350htrr

Yes it would, probably, but not as much as most people believe I suspect...

MMACH 5

Four years ago, I was struck by a car. He was likely going 40-45mph while running the red light at the intersection I was crossing. My bicycle went under his car and I skipped off his hood and into his windshield. My bicycle helmet cracked in a spider-web pattern out from the point of impact, just above my left temple.

There was bleeding in the frontal lobe of my brain. I suffered a TBI and was in a coma for over 20 days. I didn’t regain coherence for 6 weeks (I was awake and talking, but making no sense for several weeks).

I have little doubt that my helmet saved me from a worse TBI, perhaps even death (obviously, we have no control group here to compare against, so I can’t call it an established certainty). I will contend that the helmet absorbed a huge amount of force and likely dispersed it to lessen the forces applied to my head.

My accident falls under the fluke category. It was a bicycle crash that involved a head strike. That head strike was with a moving vehicle. That vehicle was traveling at a higher speed than a person falling from a bicycle.
This is far beyond what a bicycle helmet is designed to do. And yet, it certainly appears to have served a valuable and appreciated purpose.

Had I not been wearing my helmet, would I have sustained the same amount of injury to my brain? More injury? Less injury? We’ll never know.

We all make risk assessments based on our own experiences. The likelihood of having a collision similar to this one and striking one’s head in the same manner is extremely low. I’m certainly not claiming that a helmet is the holy grail of bicycle safety. Claiming that a helmet will protect you in every situation is a poor assessment of their abilities.

By the same token, claiming that helmets are worthless because they don’t help in every fall from a bicycle is a poor assessment in the other direction.

Will you ever need your helmet to protect your head? Probably not.
If your head strikes the pavement or other object, will a helmet save you from traumatic injury? It depends.
Can they protect your head? Yes. Your brain? Yes.
Do they fail? Yes. A lot? Yes.

I suppose my biggest complaint with the Helmet Thread, as it exists is that the biggest players are dancing on the fringes - the extremes…

You must wear a helmet at all times or you will die!!
VS
Helmets are worthless and do nothing to protect you in an accident!!

Folks who operate on the fringes can be quite entertaining. Look at show business and the music industry. However, those playing on the Helmet Thread extremes are just droll and condescending. Will I stay tuned? Probably. I’ve stayed through several iterations of the Helmet Thread. I guess I just keep hoping we can step it up a bit.

You can now return to your ranting.

Joe Minton

MMACH 5: Well said.

However, do not doubt that you would have been DRT (Dead Right There) had you not been wearing that helmet. I'm glad you did and glad that you are here ;o)

Joe

PS: Thanks again for your clear words.

BTW: Your accident and others like it are unfortunately far too common to be considered a fluke.

mconlonx

More like "may/might" help and with less severe injuries maybe even "would probably" help. But yes, go figure...

mconlonx

This:


Is not quite this:

Joe Minton

No mconlonx, you're wrong. In this case, dead wrong.

MMACH 5 suffered a near-deadly injury. It would not have taken much more to outright kill him. The helmet made the difference. There is a half-century of certainty about this.

Don't bother challenging me to prove this. Look it up for yourself; the information is there.

Joe

Six jours

I'm not planning on getting back to participating in BF in general or the helmet thread specifically. I just logged in to apologize for Joe Minton, on behalf of Californians everywhere.

mconlonx

I am most certainly not wrong: what MMach5 reported is not quite the same as what you said about his crash and injury.

MMach5 is presenting the situation as he experienced it; you were not there and are making incredible assumptions without mitigating qualifications.

But let's parse it out a bit more:

I am not wrong. And it's not a case of life and death here in Helmet Thread (no matter how some posters come across...), so also not dead wrong.

MMach 5 indeed suffered a near deadly injury. It very well may not have taken much more to outright kill him. The helmet appears to have made a difference, and I suspect it did. There is nothing at all certain about the efficacy of the helmet in this case, just a very high probability. If you thought I implied different from any of this, your inference was at fault and your assumptions wildly imaginative.

I very much challenge you to prove that what you said is quite like what MMach 5 wrote. Because it's not. At all. Reread both posts; the information is there.

Joe Minton

Thanks Six jours --- I think. ;o)

I had abandoned The Helmet Thread for some time because of the trolls and what I consider inadequate oversight. However, I recently decided that how I feel does not matter. What matters is that I help my fellow ‘bikers’ with information about bicycle helmets and how effective they actually are.

