This is one reason I wear an airbag bicycle helment ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hövding ) It would be have been nice if the article mentioned this option.
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Bicycle helmets do almost nothing to prevent concussions
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Re: Bicycle helmets do almost nothing to prevent concussions
#22Discussions of cycle helmets are usually very one sided, focusing on head trauma and completely ignoring other kinds of trauma as well as the positive health effects of cycling. Wearing the helmet doesn't just add a certain amount of padding to the head without any negative side effects: For example, motorists keep less distance while overtaking you [1] and making helmets mandatory reduces cycling by up to a third [2…
I would say the reduction in cycling is a pretty significant effect. I love cycling, but I am far too scared (or wise) to ever consider riding on a street shared with cars and trucks. In the end if anything goes wrong the driver will feel sad and I won't feel anything.
> In the end if anything goes wrong the driver will feel sad and I won't feel anything.
This is pure hyperbole. As someone who has been hit by 6 cars, most accidents are minor. Sure you will end up worse off, but only a couple have I not been able to ride away from, and that was because my wheel was damaged.
Of course, I started to wear a helmet after about the 3rd time.
Re: Bicycle helmets do almost nothing to prevent concussions
#23The article's title is "Senseless". HN's title, I believe, is bound to distort one's impression of helmets' usefulness.
Yes, an early quote from the article:
The $40 helmet is one of the great success stories of the
past half-century. Like seat belts, air bags, and smoke
detectors, bike helmets save countless lives every year.
They do a stellar job of preventing catastrophic skull
fractures, plus dings and scrapes from low-hanging tree
branches and other common nuisances.
Re: Bicycle helmets do almost nothing to prevent concussions
#24This is one reason I wear an airbag bicycle helment ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hövding ) It would be have been nice if the article mentioned this option.
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What does it matter if it's not in the shop? They're certified as helmets in the EU. I ordered mine from amazon.co.uk.
As for children, it's true that http://www.hovding.com/#/faq/ says: Can children wear Hövding? No. Hövding has a lower age limit of 15.
But in reality, what does age have to do with the effectiveness of an airbag? The values read by its sensors depend not on the rider's age, but on the rider's mass, speed, and acceleration signatures in a crash. Some children are bigger and heavier than some adults, so this age limit makes no sense. I think it's just something their lawyers made them put there for liability reasons.
Re: Bicycle helmets do almost nothing to prevent concussions
#25Besides being useless, there are also some negative side-effects: helmet limits field of vision significantly and distracts from perceiving audio- and visual- information properly. I feel blindfolded in a helmet, even in a very light one.
Re: Bicycle helmets do almost nothing to prevent concussions
#26With massive deceleration at the core of the problem I don't see how anything more than incremental improvements in mitigation can be achieved with a sufficiently thin helmet..
The army faces the problem of massive deceleration and new solutions for tank armor are being thought up constantly. Those solutions are also required to be sufficiently light and thin (while stopping the much more massive deceleration of rockets and bullets).
Re: Bicycle helmets do almost nothing to prevent concussions
#27Discussions of cycle helmets are usually very one sided, focusing on head trauma and completely ignoring other kinds of trauma as well as the positive health effects of cycling. Wearing the helmet doesn't just add a certain amount of padding to the head without any negative side effects: For example, motorists keep less distance while overtaking you [1] and making helmets mandatory reduces cycling by up to a third [2…
These things are mentioned in TFA. You didn't read it.
Re: Bicycle helmets do almost nothing to prevent concussions
#28Even if those societal effects were true (there are studies for both sides, and especially the helmet opponents are usually very outspoken and even rude, to the point that they lose credibility), the important thing for me as an individual is not whether helmets lead other people ("the society") to cycle less, but what the effect is on me.
Personally I feel some chilling effect (sometimes I cycle without helmet, so some friction is certainly there). But it's not very strong.
On the other hand, I have never consciously experienced a difference in car driver's behaviour whether I wear a helmet or not.
And I certainly am not cycling in any riskier way when I'm wearing my helmet. If you do, you should really think about what you're doing.
Re: Bicycle helmets do almost nothing to prevent concussions
#29Besides being useless, there are also some negative side-effects: helmet limits field of vision significantly and distracts from perceiving audio- and visual- information properly. I feel blindfolded in a helmet, even in a very light one.
I'm not sure I understand. Exactly what part of the world does your helmet block you from seeing? I can't see mine at all when it's on properly.
Considering that a lot of people use in-ear headphones or casually check their texts while biking in Copenhagen, the added distractions of a helmet still seems like a net win.
Re: Bicycle helmets do almost nothing to prevent concussions
#30As an avid, but fairly aggressive cyclist, I have gotten into a fair number of accidents. Some of the injuries sustained, and the ways in which other injuries would have been likely without a helmet in those situations, have convinced me that many of these studies don't take into account some very common situations in accidents. Direct head impacts are relatively uncommon, due to natural instincts to protect oneself. More common are:
- Side impact from vehicles turning across the bicycle lane. This is the most common cause of fatalities in road accidents in London, and if the vehicle is going at speed, nothing can be done with or without a helmet. Usually, however, the vehicle is slowing to turn, or just clips the rider who hasn't had time to react. When this happened to me, I banged into the side of the van which was cutting me off, and my helmet kept my head from hitting the vehicle, likely right at the temple, which could have caused significant damage.
- Unintended dismount. I find a huge number of "accidents" are really accidents that were just barely prevented by a quick manoeuver, which often leaves the cyclist on the ground. I have avoided collisions quite frequently, but still ended up doing a little barrel roll off the bike. In these cases, I may not be moving fast, but it is nice knowing my helmet will keep me from a kerb to the head.
-Scrapes and abrasions. This is the most painful injury, and one of my most gruesome accidents involved a nasty abrasion on my face - had I not been wearing a helmet, it would have probably meant about half of my scalp was rubbed off as well, so very happy to have been wearing a helmet in that instance.
The "crash test dummy" proof that we don't need helmets doesn't stack up in my experience because I think a confident cyclist is more likely to have oblique and "minor" accidents rather than major direct collisions, and major head trauma is just not going to be prevented by a $40 piece of foam and plastic.