"Since helmet laws don’t necessarily mean compliance, they looked at helmet usage, too, and once again found nothing."
Did the author read the study? I can't find anyplace where it has any data about usage. In fact, the words "comply(iance)" or "usage" don't appear in the document once, in any context.
Also, it doesn't distinguish between those who always wear helmets and those who claim they use helmets at least half the time.
> Data on helmet use in all jurisdictions were available from the 2009/2010 CCHS via the following questions: "In the past 12 months, have you done any bicycling?" and if yes, "When riding a bicycle, how often do you wear a helmet?"
> Figure 2 presents the helmet use data in table 3 graphically and illustrates that helmet use was higher with helmet laws than without
"We therefore also examined the relationship between hospitalisation rates and helmet use proportions in the strata, and again did not find the expected protective effect"
i returned my helmet as being defective, since when i fell off my bike it didn't protect me from breaking my radius, and forcing me to go to the hospital. Stupid helmet laws, i knew they didn't work...
As I once broke my radius flying over the handle bars, I can at least stat for me: it was my broken hand. My head (I was wearing a helmet back then) never came close to the ground as I landed on my hands. Unfortunately one of them failed to stand the forces and broke. Perhaps without a helmet I had driven a bit less crazy and not crashed stupidly.
most likely, but i'd suspect any time your helmet was utilized, the rest of your body likely fared much worse and would need hospitalization anyway. In short , i wonder why they look at overall hospitalization rates and not specifically at chronic head injury. It's like saying tissue purchasing went up in the winter, therefor people must be more depressed because you use tissues for crying, totally missing blowing your nose and cold season.
"[Bike lanes] has dual advantages, both reducing injuries and encouraging cycling, an important public health goal of its own given the physical activity and environmental benefits. Comparisons between North America and the Netherlands or Denmark have long suggested that their route design focus is better at welcoming cycling and achieving lower injury rates. Many were concerned that Dutch and Danish infrastructure wouldn't have the same impact here, but there is more and more research in North America showing that it does."
Absolutely, infrastructure is the real solution. Even if the full Dutch-style bike lane is not possible, quite minor things can make a difference.
E.g. around here there are some advance cycle stop zones and advance green lights for cyclists. Both are easy to implement but make a big difference to a cyclist's safety and visibility at a junction.
1. Helmets are very very useful if you're riding fast. In fact they are mandatory in all cycling sports. However most people don't commute to work going much faster than they would if running, hence they are not very useful for them.
2. In countries where helmets are compulsory, the chilling effect of risking a fine for not wearing a helmet has meant a decrease in the number of cyclists. Now, since bike accidents are relatively rare, but the health effects of cycling to work rather than driving benefit every single cyclist, helmet laws tend to have a negative effect on public health.
This said, whenever I'm going for a sporty ride (longer, or faster than usual) I usually wear a helmet. When riding 5 minutes to meet a friend for a beer I don't.
As a corollary to your point #2, there is a clear safety in numbers effect in which as the number of cyclists goes up, the rate - and often the absolute number - of crashes and injuries goes down.
> Helmets are very very useful if you're riding fast.
I can't find a reference with a short Googling, but as I recall helmets only help in a fairly narrow window, something like 18-23 mph or so. If one's going sufficiently fast, they're unable to do much good (because the forces are too much for a flimsy assembly of foam and plastic to reduce enough to prevent injury or death).
> In fact they are mandatory in all cycling sports.
They're the equivalent of a elephant-repelling rock.
> I can't find a reference with a short Googling, but as I recall helmets only help in a fairly narrow window, something like 18-23 mph or so
I'd really like a citation on that. I'm into motorcycles and while helmet design is different, every motoGP season has plenty of examples of riders tumbling at +100kph and walking away after.
I too would like a citation. Plus calling a bike helmet's foam "flimsy" makes me question your argument. If you've ever removed the outer plastic (which is designed to crumble), you'd know that the foam is extremely tough.
You could likely make the argument that over a certain speed your other body parts will sustain large enough injuries for the bike helmet to not matter, but that's not what you're arguing, you're arguing that the bike helmet itself stops working at an extremely low speed of 23 MpH or above.
I actually Googled this a bit. Cannot find anything on it.
It indicates that helmets in the U.S. are only tested for 14 mph impacts.
It's not that the helmet stops working altogether, it's that the helmet's protection really isn't sufficient. It'd be better to wear a full-face motorcycle helmet, but of course that'd be miserable on a bike.
Helmets are generally designed to handle the vertical component of the fall, not your forward velocity.
If your torso hits a solid object at 30mph, there's about ~50% chance you'll rupture your aorta[1]. Hit something like a narrow signpost pole at 30mph and you'll be in a whole world of trouble - I'd post a link to a thread on a motorcycle forum, but it's a bit grisly. Guy survived, but he had to be opened up to treat the internal injuries.
Motorcycle helmets have mostly the same minimal impact requirements of preventing brain injury from the vertical component, but also need plenty of abrasion resistance.
[1] I heard this on London Met police BikeSafe day, a day-long course where London police do a presentation to motorcycle riders and go on an ride with a police observer. But for specific reference, see http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/research/pub/HS809012.htm... - "UK Department of Transport Traffic Advisory Leaflet 7/93 (TAU, 1993), figures quoted are, for 20 mph impact speeds: 5 percent death, 65 percent injured, and 30 percent uninjured; for 30 mph impact speeds: 45 percent death, 50 percent injured, and 5 percent uninjured"
In Finland, wearing a helmet while bicycling is required by law, but there aren't any penalties set for not complying. Maybe this appeals to people whose moral includes unconditional law-abiding.
helmets are really useful if you are riding slow too, I was pulling out of a driveway, there was a little bit of black ice that I didn't see, my front wheel went out from me and before I knew it I was down: could not react, one second I was upright, the next second I was on my side and yes, my helmet was cracked by this fall (hit the side of my head on the cement), if I didn't have it it'd have been a much worse day than the very mild headache I got from it.
