It's been disregarded by bike riders and bicycle studies, but I suggest we are now reaching the speeds used in studies of motorcycles, on eBikes. 48KPH or 29MPH. Those "skull caps" are missing pretty painful and destructive injury zones.
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BBassett
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tomjasz
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BBassett
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You didn't draw this up with a fresh Sharpy did ya Tom?
Hopefully, the new(est) controller will be sent today and I can go back to my own crash testing in a day or two... Just Kidding God! I don't need any more lessons in physics!
highpockets
Member
Like I said, I'm glad I had mine on.
BBassett
Active Member
When I got my present bike I was 5'10" 308 lbs. After a few years and over 10K miles I have had to ride the couch 3 or 4 times for up to weeks at a time due to injuries. Palms of both hands, massive impact bruise to my left chest (couldn't cough or sneeze for almost 2 months without my eyes leaking), my right knee seems to take an unusual pounding for some reason, and oddly... it also stands a 44% greater chance of sustaining an injury while riding if it's already wounded and still in the ever slowing process of healing. My current recovery project is my right shoulder and it's going slow. But if I stayed off non-paved surfaces I would cut my riding in half. I do everything I can do to stay away from traffic. I wouldn't abandon riding where ever you want just ride something better able to handle uneven surfaces, especially if you aren't riding 50 or more miles a day. Try riding a bike with larger and larger tires until you almost feel invincible and stop there. If you want to ride in sand and snow look at 4" fat bikes with a large enough frame to hang a 30 Ah triangle lithium pack then mount a BBSHD. If you want to make it even better use a Rohloff Speed-hub. One of the best aspects of riding an ebike for me is that I can crawl along very slowly and very much in control even with heavy loads. If it's the height of the bike rather than the speed you can always move to a three-wheel recumbent. Using a strong mid-drive will take them places I can't ride my bike fully loaded. Now three years later I'm 5' 9 1/2" (age or impact... not sure why) and 182 lbs. Not so much the bike as just eating properly for the 1st time in 45 years but riding daily has undoubtedly helped... even if it does hurt at times.
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