rruff

My goodness... who made you queen of BF? Obviously I agree with much of the data on BHSI, and pointed out the parts I disagree with and why. I've repeatedly stated that whole population fatality statics are superior because they have the least number of extraneous variables and bias. And once again you merely blather on about nothing, and offer *no* evidence for *your* view whatsoever... except for the oft repeated "a helmet saved my life" and variants thereof. Should I repeat for the hundredth time *why* that is not evidence of anything, and how it is easy to *prove* that this common perception is false?

rruff

I think you are overstating that. That is a contributing factor for some riders certainly, but there are also other factors that could result in helmets causing or worsening injuries.

merider1

I didn't slide at all and in fact, had NO road rash. I hit direct and was knocked unconscious, and I don't think I need to understand vectors to realize how hard my head hit...which is WHY I said between 16-20mph as I don't really know how hard. And I'm confused, everyone, including the medics who arrived on the scene told me that no matter how fast I was going, my hitting the ground would be faster. I guess they were all just completely wrong.

And I didn't mean you, crtree, I meant all of those in here who are saying it...actually, mostly rruff.

merider1

You, sir, should be saying the above to yourself. Trying to distract by throwing it back to me is silly. Plus, what you keep ignoring, while you're blathering and blubbering, is that your fatality statistics are meaningless. You cannot prove who was wearing a helmet and who wasn't, what the cause of death was and or whether head trauma was involved. Stop using those fatality statistics....or if you must use them, follow the use of them with a "ba dump bump."

Oh, and you haven't proved my repeated for a hundreth time testimony on helmet efficacy...my little anecdote about my crash...is false. In fact, I've lost track of what it is you're really trying to prove or do or say. There was something in there about gymnastics and tuck and roll...

merider1

Oh, ha ha. Yes, if the boys I was riding with are telling it, it's anecdotal. But there is a fine line in which it isn't a story, and it is mere facts. My head hit the pavement, damn it!!! I had the headaches to prove it. I still have headaches but not from the crash...hmmm, this thread maybe?

P.S. thank you.

crtreedude 

Okay - no problem. By the way in all our time down here I only have heard of one person who died (or even got injured) while riding a bike. A helmet wouldn't have helped. You see he was drunk and was riding home late one night and missed the bridge and landed in the river.

The river with Crocs....

Tis a different world when you have to worry about caimans, alligators and crocs instead of cars...

Well - if you survived a direct impact at 16 to 20 MPH - I will say that your helmet surely did help some, and I am very glad you had it. I am even more glad that after getting your brain rattled like that you went to the hospital to be checked out.

crhilton

Probably not because it's supposed to crack. TMK the plastic is a use indicator: When it cracks you're supposed to buy a new helmet. Cracked foam is probably a failure, unless it also fully compressed.

merider1

Thank you, sir. Me too! I feel so lucky and even more so because I had such wonderful friends with me who helped me get to the hospital (I refused the ride in the ambulance as they were going to stick me with needles...I'll ride a bike and risk injury, but no way am I getting an IV! )

As for the crocs...yeah, I'll concede that the helmet will do absolutely NOTHING to help you.

rruff

This is hardly necessary. When when helmet use suddenly jumps from 40% to 90% due to MHLs we should also see a huge reduction in fatalities... and we don't (Oz). In the case of the US where overall helmet use has increased over the years without MHLs for the whole population, we should see a substantial reduction in fatalities also... but we see no decrease at all.

rruff

Yes they were wrong. The "hitting the ground" speed vector is independant of forward speed. EMTs are not trained in physics. And if they were heterosexual males, then they (like most of the posters on BF) are greatly predisposed to suck up to cute females.

merider1

Absolutely just assumptions. There is no validity above in reference to this discussion and you, YET AGAIN, try to skirt around the fact that you cannot prove how those fatalities occurred. As Glass Wolf tried, unsuccessfully and then left this inane thread, to impart is that most cycling related deaths are not from head injuries at all! This, before you start your shtick about helmets not protecting, could be a cause of the helmets preventing those deaths that would have otherwise occurred had the victims not been wearing helmets (but we'll never know because these statistics do not exist) - something that you do NOT and will not, apparently, answer to with your meaningless and inappropriate to this discussion stats on fatalities as a whole! You don't even take into account that perhaps the fatalities jumped from 40% to 90% because there may very well have been an influx of new riders into this sport at the time these stats were gathered. You don't account for or prove anything.