I really don't understand all these "helmets don't help" folks, having ridden motorcycles and bikes all my life you would not catch me dead without a helmet: a helmet is not an invulnerability cloak but in the end if you fall down and hit your head and you don't have one, you are not going to be in a good place, whether you are going at walking speed or 30mph.
The reason some are sceptical, is the extra weight and leverage of the helmet is supposed to increase the chance of you breaking your neck in in accident.
Then why don't you wear a helmet when you're walking on ice as well?
I'm not saying helmets don't work, I'm saying it's not very likely to hit your head at high velocity on the ground if you were going 10 km/h. And if that means you're not gonna ride a bike at all because you forgot your helmet you're probably having a higher risk of cardiovascular disease further down the line than you have of breaking your head now.
Having known someone who died to a head injury from falling down from a standing position; speed matters little, other than giving you more time to react. Just the acceleration from gravity is enough to fuck your head up pretty badly.
> Then why don't you wear a helmet when you're walking on ice as well?
Because bikes constrain falls. Millions of years of evolution plus my own personal practice means I'm pretty good at falling safely. But when I am wrapped around a bike, a lot of that goes out of the window.
Also, I'd like to see some stats on your "not very likely". In 20 years of adult riding, I've fallen twice at low speeds hard enough to crack a helmet. And that's not counting the time as a kid I knocked myself unconscious on a low-speed ride.
> because you forgot your helmet
Is this a problem people have? When I'm not riding, I clip my helmet to my bike. This doesn't strike me as a particularly challenging habit to develop. Maybe just keep necessary equipment together? That sounds easier than trying to decide whether the odds are small enough to risk traumatic brain injury.
> Also, I'd like to see some stats on your "not very likely". In 20 years of adult riding, I've fallen twice at low speeds hard enough to crack a helmet. And that's not counting the time as a kid I knocked myself unconscious on a low-speed ride.
And in 28 years of both adult and kid riding, with some years totaling over 3000 km, I've fallen several times, even cracked a couple of ribs, but never once hit my head. See that's the problem with anecdotal evidence.
I'm not the one who said "not very likely". I'm not offering my story as evidence, just as an explanation for why I'd like evidence.
> Do that in Rome, you'll come back to find none.
I was speaking of the "I am going riding now" case. In Rome can you leave your bike outside overnight? In SF you can't, so people store bikes and helmets indoors. In which case, I'd submit that storing them together is a pretty good idea.
Helmet theft might be a problem here in the "I am already out riding" case. Where I worry about that here, I clip my bike to my bag, so again it's not a "I forgot my helmet" problem.
> I'm not saying helmets don't work, I'm saying it's not very likely to hit your head at high velocity on the ground if you were going 10 km/h.
Because if you fall over while walking, you're likely to manage to get your hands down before you head hits the ground. You have nothing to lose by getting your hands down quick.
By contrast, when you run into problems while cycling, your instinct is to try and regain control of the bike. You don't immediately drop the handlebars, You keep your hands on the bars and try to steer/brake. Moreover you're likely to go over sideways and only one hand tends to be able to break the fall.
A fall from a bike and a fall from your feet is a massively different thing.
> my helmet was cracked by this fall (hit the side of my head on the cement)
I'm not sure whether helmets really work, and just to be on the safe side I almost always wear one, but I seem to remember one European biking site -- possibly mentioned here in HN... I forget -- where the author argued that helmets are designed to crack so that it seems they work. But, he argued, whether they crack or not bears no relation to protecting from head injuries; the crack simply leaves you satisfied that the helmet "saved" your life.
The article seemed convincing. Sadly I cannot remember where I read it.
They are definitively designed to crack as that's a core way for it to absorb the energy of the hit. Similar to how a car crumbles in an accident. Otherwise it's just transferring the kinetic energy straight to your head.
This is also why you should replace helmets after a fall and every few years since the material they are made of degrades with age.
I don't remember if the following link was the site, but in any case it makes similar points (disclaimer: as far as I can tell, this seems to be a "helmet skepticism" advocacy site, so take it with a grain of salt):
> "It's not a simple matter to draw conclusions about the benefit a broken or deformed helmet might have provided in a crash. However, the fact that serious injury to unhelmeted cyclists is as rare as helmet damage is common, suggests that most of the claims of benefit from damaged helmets are likely to be exaggerated."
> "The next time you see a broken helmet, suspend belief and do the most basic check – disregard the breakages and look to see if what's left of the styrofoam has compressed. If it hasn't, you can be reasonably sure that it hasn't saved anyone's life."
The point seems to be that anecdotes of the type "my helmet worked and saved my life, see? It's cracked" are not conclusive.
If a helmet cracks, it's absorbed energy, cracking is simply how it's designed to dissipate that energy. Whether it cracks or not, it should be replaced when it absorbs energy from a fall.
Looking into the documentation around bicycle helmet design, it appears that the outer surface is actually less for energy absorption, and more for preventing any "catching" on the road surface which would add torque to your head in a crash.
Cracking, in this case, is the expected failure model, since the material has to be hard to provide a sliding surface.
Well, when we talk about a helmet cracking as opposed to specifying "the outer shell of the helmet" I think we're talking about the whole polystyrene core.
Definitely. The two accidents I've had where helmets have been helpful have been at low speeds. In one, somebody stopped suddenly in front of me while I was novice rider getting used to new brakes. The other, I hit a wet tram rail while making a turn. The problem wasn't total velocity, it was me falling over while being conjoined with a bike. (I also had one accident at speed, but there the bike and I parted ways and I supermanned through the air and kept my head up on landing.)
