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Helmets are being questioned??

I suspect that there are quite a few people who ended up as a "vegetable in a hospital" becausethey didn't wear a good helmet. No broken bones, minor scrapes, but severe brain damage after a low speed crash. A better motto for these folks would be "I don't wear a helmet because I don't want my brain alive and my body completely ruined after a severe crash at a high speed."

Makes more sense to me.

Excellent point! :banghead
 
To the extent controversy exist it is not about the safety of using or not using a helmet. Rather it is what I often call the SUV effect. In the cage world the assumption is a SUV makes you impervious to injury when instead it just shifts the parameters of when and how severe injuries might be. In the helmet area the current questions center around what goes on inside the skull during a high speed deceleration.

The neck injury legend goes back to the early days of full face helmets on track before they were street legal. I have never been able to track down the source story but it is a racing story goes along the lines that while the helmet saved the racer the first responder caused a neck injury while removing the helmet in the field. This apparent urban legend led to all sorts of misinformation that continues to this day. Improvements in design and first responder training make it much more important that they remove a helmet for access to your airway increase of other issues than any urban legend fears warrant.

The helmet controversy is also fueled by a common secondary injury wearers may experience in a crash; a broken collarbone. The bottom edge of the helmet strikes the colar bone and the impact results in a fracture or break. Several versions of gear have been designed as part or research supported by BMW, KTM and others. Some have made it to market but aren't real popular for street use.

On going research into head trauma suffered by football players and other athletes brings helmet injuries into the news; creating new myths and urban legends in the process. In early studies in this field some research seemed to indicate some sports helmets possibly increased the possibility of head injuries due to their design. What is being missed in the casual discussions of that link sport helmet sound bites to motorcycle helmets:

- Frequency of hits. Professional athletes sighted in stories may have experienced helmet strikes in the several thousands of times range and these repeated head blows may be what the atheletes are experiencing in latter years.
- What the injuries in the early helmets were caused by. The difference in design of chin straps, interior webbing failures are extremely different than motorcycle helmet design. Jack Nicholson may have worn a football helmet in Easy Rider but they never passed DOT muster.

What motorcycle helmet manufacturers and standards writers seem to be learning from the athletic studies is how to better design helmet interiors to help the brain deal with rapid deceleration during impact.

Wearing a helmet does not make us impervious to brain injuries but for my money significantly increases the odds that not wearing one is not an option.
 
I can see how a helmet can cause a broken collarbone, or improper helmet removal can aggravate a neck injury, or perhaps the weight of the helmet might increase a whiplash injury. But I have trouble imagining a likely scenario where these things happen without the helmet having already protected the rider from a greater injury.

So I do not ride without a helmet, nor do I ride with others who are not wearing a helmet. I do not argue about it. Those who disagree with me fall into the category of self-correcting problems.
 
I think it is a waste of time to even discuss this. My head goes into a helmet before I sit on a bike. Period.
 
It's indeed an inane waste of time.

Well, yes, perhaps in this forum. Still, one thing might be said. While a helmet will save your life under all conditions....crushing chest injuries for one...it very likely save your personality under any number of less-than-fatal encounters. I just tell the helmet skeptics that I've grown attached
to the personality I have and don't want to break in a new one at this point in my life. Then I relate the accident of a women I know who was
thrown from the back of her boyfriend's bike. No observable physical injuries...but she was ten years old mentally from that time on...
 
It's indeed an inane waste of time.

Yes, but it's an inane concept perpetuated by our brethren in the motorcycle community. No outside entity or government agency, just our brethren.

Accordingly, when discussing within the "community" one has to be "PC" and respect the idea that helmets may not work...........
 
Yes, but it's an inane concept perpetuated by our brethren in the motorcycle community. No outside entity or government agency, just our brethren.

Accordingly, when discussing within the "community" one has to be "PC" and respect the idea that helmets may not work...........

Actually helmets always work - up to the limitations of their design and the forces that are acting upon them.

