The helmet gods have smiled on you. You must now state that your
helmet saved your life at every opportunity



On Aug 5, 10:12*am, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
Hi there.

Well, after over fifty years of bicycling I had an accident where my
head struck the pavement. It was really weird; the front wheel went
over some loose sand and then was deflected to theright by a raised
straight-line section of asphalt. It was like the bicycle was thrown
to the right. I landed on my right hip and upper rear shoulder. They
both got scraped quite badly and the left elbow was also scraped a
bit. The speed of the bicycle at the time was just over thirty-five
kilometers per hour. The force of the impact had to be greater than
that due to the way the bicycle went sideways thus giving more
velocity to the downward speed of my upper body and head - much like
the top of a vertical pencil does if you flick out the bottom of it
with your finger.

I was glad I was wearing my helmet on this ride because my head struck
the pavement with a great deal of forced right where the temple is.
Considering the speed and force of the impact onto the pavement there
is no way that I could have prevented my bare head from hitting that
pavement. One of the first things i learned in unarmed combat is that
it does *NOT take much of a blow to the temple to cause death. There
is absolutely *NO* way that the extra inch or so of space that I would
have had without the helmet would have been sufficient to have allowed
me to keep my head from severely impacting the asphalt right on my
temple.

Helmets can not protect from every type of impact but I truly believe
that this time was one of the times when a helmet was beneficial.

Cheers from Peter