The study persuades me not at all for a few reasons. 1) it's Canada, 2) it's all of Canada, and 3) it's only in-patient hospital stays.
I'm biking in a US urban area. I know that Canada's automotive death rates are lower, and I'm happy to believe that's due both to Canada's famed niceness and to a more European attitude toward infrastructure. I might also not bother with a helmet tootling along some leafy Canadian rural road, but when dealing with California's drivers in an environment that's mostly cement and metal, thanks, I'll take the helmet.
I also get the theory that in-patient hospital stays might be a good index to help decide the public benefit of helmet laws. But I don't think my helmet kept me from two hospital stays. I think it kept me from two concussions. Given the long-term cognitive effects of even nominally mild brain injury, I'm again sticking with the helmet. Those here who think themselves so smart that a) this study proves it for them, or b) they have smarts to burn are welcome to go without.
I'm sorry, but you really have no basis for saying that "if I didn't have it it'd have been a much worse day than the very mild headache I got from it."
I think we can have it both ways. For a given rider, on a given trip, any fall will be safer if they are wearing a helmet. However, statistically, it is argued, many falls won't be much safer. And in fact, if they feel compelled to wear a helmet, the person won't ride at all. And many of the rides the don't take would be ones where the likeliest falls are likely to not be helped much by a helmet.
I subscribe to the above reasoning. A population may be healthier if not compelled to wear helmets when cycling. But for me, I never ride without one. Ever. Short trips, long trips, commutes to work. I have mine with me now.
I don't buy the idea that requiring helmets truly reduces the number of riders long term. The kind of person who would not ride their bike because they don't want to wear a helmet is the kind of person who was only going to die for a couple of months anyway. Every dedicated rider I know wears a helmet, required or not.
Take a trip to any large city with a bike sharing program (say Paris or NYC) and you'll thousands of people renting a bike for a short ride, maybe just because they've missed the bus. As far as I know bicycle fatalities in Paris have gone down since the program was introduced even if the number of bikes on the road has increased by an order of magnitude.
Also you might not buy it, but the data is out there…
Aye, there's the rub. I would not call myself a bicyclist, and certainly not a dedicated one.
I just ride bikes when it's convenient: there's a pretty good public transport network around my city, you can walk short distances, and car traffic is also reasonable; biking supplements these three options very nicely, esp. now that there's a bike-sharing thing in the city (unlock a bike via an app, ride it wherever, lock it via the app again, minimal fuss). Lugging a helmet around, just in case I should decide to use a bike, is rather inconvenient (I tried). If there were a mandatory helmet law, it would certainly increase the gap between "casual rider" and "dedicated bicyclist," driving out people like me.
(OTOH, if I'm on a bike trip, I do have my helmet, as I usually go beyond paved streets, longer distances and probably higher speeds. Different tools for different purposes.)
TL;DR: assuming "bicycling requires dedication" reduces ridership by definition.
In Copenhagen, where everyone rides bikes (young, old, hipster, business guy, dad, child - not only "dedicated riders"), there are plenty who would bike less by simply dropping some bike rides if they choice was between bike+helmet and eg. walking, bussing or cardriving.
Urban commuters and casual bikers in Holland who wear helmets: approximately 0. I don't know what would happen if they made helmets mandatory, but subjectively, needing to put on safety equipment to go to the supermarket three blocks away, or to the pub, is a significant difference in convenience and ease. Mostly because you need to keep the helmet somewhere. In Holland this would likely mean a table for six at the pub has five helmets on or near it. Might be a small problem in the grand scale but it would be annoying.
The Dutch are able to dispense with helmets only because they have pervasive, well-maintained bicycle infrastructure and flat terrain. I'm on the fence about helmet laws in the U.S., but given our road conditions I think everyone should choose to wear one.
Sure. I think conditions vary from city to city, neighborhood to neighborhood even. That's why I don't support helmet laws. They impose inconvenience and reduce personal freedom. Holland happens to be entirely flat and suited for safe biking, so it's a good example for why helmet laws are not universally a good idea.
I think it's worth mentioning that re #1 this is because of the increased probability of falling off while riding at the limits of human reaction in a dense pack. It is also worth noting that there is no demonstrated prophylactic effect from wearing a helmet in those situations for life-threatening head injuries.
It's easy: laws or not, wear a helmet if you value your life (or brain). Every cyclist I know has a story of unexpectedly ditching. Even some of them at a dead stop, embarrassingly. I personally have cracked a helmet and walked away.
You are higher up, have less stability, and as good as you are you don't control many types of collisions (negligent/distracted drivers). It only takes a very minor fall and some bad luck to end up with brain swelling, cracked skull, or a corpse.
> Every cyclist I know has a story of unexpectedly ditching.
IIRC, the majority of injuries from cycling accidents are to the hands, arms and shoulders.
> I personally have cracked a helmet and walked away.
Which of course means nothing regarding whether you would have injured your brain. Our hair, scalps and skulls are remarkably good at protecting our brains.
> as good as you are you don't control many types of collisions (negligent/distracted drivers)
True enough, and of course a strike from a two-ton vehicle travelling 20 mph faster than one will impart far more force on one's body than a strike of a 180-pound body travelling at 18 mph will impart on the road.
Helmets are nothing more than magical safety hats; they're placebos; they're a triumph of marketing and emotion over reason and sense. If you wear a bicycle helmet, then logically you should wear a driving helmet, a walking helmet and a sleeping helmet.
"Which of course means nothing regarding whether you would have injured your brain. Our hair, scalps and skulls are remarkably good at protecting our brains."
