Helmets and helmet laws are incredibly controversial and divisive. Navigating all the conflicting and sometimes unreliable and confusing studies on both sides of the debate can and will drive you crazy.
Whether you are for helmets or against helmets, whether you always wear a helmet or never wear a helmet – the discussion still goes on, and there are arguments for both sides. The debate seems to be slowly changing…..
Feds will stop hyping effectiveness of bike helmets.
Two federal government agencies will withdraw their longstanding claims that bicycle helmets reduce the risk of a head injury by 85%. The decision comes in response to a petition the Washington Area Bicyclists Association (WABA) filed under the federal Data Quality Act.
In 1989, a study in Seattle estimated that helmets prevent 85% of head injuries. Later efforts to replicate those results found a weaker connection between helmets and head injuries, but public health advocates, government web sites, and the news media often present it as fact…..
Read more: http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/19036/feds-will-stop-hyping-effectiveness-of-bike-helmets/
1989 Study:
Abstract:
Bicycling accidents cause many serious injuries and, in the United States, about 1300 deaths per year, mainly from head injuries. Safety helmets are widely recommended for cyclists, but convincing evidence of their effectiveness is lacking. Over one year we conducted a case-control study in which the case patients were 235 persons with head injuries received while bicycling, who sought emergency care at one of five hospitals…..
They concluded that bicycle safety helmets are highly effective in preventing head injury. Helmets are particularly important for children, since they suffer the majority of serious head injuries from bicycling accidents….
Read more: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2716781
WHY NOT WEAR A BIKE HELMET?
I don’t care if you wear a bicycle helmet.
Helmets are a ridiculously divisive issue, and it seems like many people pick their corner and defend it at all costs, no matter how ridiculous their arguments become. I don’t think you’re reckless just because you don’t wear one, nor will I laud you for setting a positive example to mankind if you do. I probably won’t notice one way or the other.
On the other hand, many of the arguments people take against helmets are naive at best and laughable at worst. It’s your own business if you don’t want to wear a helmet, but getting bogged down in rhetoric doesn’t make anyone any safer….
The Future?
The Invisible Helmet:
It’s been seven years in the making, but the world’s first “invisible” bike helmet is now available for purchase. The brainchild of Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin, two industrial designers from Sweden, the Hövding—Swedish for “chieftain”—is essentially a collar that deploys an airbag-like hood in case of an impact. Unlike regular hard-hat helmets, which the duo deride as “bulky, like a hard mushroom on your head,” the Hövding is designed to be unobtrusive. But the device is more than an expression of vanity. “An invisible bicycle helmet is a symbol of the ‘impossible,’” Haupt and Alstin say in the video. “If people say it’s impossible, we have to prove them wrong.”
The Regenerative Helmet:
In many countries, wearing a bike helmet while cycling in public places is compulsory because it is proven to have saved lives. However, anyone who has ever applied one of these helmets to their heads knows that are definitely not a one-size-fits-all piece of equipment. An ill-fitting helmet means less protection, but they can require much trial and error to adjust correctly. The Regenerative Helmet overcomes this with its hard outer shell and flexible segments that allow the helmet to contort to provide a better fit.
The liner uses dual density multi-impact foam to provide impact protection for both low and high speed accidents.
Skin Helmets:
There’s no doubt that wearing a motorcycle helmet is better than not wearing one, but various studies have shown that there’s one potentially-lethal injury that they don’t protect against – rotational injury, also known as intracerebral shearing. When a rider’s helmet hits the road, its rigid shell catches against the pavement and causes the helmet to very rapidly twist around. The rider’s head twists with the helmet, but does it so quickly that the brain doesn’t quite keep up, moving a few milliseconds after the skull it’s contained in.
The result is the shearing of nerves and blood vessels, resulting in disabilities or even death. Lazer Helmets is now offering something claimed to reduce the risk of this injury by almost 70% – helmets with skin….
Multiple Use Helmet:
It’s a fact of life that when you engage in certain sports you need to wear protective gear. Obviously, your head needs to be protected from any accidental impact and that’s where sports helmets come in. If you’re a keen sportsman, you’re likely to be frustrated by the fact that every sport requires a different helmet, which are not always comfortable or particularly cheap.
Worse, if you happen to come to grief on your bike, snowboard, or other thrill seeking conveyance, you’ll be forced to buy a new helmet every time it’s subjected to an impact. That could be about to change – Tatoo is a new sports helmet that is designed for comfort and can still be used even after multiple accidents….
ProActive Helmet:
June 9, 2008 A young industrial designer has created a new type of safety helmet for the construction industry that is a little smarter than most. The “ProActive” helmet features a flexible inner layer that remains soft and comfortable during normal use, but immediately becomes hard and shock-absorbent when subjected to impact.
The inside of the helmet is lined with soft, flexible material that has the ability to turn rock hard upon impact. “The material on the inside makes my helmet more comfortable in everyday use, and at the same time, safer than traditional models,” says Storholmen.
Storholmen’s innovative design was a recent winner at the Norwegian Design Council awards, ……
How effective are bicycle helmets?
In theory, helmets should absorb the shock from a crash. If your head strikes the ground or a vehicle, your brain could be seriously shaken by the sudden deceleration. With a helmet, the foam around your head forms a cushion.
They can also prevent head fractures by spreading the force of the impact. It’s like the difference between being hit on the head by a rock or a beach ball with the same weight.
It’s hard to tell how often helmets actually prevent head injuries, however. Experiments on people are unethical, so instead researchers collect hospital data on people involved in bicycle crashes.
Head injury data following helmet laws is more informative:
For this reason, time series from countries where helmet wearing increased dramatically because of helmet laws provide the most useful information about helmet wearing (Robinson, 1996). In every case, the large increases in helmet wearing resulted in no noticeable decreases in the percentages of injured cyclists with Head Injuries. Perhaps cyclists forced to wear helmets ride more dangerously, and so increase their risk of Head Injuries, perhaps helmets are worn incorrectly, or perhaps the benefits of helmets are too small to be detected.
Either way, it is incorrect to claim that helmets prevent 85% of head and 88% of brain injuries. If this were really true, the effect on %Head Injuries would have been noticeable when millions of cyclists were forced by law to wear helmets….
Read more: http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1131.html
Replacing Unsafe Helmets?
We’re told that we should replace our bike helmets every couple of years or so, because minuscule cracks can develop over time, rendering them structurally unsound. For the same reason, we’re supposed to replace a helmet that has withstood a direct impact immediately, no questions asked.
The problem is… it’s so hard to get yourself to throw away what looks like a perfectly good helmet, just because it might no longer be effective. New technology developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials should eliminate this situation.
When your helmet is getting past its prime, it will start to smell. If it develops any large cracks… well, you’d better plug your nose….
Helmets and helmet laws are incredibly controversial and divisive. Navigating all the conflicting and sometimes untrustworthy studies on either side of the debate can drive you crazy.
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