6 ms·

Bicycle helmets do almost nothing to prevent concussions

82 points by acsillag 12y ago

Rapzid 12y ago
With massive deceleration at the core of the problem I don't see how anything more than incremental improvements in mitigation can be achieved with a sufficiently thin helmet..
- Confusion 12y ago
  The army faces the problem of massive deceleration and new solutions for tank armor are being thought up constantly. Those solutions are also required to be sufficiently light and thin (while stopping the much more massive deceleration of rockets and bullets).
  - UnoriginalGuy 12y ago
    Yes, but the army is using directional explosives to solve that issue. I'm not sure that would work for a cyclist.
  - Rapzid 12y ago
    So a cyclist crashing their head into a tank would not suffer a concussion?
lotsofmangos 12y ago
Not from cycling, but I lost a couple of passwords (and who knows what else, but the passwords I can verify) by bashing my head while drunk. The previous day I could log into the email accounts associated with them, the day after I couldn't. None of the other ton of passwords that I use for work were affected and I can still remember nearly all of my older ones. The only correlation is that both of the passwords I knocked out of my head were long standing accounts whose passwords I had changed in the previous month. I still know where roughly on the keyboard they were though.
lclarkmichalek 12y ago
I'll take a scientific study over a blog post, please. Or to be less glib, the statistics he quotes seems very open for interpretation. "Stat #3: As more people buckled on helmets, brain injuries also increased". Need I say it? I think we're all pretty post hoc ergo propter hoc'd out at this point
- lacorp 12y ago
  Stat #3 might derive from the fact that a person is more likely to survive a crash with a helmet on. If someone dies because they aren't wearing a helmet it will be reported as a death, but if they almost die and the helmet prevents death but they receive some brain damage then it will be reported as a brain injury.
klearvue 12y ago
The article's title is "Senseless". HN's title, I believe, is bound to distort one's impression of helmets' usefulness.
- acqq 12y ago
  Exactly. The mods should intervene re the title. And the first sentences of the article are also much more precise: "Bicycle helmets do an outstanding job of keeping our skulls intact in a major crash. But they do almost nothing to prevent concussions and other significant brain injuries." The major message of the article is that the standards ignore the topic. "The government standard for bike helmets will in all likelihood never change. "With the CPSC, those standards are carved into stone," David Thom told me. "It may take an act of Congress to revise them."" But luckily: "In the late 1990s a Swedish neurosurgeon named Hans Von Holst grew weary of seeing helmet-wearing patients who'd suffered brain injuries in bicycle and equestrian accidents. In most cases, the damage had been caused by rotational acceleration. Working with Peter Halldin, a mechanical engineer at Stockholm's Royal Institute of Technology (...)" they discovered something new: "Studies have shown that most bike falls result in an impact angle between 30 and 45 degrees. The Swedish team invented a test rig that examined drops at those more realistic angles. By 2008, after years of sketching, testing, and prototyping, they had a working model. Their MIPS (Multi-directional Impact Protection System) helmet contained a low-friction slip plate between the head and EPS liner. On impact, the helmet rotates independent of the MIPS liner, absorbing some rotational acceleration."
- Confusion 12y ago
  Yes, an early quote from the article: The $40 helmet is one of the great success stories of the past half-century. Like seat belts, air bags, and smoke detectors, bike helmets save countless lives every year. They do a stellar job of preventing catastrophic skull fractures, plus dings and scrapes from low-hanging tree branches and other common nuisances. Helmets are good. The author is wondering why they aren't better at preventing concussions.
  - oever 12y ago
    New paper helmets help prevent concussions because they have a crumple zone that make the deceleration more gradual. "If you crash at 15 miles per hour in a normal helmet, your head will be subjected to around 220G [G-force], whereas the new design absorbs more of the impact and means you experience around 70G instead," says Surabhi. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25681895 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25681895
bumbledraven 12y ago
This is one reason I wear an airbag bicycle helment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hövding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hövding) It would be have been nice if the article mentioned this option.
- monstermonster 12y ago
  I wear a car. Much safer.
  - Doctor_Fegg 12y ago
    Safer for you perhaps (in "not getting run over" terms, not in "dying of obesity" terms). But certainly not safer for any pedestrians or cyclists on the road.
    - monstermonster 12y ago
      No doubt the parent point was about personal safety as well. After all the device only protects the rider.
- ndr 12y ago
  You just need to be sure to keep its battery charged, turn it on before you go and accept to buy a new one once it fires.
  - bumbledraven 12y ago
    The battery is supposed to last 18 hours when the device is on, and 36 days when off. It charges quickly over USB. After I zip it up, I do have to remember to fasten a button to turn it on. It would be nice if it alerted me with a periodic beep or something when it was zipped up but not buttoned. Bicycle helmets in general are not supposed to be re-used after a crash; a Hovding is no exception.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- 12y ago
candeira 12y ago
Helmets still protect against skull fractures, and I'll take that while I can.
konstruktor 12y ago
Discussions of cycle helmets are usually very one sided, focusing on head trauma and completely ignoring other kinds of trauma as well as the positive health effects of cycling. Wearing the helmet doesn't just add a certain amount of padding to the head without any negative side effects: For example, motorists keep less distance while overtaking you [1] and making helmets mandatory reduces cycling by up to a third [2]. I would really hope that people would look at advocating helmets as a public health intervention, and judge all its effects together. [1] http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/articles/releases/overtaking110906.html http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/articles/releases/overtaking11090... [2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1410838/?tool=pubmed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1410838/?tool=pu...
- danieltillett 12y ago
