Elsewhere, someone posted this on an OU forum

"Perhaps the main point of the one you cite is that it would give
responsible parents a lever to insist on their children wearing cycle
helmets. When I started riding motor cycles nobody thought about
wearing helmets except for racing but now it is accepted practice and
has saved lives. A similar process is coming about with horse riders,
without legal sanctions. I can't quote the statistics off the cuff,
but I believe a significant number of cyclists' injuries are, in fact,
head injuries. A further point worth making is that a law for wearing
cycle helmets does appear to work well in Australia."

I'm feeling compelled to reply, despite how off-topic the posters
comments were to the discussion of 'Online banking - is it secure?'


==================

I realise this is now getting substantially off-topic, but these are
well circulated misapprehensions about bicycle helmet efficacy which I
feel quite strongly about and as they have been raised here, I feel
compelled to address these points here.

These misapprehensions showed up earlier this week for instance in a
newspaper headline in Hull which proclaimed 'A helmet would have saved
her' - written of a cyclist who was killed when a distracted driver
hit her with his cement mixer. (The 'would' was amended to 'could' in
later editions of the paper.
[http://www.simonmason.karoo.net/zkilled.htm] )

I'll discuss the reasons why, even though a motorbike helmet might
have saved her, the headline is untrue.

Xxxxx Xxxx writes:
...Perhaps the main point of the one you cite is that it would give
responsible parents a lever to insist on their children wearing cycle
helmets. When I started riding motor cycles nobody thought about
wearing helmets except for racing but now it is accepted practice
and has saved lives.

Motorcycle helmets are designed and manufactured to a significantly
different brief to bike helmets - they are designed for protection in
high speed collisions with motor vehicles. They achieve this by being
very substantial objects.

In contrast, the most stringent bicycle helmet safety standard (Snell)
only designs for a 5 foot fall onto the ground while stationary (110
Joules). i.e. the energy levels it protects against are miniscule
compared to those involved in colllisions with motor vehicles. (A
typical family saloon car will possess sufficient energy to overwhelm
such a helmet 700 times over, at only 25mph)

In any event, most helmets available for purchase in the UK do not
meet even this standard, instead meeting only the much laxer European
EN1078.

A similar process is coming about with horse riders, without legal
sanctions.

Again, horse-riding helmets are quite different in design to bicycle
helmets. They are much more akin to construction site hard hats -
being a tough outer layer with good penetration resistance and little
if any holes for ventilation held clear of the head by straps.

One key reason for the differences between bike helmets and the others
you mention is that neither horse riders nor motorbikers are providing
the motive power for their transport. Additional weight of helmet
does not cause the same hardships, and there are not the same heat
dissipation requirements. Even at rest a human is typically dumping
100Watts of heat, (20Watts of that comes from the brain alone) , and
needs removed. + of heat from their head. When carrying out
continuous physical exertion this only increases. Some cyclists are
known to peak at over 800Watts). Expanded polystyrene, like that used
in bicycle helmets, is a very good insulator of heat.

In the case of horse helmets, there are also the facts that horse
riders generally have their head higher off the ground than cyclists
to begin with, so need greater protection in the case of an unplanned
dismount; horses are only directed, not controlled, by their riders.
For instance, in case of a fall from a rearing horse, protection for
the back of the skull is required.

"I can't quote the statistics off the cuff, but I believe a
significant number of cyclists' injuries are, in fact, head injuries."

The question is, are they head injuries which would be mitigated by
bicycle helmets.

1) A lot of the head injuries recorded are to the face or chin. Bike
helmets do not cover these areas.

2) A lot of cases recorded as fatal head injuries are for cases where
the injuries to the other parts of the body would, in any case, have
been fatal.

3) While only 10% of head injuries while cycling happen due to motor
vehicles, 50% of the fatalities happen from these. I've already
discussed earlier how bike helmets, unlike motorbike helmets, are only
efficacious for drops to the ground at gentle speed, not for being hit
by over a ton of metal at high speed.

(Despite this, insurance companies acting for drivers who have killed
or seriously injured cyclists have tried to place contributory
negligence on cyclists who were not wearing helmets. So far, the
courts have held that bike helmets would not have affected the
outcomes).

4) Bicycle helmets do not protect against penetrative impacts by sharp
objects - they are, quite literally, full of holes.

5) Closed skull injuries can often cause the greatest brain damage
(due to rotational shear, etc), and helmets may well increase the
incidence and severity of such trauma (due to increasing the effective
diameter of the head)

US Consumer Product Safety Commission announced (reported in The New
York Times, 29th July 2001) that an increase in helmet wearing from
18% to 50% between 1991 and 2001 was associated with a 40% rise in
risk of head injury.

