Helmets Save Your Bonce

[The History Man]

What question?

 

[careful now]

Riding a bike isn't like hitting yourself in the had with a hammer.

It's more like riding a bike,which is safe and fun.

 

[ratbane]

Riding a bike isn't like hitting yourself in the had with a hammer.

It's more like riding a bike,which is safe and fun.

Oh dear. That's right, if you chose to wear a helmet IT'S NOT FUN ANYMORE!!!

I agree, most of the time riding a bike is not like hitting your head with a hammer.

However, on the odd occasion that it is, I can't see why anyone would think that a protective shell wouldn't help dissipate the blow.

 

[Alison]

Riding a bike isn't like hitting yourself in the had with a hammer.

It's more like riding a bike,which is safe and fun.

Oh dear. That's right, if you chose to wear a helmet IT'S NOT FUN ANYMORE!!!

I agree, most of the time riding a bike is not like hitting your head with a hammer.

However, on the odd occasion that it is, I can't see why anyone would think that a protective shell wouldn't help dissipate the blow.

My 8" cut on my head was like been hit over the head with a hammer, I can tell you, and if I had had a helmet I would not have a nasty scar right across it. Cycling is safe and fun until it isn't.

Alison

 

[Chopper the ex Copper]

Been out for a gentle bimble, my first ride in 3.5 weeks since i boshed me ribs in.

I wore a helmet, and by god it was so much fun I had a serious trouser tent.

 

[The History Man]

Two helmets on show then?

 

[Chopper the ex Copper]

Would've been three, but the peak of the Giro hides my face. Thought I'd get that in before you thought of it

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

I ask you one thing. If I was dribbling and had a hammer, and offered you a helmet shell thick piece of polystyrene to cushion the (non-life-threatening) blow I was just about to administer, would you use it or not?

If we assume that:
*the polystyrene is the same density as that used in helmets
*the hammer has a large flat fronted head so as to spread the load
*the hammer will strike with a similar force to that used to test helmets
*the hammers force will strike in a direction that is tangential to the head....

Then the use of cushion should prove extremely efficient at absorbing the linear energy of the blow and should prevent both skull fracture, concussion and brain injury.

If we halve the impact force then the foam will be too dense to compress and the energy will be absorbed by the brain but because the brain is resilient to such linear impacts then there will probably be no permanent damage.

However if the same blow is off centre, like the oblique impacts seen in most cycling accidents, then the brain will experience angular acceleration as the head rotates violently. The helmet will not cushion the blow because the foam is too dense, so all the energy will be absorbed by the brain.

Angular acceleration is the cause of most cycling related brain injuries. Increased helmet use worldwide has not led to a reduction in the incidence of brain injury because current helmet designs offer little protection against violent rotations of the head

 

[The History Man]

I'm not taking this seriously am I?

 

[Chopper the ex Copper]

Sorry Graham, what you're describing is nonsensical. Think very carefully about the physics involved and try again. I'll let you have another go before I correct it.

Cryptic clue - it's relative.

Coffee time clue - the bulk of cycling head impacts are with stationary objects such as the ground.

This review of several extensive studies debunks that which you have just claimed. 45 out of 177 fatalities is clearly not a majority, so with those figure angular is clearly not the cause of "most" cycling head injury deaths. It's less than a third. Indeed, of that number, while they exhibit injuries consistent with DAI (as they call it), they can not demonstrate how many, if any, of those deaths were actually caused by it.

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1196.html

Indeed, read this review, and then read the research papers to which they refer (really rather dull I'm afraid) and one can see that the results of the research are somewhat at odds with one another, and the reviewer himself disagrees with some of them. Indeed, with my own education into a field involving physics at Masters Level I can myself find fault with the reviewers on contention on several points. In other words, even researchers can not agree with each other, so finding 'evidence' to supporting one argument, or the other, or either, is easy.

So leaving aside that you have misunderstood the research to which you allude, you appear to have cherry picked research to support your own viewpoint, while ignoring contrary evidence. Not exactly objective.