350htrr

Yes I know about those numbers, and they are miniscule... And that's my problem with not having the numbers where a helmet did actually help keep a person out of the ER... Wearing a helmet isn't just about saving lives, which a helmet seems to be unable to do anyways, because it wasn't deseined to help that, bumps, scrapes, laserations, maybe cracked skulls, reduce light concussions?... Nobody can really say it seems. So if you don't care about getting any one or even all those injuries... fine don't wear one. But if you do I suspect you would also want to know whether helmets kept 10, 1,000, 10,000, 100,000, 1,000,000. people out of visiting the ER, and I also suspect that number is in the higher range of my guesstimate... NOW, If I'm mistaken and the number is like under 10,000 I would not wear a helmet and wouldn't be here... So yes that number is important to some to make a decision, I think...

350htrr

Maybe some of you have noticed... That I'm trying to move the goalpost, Yes I am... So what if a helmet doesn't save you from everything. That shouldn't automatically say to you that a helmet is useless, same with the fact that a helmet is not really nessesary in most acidents... After 2+ years in threads like this I considered what is it that I would expect from a helmet IF I actually needed it...? Anyone guess yet? Well, I want it to do a good enough job to keep me from having to go to the ER... BOTTOM LINE, that is where wanting to know the "actual" numbers comes from... Some people are saying that it only protects you from "minor" injuries... Medically they have a point, but personally, if I have a 4" gash on my head it's not a "minor" thing to me, even tho it maybe to a medical profesional... So even if it only does that, it's good enough for me, and I suspect many other people... Just the way I see it...

350htrr

Another angle that has been applied/said to me... That taking a shower is statistically more dangerous that biking... Is it,? Well since nobody has any "real" numbers of how many people don't go to the ER because their helmet "saved" them, maybe biking is actually more dangerous than taking a shower but statistics just don't reflect that because of all the people that were wearing a helmet that "did it's job" didn't end up in the ER...

350htrr

Oh, while I'm sitting here having a few brews... This helmet being useless thing because a car hits you at 40+MPH (no **** Sherlock) is also a stupid way to look at it and decide that a helmet us useless for everything else too...

350htrr

I'm thinking...

350htrr

Humm... Helmeted... To be or not to be.... Helmeted....

wphamilton

We know that at most, reasonably, four times the number of non-helmeted riders having visits to ER for head-related injuries. But in all likelihood far less than that.

rydabent

Good news!!!! For Christmas my 3 sons gave me a very generous gift card to a local bike shop. Since my helmet was getting worn, I replaced it with a new one. Being logical and understanding what can happen in the real world, my new helmet will be worn on every ride in 2015.

350htrr

Yes, and I again agree with your numbers for the ER visits chances... But the numbers I am talking about are the ones where someone bounced their head on the pavement with a helmet on and the helmet saved the day so that person didn't go to the ER... Those numbers could be 10X higher, 100X higher, than all the people that did go to the ER with or without a helmet combined... That's the number that will tell me whether to wear a helmet or not, whether the helmet is effective enough to keep most people out of the ER when they do bounce their head off the pavement... That number is impossible to find, because nobody reports them... JMO as I see it/understand it.

350htrr

In other words, what would happen to this Oh so safe sport of cycling according to statistics... Safer than walking, having a shower... If, everyone stopped wearing a helmet? Well, if helmets saved 10,000 people from going to ER, not much, but what if helmets actually saved 100,000 people from ending up in ER? 200,000 people? How safe would cycling be then statistically? Just thoughts going through my head... Thoughts to ponder? or totally stupid thoughts?...

350htrr

So, I'm sitting here having a few more brews... Thinking, why do, people wear safety equipment... I would say because they want to have protection in case something happens...0.1% chance, 1% chance, 2% chance, 5% chance, 10% chance that doesn't really matter, the cut off point is different for everybody... NO... Not because of the "chance" of something happening Per say, it's because "if" something happens, they want a "safety net" to save them... If they thought the chance of something happening was too high they just wouldn't do it... In general even with a safety net... JMO

I-Like-To-Bike

The latter. Why not a gazillion?

wphamilton

I'm saying we can figure that number out. Upper bound of around 18,000 ER visits prevented. 23% of the number of non-helmeted ER head-trauma accidents would be helmeted non-trauma accidents.

I DID make a mistake in math when I said "4 times" - it should be 1/4 times. 19% of Americans ride helmeted, and I used it as 19% ride non-helmeted so the ratio is the other way around.

350htrr

The latter it is in this then. But I am, actually interested in knowing the real number of people a helmet keeps out of the ER... Aren't you?

daihard 

It must be the beer that's getting to you. Do you wear a helmet while walking outside?

350htrr

No I don't, because I think walking isn't as likely to cause me a head injury... Or showering...

daihard 

That's what you may think. I have no numbers to prove or deny your assumption, but like we all agree, the decision should be yours and yours only.

350htrr

That is, that I think, and I agree everyone needs to decide for themselves when/if to wear a helmet for anything they do. Here, I am trying to introduce different numbers for people to concider, not just oh, 1% chance of 1% of needing a helmet, but now maybe the number 18,000 where people avoided going to the ER because a helmet helped, the decision would be a more informed one...? Some maybe up to 18,000 people were helped because they wore a helmet, and if they wouldn't wear one because they looked at just the odds of 1% of 1% needing one and decided not to wear a helmet, well hello ER...

howsteepisit

If you really want to know how many head injuries might be avoided by wearing helmets, there are some studies that do comparative analyses of before and after there helmets have become mandatory. My recollection from a cost/benefit class in economics was that there is so little difference the effect cannot be separated from the statistical noise.