And, most infuriating? You forgot the "ba dump bump" after quoting those frickin' fatality stats again.

merider1

Oh, good God....I don't whether to thank you or ignore you. The above is just ridiculous.

rruff

Again... it doesn't matter. Unless you can think of a plausible reason why all of a sudden the un-helmeted riders were killed at something like 5 times the rate that they were before MHLs were introduced, then the only logical conclusion is that helmets have no positive effect. Physics not required... arithmetic will do.

Actually I think that is true... but if you have some stats that show othewise, I'm flexible. 90%+ of cycling fatalities involve motor vehicles and I can imagine that many of them are not caused by head injuries. A car can mess up a lot of vital organs without doing much to the head.

BTW... Unless you are posting avatar pics of someone else again (I'm pretty sure you aren't Meg Ryan) then even with the helmet and glasses I'd have to guess that you qualify as cute. But that won't keep me from disagreeing with you. I'm still disappointed that you never sent me a photo of yourself with a bare naked head...

Reynolds 

I know a cyclist who crashed at 35 kmh while wearing his Madonna del Ghisallo image blessed by the Pope. He only had a bit of road rash, but his bicycle was badly scratched and had to replace a brake lever. Later, a Priest friend told him: 'Your Madonna del Ghisallo image saved your life!'. He is now an image wearing advocate trying to convince the infidels and miscreants.
Would this qualify as fact or anecdotal?

merider1

myth

merider1

1. this isn't something that can be proven, rruff, and my thinking "of a plausible reason why all of a sudden the un-helmeted riders were killed.....MHLs were introduced," isn't going to change that. But mandatory laws or not or an increase in deaths or not, does not prove helmets do not do what they are designed for. It simply doesn't apply to this discussion. This is why I keep asking you to throw out the fatality stats. They don't apply. However, to amuse you, here is my crack at a couple of plausible reasons: More young adult riders joined the sport than seen in the past, causing a sharp increase in inexperienced riders on the road and in youthful protest, they didn't follow the MHLs. OR, the stats not only include road riders but mountain and extreme riders who are more likely to take risks and not wear their helmets. - my point being, you nor I nor anyone else can break those stats down to show who was or wasn't wearing a helmet. Having MHLs put in place does not mean they are/were enforced at the time those fatality stats were gathered.

2. Yup...most deaths are likely not from head injuries. Still, no one has realistic stats to show a comparison between non-fatal head injuries sustained between helmet wearers and non-helmet wearers. This is where "anecdotal" evidence is really all you got, whether you like it/want to believe it or not.

3. I simply can not fulfill your desire to see my head nude. It's something I don't do and draw the line at. Sorry. Now, if you had asked for a full body....never mind.

Pharmr

I'm starting to wish this thread wasn't wearing a helmet and would crash.....vector or no vector.

RichinPeoria

When Im riding my sport bike (Honda RC51, 130 hp , 169mph top speed ) I wear a custom made leather suit, gloves, boots and a carbon/kevlar/fiberglass composite helmet that have the features and are made by companies a professional motorcycle road racer would use.

When I ride my bicycle I wear bicycle shorts, fingerless bicycling gloves and sun glasses.

I guess I just dont like stuff getting in the way of my bicycling experience.

merider1

I know, huh? But you can ignore the thread, right?

rruff

The opposite happened. As is typical when MHLs were introduced, the number of riders went down, most notably the teenage riders. And when the cops are giving out tickets, the % of helmet wearers goes up suddenly.

It is true that all cyclists would be included (off-road riders also), but it isn't likely that they would have suddenly increased in numbers or reduced their helmet wearing in one year. Also since 90+% of fatalities involve cars, the off-road riders couldn't possibly contribute to many fatalities.