Even so, I would rather have a cracked helmet than a cracked skull.
> You are free to make the helmet decisions you see best for yourself and loved ones.
Not when that is made illegal.
> Almost three-quarters of fatal crashes (74%) involved a head injury.
That's unsurprising, particularly if 'head injury' includes a broken neck; people rarely die from broken wrists these days.
> Nearly all bicyclists who died (97%) were not wearing a helmet.
What percentage of bicyclists don't wear helmets? What percentage of bicyclists in accidents don't wear helmets? That's important.
And of course, what percentage of cyclists who died without helmets would have lived with them? That's the only number that counts, and every bit of research indicates that helmets only make a small improvement in survivability of certain crashes, while also increasing the rate of neck injuries and the rate of accidents in general.
Yeah a helmet is sort of a hail-Mary. We say "I'm hurtling down the road at 20mph on a contraption make of pipes and sharp things, wearing shorts and a t-shirt. But I've strapped a block of Styrofoam to my head, so I'm Safe!"
Its clearly not enough. But what is? Its kind of like, you cycle, you sign up for the risk.
It's a harsh realization for some that not all risk can be abolished.
Life is risk and it is impossible to enjoy much of it if you're not prepared to take any risks.
What weirds me out is that it is always other people who wish to put limits on what kinds of risks one can take, after all, nobody stops them from wearing a helmet if they so desire and that should be all there is to it, but no, you too have to wear a helmet.
I live in the Netherlands, never ever did I see anyone with a helmet up until recently (all of a sudden people put them on their kids). I learned to ride a bike at 4, never with a helmet. I have never seen anyone with head injury. Perhaps it is because we don't go that fast, a typical bike looks like this: [0], no gears, relaxed posture. For Mountain biking I do wear a helmet, as does my 3yr old son, but not for normal biking.
"It only takes a very minor fall and some bad luck to end up with brain swelling, cracked skull, or a corpse."
I really don't believe that, you are just spreading fud, I have seen people fall but you must be pretty slow to react or go really pretty fast if you can't just put your arms in front of your head or step of a falling bike.
It's easy, never force people to wear a helmet, allow them to arrive at work with hair intact and without hassle, if you value a healthy population that enjoys bicycling (yes yes our views on that are probably the same).
You've grown up in what is probably the best place in the world to ride a bike, which makes your experience enviable but not typical. Here in the car-dominated USA it's a lot more dangerous to ride a bike because we're "sharing" the streets with fast cars that are sometimes inattentive or even aggressive. Plus, the maintenance of the streets themselves sometimes conspire against you, it's easy to lose control on a pothole or slick crosswalk marking. I have had a couple of falls where my head whacked the pavement, and was very glad I was wearing a helmet.
I categorically deny that I am spreading FUD. You are very unlikely to die in a bike accident. However, if you do, you are vastly more likely to not be wearing a helmet. Even if you have negative anecdata (absence of observed collisions/falls) that doesn't mean it doesn't happen: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2013/11/fewer_road_dea...
As far as minor falls leading to death... hopefully an EMT/medical professional can jump in or someone else can offer statistics. I wish I had time to find links/data to show you how sadly and tragically incorrect that is (cycling or not).
I will repeat: I favor bike lanes and do not strongly favor helmet laws (even though I strongly favor their use).
edit: also, if anyone can find a way to quantify how many injuries helmets have prevented, it would be awesome. Everything I found involved autopsies/hospital reports/police reports... nothing where someone crashed and the helmet prevented further injury. Also hard to tell non-fatal effects from reported data (where a fall would have been a concussion otherwise, but was not because of a helment)
Because people spend a trivial amount of time cycling vs driving on average, and because impact energy involved are generally 1-2 orders of magnitude higher.
The risk of injury is normalized by distance, so it even adds more to the argument that people should be using helmets for driving way before they should use it for driving.
Yeah, ditto. I have a couple of spectacularly smashed helmets. Although it is a hindrance sometimes, I find my brain valuable in many important life situations. I'm sticking with the helmet.
There's one problem with all reports like this - people who have a crash in a helmet and are fine usually don't report anywhere. I flew over the handlebars and hit the edge of a curb with my head - the helmet split in two but I was fine. If I didn't have a helmet on, I would be dead, I am very certain of that. Yet, my accident - like I am sure thousands of other similar - was not reported anywhere. There is no statistic that measures this. And I think it's absolutely vital for producing reports like this.
Seems like the UK has it about right then, where wearing a helmet is encouraged but not compulsory.
I do wear a helmet, even though it's a pain. Reading around I see a lot of sites claiming they are not effective, but it always seems to be secondary effects - like, cars will pass you more closely, or you will ride more riskily due to a false sense of security. Are there any studies on the actual safety record? Intuitively it seems like of course it will be better for you if you fall wearing a helmet - is this true?
I can't believe this baloney keeps coming up. Bike helmets DO save lives. There are accidents where they save people's lives. Of course there are accidents where a helmet can't save you.
Obviously as well, bike lanes are really important. It's not an either or situation. We can do both.
No this is not a logical argument. Banning biking alltogether would even save more lives, so by your logic we should ban biking. This an other studies show, that there is no especial reason to wear a helmet during normal reasonable biking. The risks for your head are not significantly worse than when walking or driving a car. You are free to wear a helmet of your choice at any of those activities, but they are not required by law for any of those.
Here is something that will help you as a cyclist, pedestrian or pretty much anything else except transportation where you're boxed in: learn how to fall. Take some judo classes and learn how to control how you hit the ground, that's everything there is to it short of blunt impact against a lamp post or something like that. If you can roll with a fall rather than simply absorbing the energy with impact or abrasion then you're much more likely to walk away from an accident either entirely unharmed or maybe with some minor injuries. It always surprises me how terribly bad people are at something as basic as falling, which we all do at least several times in our lives and which when handled badly can cause injury or death. Falling with some grace is a very important skill to have.
