Re: Re: My helmet saved me, and broke
Head injuries? That would explain a lot.
Re: My helmet saved me, and broke
On Sat, 27 Aug, johnfoss <> wrote:
>
> And we’re not arguing about bicycle helmet studies or compulsory helmet
> laws in this thread.
The problem is that you are affecting the likelihood of such,
however. There are frequent calls for mandatory cycle helmet laws in
teh UK. One law has got as far as being debated in parliament before
being blocked on a technicality.
The government department in charge of roads has said it does not
favour a mandatory law until the majority of cyclists wear a helmet
voluntarily. In other words, if you wear a helmet, and encourage
others to do so, in situations where it is unnecesary or inappropriate
you are likely to be encouraging compulsion.
The law that was thrown out did not, in fact, include unicycles.
However, a future law would likely use the same definition of bicycle
as existing traffic law, which does include unicycles. The law
thrown out proposed extending the mandatory helmet wearing to any
place teh public has free (gratis) access - not just the roads.
It is for these reasons that those people that oppose mandatory cycle
helmets speak out strongly whenever anyone makes unsubstantiated
claims about their efficacy - it’s the mindless assumption that a
helmet must be good that is pushing us ever closer to mandatory
helmets for every cyclist (including unicyclists) in every place.
regards, Ian SMith
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Re: My helmet saved me, and broke
I submit that on or about Sat, 27 Aug 2005 16:36:32 -0500, the person
known to the court as “johnfoss”
<johnfoss@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> made a statement
(<johnfoss.1ufztk@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> in Your
Honour’s bundle) to the following effect:
>> *Anti-helmet fanatic, eh? That would be why most of the pictures on
>> my website show me wearing one, then. *
>Maybe he’s not reading your website, just your posts here. Based on your
>previous arguments in other threads, you seem determined to assert that
>a bicycle helmet offers little or no protection. For anybody. Sorry,
>you’re still wrong. This thread offers one example of your wrongness.
So you say. But what you will find, if you bother to read up, is that
actually cycle helmets do offer very little protection. And that
little has decreased over time, as the standards have been watered
down. OK, you say I am wrong - perhaps you could cite some evidence
to prove that? I have a huge collection of research papers on this
issue, but I’m always willing to find out more.
>Though a BMX helmet probably would have fared better, I believe Brave
>considers the money he spent on his broken helmet a very good
>investment. He knows he’s using a bicycle helmet for unicycling. I think
>he also expects his helmet to be unusable in a major impact.
Bicycle helmets are not designed for unicycling (or inline skating or
skateboarding). Consider one relatively common fall: going over
backwards (I’ve done that). Cycle helmets are increasingly designed
with retention systems that take up a lot of space at the back of the
head. Less of the back of my head is covered by my newest lid than by
my ancient 1980s Bell, which is why that is the one I’d choose for
unicycling. Bike helmets are optimised for a test impact somewhere
above the forehead.
>If your argument is that the foam should not have broken, fine.
Correct. It is not supposed to do that.
>helmet should have saved him from obviously much greater injury, and not
>been broken afterward.
“obviously”? “much greater”?
My point here is that a broken helmet is an example of a helmet which
failed to work as designed, not an example of why they should be worn.
>Volvo used to used pictures of horribly crashed Volvos to advertise
>their safety. I thought it was very effective.
So people drive Volvos as if they are invulnerable (ask any
motorcyclist). I drive a Volvo, by the way.
>In other words, if the
>product is designed to break or otherwise become unusable in the course
>of doing its job, I don’t see the problem customers would have of seeing
>that they actually do their job.
But it’s not. This is the equivalent, in your model, of holding up a
snapped seatbelt and saying “see! it saved my life!” - the device
failed to work as designed.
>The helmet cracked, yes, but it also did it’s job.
No, the whole point is that it did not do its job, since its job is
not to crack. We do not (and cannot without some expensive testing)
know how much of its job it did before it failed.
>> For unicycling I recommend a hard-shell lid of the sort usually worn
>> by BMXers. Bicycle helmets are very weak, and modern fitting systems
>> mean they offer little protection at the back of the head.
>This sounds like very good advice for riders, and I’d especially
>recommend this type of helmet for Trials and Street riders, as well as
>anyone who spends lots of time above rocks, gaps, or other long drops. I
>choose to use a bicycle helmet for most of my riding because I prefer
>the weight and comfort, and am aware of the lower amount of protection
>it offers.
