It's a number of things - the equally arrogant and holier-than-thou attitude displayed by a fair number of cyclists, the perceived holdups, the ignoring of the rules of the road, etc. And yes I do realise it's a minority, but the same is true of motorists.



I have no problem whatsoever with cyclists BTW - unless one is being a dick. But that's the same for motorists and pedestrians as well.

You are correct of course there are some pretty stupid people out there most seem to drive cars but some ride bikes as well. the same incident with a bike isn't remotely anything like that from a motorised vehicle is it, the chances of a cyclist seriously injuring/killing another person is pretty rare indeed, with a car/van/lorry that cannot be said at all.

I wouldn't dream of stopping you from wearing your helmet but my response was mainly in for Standee who clearly seems to think that replying "what utter shiote" means he must be right about helmets and I (& the experts) are clearly wrong regarding the issues they present.

Personally I've been knocked off a fair few times, crashed at nearly 30mph due to a hidden pothole 6ft across a road and a few offs through my own fault but I've never banged my head once. The pothole incident anecdotally would have seen me damage my neck/head pretty severly if I had been wearing a helmet.

Sadly many cyclists (even those high up) seem to think helmets have magical properties and prevent anything from a snapped hip to a broken wrist and will ward off that 40 tonner from crushing you..understanding their real limitations and the false protection (& thus risk compensation becomes a factor) is very important IMO



As I said upthread I'm totally okay with young children wearing them but beyond that I see no reason to continue as any small benefit is skewed by the negatives. My own son never wore one in the 7 years he rode to school, others do what they feel is right for their kids but I'll always point out the actual facts not made up carp that comes from certain corners..

more myopia from cyclists, between them and kirkstaller we have some right crackpots on RLFans

Can you elaborate so I can understand why wearing a helmet is so dangerous?



I know my helmet has been designed to absorb impact. The only time it has been remotely tested is on low twigs which admitedly wouldn't have casued me a head injury other than a few scratches, but it did prevent them. If I fell off on a road, I can't imagine a scenario where I would prefer not to wear a helmet.



Other than statistics of helmets purchased to head injuries, without me spending time trawling the internet, what other evidence is there that helmets are dangerous?

The main arguments against (and I'm not a supporter of them) seem to always concern high speed impacts (high speed on a bike that is), collisions with motor vehicles (they have a point there), and a factor best described as the expectation that when you put a helmet you are automatically protected and will therefore be more reckless.



I'm not quite sure where the last theory came from but helmet or no helmet, five minutes cycling in commuter traffic will soon dash any such immortal theories from your head as you soon realise that you are often invisible to some motorists, or if not invisible they assume that giving you two inches of room when passing you is sufficient - I can imagine anyone still having invincible feelings after just one trip in commuter traffic.



Fact of the matter is that if you fall off a bike at any speed its going to hurt and I don't really see the argument against trying to mitigate some of that hurt.

Many years back we had exactly the same arguments about helmets on motorbikes. Helmets won, and many years have passed.



There are many other places in the world where helmets are not compulsory. Yet still nobody can produce compelling proof that overall compulsion was a definite benefit.



Of course there will always be individual cases where a helmet will definitively have saved a rider's life just as there will always be cases where had a helmet, or seatbelt, NOT been worn, a car occupant probably would not have died, but then the inevitability of rare exceptions was known even by those promoting the new laws.



In the case of seatbelts, I think the benefit of compulison is obvious. Even though a few will be injured or die because of it. In the case of helmets, I am not convinced. But at least a helmet does indisputably provide serious protection against - say- a substantial argument with a kerb edge.



In the case of cycle helmets, I'm sort of the other way, and it should certainly remain entirely optional, (for adults not children) in my opinion, given the widely conflicting research data and arguments.



Incidentally, why does every Tour de France rider wear one?

This is actually a pretty well-established effect with more or less all protective gear/equipment to some degree or other.

Otherwise known as the 'Punishment Pass' - the angry motorists way of showing their irritation at the audacious cyclist, who has the brass neck to be minding his own business, trying not to get killed; happens to me all the time.