Pharmr

I could.....but it's kind of like a train wreck

njkayaker

Total injuries? Total fatalities? Per capita? Per mile? Who knows!
Without any sort of reference, you could be just making this up.

I agree (see above).

===============================
This is the "eat your dinner, there are starving children in Africa" argument.

It doesn't cure the "real problem". It can't. And it isn't supposed to! Seatbelts/airbags/any secondary safety equipment don't prevent accidents! And no one said that helmets would cure the "real problem".

Anyway, "curing the real problem" isn't something that is easily done, If helmets reduce injury, why shouldn't they be used while working on "curing the real problem"? (Thus, talking about the "real problem" isn't relevent. It's another discussion.) Heck, you easily "cure the real problem" by getting rid of bicycles entirely.

So what? Yes, it's quite likely you'd get "different results" and it could be that one would fair much better with a helmet in this scenario!

This is the "it must be perfect in all possiible and imaginable scenarios" argument.

And it's possible that a seat belt could choke you. We should get rid of those too! A helmet is a compromise: it can't be perfect and there can be situations where wearing one is worse than not. The issue is whether you are statistically better off.


Maybe, it's other reasons. Maybe, cyclists ride slower. Maybe, traffic is slower. Maybe, the drivers are more used to cyclists.

===============================

Now, these are interesting questions.

The point of safety glass is to break apart in a way so that shards aren't sharp and pointy. Windsheilds are designed to break but hold together (they have plastic laminate). The point of "movie glass" is to break reliably with less energy. The parts "flying away" from race cars are just flimsy fiberglass cosmetics (it's there to reduce wind resistance and provide a substrate for advertising). It's the frame of the car that is protecting the drivers.

The problem with cracking is that the energy absorption is too fast and limiting (once the crack has happened, no more energy can be absorbed by cracking). Material that deforms will generally absorb more energy (because it's still around to be deformed even more and because it is around longer).

Anyway, a "crack" in a helmet doesn't mean the other parts can't absorb energy. I think one would have to be a bit more precise as to what "crack" means (a split? coming apart completly?) Though, it would seem to be clear that a helmet that didn't crack is better.


Helmets have more than one mode of function. That is, crushing is not the only way they provide a value. The helmet distributes the load (like an arch and by elasticity) of the collision over a wider area even if it doesn't crush. The value of crushing comes-in with higher energy collisions.

The helmets aren't anywhere that "tight": there's a lot of room for any "safe" deformations of the skull to occur. Anyway, I suspect that most of the energy absorbed by the head is by the deformation of the brain against the skull. Helmets distribute the collision energy over a wider area (to avoid a point failure of the skull) and also absorb some energy through elastisity and (ultimately) by crushing. All of these actions contribute to reducing the energy per area and per time (effectively making the collision a slower one).

Here's the big problem with doing this kind of research: Do you want to volunteer to be a subject for this experiment?

The "models" make some sense (even if they are not perfect) based on this: 1) a slower collision is understood to be safer than a faster one, 2) helmets slow down the collision.

I suspect that the knowledge of the relationship of collision energy to head injuries is taken from other sources (eg, car collisions) where there is ample data. To "really" understand what the facts are, you'd have to smack a fair number of live heads into stationary objects. Given the difficulty and ethics of getting volunteers for such a study, I suspect that's why many people are satisfied with "incomplete" data.

https://books.google.com/books?id=vSG...WlHbajF4&hl=en

rufvelo

Unfortunately not true. The flimsy 'cosmetic' IS the frame. If they could convert some of the energy into more sound, heat and light, that would help too.

crhilton

Race cars generally have a full roll cage made of tube steel.

merider1

Wow...this thread went for half a day ignored (and I thought finished - and I restrained myself and didn't respond) and it comes back up.

Not that I'm complaining.

Here is my thought...

...I'd rather see this discussed, even in mind-numbing repetition with no one agreeing or worse, not caring, than ignored. Someone might read this and WEAR A HELMET.

I doubt anyone will read this and not...sorry, rruff, but them there are my true sentiments.

(you want a naked head photo?...let it go, man, let it go...and that pic is yours. )