Poor bicycle helmet design & inadequate testing standards

GrahamJohnWallace

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There have been serious cases of brain damage were the bicycle helmets have been hardly damaged.

This article taken from a US doctors website attempts to explain the problem:

Bike-Related Concussions Are on the Rise

As helmet wearing has increased, so have brain injuries among cyclists. From 1997 to 2011, bike-related concussions increased 67 percent in the US, according to data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

This might seem puzzling until you take a look at the development of bicycle helmets -- and the safety standards to which they're still mostly built to meet. When helmets were first being designed and tested, the consequences of concussions were not widely understood.

Today, we know that a concussion, which is caused by a blow to your head, can lead to headache and problems with concentration, memory, judgment, balance, and more. The effects are usually temporary, although now, it's known that long-term complications may occur.

Among them, your risk of epilepsy doubles in the first five years following a concussion, and if a second concussion occurs before you've healed from the first, it can lead to rapid and fatal brain swelling.1

Research has also shown that people who experience multiple concussions over their lifetime, such as professional athletes, are at an increased risk of cognitive impairment including chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a form of brain damage that's similar to Alzheimer's disease.2

Clearly, if you're wearing a bicycle helmet, you want it to protect your brain from a concussion as well as skull fracture, but to date, such technology doesn't really exist.

"…helmets were developed only to protect against massive head trauma, like cracking open your skull, and simply haven't been designed to prevent less immediately catastrophic injuries like concussions. What's more, none of us—not you, not me, not the helmet manufacturers or even the testing agencies—know for certain whether your helmet will prevent you from getting hurt."
http://www.bicycling.com/sites/default/ ... Helmet.pdf
 
No sure I really buy the premise of the criticism. Basically, bike helmets are poor because they don't protect against concussion even though the technology doesn't exist, and they make no claim to do so?

Feels a little like saying gloves don't protect from the risk of breaking your fingers.
 
Re:

In a way you are right in that helmet manufacturers never say what their products protect us from in case that leaves them open to litigation in the event of an accident. All they say is that their products meet the safety standards. Standards that do not test the ability of a helmet to protect against violent rotations of the head.

Does the technology exist to prevent concussion caused by sudden rotation?

The Swedes have developed their MIPS (Multi-Directional Impact ­Protection System) where the helmet contains a ­low-friction slip plate between the head and the foam liner. On impact, this allows the helmet to rotate independent of the MIPS liner, absorbing some rotational acceleration.

However this has not been independently tested and I am frankly skeptical that such a system will do little more in reducing the friction than putting Brylcreem on your hair. And it only allows for about 15mm of rotation before the mechanism and chin strap stops it from moving further.

As most of the bicycle helmet industry doesn't openly acknowledge the the problem exists, it is unlikely that they have spent much time and money in searching for solutions.

People that buy cycle helmets must do so because they believe they protect against something. Unless that is they are buying them as a fashion statement or simply to look the part. And I think therefore that it is only right that helmets should protect the brain adequately as well as the skull.
 
Re:

Not read ths report but sounds similar to when steel helmets were introduced in ww1 and was found to increase head injuries.

Well of course injuries increased as previously them people would have died so would not have added to that particular statistic.
 
I try not to fall off too often.

And I try to never ever headbutt HGVs. Fortunately there aren't a lot of those in the woods.
 
Re: Re:

02gf74":38uj3l5v said:
Not read ths report but sounds similar to when steel helmets were introduced in ww1 and was found to increase head injuries.

Well of course injuries increased as previously them people would have died so would not have added to that particular statistic.
If you atempt to unpack the statistics you find all kinds of factors involved, like:
*an improved ability to diagnose concussion
*the fact that people who ride in dangerous situations are more likely to wear helmets and have accidents
*and as you say, because they wore helmets, more people are surviving accidents that without a helmet would have caused a fatal skull fracture, etc.

The interesting thing is that, especially in countries where helmet use for cyclists was made compulsory, the expected reduction in brain injury has not occurred. Though at same time the incidence of skull fracture has noticeably reduced.
 
Re: Re:

GrahamJohnWallace":2dcqek1e said:
In a way you are right in that helmet manufacturers never say what their products protect us from in case that leaves them open to litigation in the event of an accident. All they say is that their products meet the safety standards. Standards that do not test the ability of a helmet to protect against violent rotations of the head.

Does the technology exist to prevent concussion caused by sudden rotation?

The Swedes have developed their MIPS (Multi-Directional Impact ­Protection System) where the helmet contains a ­low-friction slip plate between the head and the foam liner. On impact, this allows the helmet to rotate independent of the MIPS liner, absorbing some rotational acceleration.

However this has not been independently tested and I am frankly skeptical that such a system will do little more in reducing the friction than putting Brylcreem on your hair. And it only allows for about 15mm of rotation before the mechanism and chin strap stops it from moving further.

As most of the bicycle helmet industry doesn't openly acknowledge the the problem exists, it is unlikely that they have spent much time and money in searching for solutions.

People that buy cycle helmets must do so because they believe they protect against something. Unless that is they are buying them as a fashion statement or simply to look the part. And I think therefore that it is only right that helmets should protect the brain adequately as well as the skull.

From my perspective, my helmet once came between me and slamming the left-hand side of my head into a nice chunk of jagged limestone. That side of the helmet was ripped to shreds and had a huge crack down the middle. I cycled home that day. I suspect I wouldn't have done without it. For me that was job done, and reassured my helmet was more than a fashion statement.

I just think we have to be careful that false expectations aren't being set. For example, builder's helmets are designed to protect from falling stuff, not to protect your head if you fall.

Perhaps we simply expect too much from helmets to reduce concussion?

If it could be shown that helmets in similar sports eg motorcycling were better at protection from concussion - then I think there would be a case for criticising and lobbying for cycle helmets to offer similar protection.

And if the technology to reduce concussion ever became available, then we should definitely have it in cycling helmets - if viable.
 
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