Funnily enough the accident/injury rates were tumbling in the 70s already and then with the onset of compulsary seatbelts that drop stalled, with each passing 'safety' feature the toll is eskewed elsewhere.



As for pro riding, well seeing as accident/injury rates haven't gone down in such since the inception by the UCI (backhanders from the helmet manufacturers as a sweetner and another spot for advertising notwithstanding) the whole helmet wearing thing seems a bit of a dim view given the very high speeds and risks taken.

Helmet compulsion for pro cyclists was brought in by the UCI in 2003 following the death of Andrei Kivlev during the Paris-Nice race, since then deaths of professional cyclists while racing have doubled.



In the 1950s, 8 pro riders were killed, in the 60s, 4; another 4 during the 70s, 5 in the 80s. 3 died in pro races in the 1990s. Guess how many died in the next decade...10, 6 after the helmet law was introduced.



The limited drop test which is roughly 13mph is like an average adult tripping and banging their heads. Do we advocate helmet wearing for walkers/shoppers etc who trip and bang their heads, do we advocate motor vehicle drivers to wear them (by doing so it would reduce injuries massively according to sources)?

More people die getting out of bed than all cyclists killed by motor vehicles.



that many thousands can't even fit their helmets properly nor even attend to their brakes either just makes wearing them a bit of a joke frankly.

I'd love to see your average adult if they can walk at 13mph.



Cycling at 13mph is a fairly sedate rate, typically the sort of fairly sedate rate that the vast majority of cycling is done at, you have to be cycling pretty hard to be consistently achieving 20mph for instance especially in built up areas.



You also need to look at your average cycling club's Sunday morning outing to discover just how many people prefer to cycle WITH helmets, its quite a large percentage and that is by personal choice not by some decree of a club or organisation - people simply prefer to have the backup of something between their head and a kerbstone, rather than their skull.

Most people can't run at that pace.





Unless they were all head injuries, those stats tell us little.

Sorry I didn't make that clear as clearly people don't walk at 13mph

The velocity of the head is going about 12-13 mph when an adult person falls from a stationary position. So I should have said from stationary and not falling/tripping whilst walking.

The drop test (alinear test at that) with a 2kg solid object inside the helmet which is from about 1.2-1.5m straight down (I think only Snell tested from higher in the past as well but most helmets nowadays aren't snell tested)...so that's pretty much the test for how your head will be protected when it strikes the ground. That protection diminishes rapidly as the speed goes up.

Look at the manufacturers claims on the literature, you'll notice it makes very little in terms of what protection they offer, there's a very good reason for that, they know how poor they are and would be sued to high heaven.



As a cyclist coming to an abrupt halt or being launched toward the ground means your head is going much faster than your actual cycling speed, a heck of a lot less if you're walking as your head (if you were to fall) would be in excess of the testing parameters. As I've said, helemts are fine for minor abrasions/cuts/bruises but are next to useless for much else and increase the chances of a rotational brain injury which I'm more than happy to avoid that lieu of a few bruises. As I said upthread personally I've never smacked my head once & i've ridden on the road 30 odd years doing 140k+ miles so I've yet to experience any head injury whatsoever low/er speed accidents/falls invariably do not involve hitting the head, hips, shoulders, hands and thighs usually carry the brunt.



An example of why helmets should be worn in every day life by pedestrians and motrists far more than cyclists.

A study examined 28 cyclist deaths over 15 years in Sheffield and Barnsley. Over 80% of both

cases and controls had severe head injuries, but controls (an equal number of pedestrians and motor

vehicle occupant fatalities) suffered more fatal injuries to other parts of the body. If helmets had

saved all those who only had head injuries, at best 14 (50%) of cyclist deaths would have been

prevented. On the other hand, if the pedestrians and motor vehicle occupants had worn helmets, some

175 lives may have been saved in the same period...



I could go on as the information is out there, people just need to read up and find out the truth about how little helmets actually offer but actually increase the chances of injury, I stated previously that studies show that after compulsary helmet wearing was introduced the rates of head injuries increased...so, those wearing helmets have more crashes and have more head injuries than unhelmeted from a statistical POV