  I would say the reduction in cycling is a pretty significant effect. I love cycling, but I am far too scared (or wise) to ever consider riding on a street shared with cars and trucks. In the end if anything goes wrong the driver will feel sad and I won't feel anything.
  - megablast 12y ago
    > In the end if anything goes wrong the driver will feel sad and I won't feel anything. This is pure hyperbole. As someone who has been hit by 6 cars, most accidents are minor. Sure you will end up worse off, but only a couple have I not been able to ride away from, and that was because my wheel was damaged. Of course, I started to wear a helmet after about the 3rd time.
    - danieltillett 12y ago
      It is not really hyperbole when it come to the consequence of a serious accident. Hundreds of cyclists are killed every year by cars and trucks, but I am yet to hear of even one driver killed by a cyclist - this would be a man bites dog type story. You are far less worried about risk than me - if I had been hit 6 times by cars while on a bike I would not even be able to look at a bike without feeling ill let alone ride one.
danieltillett 12y ago
Of course they do. They discourage people riding bicycles and thus help people avoid concussion. More seriously the people who ride bicycles on streets with cars are much braver than me. I have been lucky in life and seen few examples of serious accidents, but of those I have experienced first hand around 25% have involved people who were riding bicycles.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
ck2 12y ago
Yes but they should have opened with this paragraph buried in the article: The $40 helmet is one of the great success stories of the past half-century. Like seat belts, air bags, and smoke detectors, bike helmets save countless lives every year. They do a stellar job of preventing catastrophic skull fractures, plus dings and scrapes from low-hanging tree branches and other common nuisances.
- frabbit 12y ago
  Is there a solid citation as to how effective bicycle helmets are at preventing catastrophic skull fractures? Also, surely it depends on which type of helmet we are talking about? Talking about "helmets" in general does not make much sense when there are so many of them adhering to several different standards.
kryps 12y ago
A differing opinion about MIPS helmets from the "helmet advocacy program of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association" (consumer-founded): http://www.helmets.org/mips.htm http://www.helmets.org/mips.htm
- adolph 12y ago
  Thanks, it is interesting that the need for MIPS may come from all the aero-styling in helmets.
sklogic 12y ago
Besides being useless, there are also some negative side-effects: helmet limits field of vision significantly and distracts from perceiving audio- and visual- information properly. I feel blindfolded in a helmet, even in a very light one.
- jmartinpetersen 12y ago
  I'm not sure I understand. Exactly what part of the world does your helmet block you from seeing? I can't see mine at all when it's on properly. Considering that a lot of people use in-ear headphones or casually check their texts while biking in Copenhagen, the added distractions of a helmet still seems like a net win.
  - sklogic 12y ago
    Helmet reduces the side vision to something that feels like 20% less then normal. And yes, I cannot also tolerate any hats, hoods and such. As for the potential Darwin prize winners with earplugs - this is something that should be a matter of legislation first, not the stupid useless helmets.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - judk 12y ago
      Are you talking about motorcycle helmets?
      - sklogic 12y ago
        No, I'm talking about bicycle helmets, including the lightest ones. I feel deaf and blind in any helmet - or even in a hat.
  - learnstats2 12y ago
    I perceive that I am much less likely to turn my head (to check the traffic behind me) when I'm wearing a helmet. It's perceptibly less comfortable to do that. I will turn my head if I absolutely need to, but I don't make it a habit. Without a helmet, on the other hand, turning my head to check the road behind me is absolutely habitual. On this basis and on other points, I believe the helmet causes me far more danger than the helmet protects me from. I am speaking personally: I don't know if this applies to other people and I would personally not dare to use headphones or check texts while cycling. I obviously will never know for sure if I'm right about this, but generally not wearing a helmet is the decision I believe is correct for me.
Tomte 12y ago
Even if those societal effects were true (there are studies for both sides, and especially the helmet opponents are usually very outspoken and even rude, to the point that they lose credibility), the important thing for me as an individual is not whether helmets lead other people ("the society") to cycle less, but what the effect is on me. Personally I feel some chilling effect (sometimes I cycle without helmet, so some friction is certainly there). But it's not very strong. On the other hand, I have never consciously experienced a difference in car driver's behaviour whether I wear a helmet or not. And I certainly am not cycling in any riskier way when I'm wearing my helmet. If you do, you should really think about what you're doing.
- pessimizer 12y ago
  >especially the helmet opponents are usually very outspoken and even rude, to the point that they lose credibility They have to be, because they don't have budgets and per diems. The pro-helmet side makes a fortune from selling helmets. The anti-helmet side runs on passion - whether that passion is for the truth as they see it (or as experiment and study have shown), or simply 'government out of my cornflakes' libertarian rage.
  - Tomte 12y ago
    The "pro helmet side" in Internet forums does not have "budgets".
    - pessimizer 12y ago
      The pro-helmet side in general has far louder bullhorns, regardless of what goes on in internet forums (which is one of the no-budget places you see anti-helmet people.) The anti-helmet people aren't passing laws and running public service messages on TV with their partially publicly-funded nonprofits.
jdmitch 12y ago
