Thread: In Case You Thught You Were Having A Bad Day

It's interesting to read about helmets.In younger days I cycled thousands of miles to school, then triathlons but only ever wore a helmet when required to in races. I've ridden motor cycles for coming up to 40yrs including 4yrs of Motocross racing and plenty of tracktime.
The hardest I have ever hit my head was doing a U turn on my BMW at less than walking pace, I fell awkwardly and hit the ground with my head very hard, If I hadn't been wearing a helmet I may not have been here to type this. I've also been present at an accident in a race paddock where a helmetless child fell off a bicycle hit her head and stopped breathing,luckily two race doctors were on the scene within seconds to resucitate her. She was taken to a specialist head injury unit and was still alive the day after.I assume she recoverd.
It's often not the dramatic accidents that cause the serious damage but the stupid mishaps where you just hit your head on a weak point.

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And there is no evidence that seatbelts work either.

Originally Posted by Bruno

And there is no evidence that seatbelts work either.

That's right they are very confining and they crush my sports jacket and if I got into a wreck and landed in the water and they would jamb and I'd drown and if an object came into the car I couldn't get out of the way fast enough and a thousand and one other reasons out there.

Danger is cool.


-Rob

Originally Posted by joke1176

Unless you are wearing a helmet with bungee cords hanging off it, I don't think you would catch/twist it.

Do a Google image search on cycle helmets. They all have angular edges that can catch on flat ground as you slide along, let alone objects you meet. Motorcycle helmets aren't so stupidly designed, so why are cycle helmets made that way?

Originally Posted by Bruno

And there is no evidence that seatbelts work either.

I've seen statistical evidence that seatbelts work.

I believe there is no statistical evidence that cycle helmets cause an overall reduction of injuries.

I'd like to be proven wrong.

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission found that although helmet use has risen over a decade from 18 to 50 per cent of cyclists, head injuries have also gone up by 10 per cent. Some experts suggest this is because wearing a helmet gives riders a false sense of security and they take more risks. Others say helmets could even make head injuries worse.

EDIT> It's worse than I thought...

What evidence is there that cycle helmets reduce serious injury?

Originally Posted by Rajagra

Do a Google image search on cycle helmets. They all have angular edges that can catch on flat ground as you slide along, let alone objects you meet. Motorcycle helmets aren't so stupidly designed, so why are cycle helmets made that way?

I've seen statistical evidence that seatbelts work.

I believe there is no statistical evidence that cycle helmets cause an overall reduction of injuries.

I'd like to be proven wrong.



EDIT> It's worse than I thought...

What evidence is there that cycle helmets reduce serious injury?

Bah, I have fallen while both wearing and not wearing helmets on bicycles and motorcycles...I was a dumb kid. I think the heavier motorcycle introduces more shear force at your c-spine than the light-but-angular bike helmets.

A couple problems with your data there:
-increased traffic on bike and vehicular increases odds of incident. The data isn't adjusted for that.
-it may state "serious injury" but it says nothing of head/neck injury rate in helmeted vs non-helmeted riders.

I could also make a graph showing a relationship between serious injury on bicycle vs. total quantity of hamburgers ingested in europe.... or any other unrelated data set.

It only hurt for a minute.

A couple of months ago I was riding trails on my mountain bike. Took a jump, not a big one, about a three foot drop. I didn't pull my front tire up enough. When I landed in some rutted out sand I went over the bars and did a perfect face plant.

I was going pretty good when I hit and I took the brunt of the impact on my forehead. Cracked my helmet dead center for about one inch. The area over my left eye was sore for days. If I hadn't been wearing the helmet I hate to think what would have happened.

It reminds me of the old one about the parachute. If you have it you may never need it, but if you ever need it and you don't have it you'll never need it again.

That's why amateurs should never build ramps themselves. Just look at it. That's a pretty mean kicker. I'm sure it was meant to give a little kick, but looking at the ramp and especially his bike, it kicked super hard and he wasn't ready for it. He bailed mid-apex and is still in the riding position (look at his feet and the pedal position), so you can definitely tell it kicked far harder than he expected. If he's experienced at all, he should have rolled out of that one because landing on his feet means he would have done a serious face plant.

I'd call this an ok day. He at least got a sweet pic out of the deal...I think there are people out there with worse days.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

I used to think that helmets were for kids until I took a spill, broke my collar bone, separated my AC joint and slammed the side of my head into the asphalt and knocked myself unconscious. Now I don't ride without a helmet.

A helmet wouldn't have helped me at all. I crashed my Suzuki mountain bike (12 speed bicycle) flew/rolled 25 feet down the ditch.Wound up breaking my right femur, tearing my right rotator cuff and messed up my back in the process. I suppose I caught the family jewels on the handlebars on my way off the bike, because when I woke up 3 weeks later they were still swollen to the size of a softball. I stayed conscious long enough to call the ambulance and some friends who were nearby before I passed out. If I hadn't had a cell phone in my pocket I probably wouldn't have been found until the next morning.