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This public health professional says nay to helmets.

SketchMaster

SketchMaster

Diamond Member
http://www.bikinginmpls.com/im-done-wearing-helmet/

Personally, I don't buy into this. Both my dad and I have had a helmet save our domes, and it wasn't due to us acting stupid. My dad had a blowout on his road bike at 30MPH and went head first into the pavement. I had a branch snag my bike while on a wooded path and threw me down to the rocky trail.

In both cases our bodies were beat up pretty good, and the helmets were smashed, but our brains weren't scrambled.

Thoughts?
 
They're a pain in the ass and they make you look stupid but this article is utter nonsense.

Helmets don't prevent crashes? I guess that means my sealtbelt doesn't prevent crashes either.
And the statistics don't take into account all other kinds of injuries? Maybe that's because helmets are intended to protect your head.

To deny that a bicycle helmet can protect your head from a serious injury is asinine.
 
Yea the article is stupid.

I do feel that it should be a choice, and not a law however. Just like every other 'for your safety' law which is really just a way to make money.
 
I feel the same way when people say cases actually make smartphones less safe from drops. Last two phones were caseless. Both broken within a year from dropping them on a hard surface. Latest phone was an iphone 5s, presumably one of the worse phones when it comes to withstanding impacts, and it's still going strong after 2 years with a relatively thin TPU case on it. It's been dropped eleventy billion times in that timeframe. I see a lot of broken phones while out and about as well. Most of them seem to be caseless.

Back on topic: If I'm going to be hit in the head with something, I'd love some styrofoam and plastic between my head and that something. If it's a case of people using safety equipment as an excuse to act more unsafely, that's not something that seems to apply to me.
 
Personally I think for adults it should be a choice... which I think it is, I'm not aware of any law. But kids should definitely wear one. It also depends what kind of biking you do. If it's just casual normal speeds then even if you wipe out because of a rock or something you wont do much damage, but if you're going 30+ km/h then yeah you should wear a helmet.
 
I think you guys should have more warnings too, that coffee is hot. It's a dangerous world out there !
 
i'm sure my motorcycle helmet did me absolutely no good when i crashed in a ditch at a track and got tossed off onto a bunch of sand and rocks.

the author's choice to wear a helmet is fine. she doesn't like it. but helmets do save lives, especially for motorcycling where the speeds are higher.

Head injury is a leading cause of death in motorcycle crashes. Riders who don't wear helmets and who experience a crash are 40 percent more likely to sustain a fatal head injury.
A study of 900 motorcycle crashes (conducted by the University of Southern California) showed that wearing a helmet was the single most critical factor in preventing or reducing head and neck injuries among motorcycle drivers and passengers.
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That was taken from a very outdated-looking NHSTA page, so I don't know how old those stats are.

A 1987 study of helmet use determined that helmets reduce the risk of serious injury by 85%. That’s a statistic you’ll still see all over the place. The problem is, that study was deeply flawed and has been refuted. Governmental agencies have stopped using this number due to issues with the study. Other more recent studies have investigated the question of helmet efficacy, and have found that the benefit is not nearly as high as we used to think. One well-done study that evaluated all the current studies out there (called a meta-analysis), found there to be no benefit to helmet use when you take into account all types of injuries. Helmets protect against certain kinds of injuries (those to the head) and increase the likelihood of other injuries (those to the neck).
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so it's not that helmets don't provide *any* benefit, but that the benefit is not as much as previously thought.

of course helmets aren't going to protect against other injuries. that much is obvious. i'm curious as to how they increase the risk of neck injuries (hyperextension/flexion is my guess).

Cyclists don’t die from just falling off their bikes, they die because they are hit by cars. Bike helmets only protect against certain types of injuries to certain parts of the head, and the evidence is not compelling that they even do that well.
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The greatest risk to bicyclists may very well be other cars, but that doesn't mean the risk of a fall isn't a real risk.

Many more motorists and pedestrians die in traffic collisions per year than do bicyclists. We don’t see them wearing helmets.
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Why do pedestrians not wear helmets? because they are moving slow enough for any injuries to be minor, and if they are hit by a car, the momentum difference is so great a helmet won't matter. Why do people inside cars not wear helmets (minus racing)? Because they have 3000+ lbs of steel and multiple safety systems around them.

It’s as if people think that wearing a helmet will save you from crashing in the first place. It won’t.
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no, it won't. but for motorcyclists, they can stop bugs and rocks from smacking you in the face at 70mph.

