wphamilton:
Thank you for your accuracy, correctness and intelligent reasoning. Everything you said is accurate. This is uncommon and very welcome.
I have been completely discouraged by the tenor of the previous ‘helmet’ thread which seemed to have little to do with helmets and much to do with private anger, inadequate reasoning powers and urges to bully together with enormous ignorance of the subject.
Unfortunately, it seems that this second version is going the same way. A majority of those on my “ignore” list found their way there through the helmet thread.
I am a helmet expert. I have testified as such in Courts of Law. I have studied, participated in the testing of and written about helmets and helmet performance, both motorcycle and bicycle for 49-years now. I could design one.
I managed the Helmet Protection Research Laboratory for a year. The Lab was directed by and basically owned by Professor of Safety Hugh H. Hurt of the University of Southern California. Professor Hurt was (R.I.P.) a primary figure in the development of the modern safety helmet. It was he who first suggested the use of EPS (Styrofoam) as a peak force attenuator in helmets (A funny story in itself). He was my dear friend whom I loved and respected.
I have many facts & stories I could tell about helmet performance, design, strengths and --- weaknesses (even some of the politics). Yes there are weaknesses in bicycle helmets and some of them are very important and are not being addressed. If the atmosphere here were better we could explore those things. It isn’t, and --- I fault the moderators who have allowed this important subject to become such a pile of crap.
Important BTW:
Did any of you know that those pointy-tailed ‘aero’ helmets were dangerous, even deadly, if struck from behind? I have seen video tape of a helmet test that proved, beyond doubt, that this is so.
Why you think current road helmets are rounder at the rear than they used to be? --- Because pointed ones use their pointy tails to lever themselves out of the way of impact between your head and the car windshield or, worse yet, the window brace at the top of the window.
Do a Google search for “pig face helmet” and you will see that the pointy noses of these medieval knight’s helmets were designed to deflect ‘spears, slings and arrows’ away from the wearer’s head. Pointy-tailed bicycle helmets deflect themselves away from the wearer’s head and what is about to strike it.
These ‘Aero’ designs were irresponsible and should never have been on the street. There were/are folks in the industry who knew/know that and I am sure some of them spoke up, but --- marketers (or whatever) ignored these voices of reason and built and sold those helmets to riders who were simply not informed of the inherent danger of the design.
Don’t get me started about retention straps that work themselves loose over time so that the helmet might remove itself from the rider’s head as he flies through the air on his way to the ground --- there’s more, so much more. Like the question of how many “g”s are required before a typical bicycle helmet with its six-pound-per-cubic-foot foam starts to actually crush? I don’t know but I’ll bet it’s more than that needed to start the crush of a motorcycle helmet with three-pound foam. Is it more likely that the bike rider will receive a concussion than the other bike rider? I don’t know but suspect it would.
Joe