There are two issues here: first, the weight and comfort have driven
down the standard of bicycle helmets. Very few UK helmets are now
Snell certified (it was over 90% in 1990). You are probably better
off with a less ventilated Chinese helmet than expensive Bell or some
such (and if you do want vents, Specialized is the only major brand my
friend the helmet tester will recommend).
Second, the design, as stated above, is not optimised for unicycling,
or indeed anything else other than cycling. Modern lids with their
fancy retention systems leave the occipital region largely
unprotected, and they have “peaks” at the back for “aerodynamics”
(there is not much evidence they do anything!). For yiking a more
spherical helmet with a hard shell is a much better choice.
Brian the helmet tester rails against kids shown on TV wearing cycle
helmets for skateboarding and inline skating. Same deal: they are not
designed for that.
>In case this wasn’t obvious to you, your constant contention, and
>seeming need to reply to every post, all make it look like you are
>obsessed to disclaim the usefulness of having a helmet on your head.
>Sorry, this group is not buying it.
I am delighted to have found one person who can speak for the entire
group, that should speed matters along just nicely.
>>(from a different post)> I have had a couple of moderately serious head and face injuries in
>> my life, and they are no fun.
>And I hope these were not from other online forum users after long
>arguments. Really, I do! 
Heh! One was an assault, actually, but it was the kid next door and I
was ten at the time. On the plus side, the sympathy vote for my two
black eyes won me the fancy dress competition at the school fete - I
went as Henry Cooper.
Guy
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
“To every complex problem there is a solution which is
simple, neat and wrong” - HL Mencken
Re: My helmet saved me, and broke
I submit that on or about Sat, 27 Aug 2005 18:49:41 -0500, the person
known to the court as “steveyo”
<steveyo@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> made a statement
(<steveyo.1ug62m@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> in Your
Honour’s bundle) to the following effect:
>My helmet, just to put some closure to this thread, was an older Bell
>helmet.
One of the more spherical ones, with a Snell certificate? Those were
pretty good in their day.
>So technically, my helmet did fail, but just barely. Lucky for me,
>however, it SUCCEEDED in saving my bacon in a big way.
Um, well, for some values of, anyway 
Guy
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
“To every complex problem there is a solution which is
simple, neat and wrong” - HL Mencken
Re: My helmet saved me, and broke
I submit that on or about Sat, 27 Aug 2005 22:11:44 -0500, the person
known to the court as “DigitalDave”
<DigitalDave@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> made a
statement
(<DigitalDave.1ugfc2@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> in Your
Honour’s bundle) to the following effect:
>> Failing that an old-style Bell Biker would probably do. If you can
>> find one.
>You shouldn’t use those old Bell helmets.
>They are aged. They wont work as designed.
>(the fiberglass would probably shatter like glass)
>I just thew one away, so I wouldn’t be temped to use it.
Yes, I know that is the received wisdom. The only thing is, I can’t
actually find any studies showing that the polystyrene foam liner (the
impact absorbing part) actually does deteriorate with age - I don’t
think EPS is particularly vulnerable to UV degradation, and the inside
is hidden from the sun anyway.
As to whether the shell is degraded, I wouldn’t know. If you ever see
Richard Ballantine (of Richard’s Bicycle Book) you could ask him, as
I’m pretty sure that’s what he was wearing when I met him last year.
Any actual data on this would, as usual, be appreciated. I collect
data like some people collect wheels.
I do, however, still have an old, late 1980s Bell, Snell certified,
few vents, looks a bit like the V1-Pro. It is a no-shell design with
a vac-formed cover. I think this would fare better in a yike fall
than my expensive Bell cycle helmet, age notwithstanding, due to the
shape. Of course the only way to find out would be to subject it to
the standard drop tests, after which it would be dead anyway…
In a spirit of scientific enquiry I might actually do that, sacrifice
my old lid. I bet you a pound it performs better than a lot of modern
ones!
Anyone else who is interested and has some old lids stockpiled, drop
me an email, I’ll get onto Brian Walker at HPE and see if he’s game.
Guy
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
“To every complex problem there is a solution which is
simple, neat and wrong” - HL Mencken
Re: My helmet saved me, and broke
I submit that on or about Sat, 27 Aug 2005 23:21:20 -0500, the person
known to the court as “Catboy”
<Catboy@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> made a statement
(<Catboy.1ugikr@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> in Your
Honour’s bundle) to the following effect:
>Head injuries? That would explain a lot.
Yup. It would explain the 2:1 in electrical engineering, for example.
It also explains why I am interested in the subject in the first
place.
