Dangerous Helmets

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Dangerous Helmets

Submitted by Van Campa on 11 October, 2009 - 13:16
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I wonder if anyone else has thought of this?

Some, mainly poor people seem to wear old and worn helmets.

Those white or black polystyrene shells without the plastic shell. 

Why do you think motorcycle helmets have hard plastic shells? 

In case of a fall off the bike, if your helmets hits the asphalt what happens? 

In case of wearing an old bare polystyrene helmet, it doesn't slide across the road surface as a hard plastic would, but it sticks like rubber shoes stick on the ground when walking.

In case of helmet, sticking is undesirable and having a head inside of a helmet during a fall, your head sticks and a neck injury is possible. 

Are there any statistics of injuries with people wearing different types of helmets? 

Submitted by npcycle on 12 October, 2009 - 10:28

Such issues have been considered.

Yes, different types of helmet may "grab" more, but neck injuries tend to go up with any type of helmet. Rotational trauma is also an issue.

For some coverage of hard vs. soft shell try "The efficacy of bicycle helmets against brain injury," Curnow, W. J., Accident Analysis and Prevention 846 (2002) 1–6.

For an attempt to try to improve the design see the Phillips Helmet - but I don't think they've made one for bicycling.

It is also worth considering what bicycle helmets are designed for, try "Heads Up," Walker, B., Cycle June/July 2005 available as http://www.cyclehelmets.org/papers/c2023.pdf.

Motorcycle helmets are completely different to bicycle ones (indeed does moulded polystyrene really deserve the name "helmet" - but I guess "foam plastic hat" wouldn't sell so well.) This difference has a lot to do with the mechanics of cycling, which is an active transport mode - if you're sitting on a motorcycle you can wear a heavier (real) helmet. If you want to have the difference underlined read the notice inside most bicycle helmets which says "not for use by motorcyclists" - bicycle helmets simply are not, and cannot be, designed for anything other than low speed impacts (equivalent to falling of a stationary bike unaided by anything other than gravity). If motorcyclists wore them they'd die, just as cyclists who wear them do (its not the speed of your vehicle but the speed of impact which counts).

Don't let that make you despair. Just remember that however useless your so called "helmet" is that bicycling is a healthy and safe way to get around compared to the alternatives, so the fact your helmet is next to useless at any time you really need it not to be doesn't matter so much - unless you or other road users alter behaviour because of the helmet... Don't do it!

HTH

Submitted by urbanbicycles on 11 October, 2009 - 23:05

None of the 110 million or so cyclists in the EU or the 86 million in Japan are required to wear helmets and very few actually choose to do so.

Meanwhile, over in Australia
Sue Abbott got a ticket for not wearing a bike helmet. Instead of paying the small fine, she's going to court at the end of this month, Sept (2009)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLoPA_I6SL8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZriJe1CO7-k

Alan Preston in Mangawhai, Northland.
http://urbanbicycles.googlepages.com/helmets