The Ignorance Surrounding Bicycle Helmet Advocacy

Disclaimer: I do not believe that helmets are bad. This entry is not meant to attack helmet use nor helmet users. I don't intend to persuade anyone not to wear a helmet. 

Trust me when I say that the effectiveness of bicycle helmets in mitigating brain injuries is heavily contested among peer-reviewed research. I will not get into the details of this claim right now but if you are skeptical or curious about it then please do some reading before you cite Thompson, Rivara and Thompson, 1989; www.cyclehelmets.org is a good place to start. Many of my arguments will be based on this assumption. However, many still will hold sound even while assuming that bicycle helmets can mitigate brain injury.

The first thing I want to make clear is that a lot of people severely misunderstand how a bicycle helmet is designed to protect its wearer. Helmets are meant to prevent brain injury, or a rotational head injury. This happens when the brain moves in relation to the skull of the cyclist and is the cause of most brain trauma.

Bicycle helmets are tested most commonly with a ‘drop test’. The helmet is weighted and dropped crown first onto an anvil, the test is usually at around 100 joules though some helmets have been tested at up to 110 joules per impact (FYI a 3500 lb. car traveling at 25 mph carries about 200,000 joules).

The effectiveness of a helmet is dependent upon its ability to slow the rate at which your head stops moving on impact, much like the crunch zone of a car. So, just like the crunch zone of a car prevents your heart from splattering on the inside of your rib cage, a bicycle helmet prevents your brain from slamming against the inside of your skull. That being said, a bicycle helmet is meant to crunch or flatten. This means that every time you hear a story about a helmet cracking into pieces and therefor saving somebody’s life you can assume that it probably saved no one from any serious brain injury. A helmet does its job when it crushes, not cracks.

People consistently overestimate the benefit of helmets. I once read a news story about a drunken man who walked his bike in front of an oncoming train. He died. The take home message in the report was “that’s why you should wear a helmet!”

“This helmet saved my life. Had I not been wearing it, I wouldn’t be here today”

“You don’t wear a helmet, you smash your face”

Am I taking crazy pills!? A quick news search on Google for ‘bike helmet car’ produces daily stories of cyclists dead or injured due to spinal injuries, internal bleeding and other broken extremities along with the doctrine, “always wear your helmet.” It’s as if people believe that helmets will protect you regardless of the situation. It’s superstition, not safety.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/story/2012/05/27/mb-bicycle-crash-helmet.html

I’m not convinced that this boy’s life was saved by a helmet. Are you?

http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/article/20120601/NEWS/120609997/1056&parentprofile=1056

I am grateful that the police and the reporter here mention not only helmet but also the importance of operating bicycles in accordance with traffic laws. Though, I am still not sure what a helmet has to do with his broken arm and total disregard for safety (crossing on a Red light with headphones). Those seem to be the cause of the accident and that’s because they are.

A child is hit by a car while riding his bike. He dies. Why did he die? Because he wasn’t wearing a helmet? No. He was hit by a car!

Traffic. Collision with motor vehicles is almost always the cause of death or serious injury among cyclists. And this is my biggest issue with helmet advocacy. The absence of a helmet has never killed a cyclist, but collision with motor vehicles has killed thousands. Yet, I have met plenty of cyclists who think that wearing a helmet is the most important thing anyone on a bike can do to ensure their safety. This is false and I believe dangerous, even if helmets made cyclists safer.

It seems a common paradigm that cyclists’ responsibility to wear helmets exceeds motorist responsibility not to kill them—for every ad that promotes the use of helmets I wish I saw one that said “Don’t kill anyone with your car today,” and I’ll never forget the night that I passed a cyclist riding on the wrong side of the road without lights who yelled “Where is your helmet?” as I dodged him. There are many things more important than bicycle helmets, in fact, anything that could prevent or decrease collisions with motor vehicles. This applies to policy makers, traffic engineers, motorists and especially cyclists.

If you are wondering what a cyclist can do to not get killed please visit www.bicyclesafe.com for an article titled “How to Not Get Hit by Cars.” Also, learn how to ride legally. I personally don’t believe that a bicycle helmet is likely to save me when getting hit by that 3500 lb. car traveling at 25 mph, carrying 200,000 joules (199,900 joules greater than the 100 joules used to test the helmet). Instead I ride my bike in a way that lowers the likelihood of getting nailed by a motorist talking on his cell phone. 

If you are wondering what a community can do—Bike lanes—Real ones too. I keep forgetting to take a picture of this bike lane on my commute. It is a fog line and 3/4ths of a bike stencil that drops into a gutter. There is another bike lane further west that directs cyclists to the right side of a right turn lane. Also, try to educate drivers.

Motorists, educate yourselves. Look up traffic laws related to bicycles. For example: it is illegal to pass a cyclist within 3ft. And it’s okay (and legal) if my taking the lane through an intersection slows you down by a few seconds. I’m doing it to stay visible, not to bother you. Things are getting better around here though.

O be wise, what can I say more?