Guy
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
“To every complex problem there is a solution which is
simple, neat and wrong” - HL Mencken
Almost uniquely in this forum, this topic always produces rather bad tempered arguments. This is a pity because it is one of the few topics we discuss that is genuinely important, rather than merely of interest to us.
It is also a pity because those who have the strongest opinions and the most detailed understanding can sometimes obscure the important points for younger or less experienced riders.
In the event of an accident on your unicycle, it is unlikely that you will bang your head. However, it is possible that you will bang your head. I guess I’ve fallen off unicycles a few hundred times, and I’ve banged my head about three times - including the chin incident which would not have been prevented by a normal cycle helmet.
In the event of you banging your head in a unicycle accident, the consequences range from a nasty bump, to a cut, to concussion, to epilepsy, paralysis or slow and painful death.
The percentage of head impacts to falls is not as important as the actual number of head impacts you are likely to suffer in a given period of unicycling. This will vary according to style, experience, skill, speed, and the place where you are riding.
The number of those head impacts which would result in concussion or worse will to some extent depend on similar factors.
For me, I reckon that the likelihood of banging my head in a fall is almost negligible, except when I’m riding in a rocky area. However, I’m often on quite a tall uni, riding at over 10 mph, on tarmac or concrete, near to kerbs, fence posts or traffic.
I (almost) always wear a helmet. I find it presents no disadvantages, other than the minor inconvenience of having to remember to put it on, and it can be hot.
But will the helmet help? It is a bicycle helmet designed for road use.
Obviously, it will do more good than harm.
In the seatbelt argument, you can find examples where not wearing a seatbelt has prevented injuries, and examples where wearing a seatbelt has contributed to injuries. However, surgeons looking for organ donors point to a very sudden and marked drop in the availability of organs after seatbelts became compulsory. It is the same with helmets: helmets will prevent some injuries. They will fail to prevent some, and they will even cause a few. (Probably neck injuries.) However, they will generally do more good than harm.
But what is the best helmet? Not necessarily a bicycle helmet. Even a padded rugby or boxing helmet will do some good. A motorcycle helmet would offer most protection, but would be so heavy and uncomfortable that it might increase the risk of the accident in the first place.
The ideal unicycle helmet should protect the head from falls in all directions. The particular weakness of a road-bicycle helmet is impacts from behind. Unicyclists sometimes fall backwards and crack their heads; bicyclists almost never do.
The best helmet I ever had for protection was probably my polythene-shelled kayak helmet. It was supported on the head with a cradle, with some soft foam as well. The shell was ventilated (to let water out!) and was slightly pliable. It was designed to hit rocks at speeds of 5 - 10 mph or so, and to spread the impact, rather than allowing it to focus on a single point. The shell would deform slightly to take some of the shock out of the impact and would spring back to shape. It was rounded, with no projections or shaping that would provoke a neck injury.
Compared to that, my bicycle helmet is quite weak. The outer shell is thin plastic and the main protective layer is a polystyrene moulding that will crush or break in certain circumstances. Crushing is good protection; breaking is better protection than none.
On the other hand, the cycle helmet is more comfortable, lighter, and, yes, it looks better. Let’s face it, it may be irrational, but safety is not the only thing we take into account when choosing whether to wear a helmet, or which one to wear.
I think a BMX style round helmet would be better for the sort of riding that involves hopping, dropping, and that sort of thing, where the direction of a fall is less predictable. A road bicycle style helmet is probably the best compromise for road and cross country. A full face BMX helmet is probably best for hard MUni.
And are modern bicycle helmets as good as the early ones? Some of them are awful, some of them are very good. Don’t choose on price. Don’t choose on “features”. Go to a good cycle shop (not a toy shop), look closely, ask questions, try the helmets on. Spend what you need to. It’s an important purchase. If you like the helmet, you will wear it. If you hate it, you won’t.
And if you choose not to wear a helmet, as long as that is an informed decision, it is your responsibility.
I am generally for wearing helmets, but against compulsory helmet laws.
Re: Re: My helmet saved me, and broke
I certainly hope we are not affecting any bicycle helmet studies. If we are, those studies shouldn’t get published! As for helmet laws for bikes, any discussions we have here, though they may have a slight effect on helmet use among unicyclists, should seriously not make a measurable difference in the outcome of any bicycle helmet legislation. Certainly not enough of a difference to be detected, as in many of the helmet effectiveness and demographic studies that have been quoted in similar threads.