As an avid, but fairly aggressive cyclist, I have gotten into a fair number of accidents. Some of the injuries sustained, and the ways in which other injuries would have been likely without a helmet in those situations, have convinced me that many of these studies don't take into account some very common situations in accidents. Direct head impacts are relatively uncommon, due to natural instincts to protect oneself. More common are: - Side impact from vehicles turning across the bicycle lane. This is the most common cause of fatalities in road accidents in London, and if the vehicle is going at speed, nothing can be done with or without a helmet. Usually, however, the vehicle is slowing to turn, or just clips the rider who hasn't had time to react. When this happened to me, I banged into the side of the van which was cutting me off, and my helmet kept my head from hitting the vehicle, likely right at the temple, which could have caused significant damage. - Unintended dismount. I find a huge number of "accidents" are really accidents that were just barely prevented by a quick manoeuver, which often leaves the cyclist on the ground. I have avoided collisions quite frequently, but still ended up doing a little barrel roll off the bike. In these cases, I may not be moving fast, but it is nice knowing my helmet will keep me from a kerb to the head. -Scrapes and abrasions. This is the most painful injury, and one of my most gruesome accidents involved a nasty abrasion on my face - had I not been wearing a helmet, it would have probably meant about half of my scalp was rubbed off as well, so very happy to have been wearing a helmet in that instance. The "crash test dummy" proof that we don't need helmets doesn't stack up in my experience because I think a confident cyclist is more likely to have oblique and "minor" accidents rather than major direct collisions, and major head trauma is just not going to be prevented by a $40 piece of foam and plastic.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- threeseed 12y ago
  I am surprised people are so flippant about injuries to the head. How many times do we hear stories of people dying from being punched and hitting their head on the curb/ground ? Or the long term effects of concussion. Helmets work. Governments around the world wouldn't be making them mandatory just to screw with people.
awjr 12y ago
As a space for cycling campaigner ( http://www.cyclebath.org.uk http://www.cyclebath.org.uk ) helmet articles are an interesting problem that tend to identify cycling as a dangerous activity without extolling the health benefits of cycling itself. In places like New York, where their Citi Bike scheme has had huge success without helmets (23 million miles of riding, no deaths), utility cycling (commuting) has been made safe through a huge investment in the segregation of cycles from cars and pedestrians. The health benefits to the city are huge (as well as reducing congestion) and you get people of all ages cycling now. In Australia where helmets are a legal requirement, city cycle schemes are failing, but this may also be to do with a lack in building out segregated cycle infrastructure as part of these schemes. It is still a mainly hardcore, male activity there. The point is, helmets and cycling create flame wars with anecdotal evidence in favour "how it saved my life" and the response being that the health benefits to society of cycling far out weigh the risks of not wearing one (i.e. It's calculated in the UK, that a helmet law would kill 235 people per year more through obesity related deaths). When I trundle to the shops or pop into town I wear a cap (being bald brings it's own problems), but should I go out on a club ride or go off-roading I wear a helmet as the risk of falling off is higher. I also wear one when I'm out after dark. Wear one if you want, don't wear one. Just make sure you are out there riding. The health risks far outweigh the perceived risk of falling off your bike. The real problem isn't helmets, it's the lack of segregating cycles from pedestrians and motorised vehicles. Making people feel safe cycling to and from shops, homes, schools and their place of work.
- Tomte 12y ago
  > The point is, helmets and cycling create flame wars The point is, you are very much involved in creating flame wars by labelling the pro side as people who only have their superstitial, anecdotal fairy tales, while saying the contra side has all the cold, hard scientific facts. Let's just leave it at that.
  - pessimizer 12y ago
    It's just an observation of fact. Facts are known to be biased. If there are studies that show the benefits of bicycle helmet wearing, I'd be interested in seeing them.
fredo699 12y ago
This doesn't surprise me at all. Have you ever felt the lining of a bicycle helmet? There's no give to it at all. It might as well all be made of the same plastic the casing's made of.
freshflowers 12y ago
Helmets are a red herring in the whole cycling discussion. Unless you're racing or mountain biking, you shouldn't need a helmet for regular cycling anymore than you should need a helmet for crossing the street on foot. There's nothing inherently particularly unsafe about cycling (at least no more unsafe than many everyday activities), even while sharing the road with cars. The only thing that makes cycling unsafe in certain countries are the drivers, and the culture that puts cars above other traffic to the point where it's apparently okay to run over the odd annoying cyclist.
- jan_g 12y ago
  I don't think that's healthy point of view. Helmet has saved my skull once and a close relative of mine had an accident that would save him lots of pain had he wore a helmet (he hit a curb with his head when falling down). Comparing cycling with walking on foot is, well, unusual to me to say the least. Of course, you can fall down walking as well, but as a cyclist, you are faster and you are sharing the road with other bigger/heavier vehicles. I would not dream of going on a bike to cycle in and around my town (somewhat hilly terrain, relatively narrow roads) without a helmet.
- frabbit 12y ago
  Agreed. When cyclists come into contact with vehicles there are a bunch of other major traumas besides the head. Rapidly rotated bodies can have their aortas ripped apart. Spleens are burts. Spines are snapped. And yet, the actual level of cycling deaths is comparable to pedestrians. It's quite low. The way to solve these problems is to reduce the abuse of motorised transport.
planetix 12y ago
The thing is I wouldn't be alive without bicycle helmet. Same goes to my aunt. So what if I get concussions if the alternative is loosing consciousness and getting driven over by a car.
abalone 12y ago
Sounds like many of the commenters here did not actually read the article. It's not about "should you wear a helmet or shouldn't you." It is very strongly pro-helmet. NOWHERE in the article does it suggest you should not wear a helmet. It's about how to make helmets work better, specifically against concussions. Summary: pay more to get a helmet equipped with something called MIPS. "The new rotation-dampening systems may not be perfect, but they are the biggest step forward in decades. The choices cyclists make with their money matter. You can pretend to protect your brain, or you can spend more money and get closer to actually doing it."
- skierscott 12y ago
