Tell HN: Wear a Helmet
I started commuting to work on my bicycle earlier this year and was not wearing a helmet for the first few weeks. A coworker gave me a hard time about it and I finally decided I should get one.
My chain broke on my short ride home today for lunch leaving me quickly unbalanced and on the ground in a hurry. My helmeted head definitely hit the ground and would likely have been badly injured had I not been wearing it.
I am very thankful that my coworker pressured me to wear what I thought was fairly unnecessary due to my short commute and safe riding habits.
If you ride a bicycle, please wear a helmet.
188 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 247 ms ] thread> Helmets are one-use items [...] If the helmet has been involved in an impact while in use, replace it.
Headlights aren't a bad idea either.
In my own personal anecdotes, I have had one major bicycle wreck where I somersaulted into a car, one bicycle wreck where my chain snapped and I flung myself over the bars onto the street, and a couple of low-speed (~10mph) motorcycle offs where I collided with the ground but my head did not touch. Though there was one motorcycle case where the side of my helmet dragged on the ground slightly from about 5mph; it's arguable whether my head would have hit.
That said, I have hit my head incredibly hard snowboarding, after catching an edge at very low speed ("last run of the day!" type thing), and always always always wear a helmet every single time I ride a bicycle or motorcycle or snowboard, just as I always wear a seatbelt in the car. It's just a habit, and a good one.
I certainly don't disagree with him, or with you, that there are plenty of other safety aspects to consider while cycling, but I'd always wear a helmet anyway.
In Ireland there are lots of bike safety campaigns and messages but the two things that have contributed most to the uptake of cycling have been the Bike to Work scheme (tax free bikes) and the Dublin Bikes (city bike rental) scheme. Arguably, the increase in the number of cyclists has done more for cycling safety than all the efforts of the campaigns.
Their assertion was that this boiled down to: do you want open head trauma or closed head trauma?
I'm not so sure that it's quite that simplistic, but seeing the data on how the helmet industry is needlessly hamstrung by outdated standards from 30 year old standards bodies is pretty startling and depressing. This alone should make you reconsider your notions of how safe your helmet really makes you.
(Of course, I still wear mine.)
Exibit one, Kam Chancellor, The Touchdown Canceller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mThE69llX34
While it will never happen, what if they considered removing helmets from the game? - These guys would be so much more cautious (e.g., Rugby) of how they hit. Tons of injuries still? Sure, but I'd be willing to guess a massive decrease in major head trauma.
Back to bikes, regardless of the data, I'm still protecting my own head whenever I'm commuting while not protected by a steel cage.
Having said all that, my experience with rugby players is that there is a certain bravado about injuries, that if you haven't cracked a few ribs, broken a clavicle, had a stud through your cheek, etc. then you aren't playing hard enough; and should therefore buy the next round
The same is not true of motorcycle helmets. The forces involved in motorcycle accidents are a lot higher, so fewer accidents are survivable even with a helmet. Motorcycle helmets also make you feel fucking invincible, so I can definitely see why people would take more risks.
If you convince me otherwise I'll start wearing a helmet in the car and advocating other people do so too.
[1] http://www.jefftk.com/p/car-helmets
Because, of course, walkers are elevated and moving at 20 to 30 km/h on an inherintly unstable platform.
Many on my cycle run have been attaching go-pro mounts to their skull cover; I wonder how ineffective it renders the helmet if you landed straight on it.
Of course, this is very hard to prove.
Your head is arguably the most important part of your body. I'd like for it to be socially acceptable to wear a helmet at all times.
My helmet hit the ground hard, I was perfectly fine.
The ambulance guys were pretty sure I would not have been if not for the helmet.
Please, wear a helmet.
The helmet took all the impact and my head was perfectly fine (my knees then hit the ground and got scuffed up a bit). Had I not been wearing it...
So yes - please wear a helmet.
My wife works in healthcare and has worked in settings looking after patients with acquired brain injuries and she always tells anyone (even if she barely knows you) to wear a helmet. She's met too many young people turned into living vegetables or something similar to idly stand by and watch people take that risk.
Taking the lane when it is unsafe for others to pass is in fact one of the most important rules of defensive riding.
Despite driving in the middle it still happened to me when I was younger and I could luckily jump of the bike when the car hit me as he took the exit.