I haven’t encouraged people to wear helmets unappropriately or unnecessarily. I have always maintained the situations where I personally wear one and when I don’t, but recommended that others use their judgement for their own situations. Also that bicycle helmets are not the best choice for high-impact riding, such as Trials, Street and Freeriding.
Re: Re: My helmet saved me, and broke
Your “court” is an online forum. Maybe you could update your lengthy reply headers to be more accurate?
Today’s circumstantial evidence, submitted to our non-court, is BraveSirStupid’s personal account of being protected by his helmet. He is not a study or a paper, he’s just one guy who we’ve known for years through this forum. We have no reason to disbelieve his story. Crack or no crack, his helmet protected him. This is the part of the story that you seem unwilling to acknowledge. At the same time, this is the part we consider a “positive helmet experience.” He got protected. The same result may not have happened with different variables in the situation, but this is one example of a helmet doing its job.
Please don’t come back yet again on how the helmet cracked (“failed”). We got that. But if this type of helmet is designed for a single major impact, after which it is supposed to be replaced, I still don’t see the problem in this particular case. The helmet succeeded and failed at the same time. The failure is rather irrelevant in this instance, and is outweighed by the success.
Sorry if that part was giving you trouble. I think I meant if he had the same fall with no helmet on.
I don’t need to ask motorcyclists to have noticed this on American roads as well. But apparently we agree the cars are popular! I was talking about success of advertising using broken product, not behavoir changes of users of the product. Brave was just mounting his unicycle, not trying something because he felt “emboldened” by having a helmet on.
Though this is a pretty unlikely situation, yes, it is. The person holding up the seatbelt is trying to tell (most of) us, how glad he was that he was wearing it. That same most of us are able to extrapolate his accident without the seat belt. Oh yeah, good thing he was wearing it! That’s a good thing, right? Secondarily is the issue that the seat belt broke, and may need improvement. But he’s happy to have another chance at a future crash with improved seat belts.
I will continue to contend that its job is to protect the wearer first, and not crack second. So the helmet succeeded in this instance but may have been less successful in a harder impact. I don’t have a problem with this measure of success, since it’s not a helmet test, or a statistic, just one guy’s experience.
This is true. When shopping for a helmet, look for the Snell sticker or certification. It is a more stringent test. Weight and comfort are certainly issues for people with helmets. Too cumbersome and they are less likely to get worn, even if you bought one. So it becomes part of the balance of risk management and (hopefully) personal choice.
I have often pointed out (to people that will listen) that in general, when you pay more for a higher-end helmet, you don’t get better protection (as within brands, all helmets often pass the same certifications). What you’re paying for is mostly more holes!
Hopefully we’ve said this enough times. However I consider road riding on my Coker to be much closer to bicycling than it is to BMX or skateboarding. I will stick with a bike helmet for that activity. At the same time, I admit I should be using a BMX-style
helmet for my MUni and other rocky/droppy riding.
At the moment it’s looking like “the group minus Ian Smith.” 
I usually don’t get involved in these, since I can make my own mind up about wearing a helmet, and the times it has benefited my own health. However, after this comment:
>>Maybe he’s not reading your website, just your posts here. Based on your
>>previous arguments in other threads, you seem determined to assert that
>>a bicycle helmet offers little or no protection. For anybody. Sorry,
>>you’re still wrong. This thread offers one example of your wrongness.
>So you say. But what you will find, if you bother to read >up, is that
>actually cycle helmets do offer very little protection. And >that
>little has decreased over time, as the standards have >been watered
>down. OK, you say I am wrong - perhaps you could cite >some evidence
>to prove that? I have a huge collection of research papers >on this
>issue, but I’m always willing to find out more.
I feel an experiment coming on. We get Mr ‘Guy’ to stand under a 500g weight, raised to a 50cm height (above his head). We then let him choose whether or not to wear a helmet. If he choses to do so, we win. If he doesn’t, he wins but runs the risk of a serious concussion.
Weight drops. Point is proven.
Reasonable?
Loose.
This is an interesting discussion but please don’t use ‘us’ or ‘we’ when you actually mean ‘I’.
Re: My helmet saved me, and broke
On Sun, 28 Aug 2005, Mikefule <> wrote:
>
> But will the helmet help? It is a bicycle helmet designed for road
> use.
>
> Obviously, it will do more good than harm.
That statement sums up the entire problem.
It is not obvious. It might SEEM obvious, but the real-world fact of
helmet COMPULSION is that helmet compulsion does more harm than good
(unless you count removing cyclists from teh road as good - some
motorists do)
> However, they will generally do more good than harm.