  The takeaway message seems to be that there's another safe helmet technology that exists. Regular helmets help but MIPS[1] helmets maintain protection against brute-force impacts and improve protection against concussions and brain injuries. This MIPS style helmet is a large step forward in helmets. The standard helmet test is a just a straight drop from 6 feet with the helmet perfectly vertical. This is not how crashes happen. Crashes happen while moving. There's some rotational stuff going on there, and that's what MIPS tries to focus on. Their tests[2] focus on this. An aspect of brain injury is diffuse axonal injury or when your brain undergoes unreasonable acceleration. The MIPS helmet has two shells so the outer one moves while your brain doesn't. > President Barack Obama said that if he had a son, he might not let him play football; even some former NFL athletes agree. This was refreshing to hear. Malcolm Gladwell compares football to dogfighting because football players can experience remarkable head trauma[3]. For me, a severe traumatic brain injury survivor, it's hard to see someone willingly put themselves through a brain injury and even harder to see the public glorifying a sport I see as dogfighting. [1]:http://www.mipshelmet.com/home/ http://www.mipshelmet.com/home/ [2]:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8W5X0s2AhU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8W5X0s2AhU @ 0:29 [3]:http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/10/19/offensive-play http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/10/19/offensive-play
- judk 12y ago
  Another case of a link bait headline undermining the article. And possibly submarine PR for a patent holder.
robg 12y ago
Consider that your brain is an egg yolk floating in a shell. A concussion is the rapid loss of velocity slamming the yolk into the inside of the shell, scrambling it up if you will. A helmet can't do much there except minimize the velocity a tad bit. The benefit of the helmet is prevent a crack in the shell, your skull, so your brains don't spill out onto the pavement in a crash. It's not perfect, but given your are traveling at high rates of speed on a hard surface, the insurance is your brain mostly intact inside the shell versus a scrambled mess on the ground. Preventing concussions - the yolk from slamming into the inside of the shell - is a hard problem. The brain is floating in liquid - the cerebrospinal fluid. To take another example, drop a ping pong ball into a glass of water. Now try to move fast without the ball hitting the side of the glass. The amount of padding on the outside of the glass won't do much to prevent the ball from hitting the inside of the glass. It's not just crashes you need to worry about. Even roller coasters cause concussions, albeit small ones, but still with cognitive decrements.
- brational 12y ago
  Yep. Its worth noting that (american) football helmets are the same. They dont provide shake protection just prevent skull fractures.
- Shorel 12y ago
  Last night I fell. I use a motorcycle helmet. I think I was sliding on the ground for about 4 or 5 meters. The helmet did not touch the ground, but if it had, it would have prevent countless scrapes in my face or scalp. Not deadly fractures, but something painful and probably disfiguring. My point is: a proper helmet (think BMX) prevents a lot more than fractures. The gloves surely had a lot of work to do as well, and saved my left hand from any scratches.
witoldc 12y ago
Some of this debate is also going on in the motorcycle industry. "Softer" helmets provide better outcomes in slower crashes. "Harder" helmets provide better outcomes in faster, harder crashes. (To some extent, this is "DOT" approved helmets vs "SNELL" approved helmets.) You can't really have both unless you make the helmet bigger, or use some more exotic and more expensive materials. Fact of the matter is that EPS is cheap and works really, really well. It's what helps you SURVIVE - not save you from a silly concussion. (silly, comparatively speaking.) That is the fundamental functionality of a helmet. Maybe someone will make a $1000 helmet that is slightly better in avoiding concussions in smaller accidents, but people do not think there is much market for such a product. I couldn't muster to keep reading after the writer deemed 1-127 degrees F as "extreme conditions." 127F is what your helmet bakes in when you leave it in the car, for example, and there are plenty of regions around the world and US where it is easy to hit 127F by leaving the helmet in the wrong place. It's hardly "extreme."
damian2000 12y ago
Being from Australia I can't fathom not wearing a helmet. Its like wearing a seat belt in the car, just something you don't notice doing anymore. Anyone who is discouraged from cycling due to having to wear a helmet would more than likely also be discouraged by many other reasons - bad drivers, bad weather, flat tire, etc.
- 3pt14159 12y ago
  I don't wear a helmet and I ride in downtown Toronto. Helmets save lives, but they also make motorist treat you differently. Also, they don't really save that many lives. Cycling without a helmet is safer than walking (kilometer for kilometer) and safer than being in the passenger seat while a new driver is driving.
  - ozten 12y ago
    > but [helmets] also make motorist treat you differently. The biggest threats from cars in my experience is when the driver doesn't know you are there.
    - mmariani 12y ago
      Not only yours, in my too. That's why I always try to make eye contact with drivers, and when that doesn't work yelling always does the trick. Another thing that improved my safety was installing lights on my road bikes.
merraksh 12y ago
Snively estimated that a naked head struck the surface with a force more than 1,000 times greater than gravity, or 1,000g, which is lethal. I assume it meant "the acceleration of a naked head upon hitting the surface is estimated as 1000g", as I can't make sense of it otherwise. It would also help to say what height he dropped it from or the impact speed.
pessimizer 12y ago
A related helmet controversy: http://jalopnik.com/5582380/how-the-truth-about-motorcycle-helmets-got-a-journalist-fired http://jalopnik.com/5582380/how-the-truth-about-motorcycle-h... "Ford has long been controversial with major helmet makers, authoring 'Blowing the Lid Off,' the seminal expose of the flawed Snell M2005 helmet safety standard. In it, he proved through objective scientific testing that helmets made to that standard transmitted more forces to riders' heads than some less expensive helmets made to the DOT standard. Ford's article turned conventional wisdom on its head, proving that certain less-expensive DOT helmets were, according to his testing, capable of transmitting lower forces to a rider's head than the typically more expensive Snell M2005 brain buckets." The original article: http://web.archive.org/web/20070305231245/http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/gearbox/motorcycle_helmet_review/ http://web.archive.org/web/20070305231245/http://www.motorcy...
bane 12y ago
That's okay,they do decent job of keeping your brains inside your skull in an accident, that's nothing to sneeze at.
Shorel 12y ago
Except for BMX helmets. They look sturdy. Lots of people ride with them in Bogotá. I use a motorcycle helmet as it helps a lot against the usual rains. No silly social issues against helmets. Everyone minds their own business here.

