Paper cycling helmet wins James Dyson Award

http://www.thememo.com/2016/11/17/paper-helmet-paper-cycle-helmet-dyson-award-cycling-news/

36 53 10 years ago

uptown• 10 years ago

Essentially recyclable/replaceable at $5/each, but I wonder how well they perform in protecting the head under adverse weather conditions.

giarc• 10 years ago

The unusual design is made from waterproofed recycled paper,

f_allwein• 10 years ago

interesting, but does not look like the best solution to the problem of "how do we supply bike share users with helmets?", given that they can only be used a few times.

300zxkyle• 10 years ago

I'm not sure; I believe that any (viable) attempt to reduce the possibility of head injuries due to cycling accidents is a good idea. This definitely seems to hit the mark on "if I had one with me I would".

proactivesvcs• 10 years ago

The problem is actually "how do we make bike share users safer?"

I'd suggest more effort is put into making the infrastructure better, since a flimsy helmet (made of cardboard or polystyrene) is not a solution to any problem other than sales figures.

ghaff• 10 years ago

I haven't personally used it, but it seemed as if Seattle had some sort of helmet rental associated with bike share when I was there recently.

fowkswe• 10 years ago

It seems like an iteration with a plastic coating could make this a product with a longer life.

maxerickson3• 10 years ago

And then use expanded polystyrene for its superior ability to absorb energy.

Here's a previous design project paper bike hat that apparently already failed to get to market:

http://www.bikeradar.com/commuting/news/article/pulp-nonfict...

I guess this one also won't meet safety standards and won't ever be for sale.

24gttghh• 10 years ago

Well that helmet looks pretty ugly and has no venting. This paper-board honeycomb helmet looks better and is well vented.

brudgers2• 10 years ago

Duplicate (and recycled): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12976586

joosters• 10 years ago

But no discussion there, so a bit of a pointless link.

brudgers2• 10 years ago

The moderators sometimes change links to point the original source (linking to the original source is one of the HN guidelines). Particularly where the link is blogspam based on a more informative source.

mentos• 10 years ago

The few times I have gone biking in NYC with CitiBike I decided to forgo a helmet with the mindset that my exposure was limited to only a few hours. When I finally bought a bike I bought a helmet.

I think a vending machine selling these paper helmets next to bike share kiosks would probably be the best bet but I still wonder if I would have bought one due to the unattractive design.

If they could create an ultra cheap paper helmet that looked a little cooler I think that would be easier for the general public to adopt?

jbob20003• 10 years ago

I am skeptical. I want to see some side-by-side videos of this vs. a traditional helmet.The fact that this article didn't include any proof of the safety features tells me that this is a just a marketing ploy.

“I do all my exploring by bike but I don’t like riding in those cities without a helmet,” said the Pratt Institute graduate.

So buy a fucking helmet and bring it with you.

maxerickson3• 10 years ago

Yeah they have a FAQ:

http://www.ecohelmet.com/copy-of-about-us

Before we can put it on the market EcoHelmet has to pass the tests necessary to be CPSC certified-- just like every other bike helmet.

That should say "we pass the same safety standards as the bike helmets you are used to" before anyone gets too excited.

jbob20003• 10 years ago

SmartCars have to pass the same safety standards as Ford F150s. Which one would you feel safer in?

JoeAltmaier2• 10 years ago

Agreed. All design award winners are of the same class: something that looks like it would work, but probably doesn't. It takes real effort to design working things; their construction reflects the real constraints on the design. If folded paper could absorb impact, that's what a real helmet would have in it.

vinay427• 10 years ago

If folded paper could absorb impact, that's what a real helmet would have in it.

That's analogous to saying that if the polio vaccine could vaccinate users from polio, that's what would have been administered already. The whole point of this is that it's a potentially new innovation, which implies it is something the helmet industry hasn't yet developed.

Avshalom• 10 years ago

Yeah but this fucking helmet will fit in a bag when not in use making a hell of a lot easier to bring it with you.

zeroxfe2• 10 years ago

So buy a fucking helmet and bring it with you.

Wow, that's harsh. She built something novel and potentially very useful. If you live in a city, it's impractical to carry your helmet everywhere you go all the time, and you'll surprise yourself at the number of times you need to quickly rent a bike (but have no helmet handy.)

If it passes the safety certifications and rolls out, it will very likely increase the proportion of cyclists wearing helmets.

jbob20003• 10 years ago

Who are these people that think a helmet is impractical to carry? You also have to leave your bike somewhere everywhere you go, isn't that inconvenient too?

I rode a bike for 2 years in downtown Toronto, wearing a helmet the entire time, and never once did I think that the helmet was inconvenient. You carry it up to your office and leave it on your desk. Or you turn it upside down and it's an adhoc shopping basket. Or you clip it to your backpack. Or you loop it through your bike lock.

There are a million ways to answer the "inconvenience" problem that don't involve wearing a pseudo-helmet.

