Remember kids... always wear a helmet. (The almighty bikeradar helmet thread)

scoober you are wise beyond words

came off my bike, over the handlebars, a few years ago; the helmet i was wearing had a dicky visor on it, which took the initial impact of the road. that shattered and the helmet foam made the next connection. then my face.

That looks terrible, Cara. Hope you've recovered from it completely!

learn to crash properly and you wont need a helmet. practice makes perfect.

I have been riding since I was about 10 or 12 and mainly of farily large dirt jumps, skateparks etc and I have probably worn my helmet for half the time. In the time I was riding like that I almost never hit my head. It is second nature for me and I just seem to be able to keep my head off the ground.
When I came to London I made the decision to wear a helmet whilst on the road because it is completely out of my hands with the road users we face here. Since then I have fallen and hit my head. It knocked me silly for a day or two even though I had a helmet on, so I dread to think what could have happened to me if I hadn't been wearing a helmet.

To those who keep saying this is a pointless thread and it should be here. Just FUCK OFF and stop reading. Nothing is forcing you to read every thread on this forum.

Rant over, for now.

http://photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs011.snc1/2902_91020774342_542689342_2424010_5957512_n.jpg

Ambulance crew & Neuro unit reckoned the helmet avoided a fractured skull

I'm thnking of getting a TSG bmx helmet.
any1 know if they are any good ?

useful thread. had a little ponder over the question of my mortality. ordered me up one of these.
dorky looking? sure.
figure it'll get used for milton keynes ramp&rail-night missions too though as they won't let you ride with a lid and their rentals smell kind of funky.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17032-bicycle-helmet-laws-could-do-more-harm-than-good.html

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17032-bicycle-helmet-laws-could-do-more-harm-than-good.html

Words fail the amount of anger I have at the moment over that article. I believe I saw something slightly more useful earlier this morning when I was wiping my arse clean.

First of all, he's a twat who has no idea about cultural specifics with regard to rule-following. The Americans, as a culture are on about the same level as the Germans for obeying laws because they are there. Perhaps a bit of mutter but they will do it all the same. The British are a little further down the scale, tending to err on practicality and whether or not they can reasonably get away with it. The French on then other hand are totally militant about not being forced to do stuff - their seatbelt usage went DOWN after they made it mandatory because people were deliberately showing they wouldn't be told what to do.

THIS ARTICLE IS ABSOLUTE TOSH!!!!

But forget the fact that this is an overgrown spreadsheet with no real-world culture factors in it. How fucking DARE they describe my life in terms of a fucking sum of money. IT ISN'T COST E-FUCKING-FFECTIVE..!!???!!! WHAT?!!!??? That's the same argument the Ford directors used for arguing that it was cheaper to let people burn in Ford Pintos with the petrol tank design-fault and pay the compensation than it was to recall them and fix it. And history judged them very, very harshly - their blatant cynicism resulted in the highest penalties ever awarded against a company. And this turd wants policy makers to take a long look at his piece of excrement before they make any decisions..?!??? Words fail me.

This man needs to be SERIOUSLY discredited. And hurt. Baggsy I get to be at the front of the queue. Darwinism needs IDIOTS like Piet de jong removed from the gene pool. For the benefit of the rest of mankind. Seriously, we'd actually be doing the human race a favour. And the idiot can be found here...

(http://www.businessandeconomics.mq.edu.au/contact_the_faculty/staff/alphabetical_list_of_staff/piet_de_jong)

I've had too many lucky escapes nowadays to not wear one.

1. Coming down a hill (Headington in oxford), late for a meeting, had a tie in a plastic bag which came in contact with the front wheel. I was going hell for leather, as was a bit late. and flew. Luckily i knew how to fall, and walked away with only skin abrasions.
   
   
   

Serious question: Where/how do I learn how to fall?

Serious question: Where/how do I learn how to fall?

it helps if you do sports as a kid like skiing or anything else but ping-pong.
And polo is a good teacher too

Judo, ju-jitsu, or probably aikido for pure style would be good places to think about. Learn to fall, learn to make things fall. It's a win-win.

Deff polo

Words fail the amount of anger I have at the moment over that article.

Why? You want helmet wearing to be mandatory? Fuck that. You want to to wear a helmet? Go ahead, no one's stopping you. Like everything in life, assess your risks and act accordingly. I'm sure there are some cyclists that probably should be forced to wear helmets (actually it would be better if they learned how to ride better and improved their awareness of things around them) but I'm getting severely pissed off with the constant introduction of legislation in this country to cater for the lowest common denominator of fuckwit.

Serious question: Where/how do I learn how to fall?