I am not interested enough to look for the the citations, but if you really want to know thats the direction you need to look.

JoeyBike

Whatever sport I happen to be enjoying, "if" something happens I just want to get up, dust myself off, and continue with my activity. I never feel like getting stitches or even healing up a bunch of road rash. I don't wear a Kevlar space suit head-to-toe. I access my abilities, tendencies, conditions, and a lot of other things before deciding what protective gear to wear. Cycling, skateboarding, inline skating, water skiing, snow skiing, or driving an automobile or motorcycle I will take into account the risk of minor to sever injuries and take it upon myself to gear up according to some abstract concept of safety inside of my head. I may even quit an activity if the risk outweighs the pleasure - like motorcycling for instance. Gave that up in my 30s.

I do not believe in MAKING people wear helmets. I do believe in presenting evidence for and against wearing helmets on bicycles with documented facts so people have concrete reasons (no pun intended) for considering a helmet. After that, the decision to or not-to should be totally up to them.

Given that it is impossible to know if that broken helmet saved any brain cells, we will never have hard data one way or the other. Or would a helmet have saved any brain cells if one had been worn in another case. And for some people, stitches in the scalp every ten years is worth not wearing a helmet. It is possible to need stitches without brain surgery or death occurring.

So lacking hard data, cyclists must make personal safety choices based on emotion rather than logic. Hence, the existence of this thread.

350htrr

Exactly my sentiments, So I decided to wear a helmet, doesn't mean it will help, doesn't mean that I actually think I would need it, doesn't mean anyone else needs to think the same way. Just here to try and widen the playing field a bit by mentioning that just because helmets do fail to protect sometimes, they can also do their job sometimes too... And when things get personal with head and pavement that oh so good odds of 1% of 1% chance of it happening, don't mean diddly squat... What matters then, is do you end up dusting yourself off and continuing on, or do you end up going to the ER, and a helmet can, and does, change those odds.

mr_bill

There's plenty of hard data, it's just data rejected by "bareheaders." Only in this corner of the internut is a choice to wear a helmet called an emotional illogical choice.

(Sorry, that's not quite fair. There are a few other corners of the internut that reject hard data that are just like this.)

-mr. bill

JoeyBike

Just to be clear, I did not mention "illogical". To me it is a no-brainer (pun intended that time) that even a baseball cap can help protect my skin from scratches. So I believe, with absolutely no cold hard facts, that a styrene hat will pad an impact to some extent. Maybe I will never hit my head, maybe I will - who knows? I actually like wearing a helmet with a mirror and a visor and a chin strap that keeps the danged thing on my head. The rest of my decision is emotional. It just makes sense to me that a helmet would do some good in a crash.

RomansFiveEight

Yeah that sort of sounds like the old seatbelt argument. "So-and-so had broken ribs, internal bleeding and severe lacerations from their seatbelt". Yikes, sounds awful! Except uh, if they weren't wearing that seatbelt, and that same amount of force was applied to them; what would've happened? They are moving. The car stopped moving, very very fast. You are still moving. The seatbelt can stop you, and break some bones. Or you could put some air between you, get a 'running start' so to speak. And then the seatbelt, dashboard, windshield, other cars, road, whatever you end up on can stop you. Sure there IS a chance in some weird situation that the seatbelt is worse than not; but it's exceedingly rare. And the stats are pretty clear.

As it is with helmets. The stats are there. Sometimes people still die. But also, a lot of times, the helmet saves life or severe injury. A brain bleed with a helmet could've been a fatal injury. But of course, it's all "could've". We only know what did happen.

To be clear, I'm all for making your own decision. If you wanna ride without a helmet, do it. If you wanna ride with one, do it. I just hope we have the right info out there. There's a claim in the motorcycle world that says that helmets are MORE dangerous; and that's just plain nonesense. A helmet is safer. That's just the way it is. If you don't wanna wear one fine! But it is what it is.

RomansFiveEight

+1

One of the toughest thing is that it's easy to report injuries sustained while still wearing a helmet. But the minor stuff goes unreported. Heck, folks might not even know how much danger they were in. Fall off, and smack the back of your head HARD. But because of the helmet and your disorientation you didn't realize how hard it was. The helmet could've been the difference between a severe injury or even death, and limping home with a scuffed knee. But even IF you knew that, it's not like there's a hotline you're supposed to call and report "my helmet worked!"

The only stats we really have are fatalities and serious injuries. We can compare that with what percentage of those individuals were wearing a helmet. And we know that the statistics say that the folks who had the most serious injuries, and who were less likely to survive those injuries, were those without a helmet. But people still died with a helmet on. AND, cycling is more dangerous than other modes of transportation. So where do we draw the line? That's why it needs to be an individual decision. But a well informed one.

But you're absolutely right. We have no idea how many minor injuries that would cause a few days discomfort were saved. And we have no idea how many serious injuries kept someone out of the emergency room. Heck, we don't even how many fatalities were saved when someone walked away without an injury but could've been killed. It's all conjecture.