published helmet research - not troll

Good lord, there's too much of this to get through!

I really don't care who's a troll.

I just want to know if in a serious bike accident a helmet is more help or
harm. If this question has already been answered, could someone please be
forbearing and answer it again.

I was seriously hit by a car a month ago; got thrown backwards over the car
hood and through the windshield. Woke up in the middle of the road with
paramedics talking to me. Never hti my head; my guess is the broken leg is
why I blacked out. I know mere sprains have brought me close.

I wasn't wearing a helmet. My guess is that my humungus backpack is what
hit the windshield, and it saved my upper body from injury. I did end up
with mild whiplash.

My question is, if I'd been wearing a helmet and been thrown like that,
would I have had worse whiplash or broken my neck? Do I want to get a
helmet, or just keep on wearing the humungous backpack?

I know that motorcyclists claim that their bigger and heavier helmets mostly
serve to cause broken necks if they crash. If the head gets jerked
around, added weight causes it to get thrown around harder.

--

Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, Texas

"Tom Kunich" wrote in message
ink.net...
"Bill Z." wrote in message
...
Frank Krygowski writes:
You disparage the knowledge of engineers (including at least one
registered Professional Engineer) when they comment on the physical
properties of helmets.

Being a "registered PE" doesn't impress me. It is really no big deal.

Oh, then why doesn't your name show up on the list do licensed? Since it
gives one a fair amount of cache in employment obviously you can just run
down and pass your EIT the first try.

Yet you don't want to "brag" about your mysterious qualifications?

Or to put it another way - unless you display something like a PhD in
statistics and/or a PE license, you won't be bragging in this crowd.

Try a field more difficult than statistics, but why should I bother
throwing pearls before swine? Look how you reacted when I gave you
an answer on another topic.

My guess is basket weaving. I did spot Bill lately - playing in a picture
called Dodgeball.

Dora Smith wrote:
Good lord, there's too much of this to get through!

I really don't care who's a troll.

I just want to know if in a serious bike accident a helmet is more
help or harm. If this question has already been answered, could
someone please be forbearing and answer it again. {snip}


That's exactly the question that engenders the flame wars. Not really sure
why.

My opinion (read CHOICE) is to wear a helmet and hope I never have to test
it out. Today's models are so light that I /really/ doubt they "cause more
harm than help", but that's just *my* belief. You have to decide for
yourself.

I've fallen on mountain bike rides and hit my (helmeted) head on sharp
rocks; also run into low-hanging branches and bonked the mellon pretty good.
No damage to me whatsoever. (Despite my posting history )

Haven't crashed on the road bike...YET (one year and a few days so far), but
if (when) I do I want my head protected.

Take a look at the pics Mark Hickey posted, and ask yourself what would have
happened if he /hadn't/ been wearing the lid (same exact one I use, BTW).
Then make up your *own* mind.

Bill "cars, curbs, cement, stems -- lotsa hard stuff out there" S.

On Sat, 24 Jul 2004 03:06:22 +0000, Dora Smith wrote:

Good lord, there's too much of this to get through!

I really don't care who's a troll.

I just want to know if in a serious bike accident a helmet is more help or
harm. If this question has already been answered, could someone please be
forbearing and answer it again.

I was seriously hit by a car a month ago; got thrown backwards over the car
hood and through the windshield. Woke up in the middle of the road with
paramedics talking to me. Never hti my head; my guess is the broken leg is
why I blacked out. I know mere sprains have brought me close.

I wasn't wearing a helmet. My guess is that my humungus backpack is what
hit the windshield, and it saved my upper body from injury. I did end up
with mild whiplash.

My question is, if I'd been wearing a helmet and been thrown like that,
would I have had worse whiplash or broken my neck? Do I want to get a
helmet, or just keep on wearing the humungous backpack?

I know that motorcyclists claim that their bigger and heavier helmets mostly
serve to cause broken necks if they crash. If the head gets jerked
around, added weight causes it to get thrown around harder.

--

Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, Texas

Sorry to hear about your accident, and I'm glad you are well again.