Also: when you're older your bones will take much less abuse before they break than when you're younger so be more careful when you get older.
Helmets on bikes: if it makes you feel better: wear one. Don't make them compulsory because the statistics are not clear-cut that wearing a helmet is a good thing in more than 50% of the cases. For kids, probably better, if you're in-experienced or insecure, probably better. If you're an adult, know your bike and you're not going for some kind of record you should have the option to cycle without.
edit: tl;dr for you obviously, but ~200 people died over 8 years in NYC. Where helmet use was noted in the police report (~ half), 97% of fatal accidents involved people not wearing helmets. Someone else can do the Bayes' numbers but it's pretty obvious. Anyway, I support bike lanes and oppose helmet laws. But I wear a helmet.
The USA is very much a bike-unfriendly country with some very small regional exceptions, and any effectiveness should be placed in a regional context.
In absence of bike-lanes a helmet probably makes sense. What also really helps is to educate drivers and to shift responsibility to the drivers of cars in car-bike collisions. If there was one factor that made bike riding safer here in NL then I'd point at that one rather than bike lanes or helmets.
one pleasant side effect is you'll be walking down the hall at the office and be thinking "i can totally do a series of judo rolls and move along quicker"
Is someone's experience that martial arts skills help in bicycle falls? For me, the falls have been too different for the experience to transfer, and I think that's mainly because I'm wrapped around a rigid bike frame.
I've had two pretty bad bike falls. The one was where I flew over the front of the bike with an emergency stop when a car turned right into the bike lane, the second when I managed to overbalance a recumbent at 45 kph (yes, that bike is that fast). In both cases I'm very happy I knew how to fall with minimal damage and I'm pretty sure I would have been off much worse if not for that. It's all about at least trying to prolong the duration of the fall rather than say sticking out your hands because that is what your reflex tells you to do (and which will likely either break a finger hand or arm or at a minimum turn it into hamburger).
So from personal experience: breaking your fall really helps, also in bicycle falls. Can you describe the way you've fallen?
One fall was a sudden stop followed by flipping the bike. The other was making a left turn while hitting a wet tram rail and going down hard on my side. In both cases I was entangled with the bike, which meant I couldn't easily tuck and roll in the way I would falling without a bike between my legs.
> Here is something that will help you as a cyclist, pedestrian or pretty much anything else except transportation where you're boxed in: learn how to fall. Take some judo classes and learn how to control how you hit the ground
This really helped me out once. I hit a patch of black ice on a badly maintained bike path while going pretty fast. I took off flying while the bike slid along the ground. My training took over, time expanded, and I had what felt like a full minute to rehearse how I would hit the ground. When I landed, I landed on ice and slid about 10 more feet. I got up with mild bruises. The bike was not so lucky --- when I picked it up I saw ball-bearings rolling around on the ground. Then I realized that one of my pedals had been ripped off the crank. Falling is far and away the most useful thing I got from martial arts training.
For what it's worth, I was wearing a helmet. It didn't strike the ground. I still wear a helmet.
I feel sad for the people on this thread advocating unconditionally for wearing a bike helmet. They must have to deal with terrible circumstances to have come to that conclusion. Apparently they can't even imagine how one could bicycle safely without a helmet.
Keep at it though. It takes a few generations for culture and road architecture to change.
I don't understand why advocate against it, which people are actually doing in this thread. It's baffling. It's like advocating against the seat belt.
It's a safety measure. It doesn't preclude better infrastructure. Yes, there should be better cycling lanes. Many countries do exactly that whenever cycling is envisioned, they build better infrastructure. But you don't wear a seat belt because the roads have potholes, you wear them because they save your life and prevent injuries regardless of road conditions.
Is it really terrible that people have to wear a helmet? Of course the focus should be on better protecting bikes (they're vastly different types of vehicles), but I'm not shedding any tears over people who claim they will stop biking because helmets ruin their hair. It's simply a basic preservation of health.
It's simply not needed in my judgement (in my place, time, circumstances, biking speed, traffic, road layout, route, car drivers are used to it, weather, quality of bikes, etc. etc.).
Millions of others, bicycling day in day out, think the same way. They're not all dumb.
> I don't understand why advocate against it, which people are actually doing in this thread.
Because cycle helmets cost money which could be better spent on just about anything. Because they reduce the number of cyclists (which is the worst possible thing to do if one wants to make cycling safer). Because they look stupid. Because forcing people to wear them is flat-out illiberal and hence wrong.
> It's like advocating against the seat belt.
I wear my seat belt, but I advocate against seat belt laws.
> Is it really terrible that people have to wear a helmet?
Yes.
> I'm not shedding any tears over people who claim they will stop biking because helmets ruin their hair. It's simply a basic preservation of health.
Do you wear a walking helmet and a driving helmet too? Have you installed non-skid in your bathtub? Statistically, those measures are more effective than a cycling helmet.
What do hospitalization rates have to do with injury rates, with respect to head injuries?
Totally anecdotal story, but when I had my last major bike crash (20mph crash during a race), I went to the ER to get checked out. I probably didn't need to go; I knew I had a concussion and lots of abrasions (and know how to treat both). This proves nothing about the efficacy of wearing a helmet.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 203 ms ] threadDid the author read the study? I can't find anyplace where it has any data about usage. In fact, the words "comply(iance)" or "usage" don't appear in the document once, in any context.
Also, it doesn't distinguish between those who always wear helmets and those who claim they use helmets at least half the time.
