Helmet use post Richardson death

General cycling advice ( NOT technical ! )
Jack
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Re: Helmet use post Richardson death

Post by Jack »

gilesjuk wrote:At least I feel I have done all I can do, if someone else is negligent and knocks me off then it's not my fault.


But it would be if you weren't wearing a helmet?

I spent most of my working life advising on occupational h&s. IMHO most people are 'risk illiterate' over reacting to small risks but ignoring much greater risks. The general public seems to assume helmets must be beneficial in all circumstances whereas the evidence suggests they are beneficial in limited circumstances (which was indeed recognised by the judge in the recent case cited above).

I usually wear a helmet now partly for the reasons put forward by Thirdcrank but mainly because I think that the likelyhood of me having an incident exposing my head to the type of damage for which the helmet is most effective (ie contact with the ground at around 20 kph) is such that it is prudent! A few years ago I had a fairly serious cycling accident. The first question everyone asked was 'were you wearing a helmet'; I was but then it wasn't my head that struck the tree stump - it was my shoulder. (Had it been my head I think the helmet would have been immaterial as I was going much faster than it could have coped with and anyway my neck would probably have been broken). However, having considered the whole accident carefully I think that if I had not been wearing a helmet I would probably not have been riding so fast and I would probably have stayed on the road. I think risk compensation does have a significant effect even when you can see that it makes no sense to behave in such a way when considering it rationally (in my case after the event).

gilesjuk wrote:I wasn't talking about cycling anyway, there are many preventable injuries which merely require you to wear protection. gloves, eye protection etc..


The primary aim should be to prevent accidents not ameliorate the affects. PPE - and here I'm thinking of occupational h&s but I think there are lessons in this context - can lead to employers not properly managing h&s, instead putting responsibility on employees to reduce the effect of the injury.
gilesjuk
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Re: Helmet use post Richardson death

Post by gilesjuk »

It's worth reading this:

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/papers/c2023.pdf

It does point out that if helmets don't work then it's the fault of the EU standards. They do seem to be pretty poor standards.
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meic
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Re: Helmet use post Richardson death

Post by meic »

The tests are written to support the helmets AS THEY EXIST now.
It said a penetration test is not undergone as it is meaningless with this type of helmet.
So it is decided that we should wear this type of helmet and if it offers no protection from a particular type of threat then that type of threat is ignored.
If we were to have a new cycle helmet standard it should start from what actually harms cyclists in real life and then work to providing protection against such threats.

As a material scientist myself, I dont think that we should have the last word in an argument that involves medical aspects. However I agree with the material scientist who argued that a helmet in a particular circumstance failed to give any protection at all.
The decision would be based on absorbed energy and if the hat didnt deform then it probably didnt absorb any energy. When we are presented by an expanded polystyrene helmet snapped in half, it may look dramatic but the amount of energy to snap a block of expanded polystyrene, well you must have done it yourself and know how easy it is.
What a good fitting helmet will do is spread the force equally over the whole area and stop it concentrating on one painfull point.
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whoops
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Re: Helmet use post Richardson death

Post by whoops »

I guess the bottom line is DOES A CYCLING HELMET SAVE YOUR SKULL AND BRAIN IN THE CASE OF AN ACCIDENT? If it does, then I'll buy one tomorrow. Any other argument for/against is contrived, subjective and pointless, in my opinion.

I think, in my opinion, the above quote from emergency pants' message, about sums it all up, really. On that point, I shall not bother to carry on reading anymore on this topic.

PS. Should it be emergency pants' message?
OR should it be emergency pants's message?
glueman
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Re: Helmet use post Richardson death

Post by glueman »

How long before cycling tops have lightweight body armour as motorcyclists do? Seriously. Damage to internal organs would be much reduced. Still don't fancy any.
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Si
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Re: Helmet use post Richardson death

Post by Si »

john28july wrote:Hello,
My agreement in full for the above.
However I should like to point out, that you are wasting your time with your views on here as all you will get is a response from no hopers who will blast you for your view.
They all think that they are immortal and outside of the need for some safety attempt. I would also like to say that in my experience that its a waste of time trying to convert the ungodly!
John.............. :cry:



Ah, see, I was right. Why put forward a reasoned argument when a bit of name calling will do instead? I think that such posts do little other than to portray the poster as someone who can't put forward a reasoned argument, can't listen to a reasoned argument, and just wants to shout others down. I'm sure that you are an intelligent person John, with interesting views, but such posts do little to convince others that your views have any worth or merit.

It always goes the same way with helmet threads, give it a couple of pages and the name calling starts. The one or two intellegent points that are made get lost in the morass. So here's the skinny: I don't have the time or the inclination to carefully pick out the questionable bits of people's posts and ask them to change them. Any more name calling and the whole post gets binned off. Repeated bad behavior by the same poster might even see us trying out the sin-bin banning functions of the new forum. Sorry to be so blunt and authoritarian, but we've been through it all on helmet threads before and if we can't play nice then we aren't going to play at all.
gilesjuk
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Re: Helmet use post Richardson death

Post by gilesjuk »

I think I'll summarise:

Cycle helmets are seen as being protection, they offer very minimal protection. There are those who think it's better than nothing, there are those who think it isn't (they make cyclists look protected to drivers who assume the helmets are as good at motorbike helmets).