82 points by acsillag 12y ago

With massive deceleration at the core of the problem I don't see how anything more than incremental improvements in mitigation can be achieved with a sufficiently thin helmet..

Confusion 12y ago
The army faces the problem of massive deceleration and new solutions for tank armor are being thought up constantly. Those solutions are also required to be sufficiently light and thin (while stopping the much more massive deceleration of rockets and bullets).
- UnoriginalGuy 12y ago
  Yes, but the army is using directional explosives to solve that issue. I'm not sure that would work for a cyclist.
- Rapzid 12y ago
  So a cyclist crashing their head into a tank would not suffer a concussion?

lotsofmangos 12y ago

Not from cycling, but I lost a couple of passwords (and who knows what else, but the passwords I can verify) by bashing my head while drunk. The previous day I could log into the email accounts associated with them, the day after I couldn't. None of the other ton of passwords that I use for work were affected and I can still remember nearly all of my older ones. The only correlation is that both of the passwords I knocked out of my head were long standing accounts whose passwords I had changed in the previous month. I still know where roughly on the keyboard they were though.

lclarkmichalek 12y ago

I'll take a scientific study over a blog post, please. Or to be less glib, the statistics he quotes seems very open for interpretation. "Stat #3: As more people buckled on helmets, brain injuries also increased". Need I say it? I think we're all pretty post hoc ergo propter hoc'd out at this point

lacorp 12y ago
Stat #3 might derive from the fact that a person is more likely to survive a crash with a helmet on. If someone dies because they aren't wearing a helmet it will be reported as a death, but if they almost die and the helmet prevents death but they receive some brain damage then it will be reported as a brain injury.

klearvue 12y ago

The article's title is "Senseless". HN's title, I believe, is bound to distort one's impression of helmets' usefulness.

acqq 12y ago
Exactly. The mods should intervene re the title. And the first sentences of the article are also much more precise: "Bicycle helmets do an outstanding job of keeping our skulls intact in a major crash. But they do almost nothing to prevent concussions and other significant brain injuries." The major message of the article is that the standards ignore the topic. "The government standard for bike helmets will in all likelihood never change. "With the CPSC, those standards are carved into stone," David Thom told me. "It may take an act of Congress to revise them."" But luckily: "In the late 1990s a Swedish neurosurgeon named Hans Von Holst grew weary of seeing helmet-wearing patients who'd suffered brain injuries in bicycle and equestrian accidents. In most cases, the damage had been caused by rotational acceleration. Working with Peter Halldin, a mechanical engineer at Stockholm's Royal Institute of Technology (...)" they discovered something new: "Studies have shown that most bike falls result in an impact angle between 30 and 45 degrees. The Swedish team invented a test rig that examined drops at those more realistic angles. By 2008, after years of sketching, testing, and prototyping, they had a working model. Their MIPS (Multi-directional Impact Protection System) helmet contained a low-friction slip plate between the head and EPS liner. On impact, the helmet rotates independent of the MIPS liner, absorbing some rotational acceleration."
Confusion 12y ago
Yes, an early quote from the article: The $40 helmet is one of the great success stories of the past half-century. Like seat belts, air bags, and smoke detectors, bike helmets save countless lives every year. They do a stellar job of preventing catastrophic skull fractures, plus dings and scrapes from low-hanging tree branches and other common nuisances. Helmets are good. The author is wondering why they aren't better at preventing concussions.
- oever 12y ago
  New paper helmets help prevent concussions because they have a crumple zone that make the deceleration more gradual. "If you crash at 15 miles per hour in a normal helmet, your head will be subjected to around 220G [G-force], whereas the new design absorbs more of the impact and means you experience around 70G instead," says Surabhi. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25681895 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25681895

bumbledraven 12y ago

This is one reason I wear an airbag bicycle helment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hövding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hövding) It would be have been nice if the article mentioned this option.

monstermonster 12y ago
I wear a car. Much safer.
- Doctor_Fegg 12y ago
  Safer for you perhaps (in "not getting run over" terms, not in "dying of obesity" terms). But certainly not safer for any pedestrians or cyclists on the road.
  - monstermonster 12y ago
    No doubt the parent point was about personal safety as well. After all the device only protects the rider.
ndr 12y ago
You just need to be sure to keep its battery charged, turn it on before you go and accept to buy a new one once it fires.
- bumbledraven 12y ago
  The battery is supposed to last 18 hours when the device is on, and 36 days when off. It charges quickly over USB. After I zip it up, I do have to remember to fasten a button to turn it on. It would be nice if it alerted me with a periodic beep or something when it was zipped up but not buttoned. Bicycle helmets in general are not supposed to be re-used after a crash; a Hovding is no exception.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
12y ago

candeira 12y ago

Helmets still protect against skull fractures, and I'll take that while I can.

konstruktor 12y ago

Discussions of cycle helmets are usually very one sided, focusing on head trauma and completely ignoring other kinds of trauma as well as the positive health effects of cycling. Wearing the helmet doesn't just add a certain amount of padding to the head without any negative side effects: For example, motorists keep less distance while overtaking you [1] and making helmets mandatory reduces cycling by up to a third [2]. I would really hope that people would look at advocating helmets as a public health intervention, and judge all its effects together. [1] http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/articles/releases/overtaking110906.html http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/articles/releases/overtaking11090... [2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1410838/?tool=pubmed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1410838/?tool=pu...

