Originally Posted by
bpcyclist
I'm no helmet guru, but correct me if I have this wrong. Is it not the case that none of these technologies in a bike helmet (MIPS, Spin, the WaveCel stuff) has clearly shown any kind of scientific improvement in clinical outcomes for cyclists in accidents? Maybe I have missed it, but I am pretty sure that is correct. So, what we're really doing is telling everyone they must adopt this great new technology, but we actually don't really know if it helps. We think it should, but we' don't know that yet. I am totally for prevention of head injuries, but this now, what's going on with these different technologies, it sounds to me like a lot of marketing and not much science. We think it should help, and that's great, but we have yet to actually document that fact. I wouldn't personally object to a helmet with one of these approaches, but I also would not go out of my way to get one with. Maybe I'm old and grumpy, but I've seen a lot of products marketed hard early that later were shown to be of little or no benefit, or, worse, were doing harm. So I'll stick with my simple, basic poc Octal until it dies or we get some actual , meaningful data. Then, I'd be happy to buy some new helmets.
I'm not going to tell you that's irrational because it's better to have a helmet on your head than none, and there's definitely some trade-offs in fit, comfort and price between the different types.
I wouldn't take the lack of clinical data as very significant, however, as I doubt there's enough of a database of incidents in which the make and model is known, and I'd expect that the potential for spurious correlation caused by different types of riders buying different kinds of helmets. The smaller the database, the harder it is to control for inherent differences in safety between different styles of riding.