A helmet saved a life (probably)

Folks, I saw a sobering sight yesterday at the park on the corner of the Esplanade and Whyte Street, Somerton Park. A cyclist went to ground, falling over his handlebars and landing hard on his back and head. His helmet split in three places at the back.

Whilst he didn't have any obvious scratches or blood, he was stunned, and when he sat up it became obvious that he had lost his short term memory. Hopefully it was just concussion and not brain injury, but I'm not sure. I stayed with him and insisted that he go to hospital for scans. He didn't want to get an ambulance, but he agreed to call his wife and allow her to drive him to hospital.

Given the force of the impact, and the damage to the rear of his helmet, I'm certain that he would have suffered extremely traumatic head injuries if he wasn't wearing a helmet, even though he was riding slowly when he went down. 

Here's why it happened

  • there are roadworks on that section of The Esplanade, and pedestrians and cyclists are being detoured through the park
  • there's temporary fencing right around the roadworks, including right alongside a path in the park which cyclists use as the detour
  • there's a long banner (advertising the construction company) on the fence, affixed along its top edge
  • when the wind flows, the banner blows inwards across the path
  • there are little holes with flaps on the banner, to allow the wind to pass through, and these holes are a hazard for cyclists. Handlebars catch in them. 

The cyclist who went down was travelling fairly slowly, and when his handlebars caught in the banner hole, his bike came to a sudden stop and he went flying across his handlebars. A second cyclist (a young woman) became caught about 20 minutes after the first guy, but luckily she stayed on her bike. 

I've reported this hazard to the Holdfast Bay Council. 

The lessons for me from this incident are:

  • Helmets can save your life! Sure, we may get more people on bikes (eg women who don't want helmet hair, or people who ride very short distances) if helmets were non-compulsory, but I'd always to choose to wear one. 
  • Brain injuries can happen very easily. 
  • Detours for cyclists around roadworks are often thought through very poorly, unlike detours for motorists.

Protect your noggins, people!

Andrew

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Rob W on April 19, 2012 at 15:21

Perhaps let me make it clearer, if you choose not to protect yourself against injury in a heightened risk situation (40kph on the road, in traffic, with no helmet) then you should assume your own liability, as you are not taking reasonable precautions to add to your own safety. However, if you choose to not wear a helmet along linear park, the risk of serious injury due to speed is less if you are sensible, and the risk of a 2 ton vehicle colliding with you or running you over is almost zero.

Until our driving culture in this country is similar to that in Copenhagen, I think not wearing a helmet on the street is adding a lot more risk to an already risky sport.

Permalink Reply by Tim on April 19, 2012 at 15:25

Yes of course there is a real difference, its just common sense.

Actually you make a good point about cyclists who injure themselves even though they are wearing helmets. Cycling is dangerous. The risk of serious brain injury is huge. These people are a drain on the public purse indulging in their recreational pursuits on the public roads. Certainly any cyclist who suffers an injury on the road should not expect any support from the public health system - its just too dangerous and these people are consciously putting themselves in harms way. A waiver should be signed by anyone so foolhardy as to ride a bicycle on a road.

Permalink Reply by Rob W on April 19, 2012 at 15:34

If you want to talk drains on the public purse, there are lot more expensive things than looking after anyone injured in any way on the roads.

On the topic of waivers, following your statement, add to the list anyone that leaves their front gate, be it in a car, on foot or bicycle.

Permalink Reply by stephen on April 20, 2012 at 23:40

Tim

Riding a bike is simply not that dangerous and the benefit of wearing a helmet is insignificant in serious accidents. There are fewer than 5 deaths per 100 million km travelled by bicycle users in australia.

So you would need to ride 20 million km to reach a 50% risk of death. That is a distance of riding around Australia over 1000 times. !

This business with mandatory helmet laws is nit picking - it's utterly ridiculous that we deny free choice and torment and persecute thousands of people over such a tiny risk and and with no evidence to support the laws while more effective measures like infrastructure get less attention. !

You may wish to discourage to people from riding with such intrusive laws and scaremongering but that is simply selfish and stupid since many people will instead drive more. 

More traffic makes it more dangerous for other bike users and pedestrians including yourself did you know 90% of cyclists fatalities are due to motor vehicle collision - and around 170 pedestrians are killed annually in Australia on the roads.

I would suggest that instead of attempting to enforce your nanny state ideology and paranoia on other people that you wear a helmet at all times yourself (perhaps even when walking since it's more dangerous than riding ) but please leave it up to others to make their own choice.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/teen-admits-runn...

Would you rather have people like these driving a car or riding a bike when you and other people are out there on the road ?

In a car they can kill people on a bike they can only injury themselves and have only themselves to blame for their behaviour.

Permalink Reply by Doddsy on April 19, 2012 at 15:38

Rob w said "But if you let people make the choice and they get serious brain injuries, it shouldn't be up to the public health system to pay for it. Perhaps for linear park, none required, but on roads, mandatory."

The australian bureau of statistics reports that 52% of Australian motor vehicle journeys are under 5 kilometres. That is not what machines are built for, cars are built to travel long distances or carry heavy items. 

Yet for some reason taxpaying cyclists still end up subsidizing the yearly $16 billion car crashes cost us, the $8 billion motor vehicle specific infrastructure costs us, not to mention the 21 billion cost of obesity and other health issues thanks to a lack of exercise.  

