6 ms·
Paper cycling helmet wins James Dyson Award
- uptown 10y agoEssentially recyclable/replaceable at $5/each, but I wonder how well they perform in protecting the head under adverse weather conditions.
- giarc 10y ago>The unusual design is made from waterproofed recycled paper,
- f_allwein 10y agointeresting, but does not look like the best solution to the problem of "how do we supply bike share users with helmets?", given that they can only be used a few times.
- 300zxkyle 10y agoI'm not sure; I believe that any (viable) attempt to reduce the possibility of head injuries due to cycling accidents is a good idea. This definitely seems to hit the mark on "if I had one with me I would".
- proactivesvcs 10y agoThe problem is actually "how do we make bike share users safer?" I'd suggest more effort is put into making the infrastructure better, since a flimsy helmet (made of cardboard or polystyrene) is not a solution to any problem other than sales figures.
- ghaff 10y agoI haven't personally used it, but it seemed as if Seattle had some sort of helmet rental associated with bike share when I was there recently.
- fowkswe 10y agoIt seems like an iteration with a plastic coating could make this a product with a longer life.
- maxerickson 10y agoAnd then use expanded polystyrene for its superior ability to absorb energy. Here's a previous design project paper bike hat that apparently already failed to get to market: http://www.bikeradar.com/commuting/news/article/pulp-nonfiction-the-paper-helmet-37951/ http://www.bikeradar.com/commuting/news/article/pulp-nonfict... I guess this one also won't meet safety standards and won't ever be for sale.
- 24gttghh 10y agoWell that helmet looks pretty ugly and has no venting. This paper-board honeycomb helmet looks better and is well vented.
- brudgers 10y agoDuplicate (and recycled): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12976586 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12976586
- mentos 10y agoThe few times I have gone biking in NYC with CitiBike I decided to forgo a helmet with the mindset that my exposure was limited to only a few hours. When I finally bought a bike I bought a helmet. I think a vending machine selling these paper helmets next to bike share kiosks would probably be the best bet but I still wonder if I would have bought one due to the unattractive design. If they could create an ultra cheap paper helmet that looked a little cooler I think that would be easier for the general public to adopt?
- jbob2000 10y agoI am skeptical. I want to see some side-by-side videos of this vs. a traditional helmet.The fact that this article didn't include any proof of the safety features tells me that this is a just a marketing ploy. > “I do all my exploring by bike but I don’t like riding in those cities without a helmet,” said the Pratt Institute graduate. So buy a fucking helmet and bring it with you.
- maxerickson 10y agoYeah they have a FAQ: http://www.ecohelmet.com/copy-of-about-us http://www.ecohelmet.com/copy-of-about-us Before we can put it on the market EcoHelmet has to pass the tests necessary to be CPSC certified-- just like every other bike helmet. That should say "we pass the same safety standards as the bike helmets you are used to" before anyone gets too excited.
- jbob2000 10y agoSmartCars have to pass the same safety standards as Ford F150s. Which one would you feel safer in?
- maxerickson 10y agoThat's the wrong analogy. This is an electric tricycle that hasn't passed any crash testing that is going to save us from pollution.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoAgreed. All design award winners are of the same class: something that looks like it would work, but probably doesn't. It takes real effort to design working things; their construction reflects the real constraints on the design. If folded paper could absorb impact, that's what a real helmet would have in it.
- vinay427 10y ago> If folded paper could absorb impact, that's what a real helmet would have in it. That's analogous to saying that if the polio vaccine could vaccinate users from polio, that's what would have been administered already. The whole point of this is that it's a potentially new innovation, which implies it is something the helmet industry hasn't yet developed.
- kitcar 10y agoJust this morning my son and I were playing with a "expandable vase hat" we bought in New York a few years ago - wonder if that was her inspiration - https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?initiative_id=QRW_20161117064128&SearchText=paper+vase+hat&productId=1688781432 https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?initiative_id=QRW_20161...
- kitcar 10y agoJust this morning my son and I were playing with a "expandable vase hat" we bought in New York a few years ago - wonder if that was her inspiration - https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?initiative_id=QRW_20161117064128&SearchText=paper+vase+hat&productId=1688781432 https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?initiative_id=QRW_20161...
- scblock 10y agoThe solution is better cycling infrastructure, not a paper hat. Paper hats won't magically make bike shares more popular, but they do help perpetuate the myth that a helmet makes you safe. No helmet can protect you from the things an inattentive driver can do.
- bigato 10y agoWearing a helmet decreases the possible damages to your head on a hit, and nothing else changes that fact.
- lucvh 10y agoWearing a helmet can be demonstrated to be more effective in terms of number of lives saved by being worn by pedestrians and motorists, rather than cyclists. Are you saying that we should all wear helmets when out in public?