> Figure 2 presents the helmet use data in table 3 graphically and illustrates that helmet use was higher with helmet laws than without
"We therefore also examined the relationship between hospitalisation rates and helmet use proportions in the strata, and again did not find the expected protective effect"
"[Bike lanes] has dual advantages, both reducing injuries and encouraging cycling, an important public health goal of its own given the physical activity and environmental benefits. Comparisons between North America and the Netherlands or Denmark have long suggested that their route design focus is better at welcoming cycling and achieving lower injury rates. Many were concerned that Dutch and Danish infrastructure wouldn't have the same impact here, but there is more and more research in North America showing that it does."
E.g. around here there are some advance cycle stop zones and advance green lights for cyclists. Both are easy to implement but make a big difference to a cyclist's safety and visibility at a junction.
1. Helmets are very very useful if you're riding fast. In fact they are mandatory in all cycling sports. However most people don't commute to work going much faster than they would if running, hence they are not very useful for them.
2. In countries where helmets are compulsory, the chilling effect of risking a fine for not wearing a helmet has meant a decrease in the number of cyclists. Now, since bike accidents are relatively rare, but the health effects of cycling to work rather than driving benefit every single cyclist, helmet laws tend to have a negative effect on public health.
This said, whenever I'm going for a sporty ride (longer, or faster than usual) I usually wear a helmet. When riding 5 minutes to meet a friend for a beer I don't.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18481926
I can't find a reference with a short Googling, but as I recall helmets only help in a fairly narrow window, something like 18-23 mph or so. If one's going sufficiently fast, they're unable to do much good (because the forces are too much for a flimsy assembly of foam and plastic to reduce enough to prevent injury or death).
> In fact they are mandatory in all cycling sports.
They're the equivalent of a elephant-repelling rock.
I'd really like a citation on that. I'm into motorcycles and while helmet design is different, every motoGP season has plenty of examples of riders tumbling at +100kph and walking away after.
You could likely make the argument that over a certain speed your other body parts will sustain large enough injuries for the bike helmet to not matter, but that's not what you're arguing, you're arguing that the bike helmet itself stops working at an extremely low speed of 23 MpH or above.
I actually Googled this a bit. Cannot find anything on it.
It indicates that helmets in the U.S. are only tested for 14 mph impacts.
It's not that the helmet stops working altogether, it's that the helmet's protection really isn't sufficient. It'd be better to wear a full-face motorcycle helmet, but of course that'd be miserable on a bike.
If your torso hits a solid object at 30mph, there's about ~50% chance you'll rupture your aorta[1]. Hit something like a narrow signpost pole at 30mph and you'll be in a whole world of trouble - I'd post a link to a thread on a motorcycle forum, but it's a bit grisly. Guy survived, but he had to be opened up to treat the internal injuries.
Motorcycle helmets have mostly the same minimal impact requirements of preventing brain injury from the vertical component, but also need plenty of abrasion resistance.
[1] I heard this on London Met police BikeSafe day, a day-long course where London police do a presentation to motorcycle riders and go on an ride with a police observer. But for specific reference, see http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/research/pub/HS809012.htm... - "UK Department of Transport Traffic Advisory Leaflet 7/93 (TAU, 1993), figures quoted are, for 20 mph impact speeds: 5 percent death, 65 percent injured, and 30 percent uninjured; for 30 mph impact speeds: 45 percent death, 50 percent injured, and 5 percent uninjured"
I really don't understand all these "helmets don't help" folks, having ridden motorcycles and bikes all my life you would not catch me dead without a helmet: a helmet is not an invulnerability cloak but in the end if you fall down and hit your head and you don't have one, you are not going to be in a good place, whether you are going at walking speed or 30mph.
I have no idea if its true or not.
I'm not saying helmets don't work, I'm saying it's not very likely to hit your head at high velocity on the ground if you were going 10 km/h. And if that means you're not gonna ride a bike at all because you forgot your helmet you're probably having a higher risk of cardiovascular disease further down the line than you have of breaking your head now.
Head injuries are nothing to take lightly.
Because bikes constrain falls. Millions of years of evolution plus my own personal practice means I'm pretty good at falling safely. But when I am wrapped around a bike, a lot of that goes out of the window.
Also, I'd like to see some stats on your "not very likely". In 20 years of adult riding, I've fallen twice at low speeds hard enough to crack a helmet. And that's not counting the time as a kid I knocked myself unconscious on a low-speed ride.
> because you forgot your helmet
Is this a problem people have? When I'm not riding, I clip my helmet to my bike. This doesn't strike me as a particularly challenging habit to develop. Maybe just keep necessary equipment together? That sounds easier than trying to decide whether the odds are small enough to risk traumatic brain injury.
And in 28 years of both adult and kid riding, with some years totaling over 3000 km, I've fallen several times, even cracked a couple of ribs, but never once hit my head. See that's the problem with anecdotal evidence.
> I clip my helmet to my bike
Do that in Rome, you'll come back to find none.
I'm not the one who said "not very likely". I'm not offering my story as evidence, just as an explanation for why I'd like evidence.
> Do that in Rome, you'll come back to find none.
I was speaking of the "I am going riding now" case. In Rome can you leave your bike outside overnight? In SF you can't, so people store bikes and helmets indoors. In which case, I'd submit that storing them together is a pretty good idea.
Helmet theft might be a problem here in the "I am already out riding" case. Where I worry about that here, I clip my bike to my bag, so again it's not a "I forgot my helmet" problem.
Because if you fall over while walking, you're likely to manage to get your hands down before you head hits the ground. You have nothing to lose by getting your hands down quick.
By contrast, when you run into problems while cycling, your instinct is to try and regain control of the bike. You don't immediately drop the handlebars, You keep your hands on the bars and try to steer/brake. Moreover you're likely to go over sideways and only one hand tends to be able to break the fall.