In your specific case, it is impossible to know for certain what would
have happened had you been wearing a helmet. I can only make some general
observations (which you have probably seen plenty of already)
Helmets have been pushed vigorously by safety "experts" for 15 years, and
mandated in some jurisdictions. There has been no consistent significant
change in bicycle accident, head injury, or death rates despite wildly
varying and changing helmet wearing rates. (except, perhaps, American
research suggesting an increase in head-injury rate with increasing helmet
use)
Lightweight helmets simply cannot protect against the kinds of forces
involved in collisions with a car, or impacts more than about 23kph. They
break before your skull does; showing your skull is tougher than a helmet.
They are known to increase neck injuries, and are implicated in making
more severe the rotational "diffuse axonal" injuries.
Anecdotes "The helmet saved my life" are just that, anecdotes. Like in
your case, one cannot say specifically what might have happened.
If helmets are so wonderful, we should be seeing all the wonderful
statistics by now. Instead, what we are seeing are a fearful population
scared of riding bikes, increasing child obesity and general unfitness,
increasing congestion due to increasing car use without a reduction in
bicycle accident rates, etc.
However, helmets could be useful if they are brightly coloured, so other
people can see bicycles. They also help to prevent non-serious head bumps
and scrapes, which are easily treated anyway. So does a brightly-coloured
beanie or cap! But there is certainly no benefit of helmets which can
justify a draconian measure such as legislation for their use.

Peter.

--
This transmission is certified free of viruses as no Microsoft products
were used in its preparation or propagation.

"Dora Smith" wrote in message
...
Good lord, there's too much of this to get through!

I really don't care who's a troll.

I just want to know if in a serious bike accident a helmet is more
help or
harm. If this question has already been answered, could someone
please be
forbearing and answer it again.

Answer: it depends on the individual accident. What kind of
accident are you planning to have?


I was seriously hit by a car a month ago; got thrown backwards over
the car
hood and through the windshield....

[snip]

It sounds as if you are expecting to have a repeat of your previous
accident, and not to have any other kind.

I think that you asking the wrong question, and you would do better
pursuing a different approach. Accident people consider three
phases: prevention, avoidance, and injury reduction. It has
frequently been estimated that working on the first two phases among
American cyclists has the potential for cutting out about three
quarters of all bike accidents.

Your lack of description of the events before the accident suggests
to me that you have not thought about accident prevention or
avoidance, and are not familiar with the various "accident types",
their relative frequency and seriousness, and the countermeasures
that prevent them. Cycling is safe enough that millions of people
continue to ride around in the same condition, but that still doesn't
make it a good idea.

Jeremy Parker

Dora Smith wrote:


I just want to know if in a serious bike accident a helmet is more help or
harm. If this question has already been answered, could someone please be
forbearing and answer it again.

The short answer is, it's unlikely to make a significant difference.

Bike helmets are designed to very low standards of impact absorption,
roughly enough to protect you from a "Laugh In" style stationary topple.
This low level of protection is necessary, because anything more would
result in helmets too hot and heavy to sell.

When the standards were first enacted (back in the mid-1970s) there were
immediate complaints that they weren't strong enough. Proponents said
"Yeah, they're low, but they'll help." Ever since then, people have
been trying to find out if the helmets really do help.

One small, badly designed study in 1989 claimed helmets prevent 85% of
head injuries (defining "Head injury" as anything above the neck,
including scratched ears, etc.) Despite that study having been proven
wrong, helmet proponents use that "85%" number as gospel. They also
mis-apply it, saying helmets prevent 85% of serious injuries or deaths.
That study never claimed such a thing.

Much larger studies, some involving entire countries of cyclists, have
found no detectable benefit against serious injuries or deaths.
Australia and New Zealand have all-ages, heavily enforced mandatory
helmet laws, and the laws aren't working. Serious head injuries per
rider are unchanged at best.

Do helmets help? I don't think anyone will doubt they protect against
minor injuries. It's the major injuries and fatalities that cause
disagreement. I think the best data indicates they don't help there.

But it's good to remember that cycling is not, and never has been, an
unusual source of serious or fatal head injuries. We know very well
that cyclists are less than 1% of the head injury fatalities in America.
Ordinary on-road cycling, if done with reasonable care and skill, is
not dangerous enough to worry about.

Trick riding, blood & guts mountain biking and road racing may be
different. But before getting into those, it's good to remember that
the rest of your body is breakable, too.

--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]

"Dora Smith" writes:

Good lord, there's too much of this to get through!

I was seriously hit by a car a month ago; got thrown backwards over the car
hood and through the windshield. Woke up in the middle of the road with
paramedics talking to me. Never hti my head; my guess is the broken leg is
why I blacked out. I know mere sprains have brought me close.

My question is, if I'd been wearing a helmet and been thrown like that,
would I have had worse whiplash or broken my neck? Do I want to get a
helmet, or just keep on wearing the humungous backpack?

The very low mass of a bicycle helmet and its small thickness makes
that not something to worry about. It sounds like in your crash, you
avoided hitting the car with your head, and also didn't hit your head
on the ground. The standards helmets are required to meet are
designed to protect you from a fall to the ground, either off a bike
or after sliding over the hood of a car. You claim you blacked out.
If you blacked on the impact with the car but before you landed on the
ground, don't count on being able to "tuck and roll" or do anything
else to protect your head.

