Terex

Thanks Razr.

closetbiker

This is true. After looking into the issue further and further I saw the need for me to wear one less and less. I'd never tell anyone to not wear a helmet, yet I see and hear taunts from helmeteers towards others who feel and think differently, to wear one.

Pro-choicers are not trying to convert helmeteers to ditch their helmets. It seems more the case that helmeteers go to no end to convince pro-choicers their choice is wrong (and moronic).

It goes to such extremes that some helmeteers even endorse helmet use by law justifying this with such tactics as using statistics deceptively, such as using the one that started this thread (cited from a site that endorses carefully drawn, all-ages helmet laws)

meanwhile

Totally wrong, I'm afraid. Which is probably a sign of your having a life...

ALL modern cycling helmets are a two layer design - there is a shell and a liner. The liner is supposed to compress absorbing energy, but it won't do so if the liner fails. Which happens at very low speeds. More, conventional helmets reduce linear impact (at low speeds anyway) but do nothing - or make worse - rotation. Which is the main cause of serious brain damage.

The anti-rotation helmets are something new. See https://www.cyclehelmets.org/1139.html and https://www.bikeradar.com/news/articl...l-helmet-24730

Basically: your scalp slides over the skull in impact, preventing the skull from rotating and jello-ing the contents. But when you wear a conventional helmet you no longer have this protection - the helmet has to be firmly fastened to your bonce to work - and so your brain gets sloshed around. The anti rotation helmets fix this by having a sliding membrane over their outer shell.

Sequimite

Everyone seems to agree that helmets have some amount of effectiveness in reducing injury in some crashes.

It's hard to have a discussion with all the straw men that keep popping up.

crhilton

Or both sides are wrong, or at least put far too much importance on the topic.

danarnold

Despite the scientifically proved FACT that the 'straw man' argument is the first resort of the lazy researcher, I agree that a bicycle helmet provides some protection to a limited portion of the head from some specific impacts. It may prevent a scratch or bruise, for example.

But the important question is much larger than that and involves risk/cost/benefit analysis. As an example, few would disagree that IF the perfect helmet existed, a light weight helmet that contributed absolutely nothing to increasing risk of injury [a huge and theoretically impossible condition], people would be at less risk if they wore those helmets 100% of the time including when sleeping, walking, eating and especially while showering.

Like Meanwhile and Closetbikerl, I started out pro helmet since I was and am convinced of the efficacy of wearing a full face, Snell compliant helmet when riding a motorcycle.

But wearing one while cycling is like wearing one while showering, golfing, driving or crossing the street. Even if they did not increase any risks, I would feel foolish wearing one all the time. Knock yourself out. Wear a helmet. No one is saying not to. But you are kidding yourself if you only wear one while cycling and do not wear a full face Snell compliant helmet.

On a macro as opposed to an individual level, one only need look at the stats that demonstrate the loss of health benefits to the public from not riding due to mandatory helmet laws outweighs the speculative benefits from wearing one.

meanwhile

Yes: they reduce the odds of a cut scalp in a low speed splat. That's about it. And they do so at the cost of possibly increasing the chances of serious neurological damage in a serious impact.

Calling your opponents' arguments "strawmen" because you can't answer is not a sign of class. Grow up.

meanwhile

How?

If you're not interested, don't read. Adding whiney comments is just futile.

meanwhile

And I always wear a seatbelt and use floss. Seatbelts and floss work; cycle helmets don't. So far building a helmet that has enough padding to be useful in a real accident and is light enough not to mess up balance and cause heat exhaustion has proved beyond our technology. Or maybe the manufacturers just haven't bothered - selling beer cooler foam hats at $200 a time is a hell of a business model.

RazrSkutr

Says you, who doesn't have to deal with Mandatory Helmet Laws and has made the choice to wear one anyway. I would have thought it was fairly clear by now that there are a fair number of committed loons arguing that helmets will:

1. save children
2. save on hospital care / insurance costs
3. allow car drivers to smash into cyclists

Luckily I no longer live in a MHL province (of Canada) but I just returned from a week and a half in Nova Scotia (where I rode happily without a helmet and luckily encountered no busybodies). But I resent the fact that some cop can slap me with several hundred dollars of fine and an optional confiscation of my bicycle if he fears that I won't make the payment.

These laws need to be repealed unless the Helmet Nazis can actually produce convincing evidence to justify such swingeing intervention into our personal lives. They're not going to be repealed as long as lies are being spread about the effectivenes of helmets.

Sequimite

Since I didn't call my opponents' arguments strawmen your response, to attack something I did not say, is a fine example of a strawman argument. For that matter I don't see those with different beliefs on this issue as opponents.

noglider 

Seriously? Get used to it.

It's an emotional issue. Facts don't matter.

meanwhile

Yes you did. It's in your post and in my quote from your post. Unless you are meant that your side is strawmanning, in which case you should have been more specific.

danarnold

No kidding. First thing you do is sell the UCI on it by paying big sponsor $. 2d you pay the riders to wear your brand.

Best successful marketing of an unneeded product since Mr. Coffee sold the public on a silly 'time saving' product that makes bad coffee, but makes it with the illusion it is effortless. The marketing of both products relied on the time tested principle that the consumer will not think.

CB HI

I am pretty sure he was referring to his OP.
In which case, he is completely correct.