Comments on: Use your head while riding

By: Helmets and the "They Can't Hurt" theory

Helmets and the "They Can't Hurt" theory — Sat, 19 Sep 2015 15:38:20 +0000

[…] said it many many times, I’m neither pro- nor anti- helmet. My statements on the subject have been very accurately described by others as […]

By: Helmet Laws. That'll fix it.

Helmet Laws. That'll fix it. — Sat, 12 Sep 2015 22:05:14 +0000

[…] bicycle helmets. The topic that I just can’t leave alone. While I try to remain non-judgmental to the choices of others, and personally can take it or […]

By: Stanford Tran

Stanford Tran — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 05:40:00 +0000

I was a collegiate racer during undergrad and now that I’m in med school, my classmates give me a hard time for not wearing a helmet. So I decided to find conclusive evidence regarding helmet usage. This study in the New England Journal of Medicine, which corrected for income, education, level of cycling experience, etc., shows that it is without a doubt beneficial to wear a helmet. Granted it’s from 1989, I don’t see why it wouldn’t be true today. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejm198905253202101

Not sure if I will start wearing a helmet myself, but I feel less hypocritical encouraging my patients to do so.

By: JustAnotherCyclist

JustAnotherCyclist — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 14:18:00 +0000

That is a really interesting angle on this. I spent a fair amount of time trying to get at, exactly, what those “applicable saftey standards” are. I found a lot of things that make reference to the, but I could not locate that actual requirements for the United States.

By: Brent

Brent — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 05:02:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I did a tour of a few helmet manufacturer’s websites in hopes of gleaning their take on the safety of their products. None of the sites have much of anything, other than the occasional mention that the helmet meets applicable safety standards. It’s almost as they don’t really believe in their own products. Most of them do, however, tout their “massive airflow” or similar.

I find interesting the contrast to some automobile manufacturers, who go out of their way to show the ways in which they exceed safety standards, and in some cases promote their products with crash videos.

By: Eric

Eric — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 21:31:00 +0000

I see this as a question of which is a more effective strategy to reduce the danger: armor or avoidance.

Body armor means you’ll bounce off thing you hit. Better bike handling skills means not coming off the bike. My helmet is a small step toward the reducing the damage when I fall off. The term “header” was made for the most common of bicycle accidents. More armor – not very useful – just my bike gloves and unbreakable Oakleys…

Not riding into the path of a car would be considered good bike handling. A more Zen approach to traffic seems the best. I don’t expect the helmet to make me safe from cars ( or speeds over 20 mph for that matter ). Safety really come down to bike control – where are you riding in traffic?

By: JustAnotherCyclist

JustAnotherCyclist — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 19:56:00 +0000

That’s a really good point. My understand is that the very first study done that essentially established the current standards – back in the 1950’s I believe – were done with cadavers. However, the study has not apparently been reviewed or updated since then.

By: Brent

Brent — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 18:23:00 +0000

I would be curious to see a “crash test dummy” report on helmet effectiveness. The standards now are rather silly: the testing agency essentially puts a weight in the helmet and drops it against a surface. Why couldn’t some smart scientist invent some more real-world test, say, put a dummy on a bicycle, accelerate it into a wall, and see what happens?