What is a scandal is that the public are pretty ignorant of how ineffective they are (I was until I did more reading). If they were advertised with an indication of how ineffective in RTAs they are then there would be an uproar and more development would be done.

So surely this is something worth creating a campaign about?
kwackers
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Re: Helmet use post Richardson death

Post by kwackers »

gilesjuk wrote:So surely this is something worth creating a campaign about?


More helmet development?

I think the problem is if you're cycling you don't want something hot and heavy on yer bonce, otherwise we'd simply wear motorcycle crash helmets!

Whilst I'm sure improvements are possible, I can't see them being particularly worthwhile if we keep the same 'open' design and weight...
gilesjuk
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Re: Helmet use post Richardson death

Post by gilesjuk »

Well it can be a campaign to inform owners of the helmets or potential purchasers of them as to what they protect against and what they don't.

Inform drivers that the helmets are ineffective in a crash with a car.
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MikewsMITH2
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Re: Helmet use post Richardson death

Post by MikewsMITH2 »

I have been cycling for 50 years now and only bought a helmet last year. Main reason is as a parent I have always insisted my kids wear helmets. I don't know how effective they are, but I wouldn't forgive myself if they got a head injury while cycling and a helmet might've prevented it. As my son has got to the age when he believes he should decide for himself, it would be hypocritical to ask him to wear his if I didn't wear one. Cycling on the roads is much more dangerous than it was 50, 30, 20 or even 10 years ago. I don't ever want to find out whether helmets work, but my question is how many of you are that confident enough that they don't work, to take the risk of letting your kids ride without one?
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thirdcrank
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Re: Helmet use post Richardson death

Post by thirdcrank »

MikewsMITH2 wrote:how many of you are that confident enough that they don't work, to take the risk of letting your kids ride without one?


My children are both in their thirties so I cannot answer that with certainty. Were I in that position now, I would definitely want my childern to wear a helmet for the same reason that I do - to give the victim blamers less to crow about although I fancy many of them would ban children from cycling. I do think that children are more likely than adults to fall and bump their heads whatever they do, but I've never heard it suggested, for instance, that they should wear helmets when climbing the 'Jungle Jim' (as we used to call it) in the park or doing similar adventurous things. My younger son once fell off the garage roof at a friend's house. He sprained his ankle. It never occurred to me to look for a helmet.

To turn the question around, I do not believe for a moment that wearing a helmet provides a jot of extra protection from the increasing danger you highlight - the increase of road traffic. When my children were small and out cycling with me, I tried to protect them by teaching them how to ride safely - prominent road positioning, clear signals and all the rest of it. It never occurred to me that some sort of polystyrene bowl on their heads would make them any safer. And I remain convinced that it would not.
eileithyia
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Re: Helmet use post Richardson death

Post by eileithyia »

So a debate about skiing turns into a major debate about cycle helmets (Yawn).
We were discusssing this death today at work, sympathy for Liam and his family etc., but being nurse based professionals we were talking more about the accident. What caused her to fall in the first place? Ok standing on thin planks on slippy snowy stuff is full of the potential to fall over. But did some sort of small brain haemorrhage cause the original fall, and before I am shot down in flames these things do happen, and colleagues who have worked in Neuro had stories to support such a possibility.
i believe she was Ok for an hour or so after the original fall and it was only later she began to feel any ill effects.
Without knowing all the medical facts / PM reports etc., we may never know:
Small haemorrhage = fall = continued trickling haemorrhage = causing deteriorating condition.
or; Fall = small insidious haemorrhage = deterioration of condition.

Certainly any sort of proctective head gear would not protect from the former.
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jan19
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Re: Helmet use post Richardson death

Post by jan19 »

I posted on "Tea Shop" about this - during the icy spell in February I took a work colleague to our local A&E. She'd slipped and fallen on her way to work, hitting her head, and like Natasha Richardson got up feeling OK, and carried on into work. When she started getting a headache, I took her straight to hospital.

The A&E doctor said that complications from a head injury are rare, but the really serious ones happen within four hours of the original injury. I'm not sure whether a helmet makes any difference, but if there's anything we can learn from this desperately sad story its not to be blase about hitting our heads and to go to the hospital if we need to.

Paula, my colleague, was happily absolutely fine.

Jan
thirdcrank
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Re: Helmet use post Richardson death

Post by thirdcrank »

As I mentioned earlier, the weak link in the 'get it checked anyway' advice is A&E. There's been a lot said about the Mid Staffordshire Trust (shouldn't that be breach of trust?) having receptionists deciding who needs treatment, or somesuch. It didn't sound unusual to me. From my recent experiences in the A&E dept of a huge Leeds Hospital - having gone there on the express instructions of a doctor, who had diagnosed my wife as having acute appendicitis, her treatment in A&E reception was appalling.

I could imagine that anybody who turned up 'just to be on the safe side might well die of starvation waiting - always assuming their grey matter was OK.
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hubgearfreak
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Re: Helmet use post Richardson death

Post by hubgearfreak »

MikewsMITH2 wrote:how many of you are that confident enough that they don't work, to take the risk of letting your kids ride without one?


wife & son on trike. :mrgreen:

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