danieltillett 12y ago
I would say the reduction in cycling is a pretty significant effect. I love cycling, but I am far too scared (or wise) to ever consider riding on a street shared with cars and trucks. In the end if anything goes wrong the driver will feel sad and I won't feel anything.
- megablast 12y ago
  > In the end if anything goes wrong the driver will feel sad and I won't feel anything. This is pure hyperbole. As someone who has been hit by 6 cars, most accidents are minor. Sure you will end up worse off, but only a couple have I not been able to ride away from, and that was because my wheel was damaged. Of course, I started to wear a helmet after about the 3rd time.
  - danieltillett 12y ago
    It is not really hyperbole when it come to the consequence of a serious accident. Hundreds of cyclists are killed every year by cars and trucks, but I am yet to hear of even one driver killed by a cyclist - this would be a man bites dog type story. You are far less worried about risk than me - if I had been hit 6 times by cars while on a bike I would not even be able to look at a bike without feeling ill let alone ride one.

danieltillett 12y ago

Of course they do. They discourage people riding bicycles and thus help people avoid concussion. More seriously the people who ride bicycles on streets with cars are much braver than me. I have been lucky in life and seen few examples of serious accidents, but of those I have experienced first hand around 25% have involved people who were riding bicycles.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

ck2 12y ago

Yes but they should have opened with this paragraph buried in the article: The $40 helmet is one of the great success stories of the past half-century. Like seat belts, air bags, and smoke detectors, bike helmets save countless lives every year. They do a stellar job of preventing catastrophic skull fractures, plus dings and scrapes from low-hanging tree branches and other common nuisances.

frabbit 12y ago
Is there a solid citation as to how effective bicycle helmets are at preventing catastrophic skull fractures? Also, surely it depends on which type of helmet we are talking about? Talking about "helmets" in general does not make much sense when there are so many of them adhering to several different standards.

kryps 12y ago

A differing opinion about MIPS helmets from the "helmet advocacy program of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association" (consumer-founded): http://www.helmets.org/mips.htm http://www.helmets.org/mips.htm

adolph 12y ago
Thanks, it is interesting that the need for MIPS may come from all the aero-styling in helmets.

sklogic 12y ago

Besides being useless, there are also some negative side-effects: helmet limits field of vision significantly and distracts from perceiving audio- and visual- information properly. I feel blindfolded in a helmet, even in a very light one.

jmartinpetersen 12y ago
I'm not sure I understand. Exactly what part of the world does your helmet block you from seeing? I can't see mine at all when it's on properly. Considering that a lot of people use in-ear headphones or casually check their texts while biking in Copenhagen, the added distractions of a helmet still seems like a net win.
- sklogic 12y ago
  Helmet reduces the side vision to something that feels like 20% less then normal. And yes, I cannot also tolerate any hats, hoods and such. As for the potential Darwin prize winners with earplugs - this is something that should be a matter of legislation first, not the stupid useless helmets.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - judk 12y ago
    Are you talking about motorcycle helmets?
    - sklogic 12y ago
      No, I'm talking about bicycle helmets, including the lightest ones. I feel deaf and blind in any helmet - or even in a hat.
- learnstats2 12y ago
  I perceive that I am much less likely to turn my head (to check the traffic behind me) when I'm wearing a helmet. It's perceptibly less comfortable to do that. I will turn my head if I absolutely need to, but I don't make it a habit. Without a helmet, on the other hand, turning my head to check the road behind me is absolutely habitual. On this basis and on other points, I believe the helmet causes me far more danger than the helmet protects me from. I am speaking personally: I don't know if this applies to other people and I would personally not dare to use headphones or check texts while cycling. I obviously will never know for sure if I'm right about this, but generally not wearing a helmet is the decision I believe is correct for me.

Tomte 12y ago

Even if those societal effects were true (there are studies for both sides, and especially the helmet opponents are usually very outspoken and even rude, to the point that they lose credibility), the important thing for me as an individual is not whether helmets lead other people ("the society") to cycle less, but what the effect is on me. Personally I feel some chilling effect (sometimes I cycle without helmet, so some friction is certainly there). But it's not very strong. On the other hand, I have never consciously experienced a difference in car driver's behaviour whether I wear a helmet or not. And I certainly am not cycling in any riskier way when I'm wearing my helmet. If you do, you should really think about what you're doing.

pessimizer 12y ago
>especially the helmet opponents are usually very outspoken and even rude, to the point that they lose credibility They have to be, because they don't have budgets and per diems. The pro-helmet side makes a fortune from selling helmets. The anti-helmet side runs on passion - whether that passion is for the truth as they see it (or as experiment and study have shown), or simply 'government out of my cornflakes' libertarian rage.
- Tomte 12y ago
  The "pro helmet side" in Internet forums does not have "budgets".
  - pessimizer 12y ago
    The pro-helmet side in general has far louder bullhorns, regardless of what goes on in internet forums (which is one of the no-budget places you see anti-helmet people.) The anti-helmet people aren't passing laws and running public service messages on TV with their partially publicly-funded nonprofits.