I know quite a bit about the subject and have reliable, credible, contacts within the helmet industry. That industry isn’t as cynical as some might assert or believe.

Also, there are enough hungry percentage-driven lawyers out there to ensure that the industry pays attention the quality of its product and not just its ‘bottom line’.

Joe

Joe Minton

mconlonx:

You've made my "ignore" list --- so long --- LOL

Joe

mconlonx

Aww...

baron von trail 

There's this guy I cross paths with on the MUP every night on my commute home. He's heading west while I go east. I've been seeing him for almost 10 years. I call him no-helmet dude.

I've noticed that his hair has gotten much more gray over the years. I bet mine has too. But, since I wear a helmet, he'll never know.

Joe Minton

baron von trail: "He's heading west while I go east. I've been seeing him for almost 10 years. I call him no-helmet dude." -- bvt

You've just given us a perfect example of how things normally go. Most folks ride for a lifetime and never smack their head. The problem, of course, is what happens when they do.

Broken brains do not recover; it is a one-way trip. Damaged brains can re-train to one degree or another but the broken bits are simply gone. I've seen what can happen. I have interviewed and worked with men and a couple of children who suffered debilitating brain injuries. You don't want to go there.

I ran a motorcycle maintenance night course at a local college some years ago. One of my students was a senior psychiatric technician at the Camarillo state ‘mental’ hospital (Hotel California). He supervised-brain injured children. We became friends. He watched and cared for three children as did the other two technicians needed to provide 24-hour care for the three kids. These children were dangerous to themselves and required constant and very alert care. In essence, it was one-on-one 24/7 watchfulness. I do so honor the patience and dedication of folks like this.

Around here, Southern California, long-term brain injured bike riders (both kinds) may end-up at (https://dhs.lacounty.gov/wps/portal/...JjfJyBAAIqyli/) for long-term care.

It ain’t like a broken leg.

Joe

baron von trail 

Sure. One reason I wear a helmet is to lower the risk of a minor head-ding turning into a major brain injury.

wphamilton

That's only half of the question Joe. The other half, just as important, is what are the chances? Those of us who are not swayed by the fact that something horrible might happen, try to look at it in a way that is consistent with all of the other risks that we take. We consider how likely or unlikely the event is, and only then decide what ameliorative measures, if any, to take.

baron von trail 

Well, I did notice that no-helmet dude is still riding after all these years, none the worse for wear except a few more grays.

wphamilton

Indeed you did. I recognize a guy like that on my commute, for seven or eight years I've never seen him with a helmet. He always seems to be happy about it, care-free, never pushing very hard, just riding around. Some will shake their heads and say this guy doesn't realize what he's risking, but I expect that after all these years he's heard it all already, and probably knows what he's doing.

Joe Minton

wphamilton:
I already said that: -- "What makes the choice to wear or not wear a helmet while cycling a relatively minor matter is simply the great rarity of traumatic brain injuries. They are rare and cyclists have spent many lives-worth of riding their bikes without TBIs." (#2047)

However, when (severe) TBIs do happen and actual adults have to deal with the consequences, our little teapot tantrums here become reduced to the level of sandbox arguments amongst toddlers.


baron von trail: See above -- LOL
An even more inclusive example is, well -- Copenhagen ;o)

The recent thread, (https://www.bikeforums.net/advocacy-s...ing-about.html) is an important one. It illustrates the largest problem we dedicated bike riders face: Infrastructure. I would add another element, community.

Which of us has not seen videos of folks riding bicycles in Copenhagen?
I give you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07o-TASvIxY (a lecture rejecting helmet use)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCeohG8VO34 (example of riding in Copenhagen)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7tWId2u9pM (Copenhagen, birds on a bike)
BBC NEWS | Europe | Copenhagen's 'best city for cyclists' goal (BBC Copenhagen biking analysis - good show)

What Copenhagen has and we Americans do not is a sense of community, singleness of purpose and tolerance. We cannot, at this time at least, recreate the cycling environment they have. I am sure that there are some very bad drivers/riders/pedestrians over there but not nearly as many as we have here. Bad driving/riding behavior is built into how we do things and how we view one another.
Those touring riders who travel the USA find helpful, friendly and really quite wonderful folks along their (rural) way. Not in NYC, Not in downtown LA and in any impoverished metropolitan area. It is, ultimately, a political problem, one that we don't seem to be very good at fixing.