Interesting, the opposite is true in my case. In London (England) it's usually the Lycra-and-helmet set I see lane splitting and light-jumping.
At the hospital they reconstructed my accident and wouldn't you know: I fell on my occiput; elbow shattered as a subsequent side effect. Since I had had the helmet on I hadn't even noticed; without the helmet, well, I wouldn't have noticed either. I went back and looked at the helmet and the foam was damaged at the back of the head (it had absorbed a bunch of K.E.) and the back of th helmet had grit embedded.
Needless to say I ALWAYS wear my helmet.
Or you know, don't, because you've got perfectly safe bicycle infrastructure and you're never going faster than 20 km/h anyway.
What works for you is not a universal law.
You know how this bicycle helmet issue always turns into a shouting match on the internet? I think it's to a large extent because people don't have the empathy to see themselves in the situation of a bicyclist on the other side of the world, in a different automotive culture, with different laws and history.
That said: http://www.vehicularcyclist.com/hfaq.html and a variety of research suggesting that helmet laws reduce ridership which causes far more cost (in heart disease and inactivity ailments) than the lack of helmets.
I do wear a helmet while road biking but that's a whole different topic.
http://www.bhsi.org/stats.htm
In the Netherlands, 1/4 of all trips, and 8% of all distances traveled, are by bicycle, so the numbers reported there are hard to compare to other countries.
What level of fatalities and head injuries would count as "not a horror story" to you? What level of fatalities by running or jogging would count as "not a horror story" to you?
(BTW, the statistics only list "head/brain injury". I presumed that a scratch on the chin would count as a head injury. Also, the text under "And more from the same paper" does not exist in the referenced paper. The text says the 'estimates are partly based on research carried out in countries like the United States and Australia', so don't really reflect the infrastructure.
"67,000 casualties of cycling crashes are treated at a first-aid department (Source: Injury Information System LIS), 8,000 cyclists are admitted to hospital (Source: National Medical Registration LMR), and 190 people die as a consequence of a cycling crash (Source Statistics Netherlands – Unnatural deaths). Of the seriously injured bicycle casualties2 admitted to hospital, a third were diagnosed with head or brain injuries (32%). "
We can assume 'seriously injured' does not include scratched chins.
The Netherlands has a cheaper health care than the US. Do people go to the first-aid department for minor problems more often than they do in the US?
For example, in college I cut my figure once while cutting a loaf of bread with a hard crust. I was on the campus medical plan. I walked to the campus medical center and got a single stitch. Had I had to drive some place, and pay $100 in co-pay, then I would have waited longer and perhaps not gotten it.
The text says "Of the cyclists with serious injury who are admitted to hospital following a crash with motorized traffic, almost half (47%) are diagnosed with head/brain injury". It doesn't say that they only have a head/brain injury. Could be a broken collarbone and facial injury? The relevant Table 1 in the paper says "Annual number of cyclists admitted to hospital with head/brain injuries as main or second diagnosis", emphasis mine.
So no, we cannot, based on the presented data, assume that the head/brain injury is the serious injury.
In the US in 2012, 4,743 pedestrians and 726 bicyclists were killed in crashes with motor vehicles. http://www.pedbikeinfo.org/data/factsheet_crash.cfm . Do those raw numbers mean that bikes are safer than walking, in case of a car crash?
Certainly not. It needs to be scaled by amount of time that people are on a bike, vs. walking. More people walk in the US than cycle. "There are 127 million walking trips and nine million bike trips in the U.S. every day (2009 NHTS)." http://www.pedbikeinfo.org/data/factsheet_general.cfm .
While in the Netherlands, some 25% of trips are by bike, and 20% by foot, and 8% of all distances are covered by bike. See http://books.google.com/books?id=apGsBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA352&lpg=P... .
Tell me how to combine all that data to get a horror story. Because it's proved to be too complicated for me to figure it out based on what I can see.
My own experience in the Netherlands is that biking there is a joy. It feels very safe compared to biking in the US.
I see nothing about if "generally implies" means 5% or 95%. Do you? I assume it's "more than 50%", so I went to the referenced paper. That says:
> In Table 2 head injury is the most general injury category which may also include injury to the back of the head, face and brain (some studies consider facial injury as a head injury, other studies do not). Brain injury specifically refers to the brain, and facial injury specifically refers to injury to the face (chin, nose mouth, jaws, eyes, forehead, ears). Elvik compared the risk proportions of a specific injury occurring or not occurring
In Table 2, however, you'll see that brain injury appears to be less common than non-brain injuries involving the head.