jdmitch 12y ago

As an avid, but fairly aggressive cyclist, I have gotten into a fair number of accidents. Some of the injuries sustained, and the ways in which other injuries would have been likely without a helmet in those situations, have convinced me that many of these studies don't take into account some very common situations in accidents. Direct head impacts are relatively uncommon, due to natural instincts to protect oneself. More common are: - Side impact from vehicles turning across the bicycle lane. This is the most common cause of fatalities in road accidents in London, and if the vehicle is going at speed, nothing can be done with or without a helmet. Usually, however, the vehicle is slowing to turn, or just clips the rider who hasn't had time to react. When this happened to me, I banged into the side of the van which was cutting me off, and my helmet kept my head from hitting the vehicle, likely right at the temple, which could have caused significant damage. - Unintended dismount. I find a huge number of "accidents" are really accidents that were just barely prevented by a quick manoeuver, which often leaves the cyclist on the ground. I have avoided collisions quite frequently, but still ended up doing a little barrel roll off the bike. In these cases, I may not be moving fast, but it is nice knowing my helmet will keep me from a kerb to the head. -Scrapes and abrasions. This is the most painful injury, and one of my most gruesome accidents involved a nasty abrasion on my face - had I not been wearing a helmet, it would have probably meant about half of my scalp was rubbed off as well, so very happy to have been wearing a helmet in that instance. The "crash test dummy" proof that we don't need helmets doesn't stack up in my experience because I think a confident cyclist is more likely to have oblique and "minor" accidents rather than major direct collisions, and major head trauma is just not going to be prevented by a $40 piece of foam and plastic.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
threeseed 12y ago
I am surprised people are so flippant about injuries to the head. How many times do we hear stories of people dying from being punched and hitting their head on the curb/ground ? Or the long term effects of concussion. Helmets work. Governments around the world wouldn't be making them mandatory just to screw with people.

awjr 12y ago

As a space for cycling campaigner ( http://www.cyclebath.org.uk http://www.cyclebath.org.uk ) helmet articles are an interesting problem that tend to identify cycling as a dangerous activity without extolling the health benefits of cycling itself. In places like New York, where their Citi Bike scheme has had huge success without helmets (23 million miles of riding, no deaths), utility cycling (commuting) has been made safe through a huge investment in the segregation of cycles from cars and pedestrians. The health benefits to the city are huge (as well as reducing congestion) and you get people of all ages cycling now. In Australia where helmets are a legal requirement, city cycle schemes are failing, but this may also be to do with a lack in building out segregated cycle infrastructure as part of these schemes. It is still a mainly hardcore, male activity there. The point is, helmets and cycling create flame wars with anecdotal evidence in favour "how it saved my life" and the response being that the health benefits to society of cycling far out weigh the risks of not wearing one (i.e. It's calculated in the UK, that a helmet law would kill 235 people per year more through obesity related deaths). When I trundle to the shops or pop into town I wear a cap (being bald brings it's own problems), but should I go out on a club ride or go off-roading I wear a helmet as the risk of falling off is higher. I also wear one when I'm out after dark. Wear one if you want, don't wear one. Just make sure you are out there riding. The health risks far outweigh the perceived risk of falling off your bike. The real problem isn't helmets, it's the lack of segregating cycles from pedestrians and motorised vehicles. Making people feel safe cycling to and from shops, homes, schools and their place of work.

Tomte 12y ago
> The point is, helmets and cycling create flame wars The point is, you are very much involved in creating flame wars by labelling the pro side as people who only have their superstitial, anecdotal fairy tales, while saying the contra side has all the cold, hard scientific facts. Let's just leave it at that.
- pessimizer 12y ago
  It's just an observation of fact. Facts are known to be biased. If there are studies that show the benefits of bicycle helmet wearing, I'd be interested in seeing them.

fredo699 12y ago

This doesn't surprise me at all. Have you ever felt the lining of a bicycle helmet? There's no give to it at all. It might as well all be made of the same plastic the casing's made of.

freshflowers 12y ago

Helmets are a red herring in the whole cycling discussion. Unless you're racing or mountain biking, you shouldn't need a helmet for regular cycling anymore than you should need a helmet for crossing the street on foot. There's nothing inherently particularly unsafe about cycling (at least no more unsafe than many everyday activities), even while sharing the road with cars. The only thing that makes cycling unsafe in certain countries are the drivers, and the culture that puts cars above other traffic to the point where it's apparently okay to run over the odd annoying cyclist.

jan_g 12y ago
I don't think that's healthy point of view. Helmet has saved my skull once and a close relative of mine had an accident that would save him lots of pain had he wore a helmet (he hit a curb with his head when falling down). Comparing cycling with walking on foot is, well, unusual to me to say the least. Of course, you can fall down walking as well, but as a cyclist, you are faster and you are sharing the road with other bigger/heavier vehicles. I would not dream of going on a bike to cycle in and around my town (somewhat hilly terrain, relatively narrow roads) without a helmet.
frabbit 12y ago
Agreed. When cyclists come into contact with vehicles there are a bunch of other major traumas besides the head. Rapidly rotated bodies can have their aortas ripped apart. Spleens are burts. Spines are snapped. And yet, the actual level of cycling deaths is comparable to pedestrians. It's quite low. The way to solve these problems is to reduce the abuse of motorised transport.

planetix 12y ago

The thing is I wouldn't be alive without bicycle helmet. Same goes to my aunt. So what if I get concussions if the alternative is loosing consciousness and getting driven over by a car.

abalone 12y ago

Sounds like many of the commenters here did not actually read the article. It's not about "should you wear a helmet or shouldn't you." It is very strongly pro-helmet. NOWHERE in the article does it suggest you should not wear a helmet. It's about how to make helmets work better, specifically against concussions. Summary: pay more to get a helmet equipped with something called MIPS. "The new rotation-dampening systems may not be perfect, but they are the biggest step forward in decades. The choices cyclists make with their money matter. You can pretend to protect your brain, or you can spend more money and get closer to actually doing it."