They are also forecasting a 20 billion dollar a year cost of congestion by 2020

And here you are saying taxpayers who leave machines at home shouldn't be covered if they have an accident while not wearing a piece of foam on their head. Not to mention most serious cycling accidents involve automobiles. 

Ludicrous. 

Meanwhile many cities without mandatory helmet laws are leading the war in road safety and transport efficiency.

Permalink Reply by Rob W on April 19, 2012 at 15:41

But did he not also say:

Until our driving culture in this country is similar to that in Copenhagen, I think not wearing a helmet on the street is adding a lot more risk to an already risky sport.


You must educate drivers before removing the helmet laws. Change the culture on the roads, then remove the law.

Permalink Reply by Doddsy on April 19, 2012 at 17:22

Not sure the law will ever change, but hopefully they realise the introduction of mhl's was a cop out and start investing in infrastructure that has been proven to increase road safety. 

Funny thing is, many countries without mandatory helmet laws already have a similar helmet usage rate to some cities in Australia, Portland is up around 80%.  Many people in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane are now often leaving their helmets at home when they take shorter and more casual trips, Darwin is the same (no mhl's in Darwin).  

Its really turned into a liability issue. 

If there is an incident where it isn't the cyclists fault and the cyclist isn't wearing a helmet should the cyclist be held liable?

I don't think so.

It will happen for a long time to come though. 

Permalink Reply by stephen on April 21, 2012 at 0:20

Rob W

That is catch 22 logic ! The driving culture is a result of deterring people from bike usage.

If more people ride they build more bike infrastructure.

If more people ride then car drivers become aware of bike users since they ride themselves sometimes and see and know more people who do.

We need to put an end to the rhetoric and dogma of mandatory bike helmet laws which makes riding seem more dangerous than it really is. Removing the helmet laws will lead to change.  
Why keep making the same mistake over and over. Mandatory helmet laws have been holding back cycling for 20 years now, it's time to call an end to this failed experiment.

Permalink Reply by stephen on April 20, 2012 at 23:59

Hi Doddsy 
Thanks for the chart i had not seen that one - it's interesting that in recent years the rate of children walking or riding to school has fallen greatly and childhood obesity is now a huge health problem. Those operations they do to choke off the stomach or liposuction are dangerous and costly and that's only the tip of the iceberg.

Permalink Reply by stephen on April 20, 2012 at 1:41

Please don't distort what i just said i was not emphasising that helmets are dangerous just helmet laws.

Your marginalising of other bike riders keeps more of them in cars and remaining bike riders ahve more traffic to deal with as result -including this unfortunate fellow who was set a upon by hired thugs - why would you support this kind of treatment of a fellow bike rider ?

http://terrordownunder.ning.com/profiles/blogs/almost-killed-by-que...
Does it produce some sadistic pleasure to see people have their rights to make even the most trivial of choices taken away from them. ?

With less riders remaining Bike riders have less representation so councils pay less attention to bicycle infrastructure - though it seems to me that many people are quite prepared to complain about the lack of infrastructure and at the same time support the very law which resulted in it !.

We don't really even need helmet laws for children because their parents are quite capable of getting them to wear a helmet if they want themselves - helmet laws attack parents rights. There is no reason that we require a law when based on experience people can easily make the choice themselves as they do in most other countries.

Permalink Reply by Matt Jones on April 20, 2012 at 9:58

Stephen , you obviously have some sort of issue with upholding the law. 

Right now the law is mandatory Helmets, if you dont agree then thats your issue, raise it with whoever you want, but to then link an article where the author admits to not following the law and then "resisting" the police (who you seem to like calling hired thugs). Admittedly 4 police sounds like an overkill, yet we dont know either the size of this guy, nor the manner of his "resistance". Maybe their reaction was called for.

As an example, I don't agree with a 100Km/hr speed limit on open roads, I think its too low. However just because I think that doesn't give me a right to then go out and drive at 130Km/Hr just because that's what I think we should be able to do.

I'll also state again, MHL's are not stopping people getting on their bike, the fact that we have become a lazy society is doing that. The US is a perfect example of this, no MHL's there , yet according to the chart above they have the lowest rate of walking/riding

Permalink Reply by Mike Brisco on April 19, 2012 at 15:48

"You can never actually be certain that the helmet had any effect or did not make it worse -"

Not sure the judge would agree with you there....

Read the description of the fall. Note that the impact was on the helmet, and hard enough to break it. If no helmet - exactly the same impact gets applied to the skull.

Now do a thought experiment - same thing, same movements, only the cyclist isnt wearing a helmet.

We have evidence from what happened to the helmet, how strong the impact was - it was strong enough to break it. What would the impact, do to a human skull and scalp? Because if there is no helmet - it is the skull and scalp that absorb the force of the impact...

  The helmet functioned as  designed  - it broke.. The fact it broke, means it did absorb some of the impact - that's what they 're designed to do, that's how they're designed to do it.   Thus  less impact from the crash, got transmitted to the rider's skull, than otherwise .

Thus we can be pretty certain,  the helmet did  have an effect.

We can also be pretty certain,  the effect was to do good.

Maybe not absolutely certain - nothing in life, ever is absolutely certain.

But we can be at least as certain, as we usually need to be - when we say about something, it worked, and helped. 

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