A fall from a bike and a fall from your feet is a massively different thing.
I'm not sure whether helmets really work, and just to be on the safe side I almost always wear one, but I seem to remember one European biking site -- possibly mentioned here in HN... I forget -- where the author argued that helmets are designed to crack so that it seems they work. But, he argued, whether they crack or not bears no relation to protecting from head injuries; the crack simply leaves you satisfied that the helmet "saved" your life.
The article seemed convincing. Sadly I cannot remember where I read it.
This is also why you should replace helmets after a fall and every few years since the material they are made of degrades with age.
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1209.html
> "It's not a simple matter to draw conclusions about the benefit a broken or deformed helmet might have provided in a crash. However, the fact that serious injury to unhelmeted cyclists is as rare as helmet damage is common, suggests that most of the claims of benefit from damaged helmets are likely to be exaggerated."
> "The next time you see a broken helmet, suspend belief and do the most basic check – disregard the breakages and look to see if what's left of the styrofoam has compressed. If it hasn't, you can be reasonably sure that it hasn't saved anyone's life."
The point seems to be that anecdotes of the type "my helmet worked and saved my life, see? It's cracked" are not conclusive.
Cracking, in this case, is the expected failure model, since the material has to be hard to provide a sliding surface.
Helmets should not be re-used after a crash.
http://www.bhsi.org/ideal.htm point 5 - outer shell
The study persuades me not at all for a few reasons. 1) it's Canada, 2) it's all of Canada, and 3) it's only in-patient hospital stays.
I'm biking in a US urban area. I know that Canada's automotive death rates are lower, and I'm happy to believe that's due both to Canada's famed niceness and to a more European attitude toward infrastructure. I might also not bother with a helmet tootling along some leafy Canadian rural road, but when dealing with California's drivers in an environment that's mostly cement and metal, thanks, I'll take the helmet.
I also get the theory that in-patient hospital stays might be a good index to help decide the public benefit of helmet laws. But I don't think my helmet kept me from two hospital stays. I think it kept me from two concussions. Given the long-term cognitive effects of even nominally mild brain injury, I'm again sticking with the helmet. Those here who think themselves so smart that a) this study proves it for them, or b) they have smarts to burn are welcome to go without.
I subscribe to the above reasoning. A population may be healthier if not compelled to wear helmets when cycling. But for me, I never ride without one. Ever. Short trips, long trips, commutes to work. I have mine with me now.
Also you might not buy it, but the data is out there…
30% fewer cyclists in NZ and Australia
http://www.fubicy.org/spip.php?article191
I just ride bikes when it's convenient: there's a pretty good public transport network around my city, you can walk short distances, and car traffic is also reasonable; biking supplements these three options very nicely, esp. now that there's a bike-sharing thing in the city (unlock a bike via an app, ride it wherever, lock it via the app again, minimal fuss). Lugging a helmet around, just in case I should decide to use a bike, is rather inconvenient (I tried). If there were a mandatory helmet law, it would certainly increase the gap between "casual rider" and "dedicated bicyclist," driving out people like me.
(OTOH, if I'm on a bike trip, I do have my helmet, as I usually go beyond paved streets, longer distances and probably higher speeds. Different tools for different purposes.)
TL;DR: assuming "bicycling requires dedication" reduces ridership by definition.
In Copenhagen, where everyone rides bikes (young, old, hipster, business guy, dad, child - not only "dedicated riders"), there are plenty who would bike less by simply dropping some bike rides if they choice was between bike+helmet and eg. walking, bussing or cardriving.
You are higher up, have less stability, and as good as you are you don't control many types of collisions (negligent/distracted drivers). It only takes a very minor fall and some bad luck to end up with brain swelling, cracked skull, or a corpse.
Here is a helment advocacy group's take with links to relevant statistics, opposing views: http://www.bhsi.org/shouldi.htm
IIRC, the majority of injuries from cycling accidents are to the hands, arms and shoulders.
> I personally have cracked a helmet and walked away.
Which of course means nothing regarding whether you would have injured your brain. Our hair, scalps and skulls are remarkably good at protecting our brains.
> as good as you are you don't control many types of collisions (negligent/distracted drivers)
True enough, and of course a strike from a two-ton vehicle travelling 20 mph faster than one will impart far more force on one's body than a strike of a 180-pound body travelling at 18 mph will impart on the road.
Helmets are nothing more than magical safety hats; they're placebos; they're a triumph of marketing and emotion over reason and sense. If you wear a bicycle helmet, then logically you should wear a driving helmet, a walking helmet and a sleeping helmet.
Even so, I would rather have a cracked helmet than a cracked skull.
For everyone else, I think it's worth contemplating the statistics I linked to from NYC:
Not when that is made illegal.
> Almost three-quarters of fatal crashes (74%) involved a head injury.
That's unsurprising, particularly if 'head injury' includes a broken neck; people rarely die from broken wrists these days.
> Nearly all bicyclists who died (97%) were not wearing a helmet.
What percentage of bicyclists don't wear helmets? What percentage of bicyclists in accidents don't wear helmets? That's important.
And of course, what percentage of cyclists who died without helmets would have lived with them? That's the only number that counts, and every bit of research indicates that helmets only make a small improvement in survivability of certain crashes, while also increasing the rate of neck injuries and the rate of accidents in general.
Its clearly not enough. But what is? Its kind of like, you cycle, you sign up for the risk.
Life is risk and it is impossible to enjoy much of it if you're not prepared to take any risks.
What weirds me out is that it is always other people who wish to put limits on what kinds of risks one can take, after all, nobody stops them from wearing a helmet if they so desire and that should be all there is to it, but no, you too have to wear a helmet.