However, Table 2 is a metadata analysis with insufficient few brain injury studies to "allow correction for publication bias", and not specific to the Netherlands. (A copy of the paper is at http://www.cycle-helmets.com/elvik.pdf .) Therefore it can't be used to conclude anything about the situation in the Netherlands.
You'll also notice that point 3 of the conclusion in Elvik reads "When the analysis is updated by adding four new studies, the protective effects attributed to bicycle helmets are further reduced. According to the new studies, no overall effect of bicycle helmets could be found when injuries to head, face or neck are considered as a whole."
So, no, I don't know. I ask how you know when that information isn't available in the papers you cited.
Where is the horror story?
Otherwise, if some lesser number is not a horror story, then please explain why 190 dead people is a horror story. Roughly what level would not be a horror story, but 'merely' tragic?
Is that level based also on the number of trips, or amount of distance traveled bike? Or is it simply the absolute number of deaths? How does that compare to the number of people who die by walking, running, swimming, or kayaking?
We cannot eliminate all risk. What level is acceptable? You seem to suggest that no risk is acceptable. The vast majority of the world seems to disagree with you.
For a safe infrastructure, see how Amsterdam and Copenhagen have bike lines which are independent of traffic and of pedestrians, including it own bridges and overpasses. See also how routes are arranged so that cycle and pedestrian routes are more direct than car routes, how bikes have right-of-way over cars, and how limited speed limits and narrow roads keep cars from going fast in roads which are shared with cycles.
Also, it wasn't only "perfectly safe bicycle infrastructure" but also "and you're never going faster than 20 km/h". That's a 3 minute km or 5 minute mile, which is slower than many people can sprint, and slower than the fastest marathon paces. It's hard to understand why cyclists, on their own paths, need a helmet when runners who might pass them do not.
I don't find where "falling off a bike almost always ends up head-first." My own injuries seem more of the slip on an icy or wet patch and fall on my side variety.
Looking around, according to http://books.google.com/books?id=cxn2dKfCg1AC&lpg=PA138&ots=... "gravel rash" on the hips, knees, butt, and elbows is the most common injury.
Bruising, cuts, and breaks (collarbone, ribs, and wrists, in that order) are relatively less common. I don't get a sense that head-first events top the list.
Regarding statistics: http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1012.html has some useful pointers. Conclusion: "Despite the considerable effort that has been put into research about cycle helmets, there is no real-world evidence that helmets have ever resulted in the net saving of even a single life. However, if helmets were actually effective, then many more pedestrian and motor vehicle occupant lives could be expected to be saved if these groups wore helmets."
When I had an internally geared hub, I had it fail on a steep uphill where I was standing to get enough torque down, where it essentially went into neutral, similar to a chain snapping. This almost threw me off the bicycle. Netherlands, relatively flat.
I've since switched to a road bicycle and traveling at higher speeds. Once a taxi blindly crossed in front of me, sending me hurtling over the taxi. I landed on my head, lost consciousness briefly. Helmet was deformed. Without it, the outcome would have been much more catastrophic.
Another incident, this time going slowly down a steep mountain road, while tightening my line to avoid an oncoming car, the front wheel slipped on leaves sending me down to ground. Landed mostly on my side but helmet hit the ground really hard, enough to stun me. The inner support of the helmet broke mostly free of the outer shell but stayed in place because of the chin strap. This too could have ended badly with no cell phone reception for about 15km and a civilization 30km away.
Anyways... it depends on use case. Over here in Tokyo, the utility bicycles and cyclists are just like the Netherlands. Sedate pace, low number of incidents. The roadies and faster cycle commuters have necessary equipment including helmets, safety glasses, gloves, blinkers, and lamps.
I recognize I have a higher risk profile and take on extra precautions.
if you have a 0 dollar brain, wear 0 dollar head protection.
Good – if you know the routes you generally try to ride with other cyclists, safety in numbers. Plus the wide green lanes help make it abundantly clear to cars that this is a bike lane.