Helmets were never designed to make you invincible when it comes to head trauma. Many who argue against their 'effectiveness' like to stumble down that convoluted path of rationalization.

As MSF instructors, we struggle to find ways to communicate the effectiveness of helmets to novice riders, usually employing 'anecdotal war stories,' cliched commentary or creative examples.

If a particular student is adamant about not wearing one once he/she leaves my class, I suggest they lower their head and run into the classroom's brick wall as fast as they can (for humans, a 7-10 mph collision) to demonstrate the resiliency of the human cranium. So far, no takers.

Above 5-10 mph, your head striking any hard object will have dire consequences. Invincible protection? Never.

But do they work for what they were designed for? Every time. :thumb

Since I plan to ride above 10 mph, wearing a helmet was never a 'decision or choice.'
 
Yes, but it's an inane concept perpetuated by our brethren in the motorcycle community. No outside entity or government agency, just our brethren.

Accordingly, when discussing within the "community" one has to be "PC" and respect the idea that helmets may not work...........

Don't "have to" and won't. Stupidity NEVER deserves respect.
 
I don't wear a helmet solely for protection from head injury. I use it primarily to make myself more visible to other motorists by wearing a white full-face and have added some reflective tape as well.

A helmet also is for comfort, to keep june bugs and bumble bees from colliding directly with my face as well as rain and to extend my riding season greatly. I just don't see too many helmetless riders when the temps drop below 60F. Most of that crowd don't ride when it drops below 80F.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that wearing a helmet for protection from head injury is just a small part of what a helmet can do for you.

Harry
 
A few years back a dealer in Florida,I think, He was just going to move a bike in the lot. He dropped it an cracked his head. He died from that.

So you do not have to be on the road to have a FATAL blow w/o a helmet.
 
Take focus off

My concern in starting this thread is that people who should know better are perpetuating this falsehood:

"There has been a lot of controversy about the effectiveness of helmets"

I had hoped that the author of this statement would defend it publicly. With the zealot-like attention to ATGATT among BMW riders, it seems very curious that the foremost safety device would be so described.

I agree that if you just read that one sentence you might have concern.

Read the whole article a few times and take the focus off that one sentence. Anyone who rides (even cool Harley riders like myself) knows that a helmet is safer than no helmet at all. And, no one who rides with a helmet now will be influenced by that sentence not to wear a helmet.

I think the only controversy is whether mandatory helmet laws infringe on Constitutional rights.

DW
 
We have no mandatory helmet laws. I still wear one.

I see many others without.
 
I had a co-worker ask me one day how I could wear a helmet and all of my gear on a 90+ degree day. Her - "Doesn't it make you hot and sweaty?" Me - "That's why they make shampoo and body wash."
 
" There has been a lot of controversy about the effectiveness of helmets; most studies show that helmets save lives."

MOST studies?????? I can not imagine ANY serious study saying that they DON'T save lives.




:dance:dance:dance

The ones financed by HOG. :D
 
I had a co-worker ask me one day how I could wear a helmet and all of my gear on a 90+ degree day. Her - "Doesn't it make you hot and sweaty?" Me - "That's why they make shampoo and body wash."

I've been asked whether full gear is too hot to ride in, my answer is always the same.

"If you think wearing the riding suit is hot, imagine your skin being abraded by the road at 100 Km/h...............Now that's hot!"

Of course some reply that if I was a better rider I wouldn't crash and that's partially true, however the real issue is that I'm not smart enough to predict the exact time of my accident.

If I could predict the exact time, I would change into the riding suit a minute prior to the accident, or even better, park the bike for 2 minutes..........Rod.
 
After discovering that my lane was covered with gravel, and my bike no longer wanted a passenger, I went over the bars, did a split S and landed on my back. As I skipped down the pavement, I heard my helmet grinding against the asphalt. I got up and road six hours home with a sore toe. My head was just fine. NOBODY can convince me that a helmet doesn't save lives, it saved mine.
 
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