Grishnakh3• 10 years ago

It's not impractical at all. You clip it to your backpack. That's what I did in college, and if I wanted to ride a city bike in a big city, that's what I'd do there too. Every time I go into a walkable big city like NYC, I'm carrying my backpack with me since it's the most practical way to carry a bunch of stuff including my laptop. Clipping my bike helmet to it would be trivial.

wvjovborkjwdbf3• 10 years ago

A helmet is no substitute for good cycling. If you cycle correctly, you should never come off your bike or collide with anything. Whenever I read anyone say "that helmet saved my life" I immediately think "you probably did something wrong". The way cyclists with helmets ride, it's no wonder they need them.

pwinnski2• 10 years ago

How does cycling well prevent someone else from colliding with me? At least in the US, cars and bikes share the same roads, and there's not much one can do while cycling to prevent cars from injuring cyclists.

kitcar• 10 years ago

Just this morning my son and I were playing with a "expandable vase hat" we bought in New York a few years ago - wonder if that was her inspiration -

https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?initiative_id=QRW_20161...

scblock• 10 years ago

The solution is better cycling infrastructure, not a paper hat. Paper hats won't magically make bike shares more popular, but they do help perpetuate the myth that a helmet makes you safe. No helmet can protect you from the things an inattentive driver can do.

bigato4• 10 years ago

Wearing a helmet decreases the possible damages to your head on a hit, and nothing else changes that fact.

lucvh• 10 years ago

Wearing a helmet can be demonstrated to be more effective in terms of number of lives saved by being worn by pedestrians and motorists, rather than cyclists. Are you saying that we should all wear helmets when out in public?

snake_plissken• 10 years ago

I Agree with most of your statement. But helmets are important. Broken bones heal. Serious head injuries do not.

Grishnakh3• 10 years ago

Broken bones heal.

I agree with your sentiment about the relative differences between broken bones and head injuries, but this statement isn't completely correct: if you're an adult, a broken bone almost always leaves behind some kind of problem, usually at a minimum the tendency to have arthritis at the point of fracture later on. Broken bones don't heal perfectly, just like significant cuts will always leave a scar in your skin.

Hopefully medical technology will figure out soon how to fix this, and make it so we can regenerate like those animals that regrow tails and limbs, but not yet.

SippinLean4• 10 years ago

Wearing a helmet significantly reduces the risk of head, face, or neck injury. Cycling infrastructure is also a concern but you're painting a false dichotomy and dangerously implying there's no benefit to wearing a helmet.

SonicSoul2• 10 years ago

hate to be the one to say this but there's a certain aesthetic quality that's missing. How many people would wear what essentially looks like a mix between an open book and half bowling ball on their heads?

bigato4• 10 years ago

It looks light, practical and cool if you ask me.

SonicSoul2• 10 years ago

I respectfully agree with 2 out of 3 of those adjectives :)

tejohnso• 10 years ago

Helmets are counter-productive for cyclists.

http://www.howiechong.com/journal/2014/2/bike-helmets

https://www.cnet.com/news/brain-surgeon-theres-no-point-wear...

Shorel• 10 years ago

I do agree those tiny helmets don't look like much help. But not all helmets are like that.

I use a full helmet, shaped like the one you use when riding a motorcycle, just not as heavy.

It already saved my face from scratches in one fall I had.

Grishnakh3• 10 years ago

Enormous amounts of testing prove that those "tiny" helmets do in fact help a lot. Cyclists aren't normally exposed to the magnitude of forces that motorcyclists are in crashes, due to their lower speeds, but they're still exposed to speeds well above those that are normal for human bodies to be propelled at, and in an environment surrounded with very hard, unnatural surfaces (concrete, asphalt), so the forces they can experience are well above those the human skull is designed to protect.

I had a friend in college who worked in a university lab testing bike helmets; this was 20 years ago now. They're only gotten better since then.

But it's true, bicycling helmets don't do much for protecting your face. But that's not what they're designed for; they're designed to reduce or prevent brain injuries from knocking your skull on the road or a curb. A full-face motorcycle helmet would be even better, but there's a tradeoff there in weight and ventilation (and cost), things that are more important to bicyclists than motorcyclists. Even a lot of motorcycle helmets aren't full-face and don't protect the face at all. But the idea with safety equipment isn't to completely eliminate all possible injury, it's to reduce risk to a reasonable degree; for the injuries you're likely to experience as a cyclist, a good cycling helmet is designed to protect against those. But it's not going to help keep a branch from poking your eye out on a backwoods trail.

Finally, the charge against bike helmets from all these anti-helmet people lately isn't that they don't help prevent injuries (they absolutely do), it's that they allegedly cause more accidents by making car drivers more reckless around cyclists. The claim has nothing to do with physics, and everything to do with psychology. Personally, I think it's a terrible argument to make, and if there's any truth to it, it simply shows that we absolutely need to mandate that cyclists are provided with physically separate roads from cars. Considering how dirt-cheap cycling trails are to build compared to car-roads, how much better for the environment cycling is than driving in cars, and how much public health would be improved by more cycling (which would reduce healthcare expenditures greatly, and also improve workplace productivity and reduce sick time, all important factors for good capitalists), there's simply no excuse for governments to not be buildings lots and lots of safe cycling paths and encouraging cycling.

babinho• 10 years ago

Except when they stand between your head and the road. I found mine pretty productive in the head suddenly meets road event. Mandatory helmet laws are counterproductive for cyclists. Helmets help more often than they don't

SippinLean4• 10 years ago

First link:

I'm not saying that adults should not wear bike helmets.

Second:

It would be a travesty if somebody takes their helmet off because of this.

bigato4• 10 years ago

This other article has a bit more information about this helmet: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38004215

wvjovborkjwdbf3• 10 years ago

the only time a bike helmet is actually worth wearing is when mountain-biking and then you need to wear a full motorbike-style helmet because most injuries are to the mouth not the head

SippinLean4• 10 years ago

Completely false, any time you're on a bike will benefit from a helmet's injury risk reduction, specifically to the frontal lobe. Especially if you're sharing the road with motor vehicles.

wvjovborkjwdbf3• 10 years ago

at any time a vehicle could plough into you while you're walking on the pavement

hammock• 10 years ago

Quick plug for one of the coolest non-helmet bike helmets ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikYFfxpu3I0

matt_morgan• 10 years ago

The important thing here is the folding. But this one seems more promising:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/morpher-folding-helmet-te...

Paper cycling helmet wins James Dyson Award

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