Bad – the other streets turn into crazy biking gambles. Every once and while I see someone riding on Guerrero and want to yell at them to go one street over (Valencia) and reduce your collision chances. It emboldens bicyclists to not follow the law quite as well, or maybe since the sample size is high, I don't know.
Dr Ian Walker did some experiments with a bike fitted with an ultrasound distance meter and found cars kept a greater distance to people with long hair.
http://drianwalker.com/overtaking/overtakingprobrief.pdf
Alternatively, fit your bike with a flame thrower - https://www.eta.co.uk/2010/09/29/bond-bicycle-boasts-ejector...
However, when Dutch cyclists do go fast, they wear helmets. In Dutch there are even separate words for everyday cyclist (fietser) and speed cyclists (wielrenner):
http://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/lycra-on-the-st...
I live in Seattle, where we have killer hills and shitty bike infrastructure. I always wear a helmet, and I've had three minor crashes that would have been major crashes without a helmet. When I finally move to the Netherlands, I'm not bringing my helmet with me.
If anything, an American who is a n00b on the scene will probably stand out by going slower than the locals, out of sheer fear.
You'd be crazy to cycle around in a place like Shanghai without a helmet.
(Also, the helmets you buy in America are made in China so why wouldn't you get one if you're in China, haha.)
You could also be struck by a motorist. Granted, Dutch drivers are more aware of cyclists, but people still make mistakes.
Simply put, the helmet is a political device invoked to get rid of cyclists on public streets and mask the actual risk (cars, by many orders of magnitude, and not only to cyclists, but also pedestrians). As astute people have noticed, helmets are basically absent in countries that have sane city infrastructure transport design and dedicate just a fraction of the resources to making cycling possible for everyone.
But we can't expect people to ask for that infrastructure when they don't even know what it should look like. You note "Dutch drivers are more aware of cyclists", missing the most important feature of Dutch infra: there is physical separation that makes the mistakes of human car drivers (universally useless) mostly riskless.
What?
This is actually quantifiable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort. According to this article.
6 miles by motorbike, 17 miles by walking 10 miles (or 20 miles, there seems to be disagreement) by bicycle and 230 miles by car are all approximately the same risk of death. Stairs isn't mentioned specifically.
Also I think there's a pretty good argument for stopping with a helmet. I don't have any data but I strongly suspect that it's the single best thing you can do to decrease risk of death.
The one bicycle-car collision I was closest to (my friend was in front and was hit) was on this sort of bike path. His quick reaction put him on the hood of a truck instead of into the grill.
As for helmet as oppression, I heard noise like that about 20 years ago. Damn gubmint! Next thing they'll take our guns!
Helmet, always, every time.
This is some of the worst logic I've seen on here in a while. I'll keep an eye open for your Tell HN post "I should have wore a helmet"
So, it's not exactly like saying I don't wear a seatbelt because I drive the speed limit. Rather it's like saying I don't wear a seat belt because I live in a different country where accidents are less probable.
I do a lot of downhill mountain biking, snowboarding, etc, so I'm not one of these people that tends to be overly worried about safety, but whenever I get on wheels or something that can easily slide out of control I wear a helmet, period. I'm (pun intended) painfully aware of the amount of impact force a rotational component can add to an otherwise relatively low-speed, low-altitude fall.
Maybe the drivers are more cognizant of bikers in the Netherlands vs the US, but I still wouldn't trust them, they are not infallible and it only takes one of them one fuckup to mess me up. A helmet is a very effective (though non-perfect) fail-safe for this that costs virtually nothing (amortized over time of use before it is needed, hopefully never) and has no real downside other than pure cosmetics.
I doubt that has changed for the better for the USA since.
(Found via http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2008/09/three-types-of-..., a great article on safety on a great site about dutch cycling infrastructure and culture)
When in the US, where nobody is used to bikers, and there are no bikelanes: wear a helmet, when in The Netherlands: nobody does it.
And of course, the infrastructure is way different in the Netherlands, as is the culture. The fraction of car drivers that has regularly ridden a bicycle through traffic probably is very close to 100%; the fraction that has done so recently or has a kid that has done so probably still is over fairly high.
Net effect is that, despite all those helmetless cyclists (many of which break traffic laws many times a trip), dutch traffic is one of the safest in the world.