But they don’t - when they are made compulsory, teh rate of cyclist
killed and seriously injured goes up (in every jurisdiction that has
tried it and enforced it).
In teh UK, as the rate of cyclist helmet wearing has sky-rocketed
compared to that of pedestrian helmet wearing, the relative accident
rate has not changed dramatically (in fact, it has drifted in teh
wrong direction).
If you can explain how it can be obvious that helmets will generally
do more good than harm, when making everyone wear them increases the
rate of serious injury, and when lots of people choose to wear one
it doesn’t alter the rate of serious injury, it would be very useful.
Until you can explain those observations, I don’t think you can
truthfully say “obviously” or “generally” they will do more good than
harm - because in practice, increasing teh rate of helmet wearing
hasn’t reduced teh rate of cyclist serious injury.
regards, Ian SMith
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I see all sorts of references to studies and statistics in this discussion. Pardon my skepticism, but as a general rule, I don’t believe anything I read in a discussion forum unless its backed up with reputable links or at the very least a date, publication and article title.
If you’ve got sources for numbers and facts, post them. If not, then all that typing is just proverbial hot air to me, and not terribly interesting.
Glad your helmet did its job, steveyo. (As in, glad you’re still with us!)
Thanks.
Re: My helmet saved me, and broke
Guy wrote:
>>I am delighted to have found one person who can speak for the entire
>>group, that should speed matters along just nicely.
and John Foss responded:
> At the moment it’s looking like “the group minus Ian Smith.”
Count me in with Ian and Guy. And who was the other chap who used to
try to make the same points here, but seems to have given it up as futile?
<Googles>
I think I may be thinking of Rowan.
–
Danny Colyer (the UK company has been laughed out of my reply address)
<URL:http://www.speedy5.freeserve.co.uk/danny/>
“He who dares not offend cannot be honest.” - Thomas Paine
Re: Re: My helmet saved me, and broke
That might be me. I’ve been riding for about 9 years, and have yet to hit my head. Maybe i just have fast reflexes , i dont know.
I’ve given up on arguing, and usually ignore helmet threads now. I don’t really think it is responsable or nessessary ot discourage people from wearing helmets. some of us just don’t find it nessessary (you know who you are).
Re: Re: My helmet saved me, and broke
Ditto.
Today’s “Pearls Before Swine” remind me of this repeated discussion.
I wear a helmet most of the time now since I stopped having to worry about sweat getting in my contact lens.
I do it partly to satisfy the pro-wear-a-helmet-to-take-a-shower zealots.
Re: Re: Re: My helmet saved me, and broke
My son and I–zealots both–thank you for that. Never know when a stray bit of soap will get underfoot, take you down.
Re: Re: Re: Re: My helmet saved me, and broke
DAMN IT!
DON’T SAY THAT!
You’re effectively raising the likelyhood of compulsory shower helmet laws. In like kind, shower fatalities will increase, and I’ll end up injured. Thanks alot. 
//At least Jagur will be safe. :o
Thank you! However, I think the major thing here is for people to choose for themselves to wear helmets.- Myself, I finally bought a BMX-style helmet (they call’em pisspots or half-shells in Norway) with which I usually ride. I know it does not look good and it can be hot and uncomfortable at times but I find it is worth it. I have been riding far too much without my helmet and will not push luck anymore. If you watch our first three movies, they are consequently WITHOUT helmets, our new movie will be fully WITH helmets.
Over all, it seems to me that you generally agree that one should use helmets but that bicycling helmets offer less protection than certain other types of helmets. This, again, is an induvidual dessicion, you have one of three choises, really:
1 - No helmet
2 - Bicycle/other kind of helmet which offers some protection
3 - BMX/other kind of helmet which ofers maximal protection
I have chosen the last with an hope of surviving a steadily more (and at times, perhaps, too) extreme unicycling. If other people choose one of the other two options, fine, I am happy as long as they take responsibility for their own riding and health.
Regarding wheter the helmet which broke did its job. I would say, yes. It saved him from serious damage (which MIGHT have been the outcome of one such impact without a helmet), but it also broke. I would like to quote my local bike dealer (and Secialized & GT importer in Norway) on the fact that “no helmet offer optimalized protection after any impact,” meaning that once you have fallen with your helmet its protective abilities will be reduced to some degree. How much, he said, will be diffring from speciman to speciman. Meaning that yes, if you fall, yur helmet MAY and sometimes WILL break and yet fulfilling its job if YOU DON’T GET HURT!
(Yes, I realise that this post came a little late, but I felt I had to say it)