So, given your definition of a serious accident, a helmet would
increase your chances of minimizing or avoiding a head injury, with
next to zero chance of a neck injury due to the use of the helmet. If
you head hits certain parts of a car - the posts or struts that hold
up the roof, for example, the impact would be localized on a small
part of the helmet and the impact speed could be far higher than a
fall to the ground. Don't expect a helmet to protect you from that
kind of an impact. A helmet will, however, help in other kinds of
crashes - ones where your head might hit the pavement instead of a
fast-moving vehicle.


I know that motorcyclists claim that their bigger and heavier helmets mostly
serve to cause broken necks if they crash. If the head gets jerked
around, added weight causes it to get thrown around harder.

Some motorcyclists really dislike the helmet laws and will say anything
as a result. Keep in mind that a helmet will not prevent a broken
neck, and even if a motorcycle helmet increases the chance of a neck
injury, you may still be better off by reducing the chances of a head
injury. Bicycle helmets are much lighter and not anywhere near as
thick or bulky, so there really isn't anything to worry about.


--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

Frank Krygowski writes:

Dora Smith wrote:
I just want to know if in a serious bike accident a helmet is more
help or harm. If this question has already been answered, could
someone please be forbearing and answer it again.

The short answer is, it's unlikely to make a significant difference.

Bike helmets are designed to very low standards of impact absorption,
roughly enough to protect you from a "Laugh In" style stationary
topple. This low level of protection is necessary, because anything
more would result in helmets too hot and heavy to sell.

Krygowski is being misleading here. If you fall off a bike or get in
an accident with a car in which your head does not hit the car but
you do fall to ground, the vertical component of your impact with
the ground is what can cause a brain injury. The horizontal component
simply results in road-rash (which you also want to avoid.)

One small, badly designed study in 1989 claimed helmets prevent 85% of
head injuries (defining "Head injury" as anything above the neck,
including scratched ears, etc.)

We just had a long discussion about a more recent studies published
more than a decade later that showed a 19% improvement when helmsts
were used. The author is the same one who Krygowski quotes when
he claims that New Zealand's laws aren't working. An initial study
by this author failed to measure anything but subsequent studies
did.

Much larger studies, some involving entire countries of cyclists, have
found no detectable benefit against serious injuries or
deaths. Australia and New Zealand have all-ages, heavily enforced
mandatory helmet laws, and the laws aren't working. Serious head
injuries per rider are unchanged at best.

Both have tiny populations (but note the phrase "entire countries.")
New Zealand in particular has a population of just over 3 million,
which makes it smaller than some urban areas in the U.S.

Do helmets help? I don't think anyone will doubt they protect against
minor injuries. It's the major injuries and fatalities that cause
disagreement. I think the best data indicates they don't help there.

Krygowski is weaseling. There are only about 800 fatalities due to
bicycle accidente in a country the size of the U.S. per year. With
such a small number, you won't see a useful reduction in the fatality
rate because that will be lost in the noise. The best data is simply
not good enough to detect a useful reduction (e.g., 5 or 10 percent)
in that - it doesn't prove that helmets do not help. The definition
of "major injuries" has similar problems - in certain types of
studies, you don't detect a benefit that makes a serious head
injury a somewhat less serious head injury.



--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

"Just zis Guy, you know?" writes:

On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 02:01:21 GMT, (Bill Z.)
wrote in message :

[nothing new or relevant]

You lost the argument when you Godwinated the thread, you've been
caught lying (a word which you apparently introduced to the argument
in the first place), and anybody with any sense would have stopped
digging ages ago.

Still trying to cover up your lies by projecting them onto someone
else? You've lied repeatedly, Guy.

Back under your bridge, troll-boy.

I didn't "godwinate" the thread as this term is commonly used (I merely
pointed out the tactic you were using, and still are using with your
repeated "troll" comments - the idea that saying something over and over
will convince people it is true.) Mabye the distinction is beyond
you (but more likely you are just playing games.)

--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

On Sat, 24 Jul 2004 16:29:33 GMT, (Bill Z.)
wrote in message :

[more bull****]

I didn't "godwinate" the thread as this term is commonly used

See? More bull****.

Back under your bridge, troll-boy.

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

"Just zis Guy, you know?" writes:

On Sat, 24 Jul 2004 16:29:33 GMT, (Bill Z.)
wrote in message :

[more bull****]

I didn't "godwinate" the thread as this term is commonly used
See? More bull****.

The truth is not "bull****."

Back under your bridge, troll-boy.

Repeating yourself in the hope that people are fool enough to believe
you? That, of course actually *is* the basis of the big-lie
technique.