Its conclusion: "In jurisdictions where cycling is safe, a helmet law is likely to have a large unintended negative health impact. In jurisdiction where cycling is relatively unsafe, helmets will do little to make it safer and a helmet law, under relatively extreme assumptions may make a small positive contribution to net societal health." The negative health impact is "increased morbidity due to foregone exercise from reduced cycling" as a consequence of mandatory bicycle helmet laws.
<a href='http://iptrading.com/sell-ipv4/' >http://iptrading.com/sell-ipv4/</a>
The right question is, when was the last time you fell while out for a walk, or crashed into something, such that you banged your head?
When was the last time you needed brakes in order to come to a stop when out for a walk?
It's a matter of degree. Many random accidents could probably have been prevented by helmets, but we do not advise pedestrians to wear them.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8799597?dopt=Abstract
From the paper: "CONCLUSIONS: There is no justification for compelling cyclists to wear helmets without taking steps to improve the safety of all road users."
I had a bad one in October 2013. Going downhill on a wet pavement and into a corner. The bike just skidded out from under me. Luckily, the car behind me was far enough to be able to avoid me.
The back of my helmet hit the pavement quite hard. I heard quite a loud sound and was a little dazed as a result. That would have been very bad without a helmet. There isn't anything I could have done to protect my head in that situation, like choose to fall differently.
I had a huge black bruise covering much of my right hip, and a pain in the right side of my rib cage that lasted into the following spring.
But here's an anecdote for you.
I grew up in a large town in Australia where bicycling was very popular. I rode everywhere and had paper runs. I don't remember anyone having a serious accident. At 17 I went to University in Sydney and rode everywhere; again no helmet and no accidents.
In Amsterdam I had one big crash; my wheel went between the cracks on the footpath and I face-planted into the concrete and took a lot of bark off my face.
What does that tell you? Perhaps nothing :-)
I'm a severe traumatic brain injury survivor. I was wearing a helmet (skiing crash) but lived with the effects for two years. It was incredibly frustrating -- I was surrounded by loving friends and family that cared enough to give me some painful feedback.
I'm still skiing and researched helmets in depth before returning. There's some interesting technology called MIPS[1]. The protect against moving impacts, a large improvement. Current helmets are just dropped straight down and these helmets are tested while spinning/moving/etc. That's how crashes happen -- while you're moving, whether it be on skis or on a bike.
It's a little more expensive, but it's your brain. Please protect that.
[1]:http://www.mipshelmet.com
http://www.bhsi.org/mips.htm
So yeah, don't play around... just wear the damn helmet. That's my advice anyway.
Also, get a better bicycle for commuting; chains should not break after a few weeks. This shows that the bicycle had been heavily used, or is an ancient rust bucket, and may be a "bicycle shaped object" to begin with.
I carry a Park chain linkpin press tool for opening and closing chain links. Though occasions for using that on the road are rare if the chain is well-maintained and replaced regularly, not long ago I had a fairly new chain derail off the front ring, and by some unfortunate combination of events get itself into a tight kink which jammed and caused a link to bend severely. Having the tool, I was able to splice out and discard the bent link, and be on my merry way. I also carry a short piece of chain that was left over from the original chain installation, because there is only so many links you can throw away before the chain gets too short.
When you get a new chain, the rear gear cluster should be changed at the same time, since they wear together. A new chain can slip on old sprockets even if the old chain didn't. The front rings have to be changed maybe once every three chain changes.
$200 for a decent bike might be a stretch, but $300 definitely gets you in that range.
They buy them at the little shops.
> and lack of overall consumerism.
Feature, not bug.
It needs front and rear lights, fenders, chain guard, and likely a built-in lock. It also needs to be able to stand up to being outside in the rain for long periods of time.
While a bike in the US, used only for sunny days and by people who aren't wearing office clothes, and which is stored in the garage or basement, doesn't have the same requirements.
I love the trickle down effect in bicycling. I got my 2001 Trek 5200 for ~ $1000. The components are a bit behind, but I'd be happy to ride the carbon-fiber frameset for the next 10 years!
I had a huffy bike (walmart style) that lasted 10 years of heavy riding, before it was stolen. Replaced it with a $200 restored 80's Raleigh road bike that I got by a side-of-the-highway bike shop.
Never really understood the masses that go to a shiny hipster bike shop and pay $700-1000 for a brand-new basic commuter. There are so many used bikes out there that need loving owners.