Just because someone wears a helmet doesn’t mean they’re a safer cyclist. It seems like a lot of people use helmet use as a proxy for caring about safety, and that’s just not true. Learning safe riding skills, being visible, and being attentive are the things we all can do to prevent an accident.
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this is very true. a helmet is not meant to shield you against everything. it cannot protect you from yourself, the road, or other vehicles. but it can give you a better chance if you do fall, whatever the cause is.


HELMET USE MAY DETER PEOPLE FROM BIKING
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so other people may have a different tolerance for risk. the humanity. that's no different than "other people view X activity as risky which is a shame because it's awesome". not everyone has the same risk tolerance as the author. i don't ride my motorcycle without a helmet and gear. ever. i don't want bugs in my face, and i don't want my skin on the pavement if i fall.

THE BENEFITS OF BIKING MUCH OUTWEIGH THE RISKS
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statistically, and long-term, this would not surprise me. but people could just as easily walk, run, or jog to get similar health benefits (save for the leg muscle).

IT’S HUMANIZING NOT TO WEAR A HELMET
I am a human. I have skin that can get bruised and a head that can get bashed in and blood that can gush out in the event that a car runs me over. I don’t want to hide my head behind a helmet, I want drivers to pass me on the street and see that I am a person, a human, just like them. I think of my bare head as a sign that says: I am a living creature who wants to keep living, so please don’t hit me.
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i will see you as a human. a very foolish one. where traffic is slow inside a city, i get bicycling. but everywhere else i see them (highways, country roads, etc) where cars are moving at considerable speeds, i consider them practically suicidal.


honestly, i think bike helmets should be much more like full-face motorcycle helmets. one, they'd look cooler IMO, and two, they'd provide some cushion to the rest of the head.
 
I always wore helmets when on the snowmobiles, I never drive motorcycles. on my bicycle, off the road, in the forest preserve or whatever, i dont wear a helmet, but I also go about 7-8mph.
 
She's definitely a member of the One True Church.

"Helmets keep people from biking because biking is perceived as dangerous, so helmets are bad" isn't a logical statement. For one thing it is dangerous. Not as dangerous as drunk walking, though.

The neck injury thing is like seat belts or vaccines - for every person who's strangled by a seatbelt or has a reaction to a vaccine, thousands of people are alive today because of them. You trade a danger for a lesser danger - the lesser danger doesn't make the safety equipment bad.

That's how most safety equipment is - extraneous until you (whoops!) need it. Go ahead, ask me about the fingerguard on my router table. 😱 (No, relax, it'll grown back.)

Helmets are not a cure-all, they don't protect you from everything, but if you do get in an accident, they generally prevent "holy shit I broke my leg!" from being "holy shit I would be worried about Dave's broken leg if he weren't a vegetable!"
 
Also, I looked her up on linkedin - for a "Public Health Professional" she seems to have a lot of political advocacy and marketing experience, and not a lot of actual medical training. I wonder if she ever took a statistics course?
 
She's an adult and it's her choice, but I'd rather not take my chances. Cyclists would be better advised to perhaps obey the rules of the road if they want to improve their safety. I wish the cops would do a better job at enforcing it.

The laugh is a lot of her "proof" is based on small 'n' studies, when she's at the same time mocking a "flawed" government study from 30 years ago. Correlation is not causation.
 
mmntech said:
She's an adult and it's her choice, but I'd rather not take my chances. Cyclists would be better advised to perhaps obey the rules of the road if they want to improve their safety. I wish the cops would do a better job at enforcing it.

The laugh is a lot of her "proof" is based on small 'n' studies, when she's at the same time mocking a "flawed" government study from 30 years ago. Correlation is not causation.
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Stopping cyclists who blew through stop signs was one of my favorite things to do. 😀
 
As the internet taught me years ago: do whatever the hell you want, helmet or no, it's your corpse.
 
You realize that a phlebotomist is a "public health professional"

I get the feeling she also will not vaccinate her kids, if she ever reproduces. Which I hope she does not.
 
I could go on a rant, but have mentioned things in threads like this too long now.

It's like wearing a seat belt will get you killed.

Just have been in a few head injured wards in hospitals in the past from where my second wife worked, and statistically know where many of them came from.
 
Meh. I agree with him/her overall. If you are just out putzing along on your bike it probably doesn't matter much. I commute 4 miles round trip to work some 200+ times a year and don't wear a helmet.

I also race my bike around 60 times a year and wear a helmet every time at every event and any time I'm practicing for an event.
 
Eug said:
That guy is a moron.
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SketchMaster said:
http://www.bikinginmpls.com/about/
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nakedfrog said:
So you're pointing out that it's not a guy?
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riding-bike.jpg

Lindsey Anne Wallace. 😉
 
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