Start with logs, falling off them is well easy I hear.

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/

As ever.

Why? You want helmet wearing to be mandatory? Fuck that. You want to to wear a helmet? Go ahead, no one's stopping you. Like everything in life, assess your risks and act accordingly. I'm sure there are some cyclists that probably should be forced to wear helmets (actually it would be better if they learned how to ride better and improved their awareness of things around them) but I'm getting severely pissed off with the constant introduction of legislation in this country to cater for the lowest common denominator of fuckwit.

No, I'm not saying that. Did you read what I wrote? Did you read what he wrote? None of it had anything to do with what you just said. I'm assuming you didn't read the article. I don't give a stuff about legislation or not, or whether people wear helmets or not. Until it's legislated, it's personal choice.

I'm angry because this is bad science of the worst sort. I'm angry because his conclusions are full of more holes than Swiss cheese and he's hoping people will actually treat his paper with reverance, when it's just rubbish science.

The reason it matters is that this sort of crap is the kind of justification that the idiots in Whitehall use to curtail our freedoms.

OK, it's actually the opposite way round this time, so he's arguing against helmets, so no freedoms curtailed as yet. But I'm objecting to this kind of rubbish science of basic principal.

The police have rushed through all this anti-terror legislation "to keep us all safer" when actuall all they are using it for is to bring back the stop-and-search powers they lost because of all the misuse of them that happened in the seventies. They're using it to have sniffer-dogs in Vauxhall tube at ten o'clock on Friday night. Popular time for terrorists transporting semtex? Or just looking for a few pills in a clubber's pockets.

I can't help that this effectively isn't a free country anymore - if it ever was. But at least if decisions are being made that concern my life, then on basic principal, I want REAL facts and information being used to make the decisions, not complete rubbish.

@Tea_Bee - it's a long term cost/benefit analysis analysing a certain problem with respect to a certain output. As is the case with models of these kinds, there are a lot of assumptions, and a large margin for error. As the article says:

"There's a lot of uncertainty around it," de Jong admits

Moreover:

this is bad science of the worst sort

It's really not. The method he used is legit. You're arguing that you don't like his conclusions. Your method of attack should be to examine his assumptions, and highlight the ones that you find fault with.

The police have rushed through all this anti-terror legislation "to keep us all safer" when actuall all they are using it for is to bring back the stop-and-search powers they lost because of all the misuse of them that happened in the seventies. They're using it to have sniffer-dogs in Vauxhall tube at ten o'clock on Friday night. Popular time for terrorists transporting semtex? Or just looking for a few pills in a clubber's pockets.

Er, perhaps they're actually looking for clubbers with pills in their pockets which, may I remind you, are illegal.

That's not the point. They are taking methods designed to be used in extreme cases, to protect the average man in the street from nasty terrorists, and using them to catch kids with a bit of weed on them. If they had lobbied parliament to use sniffer dogs at tube stations for that purpose only, it would have been rejected.

Why? You want helmet wearing to be mandatory? Fuck that. You want to to wear a helmet? Go ahead, no one's stopping you. Like everything in life, assess your risks and act accordingly. I'm sure there are some cyclists that probably should be forced to wear helmets (actually it would be better if they learned how to ride better and improved their awareness of things around them) but I'm getting severely pissed off with the constant introduction of legislation in this country to cater for the lowest common denominator of fuckwit.

+1

I have been run over twice and a helmet would have no made any difference to my injuries. I had friends who have had worse injuries**** because they were**** wearing a helmet.

It depends how you get hit as to what whether a helmet will help, do nothing or hurt you. If you wanna wear one, great, but don't make me wear one, it is my life.

I had friends who have had worse injuries**** because they were**** wearing a helmet.

Much as I hate to perpetuate a helmet thread, I would be interested to hear more about these. I've heard stuff about how helmets could cause injuries, but no actual anecdotal evidence.

he's arguing against helmets, so no freedoms curtailed as yet.

However de Jong, a native of bike-loving Holland, makes clear that he would not discourage people from wearing helmets.

Reading comprehension FAIL.

I bmx and down my local indoor skatepark (3-4 times a week in the winter) where the policy is if your over 18 you can choose if you want to wear a helmet, it's mandatory if your under 18. The park is now into it's second year and there has been no head injuries (fingers crossed, touching wood). For me it's great that I don't have to wear a helmet as I don't get as hot and can ride for longer. As far as the article goes I think his arguments a bit scewed, if you like cycling or do so as a main form of transport having to wear a helmets not going to stop you.

Mind you I objected to wearing one of those massive, bellends of a helmet, called tufftops as a kid with good reason!