6) A child a year dies in the UK from strangulation from bike helmet
chinstraps. It is far from clear that /any/ lives are actually saved
by bike helmets. (Although it is clear that helmets do protect
against minor bumps and scrapes to some parts of the head from
unplanned dismounts).

"A further point worth making is that a law for wearing cycle helmets
does appear to work well in Australia."

The Australian statistics show head injury levels were maintained even
once helmets became compulsory. They also show that cycling levels
fell dramatically when helmets became compulsory.

The BMA's opinion is that any very slight additional risk posed by
cycling is overwhelmed by the benefits of exercise, so that a law
which depressed levels of cycling in children would paradoxically
provide, on balance, overwhelming levels of health /dis/benefits.

Cheers, and my apologies for going on quite so long,

=======

My key concerns - did I get the annual strangulation stat correct?

Is the 10% / 50% for RTA correct?

Finally, has anyone yet managed to obtain a copy of the paper with the
'would have' headline and stick it on the web?

Anyway - I feel better now I've written this.


--
Cheers,
Euan
Gawnsoft: http://www.gawnsoft.co.sr
Symbian/Epoc wiki: http://html.dnsalias.net:1122
Smalltalk links (harvested from comp.lang.smalltalk) http://html.dnsalias.net/gawnsoft/smalltalk

On Sat, 15 May 2004 23:47:23 +0100, Gawnsoft
wrote in message
:

My key concerns - did I get the annual strangulation stat correct?

I don't think so, the cases are rare (2 in Sweden, one in NZ that I
know of)

Is the 10% / 50% for RTA correct?

That applies for all child injury admissions & fatalities. In the
case of cycling, only 1 out of 20+ deaths in a typical year is /not/
due to motor vehicle impact.

Anyway - I feel better now I've written this.

And so you should :-)

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

Motorcycle helmets are ... designed for protection in high speed
collisions with motor vehicles. They achieve this by being very substantial
objects...One key reason for the differences between bike helmets and the
others you mention is that neither horse riders nor motorbikers are
providing the motive power for their transport....at rest a human is
typically dumping 100Watts of heat, (20Watts of that comes from the brain
alone), and needs removed. + of heat from their head....physical exertion
this only increases.

Proposal for an improved cycle helmet:

Requirements
- Helmet 'of more substantial construction' (see motorcycle helmet
standards).
- Forced air ventilation system to overcome heat dissipation problems.
Probably derived from a lightweight air pump mounted on the riders back,
connected via hose. Construction a power/noise/weight/cost compromise of
similar construction to a hair dryer (without the need of heated elements).
Full helmet integration possible if future power/weight improvements can be
made.
- Minimise impact on riders peripheral vision and hearing.
- Save lives.

Question
Would you buy it?
Would you wear it?

Regards
The ideas man.

On Sun, 16 May 2004 12:21:51 +0100, "The ideas man"
wrote in message :

Proposal for an improved cycle helmet:

Requirements
- Helmet 'of more substantial construction' (see motorcycle helmet
standards).
- Forced air ventilation system to overcome heat dissipation problems.
Probably derived from a lightweight air pump mounted on the riders back,
connected via hose. Construction a power/noise/weight/cost compromise of
similar construction to a hair dryer (without the need of heated elements).
Full helmet integration possible if future power/weight improvements can be
made.
- Minimise impact on riders peripheral vision and hearing.
- Save lives.

Question
Would you buy it?
Would you wear it?

No, because it would have to be made of Unobtainium and the extraction
of Unobtanium from its ore requires an Ingonetium catalyst and is
*very* environmetally unsound.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

in message , The ideas man
') wrote:

Motorcycle helmets are ... designed for protection in high speed
collisions with motor vehicles. They achieve this by being very
substantial objects...One key reason for the differences between bike
helmets and the others you mention is that neither horse riders nor
motorbikers are providing the motive power for their transport....at
rest a human is typically dumping 100Watts of heat, (20Watts of that
comes from the brain alone), and needs removed. + of heat from their
head....physical exertion this only increases.

Proposal for an improved cycle helmet:

Requirements
- Helmet 'of more substantial construction' (see motorcycle helmet
standards).
- Forced air ventilation system to overcome heat dissipation problems.
Probably derived from a lightweight air pump mounted on the riders
back,
connected via hose. Construction a power/noise/weight/cost compromise
of similar construction to a hair dryer (without the need of heated
elements). Full helmet integration possible if future power/weight
improvements can be made.
- Minimise impact on riders peripheral vision and hearing.
- Save lives.

Question
Would you buy it?