skierscott 12y ago
The takeaway message seems to be that there's another safe helmet technology that exists. Regular helmets help but MIPS[1] helmets maintain protection against brute-force impacts and improve protection against concussions and brain injuries. This MIPS style helmet is a large step forward in helmets. The standard helmet test is a just a straight drop from 6 feet with the helmet perfectly vertical. This is not how crashes happen. Crashes happen while moving. There's some rotational stuff going on there, and that's what MIPS tries to focus on. Their tests[2] focus on this. An aspect of brain injury is diffuse axonal injury or when your brain undergoes unreasonable acceleration. The MIPS helmet has two shells so the outer one moves while your brain doesn't. > President Barack Obama said that if he had a son, he might not let him play football; even some former NFL athletes agree. This was refreshing to hear. Malcolm Gladwell compares football to dogfighting because football players can experience remarkable head trauma[3]. For me, a severe traumatic brain injury survivor, it's hard to see someone willingly put themselves through a brain injury and even harder to see the public glorifying a sport I see as dogfighting. [1]:http://www.mipshelmet.com/home/ http://www.mipshelmet.com/home/ [2]:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8W5X0s2AhU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8W5X0s2AhU @ 0:29 [3]:http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/10/19/offensive-play http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/10/19/offensive-play
judk 12y ago
Another case of a link bait headline undermining the article. And possibly submarine PR for a patent holder.

robg 12y ago

Consider that your brain is an egg yolk floating in a shell. A concussion is the rapid loss of velocity slamming the yolk into the inside of the shell, scrambling it up if you will. A helmet can't do much there except minimize the velocity a tad bit. The benefit of the helmet is prevent a crack in the shell, your skull, so your brains don't spill out onto the pavement in a crash. It's not perfect, but given your are traveling at high rates of speed on a hard surface, the insurance is your brain mostly intact inside the shell versus a scrambled mess on the ground. Preventing concussions - the yolk from slamming into the inside of the shell - is a hard problem. The brain is floating in liquid - the cerebrospinal fluid. To take another example, drop a ping pong ball into a glass of water. Now try to move fast without the ball hitting the side of the glass. The amount of padding on the outside of the glass won't do much to prevent the ball from hitting the inside of the glass. It's not just crashes you need to worry about. Even roller coasters cause concussions, albeit small ones, but still with cognitive decrements.

brational 12y ago
Yep. Its worth noting that (american) football helmets are the same. They dont provide shake protection just prevent skull fractures.
Shorel 12y ago
Last night I fell. I use a motorcycle helmet. I think I was sliding on the ground for about 4 or 5 meters. The helmet did not touch the ground, but if it had, it would have prevent countless scrapes in my face or scalp. Not deadly fractures, but something painful and probably disfiguring. My point is: a proper helmet (think BMX) prevents a lot more than fractures. The gloves surely had a lot of work to do as well, and saved my left hand from any scratches.

witoldc 12y ago

Some of this debate is also going on in the motorcycle industry. "Softer" helmets provide better outcomes in slower crashes. "Harder" helmets provide better outcomes in faster, harder crashes. (To some extent, this is "DOT" approved helmets vs "SNELL" approved helmets.) You can't really have both unless you make the helmet bigger, or use some more exotic and more expensive materials. Fact of the matter is that EPS is cheap and works really, really well. It's what helps you SURVIVE - not save you from a silly concussion. (silly, comparatively speaking.) That is the fundamental functionality of a helmet. Maybe someone will make a $1000 helmet that is slightly better in avoiding concussions in smaller accidents, but people do not think there is much market for such a product. I couldn't muster to keep reading after the writer deemed 1-127 degrees F as "extreme conditions." 127F is what your helmet bakes in when you leave it in the car, for example, and there are plenty of regions around the world and US where it is easy to hit 127F by leaving the helmet in the wrong place. It's hardly "extreme."

damian2000 12y ago

Being from Australia I can't fathom not wearing a helmet. Its like wearing a seat belt in the car, just something you don't notice doing anymore. Anyone who is discouraged from cycling due to having to wear a helmet would more than likely also be discouraged by many other reasons - bad drivers, bad weather, flat tire, etc.

3pt14159 12y ago
I don't wear a helmet and I ride in downtown Toronto. Helmets save lives, but they also make motorist treat you differently. Also, they don't really save that many lives. Cycling without a helmet is safer than walking (kilometer for kilometer) and safer than being in the passenger seat while a new driver is driving.
- ozten 12y ago
  > but [helmets] also make motorist treat you differently. The biggest threats from cars in my experience is when the driver doesn't know you are there.
  - mmariani 12y ago
    Not only yours, in my too. That's why I always try to make eye contact with drivers, and when that doesn't work yelling always does the trick. Another thing that improved my safety was installing lights on my road bikes.

merraksh 12y ago

Snively estimated that a naked head struck the surface with a force more than 1,000 times greater than gravity, or 1,000g, which is lethal. I assume it meant "the acceleration of a naked head upon hitting the surface is estimated as 1000g", as I can't make sense of it otherwise. It would also help to say what height he dropped it from or the impact speed.

pessimizer 12y ago

A related helmet controversy: http://jalopnik.com/5582380/how-the-truth-about-motorcycle-helmets-got-a-journalist-fired http://jalopnik.com/5582380/how-the-truth-about-motorcycle-h... "Ford has long been controversial with major helmet makers, authoring 'Blowing the Lid Off,' the seminal expose of the flawed Snell M2005 helmet safety standard. In it, he proved through objective scientific testing that helmets made to that standard transmitted more forces to riders' heads than some less expensive helmets made to the DOT standard. Ford's article turned conventional wisdom on its head, proving that certain less-expensive DOT helmets were, according to his testing, capable of transmitting lower forces to a rider's head than the typically more expensive Snell M2005 brain buckets." The original article: http://web.archive.org/web/20070305231245/http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/gearbox/motorcycle_helmet_review/ http://web.archive.org/web/20070305231245/http://www.motorcy...

bane 12y ago

That's okay,they do decent job of keeping your brains inside your skull in an accident, that's nothing to sneeze at.

Shorel 12y ago

Except for BMX helmets. They look sturdy. Lots of people ride with them in Bogotá. I use a motorcycle helmet as it helps a lot against the usual rains. No silly social issues against helmets. Everyone minds their own business here.