Re: Helmet efficacy test

Wolfgang Strobl <news51@mystrobl.de> wrote:

Am Sat, 29 Mar 2025 22:16:26 -0400 schrieb Frank Krygowski
<frkrygow@sbcglobal.net>:
 

On 3/29/2025 8:17 PM, John B. wrote:

On 29 Mar 2025 19:19:26 GMT, Roger Merriman <roger@sarlet.com> wrote:
 

Frank Krygowski <frkrygow@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

On 3/29/2025 12:35 AM, John B. wrote:

...
 

O.K. Try https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-35728-x

 
What was your point, John? I ask because it seems you just grabbed
another study at random. Roger's and my discussion was about cheap
helmets vs. expensive ones. I didn't see that addressed. Perhaps when
you post a link, you could tell us what part of the study was
significant to our discussions?
 
I did see this: "Although rotational acceleration has been known to be
relevant in cyclist injuries, it is still missing in standardized
testing today. Using full body simulation, Wang et al.24 confirmed that
rotational acceleration is indeed increased when wearing a helmet." That
would seem to go back to the issue of a larger moment arm for glancing
blows.

 
IMO, it's not just the larger moment arm, it's the enlarged probability.
This is mostly caused by the bigger cross-section of a helmet, in
comparison to a bare  head.  Neck muscles are generally strong enough to
hold the head away from the ground or turn it away in the event of a
fall. However, this distance is often smaller than that wat a helmet
adds to size of the head. 
 
My head was uninjured in a serious bike crash years ago in which I broke
my collarbone and half a dozen ribs. A helmet wouldn't have fitted
between the asphalt and my head, though. 
 
Does this prove anything? I don't think so. It's just an anecdote,
similar to those anecdotes told by bicycle helmet enthusiasts flooding
the media with "how my helmet saved my life". 
 
But ... my experience illustrates one mechanism that might partially
explain why bicycles helmets didn't deliver any of the advertised
benefits, despite of all those great expectations.  Safety research
perhaps should start analyzing risks caused or enlarged by bicycle
helmets ernestly, such like as enlarged cross section, rotational
traumata and risk compensation.
 
We should also not overlook the indirect damage caused by complicating
and inconveniencing a means of transportation that is beneficial to
health.
 

I believe that Sydney and maybe others cities have pushed in the past to
exempt dockless/docked hire bikes from the law for that reason, though I
*think* bit like the e scooter in uk the police aren’t interested unless
someone really advertises them selfs to them!

 
And that paper, like almost all, does almost nothing to address the lack
of reduction in TBI counts in the entire population. They do mention one
paper by Olivier claiming large reductions in cyclist TBI in Australia
after their mandatory helmet laws (MHLs). But Olivier is famous in other
forums for his insistence that there was no reduction in cycling as a
result of the MHLs. Copious survey and count data indicating large
reductions in cycling, which would of course lead to large reductions in
cyclist TBI.
 
In Olivier's world, prohibiting all cycling would be a great way of
wiping out almost all cyclist TBI.

 

Roger Merriman