For anyone that has an interest in an informed opinion from someone that knows a small bit more about risk, please take a look at this Spiegelhalter paper: http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f3817.full?ijkey=I5vHBog6...
"It only takes a very minor fall and some bad luck to end up with brain swelling, cracked skull, or a corpse." I really don't believe that, you are just spreading fud, I have seen people fall but you must be pretty slow to react or go really pretty fast if you can't just put your arms in front of your head or step of a falling bike.
It's easy, never force people to wear a helmet, allow them to arrive at work with hair intact and without hassle, if you value a healthy population that enjoys bicycling (yes yes our views on that are probably the same).
[0] https://www.google.nl/search?q=typical+dutch+bike&source=lnm...
Edit: This video says you're 30 times more likely to be involved in an accident in the US than in the Netherlands: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2THe_10dYs
As far as minor falls leading to death... hopefully an EMT/medical professional can jump in or someone else can offer statistics. I wish I had time to find links/data to show you how sadly and tragically incorrect that is (cycling or not).
I will repeat: I favor bike lanes and do not strongly favor helmet laws (even though I strongly favor their use).
edit: also, if anyone can find a way to quantify how many injuries helmets have prevented, it would be awesome. Everything I found involved autopsies/hospital reports/police reports... nothing where someone crashed and the helmet prevented further injury. Also hard to tell non-fatal effects from reported data (where a fall would have been a concussion otherwise, but was not because of a helment)
Happy to ride my anecdotal evidence all the way to the bank.
That strongly depends on your location.
I do wear a helmet, even though it's a pain. Reading around I see a lot of sites claiming they are not effective, but it always seems to be secondary effects - like, cars will pass you more closely, or you will ride more riskily due to a false sense of security. Are there any studies on the actual safety record? Intuitively it seems like of course it will be better for you if you fall wearing a helmet - is this true?
Obviously as well, bike lanes are really important. It's not an either or situation. We can do both.
One statement: Bike helmet laws do not help rider safety. Another statement: If you, the individual, crash, then wearing a helmet can save your life.
These are not contradictory.
Also: when you're older your bones will take much less abuse before they break than when you're younger so be more careful when you get older.
Helmets on bikes: if it makes you feel better: wear one. Don't make them compulsory because the statistics are not clear-cut that wearing a helmet is a good thing in more than 50% of the cases. For kids, probably better, if you're in-experienced or insecure, probably better. If you're an adult, know your bike and you're not going for some kind of record you should have the option to cycle without.
edit: tl;dr for you obviously, but ~200 people died over 8 years in NYC. Where helmet use was noted in the police report (~ half), 97% of fatal accidents involved people not wearing helmets. Someone else can do the Bayes' numbers but it's pretty obvious. Anyway, I support bike lanes and oppose helmet laws. But I wear a helmet.
In absence of bike-lanes a helmet probably makes sense. What also really helps is to educate drivers and to shift responsibility to the drivers of cars in car-bike collisions. If there was one factor that made bike riding safer here in NL then I'd point at that one rather than bike lanes or helmets.
People are simply much more careful around bikes.
one pleasant side effect is you'll be walking down the hall at the office and be thinking "i can totally do a series of judo rolls and move along quicker"
So from personal experience: breaking your fall really helps, also in bicycle falls. Can you describe the way you've fallen?
This really helped me out once. I hit a patch of black ice on a badly maintained bike path while going pretty fast. I took off flying while the bike slid along the ground. My training took over, time expanded, and I had what felt like a full minute to rehearse how I would hit the ground. When I landed, I landed on ice and slid about 10 more feet. I got up with mild bruises. The bike was not so lucky --- when I picked it up I saw ball-bearings rolling around on the ground. Then I realized that one of my pedals had been ripped off the crank. Falling is far and away the most useful thing I got from martial arts training.
For what it's worth, I was wearing a helmet. It didn't strike the ground. I still wear a helmet.
Keep at it though. It takes a few generations for culture and road architecture to change.
It's a safety measure. It doesn't preclude better infrastructure. Yes, there should be better cycling lanes. Many countries do exactly that whenever cycling is envisioned, they build better infrastructure. But you don't wear a seat belt because the roads have potholes, you wear them because they save your life and prevent injuries regardless of road conditions.
Is it really terrible that people have to wear a helmet? Of course the focus should be on better protecting bikes (they're vastly different types of vehicles), but I'm not shedding any tears over people who claim they will stop biking because helmets ruin their hair. It's simply a basic preservation of health.
Millions of others, bicycling day in day out, think the same way. They're not all dumb.
Because cycle helmets cost money which could be better spent on just about anything. Because they reduce the number of cyclists (which is the worst possible thing to do if one wants to make cycling safer). Because they look stupid. Because forcing people to wear them is flat-out illiberal and hence wrong.
> It's like advocating against the seat belt.
I wear my seat belt, but I advocate against seat belt laws.
> Is it really terrible that people have to wear a helmet?
Yes.
> I'm not shedding any tears over people who claim they will stop biking because helmets ruin their hair. It's simply a basic preservation of health.
Do you wear a walking helmet and a driving helmet too? Have you installed non-skid in your bathtub? Statistically, those measures are more effective than a cycling helmet.
One fell off a low bridge and the other was riding causally along and somehow ended up going over the bars and hitting her head on the curb.
Seeing just one of these was all the reason I needed to never ride without a helmet.
I wear a couple types depending on what sort of riding I'm doing (mountain, road, racing) they are MIPS equipped when ever available.
Totally anecdotal story, but when I had my last major bike crash (20mph crash during a race), I went to the ER to get checked out. I probably didn't need to go; I knew I had a concussion and lots of abrasions (and know how to treat both). This proves nothing about the efficacy of wearing a helmet.