- saiya-jin 10y agotechnically yes, but good luck selling this to the public. politicians need to be voted in every 4 years, you know
- bigato 10y agoI am saying only what I said, if you doubt you can read it again above. The numbers you are referring to[1] do not mention lives saved but rather head injuries by transportation modes. They say nothing about seriousness of the injury. And I am pretty sure that when biking downhill at 70km/h chances are that a head injury will be more serious than the one i'd get by falling on the sidewalk while walking. I actually hate using a helmet while biking, and often go out without one when I am biking at a leisurely pace. But when I go out to train or to get to places fast, I prefer wearing the helmet. [1] http://www.howiechong.com/journal/2014/2/bike-helmets http://www.howiechong.com/journal/2014/2/bike-helmets
- snake_plissken 10y agoI Agree with most of your statement. But helmets are important. Broken bones heal. Serious head injuries do not.
- SonicSoul 10y agohate to be the one to say this but there's a certain aesthetic quality that's missing. How many people would wear what essentially looks like a mix between an open book and half bowling ball on their heads?
- tejohnso 10y agoHelmets are counter-productive for cyclists. http://www.howiechong.com/journal/2014/2/bike-helmets http://www.howiechong.com/journal/2014/2/bike-helmets https://www.cnet.com/news/brain-surgeon-theres-no-point-wearing-cycle-helmets/ https://www.cnet.com/news/brain-surgeon-theres-no-point-wear...
- Shorel 10y agoI do agree those tiny helmets don't look like much help. But not all helmets are like that. I use a full helmet, shaped like the one you use when riding a motorcycle, just not as heavy. It already saved my face from scratches in one fall I had.
- Grishnakh 10y agoEnormous amounts of testing prove that those "tiny" helmets do in fact help a lot. Cyclists aren't normally exposed to the magnitude of forces that motorcyclists are in crashes, due to their lower speeds, but they're still exposed to speeds well above those that are normal for human bodies to be propelled at, and in an environment surrounded with very hard, unnatural surfaces (concrete, asphalt), so the forces they can experience are well above those the human skull is designed to protect. I had a friend in college who worked in a university lab testing bike helmets; this was 20 years ago now. They're only gotten better since then. But it's true, bicycling helmets don't do much for protecting your face. But that's not what they're designed for; they're designed to reduce or prevent brain injuries from knocking your skull on the road or a curb. A full-face motorcycle helmet would be even better, but there's a tradeoff there in weight and ventilation (and cost), things that are more important to bicyclists than motorcyclists. Even a lot of motorcycle helmets aren't full-face and don't protect the face at all. But the idea with safety equipment isn't to completely eliminate all possible injury, it's to reduce risk to a reasonable degree; for the injuries you're likely to experience as a cyclist, a good cycling helmet is designed to protect against those. But it's not going to help keep a branch from poking your eye out on a backwoods trail. Finally, the charge against bike helmets from all these anti-helmet people lately isn't that they don't help prevent injuries (they absolutely do), it's that they allegedly cause more accidents by making car drivers more reckless around cyclists. The claim has nothing to do with physics, and everything to do with psychology. Personally, I think it's a terrible argument to make, and if there's any truth to it, it simply shows that we absolutely need to mandate that cyclists are provided with physically separate roads from cars. Considering how dirt-cheap cycling trails are to build compared to car-roads, how much better for the environment cycling is than driving in cars, and how much public health would be improved by more cycling (which would reduce healthcare expenditures greatly, and also improve workplace productivity and reduce sick time, all important factors for good capitalists), there's simply no excuse for governments to not be buildings lots and lots of safe cycling paths and encouraging cycling.
- bigato 10y agoThis other article has a bit more information about this helmet: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38004215 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38004215
- wvjovborkjwdbf 10y agothe only time a bike helmet is actually worth wearing is when mountain-biking and then you need to wear a full motorbike-style helmet because most injuries are to the mouth not the head
- SippinLean 10y agoCompletely false, any time you're on a bike will benefit from a helmet's injury risk reduction, specifically to the frontal lobe. Especially if you're sharing the road with motor vehicles.
- wvjovborkjwdbf 10y agoat any time a vehicle could plough into you while you're walking on the pavement
- pwinnski 10y agoAnything is possible, but cars very rarely hit pedestrians, although they very often hit cyclists.
- hammock 10y agoQuick plug for one of the coolest non-helmet bike helmets ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikYFfxpu3I0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikYFfxpu3I0
- matt_morgan 10y agoThe important thing here is the folding. But this one seems more promising: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/morpher-folding-helmet-technology#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/morpher-folding-helmet-te...