One of the main advantages of buying used bikes is that people actually used to build bikes properly so they last 43 years with all stock parts.
I didn't own a car when I bought my bike and I rode it most 10-15 miles most every day for 2 years. Now 5 years later I still ride it at least twice a week, and the only replacements I have needed to do is 1 set of pedals, and the usual tire stuff.
I wear my helmet mostly because of safety, but also because it is a bit like having a towel when traveling, police think you are a serious biker and never stop you.
+1 funny
I've never heard of chains slipping teeth, most notably because it would need to slip all teeth in contact at once (8-20 of them).
If you are having your chain slip off, you need to adjust your deraileur.
I still wouldn't consider a cassette something you should change as a matter of regular maintenance. Certainly not as often as a chain. I've had cassettes last through multiple wheelsets.
I have experience with this. Changed a freewheel on a bike, but not the chain, which was stretched. 11 months (!) later, the freewheel was garbage.
Measure your chain with an old style American ruler (with 'inches'). Twenty links should be exactly 10 'inches'. [0] If it's 1/8" 'inch' longer, replace the chain. If it's 3/16 'inch' longer, replace the rear cogs and the chain both. Consider replacing the front chain rings, too, especially if the chain is longer or they're made of aluminium.
A stretched chain ruins gears. Ruined gears will ruin a new chain, too. Proper maintenance fixes both problems. New quality chains cost about US$10-15.
[0] Wikipedia says one 'inch' is 2.54 centimeters, if you believe that.
My most recent experience with new-chain/old-cluster was that the chain skipped a tooth three times per pedal revolution! Replaced gears, problem solved.
To go buy the new gears, I first had to temporarily put back the old chain, to make the bike ridable. :)
Adjusting the derailleur can help; in particular the "B tension" adjustment to get the jockey wheel to track the gear cluster more closely for more wrap. However, if it's that bad, it won't help.
I have decent experience adjusting derailleurs. Even taking apart the non-adjustable ones and drilling holes in new places to change spring tensions.
> 8-20 of them
You're not going to get 8 teeth of contact on an 11 tooth cog, nor 20 teeth of contact on a 26 tooth ring.
Other than Reddit style white knighting why did you say this?
You are basically defaulting to the OP is to stupid to know helmets are one use only, which is common knowledge.
This is a post intended to tell people to wear helmets in the first place. I don't think the target audience is likely to be aware of that tidbit either.
Personally I'm a firm believe people who assume others are stupid without proof are the real stupid ones.
It was white knight style, lets get karma and pretend OP is to dumb to look after themselves, I'll be the hero and give them condensing advice.
No mention of helmet reuse was in the original post at all.
Completeness is a Good Thing, it's unclear why you're bent out of shape about it.
Now buy a new helmet and go get your head checked (literally, a helmet will protect against a skull fracture but not a concussion or other brain injuries)
On a side note, the situation in which the accident happened could have happened likewise in the Netherlands, it was on the flat and I was on a driver lane, except maybe that it was driver negligance that could have been avoided if drivers where more accustomed to bicyclists.
The following day, one side of my body was covered in contusions, and I had a severe phone-shaped hematoma on my thigh.
I have every reason to believe that wearing a helmet prevented a serious brain injury. Also, Otterbox makes a pretty good product.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highsider
There was nothing I could do to prevent the impact, as I've trained myself to pull my money makers under me in a fall and let my body take the hit (the broken finger got wrapped up in the brake lever on the way down). There was something preventative that I could do in case of an impact, and boy am I glad I did: wear a helmet.
I used to reach out my hands when falling, but now I tuck them in and lead with my shoulder. that was my first major fall, but it's something that I would repeat to myself in my head while riding. In the aforementioned case, I was falling sideways and forwards. I suppose if I were leading with my head I would try to break the fall with my hands. I don't know; it all comes down to muscle memory, subliminal reaction, and how bad I'm freaking out at the time.
Martial arts training (judo would be a good one) can help a lot here.
There are also a lot of context specific tricks you can pick up. Like if you fall skiing or snowboarding make a fist when you put your hand down instead of falling with an open hand. A fist vs. open hand won't make much of a different on snow, and the fist will stop fingers/thumbs from catching and breaking. In addition the wrist is less likely to break.
On a side note, I've actually been thinking of taking up martial arts training.