`Wearing a helmet while cycling can reduce the risk of serious head injury by 85 percent, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine.`

What on earth is BikeRadar doing parroting this misleading and discredited `statistic`? What`s more, most `serious` head injuries - that is those requiring a hospital visit - involve nothing more than cuts or mild concussion. When it comes to a genuinely serious head injury - such as those which involve being hit by a motor vehicle - an inch of flimsy polystyrene foam is likely to be about as effective as chocolate teapot!

To find some rather more informed opinion on the worth of cycle helmets go to:

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/

Of particular interest:

`Claims that helmets prevent 85% of head and 88% of brain injuries are widely quoted by advocates of helmet laws. Despite many later studies showing lesser benefits, the 85% and 88% reductions continue to be cited.

The 85% and 88% estimates are from a small study in 1987 in Seattle [1]. The difficulties of interpreting data from this (and other case-control studies) are explained, to shed light on why their estimates are so different to real-life experience of helmet laws, all of which show no noticeable benefit of forcing millions of cyclists to wear helmets...`

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/mf.html?1131

Here we go again.

Breathes deeply and counts to ten

I agree with DubDevil...

having assisted in several serious of-road accidents involving cyclists not wearing helmets, and having had several bad accidents myself where my helmet has become so damaged i have thrown it away, i can assure you that wearing a helmet can be the difference between having a nasty headache or receiving a serious head injury or even a severe enough trauma to cause death

I have seen freeriders and downhill riders split motorbike helmets and freeride full face helmets, and walk away with a headache or mild concussion where without such protection, there is no doubt in my mind a fatality would have occured

there is always an extra level of protection from wearing a helmet, especially on the road where even at low speeds a head injury can cause death or brain damage

Personally I wouldn’t give any weight to apocryphal tales from people who feel that the fact they saw a helmet (designed to absorb a mere 90 of Joules or so in a lab test situation) which had fallen to bits in a real world crash was somehow proof that it has saved someone’s life! ( I wonder how many such people on seeing the damage inflicted on something like a Reliant Robin in a high-speed crash would also regard this as being proof of the life-saving ability of such a vehicle!). I would prefer to rely on what properly informed medics and those involved in the testing of helmets have to say on the issue.

Helmets may well protect against abrasions, cuts and mild concussion at their design speed (12 Mph or less) but unless you believe that an inch of polystyrene foam has energy-absorbing abilities which ignore the laws of physics I very much doubt that they can do much else!

This is what Brian Walker of Head Protection Evaluations of Farnham, Surrey, 'the principal UK test laboratory for helmets and head protection systems of all kinds' had to say on helmets a while back...

...Due in the main to the introduction of the weak EN1078 standard present day cycle helmets generally, offer a lower level of protection than those sold in the early 1990's. In the early 1990's market research suggested that in excess of 90% of the cycle helmets sold in the UK were certified to the Snell B-90 standard, at that time the most stringent cycle helmet standard in the world. In 1998 Head Protection Evaluations (HPE) my safety helmet laboratory, conducted a test program for the Consumers Association's assessment of cycle helmets available in the UK. By that year all of the helmets were manufactured to the EN1078 the European harmonised standard for cycle helmets. The results showed that with one or two exceptions all of the helmets tested were totally incapable of meeting the higher Snell B-90 standard, to which many of the models had been previously certified. Some tests suggested that certain helmets were even incapable of meeting the weak EN1078. standard.

...In a recent Court case, a respected materials specialist argued that a cyclist who was brain injured from what was essentially a fall from her cycle, without any real forward momentum, would not have had her injuries reduced or prevented by a cycle helmet. This event involved contact against a flat tarmac surface with an impact energy potential of no more than 75 joules (his estimate, with which I was in full agreement). The court found in favour of his argument. So a High Court has decided that cycle helmets do not prevent injury even when falling from a cycle onto a flat surface, with little forward momentum. Cycle helmets will almost always perform much better against a flat surface than any other. In every other legal case with which I have been involved, where a cyclist has been in collision with a motorised vehicle, the impact energy potentials generated were of a level which outstripped those we use to certify Grand Prix drivers helmets. In some accidents at even moderate motor vehicle speeds, energy potential levels in hundreds of joules were present.

