CyclePig

This Is Why You Should Always Wear A Helmet

12 Responses to “This Is Why You Should Always Wear A Helmet”

1. Bryan Says:
   May 11th, 2008 at 1:29 pm

   No, never heard of it. Sure looks like it was painful though. I had to watch it again because it looked like the dude didn’t even notice and kept on riding. Upon watching it the second time though that wasn’t the case. When I had my six month checkup with my doctor he asked me if I wore a helmet. When I said yes he asked me if I wore it every single time. I said yes and he seemed surprised. He told me how even in his neighborhood he’ll see parents riding with their children with the child wearing a helmet and the parent not. He makes it a point to stop and ask them about it.

2. Jared Says:
   May 11th, 2008 at 2:32 pm

   I have heard of the foot in the spokes “trick.” A friend of mine did it a couple of months ago and it messed him up pretty good. He was wearing a helmet. He was coming down a decent and his foot slipped off of the pedal into the front wheel, causing the wheel to abruptly stop when his foot hit the fork. Yet another reason to get clipless pedals!

3. thePig Says:
   May 11th, 2008 at 6:06 pm

   Bryan: I’m surprised that anyone rides without a helmet these days. The only exception I make is when it is 85 degrees and I am riding up a mountain for 3 hours at 4mph. There is a chance that I might die of heat exhaustion if I don’t take the helmet off.

   Jared: Guess it maybe is not that uncommon. I would recommend everyone ride with clipless pedals and this is just another reason to add to the list.

4. Arlyn Asch Says:
   May 13th, 2008 at 5:16 am

   Ouch. Just ouch…

5. Erick Says:
   May 13th, 2008 at 5:41 pm

   I’m not sure this is a good example of needing a helmet since it’s her face she’s landing on. lol

   Maybe this is a better example for wearing a face cage while ridding ? Something like a catchers mitt maybe ? :D

6. jaxgtr Says:
   May 14th, 2008 at 2:36 am

   Wow, that looked painful. A good friend just crashed and the helmet protected his noggin, so yet another reason to always wear a helmet. I used to not wear a helmet if I stayed in my neighborhood, but after almost being taken out by a truck coming out of a driveway, not any longer. Even if I am on a maintenance check the helmet goes on.

7. dave Says:
   May 15th, 2008 at 7:13 am

   The only time I wear a helmet is when I’m riding with a group that mandates it (like the Boy Scouts), and I don’t force helmets on my kids. I do impress upon them the importance of proper safety equipment for the activity they will be doing - if they want to ride down stairs like I did when I was their age, they wear a helmet.

   In every bike accident I have been in - ever - the only part of my body that I have never injured, even slightly, is the top of my head. I’ve slammed into cars, I’ve gone over the handlebars. One memorable time I pulled the handle bars out of the fork while trying to hop it up a curb, and rolled off the bike backward. I’ve had road rash on my shoulders, I’ve been whipped in the face and neck with branches. Maybe I’ve just been lucky, and tomorrow I’ll dive head first into a mailbox, or back my head into a parked car.

   What I do know is that I sweat a LOT more when I wear a helmet than when I don’t. I drink nearly twice the water on my trips when I wear a helmet, my average speed decreases, I hit my first fatigue “wall” hours earlier, the recovery before I get my second wind is much longer, and I am completely miserable for the entire trip.

   Of course, I bike on-road only, I’ve usually got a heavy trailer behind me, and 6 hours is a good warm-up. I cruise at about 12 mph, and never get above 18. If I was in the woods, riding through dense city traffic, or cruising at 20mph with 35-45mph downhills, I’d put on a helmet.

   Bicycle helmets are useful against only one type of injury. A helmet will protect the upper part of your skull from a hard impact. A helmet might have decreased the woman’s head injury. Of course, it could have easily helped her hyper-extend her neck and injure her cervical spine. A helmet protruding from her forehead would have hit first, and forced her head even further back than it went in the video. Helmets not only fail to prevent C-spine injuries, they can greatly increase the damage to the cervical spine.

   On another note: In 22 years of riding, I have never seen a rider put their own foot in their front spokes. I got my foot stuck in the rear spokes once, while riding on foot pegs on the rear axle when I was about 10. BUt never anything involving the rider and the front wheel.

   I went out and sat on my bike to try to figure out how this could happen, and I’m still at a loss.

8. thePig Says:
   May 15th, 2008 at 10:15 am

   Riding down stairs, slamming into cars, pulling handlerbars out of forks - wow you certainly have had some cycling adventures.

   I completely agree that people should have the choice whether they wear a bicycle helmet (similar argument with a seatbelt). The only small consideration to the contrary is about who should fit the medical bill - for an injury that could have been prevented / minimised.

   You also raise some very interesting points about the effectiveness of helmets in certain types of accidents. I must admit it is something that I haven’t previously considered - particularly the potential to aggravate a spinal injury.

9. dave Says:
   May 16th, 2008 at 9:57 pm

   @thepig: Which is why I’m completely against socialized healthcare. I don’t maintain “traditional” medical insurance coverage. My extended family and I maintain semi-communal emergency funds to cover major expenses, and we each pay, out of pocket, for routine care.

   I agree, helmets should be a choice, but more importantly, it should be an INFORMED choice, one that considers ALL of the costs and risks, and weighs them against the benefits. The problem with helmet laws for cyclists is that they are usually written by people who ride around the block a couple times a year, and not by people who ride for 3 hours at 4mph up the side of a mountain.

   Too often, we look at a horrific injury that could have been prevented if the person was only wearing this certain piece of safety gear. We conclude that “We should all do this to prevent this type of accident in the future”. But how do we measure the decreased motivation to ride, caused by wearing this uncomfortable device? How do we determine that an accident was exacerbated by the increased fatigue, or heat stress?

   We all know friends who have struck their heads while helmeted, as jaxgtr mentioned. But did the helmet actually save their lives, or did it just prevent a lump on the head? It’s difficult to say, as each accident is different, and an accident that might cause a concussion in one person could cause nothing more than a bruise in another.

   I don’t want to cheapen any tragedies, but I strongly believe we should be more concerned about paranoid reactions to these events than we should be concerned about preventing exceedingly rare accidents.

   I’m not suggesting that everyone adopt my own stance toward helmets. All I’m suggesting is that we avoid making snap judgments about people’s decisions, like the folks Brian mentioned in post one.

   That’s my $0.02. :)

10. thePig Says:
    May 17th, 2008 at 10:43 am

    @dave: some very interesting points.
    I hadn’t really thought about it from this angle before and was pretty much like everyone else - if you ride a bike you should wear a helmet.

    I guess the question then becomes how much functional protection do helmets provide for the various types of accidents OR is it more about making society FEEL safer.

    I think we might need a future post on this one.

11. Martinator Says:
    May 19th, 2008 at 7:05 pm

    A bike helmet saved my friends life. She did an endo and hit the road head first at ~20-25 MPH (32-40 KmPH). If she didn’t have her helmet on, she’d be a vegetable.

    Pics of the helmet:
    http://martysbikerides.blogspot.com/search/label/Helmets%20Save%20Lives

12. DaedalusDB Says:
    June 1st, 2008 at 3:08 pm

    And everyone asks me why I wear a full caged hockey helmet. I just have to tell them, “It keeps my face pretty.”

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