Helmets Save Your Bonce

[PurpleFrog]

Bicycles should be MOT'd though!

I'd like to see brakepad and tyres labelled for wet weather grip. They vary enormously, most punters have no idea that this is the case, and brake and turn do stand a chance of saving you from being crushed by a lorry - unlike a foam hat.

I'd also like clear labelling on helmets saying what they will and won't do, so that people won't be tricked into buying non-Snell helmets thinking they will protect against ferocious kerbs and tree roots.

 

[PurpleFrog]

Weird how people get so passionate about it.

Not really. Helmet hype leads to Mandatory Helmet Laws if left unchecked; MHLs lead to a collapse in cycling and do no bloody good at all. Helmets are also used a distraction from fixing real problems with driver behaviour and road design.

So when some guy gets crushed to death by an HGV and some idiot with sponsorship from a helmet company says "If only had been wearing a 300g foam hat when 10 tons of steel drover across his head and torso!"...

 

[highlandsflyer]

Whatever.

 

[Chopper the ex Copper]

So when some guy gets crushed to death by an HGV and some idiot with sponsorship from a helmet company says "If only had been wearing a 300g foam hat when 10 tons of steel drover across his head and torso!"...

That's just hysteria. Please direct us to an example where this has actually occured. I don't think I've ever hear anyone, including employees of cycle helmet manufacturers, intimate that a cycle helmet will save you from death or serious injury if a lorry drives across your head.

 

[The History Man]

Did somebody mention religion earlier?

 

[xerxes]

An interesting theological point. After all, many religions focus on how we should wear our hair or what should be worn on the head. Sikhs are not allowed to cut their hair and wear a turban, Jews wear a yarmulke, Buddhist monks shave their heads and many early Christian monks favoured the tonsure and nuns still wear a wimple.

All this science and research is getting us nowhere, so I suggest we found a new religion, worshiping the great god Minasho and where the only things allowed to be worn on the head are a Go-Pro camera or a head torch. Thus Hope will be given to all, and should helmets ever be made law, we shall be exempt on religious grounds.

 

[Raging_Bulls]

Did somebody mention religion earlier?

There are a few ways to look at that :
- If you want to be a Messiah, don't wear a helmet
- Save the world, die.
- It's the cyclist's own fault that his helmet is damaged. Had he worn the other headpiece, he would have been dragging a large cross uphill and hence hadn't gone fast enough to crash in the first place.

 

[PurpleFrog]

So when some guy gets crushed to death by an HGV and some idiot with sponsorship from a helmet company says "If only had been wearing a 300g foam hat when 10 tons of steel drover across his head and torso!"...

That's just hysteria. Please direct us to an example where this has actually occured. I don't think I've ever hear anyone, including employees of cycle helmet manufacturers, intimate that a cycle helmet will save you from death or serious injury if a lorry drives across your head.

Sorry - you are wrong. Doubly wrong in fact. But, hey - you're used to it!

1. Helmet companies and their lobbyists promoted the "90% of deaths can be prevented by helmets" claim for years - which came from a study that Bell sponsored and which is now completely discredited. You can't get that rate without saving people whose heads have been driven over by lorries.

...You can't that get that rate without helmets doing something that you have to be an even bigger idiot still to believe: 50% of cyclists who die have fatal toros injuries, so you won't get that 90% save rate unless helmets protect torsos!

..You might not have been bright enough to work out that this is a claim that helmets make cyclists lorry-proof - obviously you weren't, perhaps because it would involve actually knowing stuff (admittedly stuff that's in the thread, so that isn't much of an excuse) and being able to do sums - but it is. No, don't thank me!

2. In fact Bradley Wiggins made such a claim a couple of weeks when he said that the death of a cyclist crushed by a lorry proved that helmets that helmets should be made complusory. (And yes he is sponsored by a helmet maker.)

 

[The History Man]

This is better than Wimbledon! Er, not really. But similarly lots of balls flying about. :mrgreen:

 

[Chopper the ex Copper]

I ask once again - show us an example where a helmet manufacturer, their employees, or even their authorised lobbyists have stated that wearing a cycle helmet will prevent death or serious injury if a lorry drives over the wearers head.

You're he one who's made the intimation, so instead of trying topics the topic onwards, or making rude comments about me, will you please substantiate your earlier statement.