...the very eminent QC under whose instruction I was privileged to work, tried repeatedly to persuade the equally eminent neurosurgeons acting for either side, and the technical expert, to state that one must be safer wearing a helmet than without. All three refused to so do, stating that they had seen severe brain damage and fatal injury both with and without cycle helmets being worn. In their view, the performance of cycle helmets is much too complex a subject for such a sweeping claim to be made.

This is taken from the transcript of that BMA meting which voted to support making the use of helmets compulsory...

RICHARD KEATINGE, North West Wales division,

"Compared to the huge health benefits of cycling this motion may seem trivial, After all there are relatively few deaths or injuries to cyclists. It may seem harmless, after all how much harm one centimetre of expanded polystyrene actually do? It may seem a useful protection, it's been described as uncontroversial.

"None of these things is true.

"Cycling is the best buy in health. Cyclists have a death rate about 40 percent lower than non cyclists. Obese cyclists are rare.

"Helmet laws - wear a lid or get off your bike - powerfully discourage cycling, especially amoing teenagers.

"Every enforced helmet law has been followed by a steep drop, of about 30 percent, in cycling.

"Helmet laws are a grave threat to health.

"Danger? Well, it's real. The hourly rate of injury is about the same for cycling as pedestrians and motorists. That's about one serious injury per 3000 years of cycljng. Serious injuries are not that common and the majority of them are due to motor vehicles.

"One centimetre of polystyrene won't do you much good if you get hit by an HGV.

"No helmet law has shown any effect on the proportion of head injuries to cyclists.

"Helmets laws actually don't work.

"After all, we're talking about one centimetre of polystyrene intended to be crushed and absorb the energy of a one metre fall. This is hardly relevant to most serious injuries.

"I've been shown broken helmets with the comment, 'This helmet has saved a life.' In most cases the foam wasn't even crushed. Helmets are far more fragile than even children's heads. Most broken helmets have simply failed.

"To repeat, helmet laws don't work, for either adults or children.

"This motion calls for an intervention which fails to reduce head injuries, which gravely harms health by reducing cycling and which even strangles a few children on their own helmet straps.

"We have not had a thorough review of the evidence. Until we do, we as a scientific association, I suggest, have no business passing this motion.

"If we do pass it, we will be faced with loud and well reasoned opposition from organisations which should be our friends.

ANDREW WEST, no constituency listed,

"I feel that, I take that, I accept that injury to the brain, depends how you define head injuries but injuries to the brain not affected a great deal by helmets but helmets do protect the shredding of the scalp. I feel that we should support this motion as it protects the scalp even if it doesn't protect much else.

"there is always an extra level of protection from wearing a helmet, especially on the road where even at low speeds a head injury can cause death or brain damage" yep my dad was on a touring bike (no helmet) had a low speed fall, just lookd over at something and turnd the wheel onto the ditch, got a crackd rib and cut head, tho thankfully has recovered. so he is back on the bikeE recumbent (http://www.bikee.org/) and no more accidents. also the perception of car drivers, towards cyclists is getting close to zero. its not only motorcyclists the car drivers should be looking out for.

The fact that the helmet falls to bit in an accident does not mean it has not worked - in fact quite the opposite. 1" of plastic can make a massive difference to an injury. I use to work on oil rigs and the helmets we had looked pretty sh1te. However they can take a pretty decent impact - but will fall to bits absorbing the impact.

Test 1

Punch brick wall with hand.

Test 2

As per test 1 - but with a cycle helmet on your hand

You'll be doing test 2 with a different hand to test 1 - as test 1 will have completely knacked your hand (if you wish to use the same hand for the test then complete test 2 prior to test 1). After test 2 you'll be picking bits of cycle helmet of the floor - though you're hand should be ok.