No.

Would you wear it?

No.

Would it save lives?

No.

Already in impacts in which there is head injury there is usually enough
injury to other parts of the body that the person would have died
anyway. So supposing a helmet genuinely was 100% effective, it would
save only a small percentage of the people who now die. But a helmet
which was not too heavy and cumbersome to wear on a bicycle cannot be
100% effective, so it would save an even smaller proportion.

But, in any case, many fewer people die each year in cycling accidents -
and fewer people are injured in cycling accidents than die or ar
injured in accidents in the home, or when walking. Cycling is a very
safe activity, relative to other activities people do. Granted
accidents do happen, but they happen in virtually all activities. The
idea that cycling is in any sense a relatively dangerous activity is
simply nonsense.

Helmet design is simply not a 'problem' that needs solving - the problem
is dangerous traffic, and solutions to that are more to the point.

--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; ... exposing the violence incoherent in the system...

"Gawnsoft" wrote in
message
These misapprehensions showed up earlier this week for instance in a
newspaper headline in Hull which proclaimed 'A helmet would have saved
her' - written of a cyclist who was killed when a distracted driver
hit her with his cement mixer. (The 'would' was amended to 'could' in
later editions of the paper.
[http://www.simonmason.karoo.net/zkilled.htm] )

Oh no - If people are going to refer to my site like this, I'll have to
keep my z files on site!

--
Simon Mason
Anlaby
East Yorkshire.
53°44'N 0°26'WT
http://www.simonmason.karoo.net

Finally, has anyone yet managed to obtain a copy of the paper with the
'would have' headline and stick it on the web?


See below.


http://www.thebikezone.org.uk/downlo...eneDorley1.jpg
http://www.thebikezone.org.uk/downlo...eneDorley2.jpg

The 'journalist' who came up with this can be e-mailed at


The readers letters page is at
The papers editor is John Meeham , telephone 01482 315350
Newspaper website http://www.thisishulland eastriding.co.uk

Regards,

Howard.

Gawnsoft wrote:

Again, horse-riding helmets are quite different in design to bicycle
helmets. They are much more akin to construction site hard hats -
being a tough outer layer with good penetration resistance and little
if any holes for ventilation held clear of the head by straps.

My riding hat ain't; nor are any that I've seen on sale or in use; the
head is in direct contact with cloth covering a polystyrene foam
padding. I think that the outside is a 3mm polycarbonate shell, quite a
bit lighter than a motorbike helmet. Builders' hard hats are just
polythene and air though.

Although there is no general legal compulsion, insurance companies
pretty much enforce helmet wearing for any form of organised equestrian
activity.

One key reason for the differences between bike helmets and the others
you mention is that neither horse riders nor motorbikers are providing
the motive power for their transport.

Horse riding does involve a certain amount of exercise, and the things
still get unpleasantly hot for me in most conditions.

Additional weight of helmet
does not cause the same hardships, and there are not the same heat
dissipation requirements. Even at rest a human is typically dumping
100Watts of heat, (20Watts of that comes from the brain alone) , and
needs removed. + of heat from their head. When carrying out
continuous physical exertion this only increases. Some cyclists are
known to peak at over 800Watts). Expanded polystyrene, like that used
in bicycle helmets, is a very good insulator of heat.

In the case of horse helmets, there are also the facts that horse
riders generally have their head higher off the ground than cyclists
to begin with, so need greater protection in the case of an unplanned
dismount; horses are only directed, not controlled, by their riders.
For instance, in case of a fall from a rearing horse, protection for
the back of the skull is required.

In my experience of falling off horses, I can only say that I've hurt my
neck because the riding hat clipped the ground even though my head was
well tucked in (many more years of helmetless cycling practice). I've
only gone over the bars and over the side, so far, not done the over the
back one yet, though my riding hat doesn't seem to me to come any
further down behind my head than a cycling helmet.

Horse riders also seem to wear body protectors (like a
polystyrene-foam-filled
lifejacket); they look horridly uncomfortable to me, but I think that
broken
ribs are fairly common.

RH

Roger Hughes wrote:

Horse riding does involve a certain amount of exercise

Then the horses must be glad they don't have to wear helmets ;-)

(why do I know Bell Helmets are reading this right now and spotting a
gap in the market...)

Zog The Undeniable wrote:

Roger Hughes wrote:

Horse riding does involve a certain amount of exercise


Then the horses must be glad they don't have to wear helmets ;-)

Can't see it improving an already flaky relationship...

(why do I know Bell Helmets are reading this right now and spotting a
gap in the market...)

Should probably be made compulsory for travel in horseboxes, of course.

RH