I would likely wear a helmet when riding in Copenhagen because of my experience with head-broken people. But it is clear to me that they have reduced the bike-riding risk of TBIs to nearly the same as walking. And, nobody walks around wearing a helmet.

What we need to do here is develop our transportation infrastructure to nearly match what other countries are doing or have already done. We need to make it as safe to ride our bikes as it is to walk.

I have been attacked twice by 'road-ragers' while legally and courteously riding my bike. Niether did well in the encounter. I have also been screamed at to "Get off the road!" or "get on the sidewalk!" or "You've no right to be here!"

--- This ain't Copenhagen ---

Joe,
Who sometimes wears his helmet while checking tire pressures. ;o)

baron von trail 

I didn't start wearing a helmet until I began riding a racing bike at speeds approaching 30 mph, and also once I began riding in and around rush-hour traffic. Obviously---well maybe not so obvious for everyone in this thread---if I was still riding a hybrid at 10 mph on a paved bike path, I would not be wearing one.

Then too, there is the visor on the helmet. I cannot emphasize enough the advantages I find with those things. I haven't worn sunglasses since I began using one, just a pair of clear lens safety goggles.

wphamilton

But then you go on to deny it as reasonable consideration, by claiming that "the problem" is what happens "when they do" have an injury.

Given the great rarity of the event, made even more remote by experience and judgement, there is no "problem" and no "when". You're presenting these anecdotes of the horrible things that might happen, as if that by itself would mandate wearing a helmet for any reasonable person. I'm calling you on that, and I stand by it. I submit that no possible result, no matter how horrible it is, is meaningful without some information (or even a guess) of how likely or unlikely it is.

wphamilton

I'll wear one when it's raining, or the roads are icy or even wet, because painful experience has taught me that that's when a slip is most likely for me. Speed isn't a factor for me, but that's because my particular abilities and skillsets result in more danger from the conditions than from falls at speed. We should evaluate our own chances, based on our individual circumstances, so I wholeheartedly approve of your decisions.

I used to wear a helmet sometimes for earbuds and tiny mp3 player I hung from it. Now that I've discovered bluetooth that's less of a factor.

prathmann

If that last sentence is the goal then we appear to have already achieved it or at least come quite close. Pedestrian fatalities in the US are about 5000/year while for cyclists it's about 750/year. Meanwhile the trip mode share estimates I've seen indicate about 10% of trips are by pedestrians while 1 - 2% are by cyclists. So the fatality risk per trip is just about the same for both with substantial uncertainty on the actual mode shares. Bike trips tend to be longer than pedestrian trips in distance so fatality risk per mile is presumably less for the cyclist than for the pedestrian. OTOH, the risk per hour may well favor the pedestrian. But to the accuracy available in the statistics, bicycling already is about as safe as walking.

Joe Minton

wphamilton: Guess you didn't get a chance to read #2093 ?

regarding Copenhagen: ".... it is clear to me that they have reduced the bike-riding risk of TBIs to nearly the same as walking. And, nobody walks around wearing a helmet."

Joe

wphamilton

I didn't agree with most of it, but I don't just automatically argue with everything that appears wrong. I don't see it as applicable, either way, to my slice of the conversation.

Joe Minton

Age, balance and head injuries

As we age our balance and subsequent ability to recover from a stumble diminish. We take longer to realize that we are out of balance and longer to effectively react. We are much more likely to fall. This is especially true for we who are 65 or older. Falls are the leading cause of death for folks 65 or older. Oddly enough weight training reduces the rate of this balance/recovery decline.
TBIs (Traumatic Brain Injury) also increase with age. Our brains become more fragile. To make it worse, we are as much as twice as likely to die from a TBI. 81% of TBIs in those of us over 65 are caused by falls.

If you find this alarming, well --- so do I. However, it is better to know the “stats” before learning them personally and becoming a datum point within them.

So, lift weights, Tai Chi, dance or Yoga to help maintain and perhaps even improve your balance. Don’t fall down ;o)
And please consider wearing a helmet when you ride.

Joe

A couple of links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_brain_injury
TBI: Get the Facts | Concussion | Traumatic Brain Injury | CDC Injury Center