Bicycle helmets haven't changed since their introduction

http://www.bicycling.com/senseless/

by robg • 13 years ago

40 75 13 years ago

I dont have time to read the whole of this very interesting but LONG article to see if he mentions airbag helmets.

I am skeptical about how well these airbags protect one's face, but its an interesting new take on protecting your head.

http://www.hovding.com/en/how_it_works?/en/how

They also have airbag jackets for motorcyclists

http://www.bikebone.com/Air-Vest-Motorcycle-Airbag-Hit-Air.h...

mdesq• 13 years ago

I've seen air vests for horseback riding as well. I wonder how horseback riding helmets compare to bicycle helmets.

malandrew• 13 years ago

Although they aren't designed for impact mitigation, there are also airbag vests for snowboarders and skiers in case they get caught in an avalanche. The vest inflates large enough and helps you "float" to the top of the snow wave that engulfs you.

deelowe• 13 years ago

Might be worth noting that the motorcyle ones were developed in MotoGP and have been crash tested several times now. Here's an example from a couple weeks ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv88fiB3v6w

They both walked away from that.

These are a godsend for the motorcycle racing community. Now they just need to come down in price.

EvanAnderson• 13 years ago

Obligatory invocation of Neal Stephenson, by way of a prior HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4390110

notatoad2• 13 years ago

A little bit like bicycles themselves. sure, we've got full suspension and electronic shifting and remote lockouts and carbon fibre and all kinds of other fun stuff now, but it's all really just garnish. a bicycle you buy today is not fundamentally different from a bicycle you might have bought 100 years ago. all the core mechanisms are identical.

revelation3• 13 years ago

They are all garnish because there is no culture around bicycles as everyday transportation. So it's become an enthusiast market with flashy inventions but little improvement in the core categories like reliability or safety.

It's a market where all you can buy is the kids plastic version of a Porsche or a literal Porsche.

mesofile• 13 years ago

Actually, there has long been a strong culture of bikes as transportation for ordinary people in Europe, and to a great extent this has bled over to US cities as more commuters have taken up cycling and created a demand for more utilitarian gear. In the late 90s I had the same complaint you make above, but this is no longer the case. Along with their road and MTB lines all the major marques have introduced a range of 'street' or 'city' models.

The real challenge of improving anything in cycling, from an industrial design perspective, is that a bike is a product whose primary virtue is minimalism. Adding features can be useful for certain niche markets (suspension for downhillers, aero bars for racers) but for the most part a bike is only improved when one can deliver the same (or improved) characteristics of handling, comfort and durability while using less material. Sometimes this is a question of design improvement, but this is rare -- many designs recur over decades (like integrated headset bearings) without ever really becoming essential. More often improvements come from better materials and fabrication techniques.

cgh• 13 years ago

You clearly are not Dutch or Danish.

davidw2• 13 years ago

Gearing is a massive difference from a bicycle you could buy 100 years ago. It's what allows you to climb something like this, and race down the other side:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stelvio_Pass

notatoad2• 13 years ago

The derailleur was invented in the 1890s. the gear ratios have changed, but gearing hasn't.

gamache• 13 years ago

A car is still fundamentally a four-wheeled carriage, but it's disingenuous to use that to minimize a century of progress.

Today we have bikes that can ride virtually any terrain, carry hundreds of pounds of cargo, soak 10" bumps at 60mph, ride backwards down vert ramps, accomodate limited-mobility riders, and access enough gears to put you in the right pedal cadence in just about any grade.

Yes, it's two wheels, pedals, and a chain. Yes, it's still the diamond-frame safety bicycle. But it has changed.

steelframe6• 13 years ago

Sure, we've got DMA and flash cells and multiple cores and other fun stuff now, but it's all really just garnish. A computer you buy today is not fundamentally different from a computer you might have bought 30 years ago.

buro9• 13 years ago

I would argue differently.

Take a look at Rohloff hubs.

Take a look at belt drives.

Take a look at disc brakes.

You've already dismissed everything to do with materials, oh well.

Sounds like you just mean: bicycles are two triangles and two hoops... and you would be right.

Strangely that's because the UCI restricted the development of bikes to ensure a level playing field, recumbents were banned in races, as were Moultons with their small wheels and pylon frames, as were the monocoque carbon frames, as were the bikes with farings.

Ultimately, being restricted to two triangles and two hoops means that the manufacturers can only really innovate with everything else.

revelation3• 13 years ago

They haven't changed because they are an obvious dead end. Professional sports aside, it makes no sense to force an everyday commuter to wear such a thing for a very dubious return in safety while we put up with automobile transport and retarded city designers.

Bicycle helmets are the equivalent of telling homeowners they should build a nuclear bunker for their home because we have no interest in ensuring safety standards for nuclear reactors fearing that could cause prices to go up.

steelframe6• 13 years ago

Cyclists can and do suffer head impacts for any number of reasons, many not having anything to do with motorists or city planning. Personally, I've had several close calls with suicidal squirrels and rabbits on downhill segments. Also, it turns out that railroad tracks is a leading cause of injury according to the UBC BICE study:

http://cyclingincities.spph.ubc.ca/injuries/the-bice-study/

thrownaway2424• 13 years ago

Motorists also suffer from head injuries. Head injury is the leading cause of death for motorists who die in crashes. Therefore, motorists should also wear helmets.

ajross• 13 years ago

Cite for the "bike helmets are ineffective" assertion? It's belied by the statistics in the linked article, among other things like fairly straightforward intuition...

pessimizer• 13 years ago

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/

fairly straightforward intuition

Ignore this when thinking about statistics.

jessaustin6• 13 years ago

TFA: "More helmet laws had come into effect, but head injuries didn't go down at all."

sliverstorm4• 13 years ago

Please, a bicycle helmet is not only useful if a car hits you. A bicycle helmet is also fairly inexpensive, and can be pretty comfortable.

They are basically a very easy insurance policy whose main "cost" is inconvenience.

hnha• 13 years ago

sadly their inconvenience (and looking/feeling awkward) by far outranks the cost for me.

adolph• 13 years ago

Did you read the article? It is an interesting and seemingly balanced story about balances between innovation and standards, the evolution of a threat model (from death to concussion) and what some of the most recent innovation is. It even covers some of the contemporary anti-helmet arguments.

revelation3• 13 years ago

Oh, I did, and I love the whole Tech/bordering into SciFi angle about how we can build on that concept.

But we can not possibly divorce the bicycle helmet from its' origin, effects and the economical pressures at work here.

epo• 13 years ago

You simply didn't read the article did you? Just used the post title (which isn't the article title) as an excuse for going off on your tedious rant about how ineffective bike helmets are.

johnbm• 13 years ago

The article doesn't provide much citations for "Bicycle helmets do an outstanding job of keeping our skulls intact in a major crash." which is the premise it starts out with and builds its case off.

Obvious questions arise... like why are motorcycle or pro-sports helmets so radically different in design (full head + visor), even for scooters that barely go faster than bicycles, and how many "major crashes" result in head trauma as opposed to other kinds?

And if bicycle helmets are so great, why don't we require car drivers to wear helmets too? Surely then they would also do an 'outstanding job in keeping our skulls intact in a major crash'?

PencilAndPaper8• 13 years ago

I like my head.

Being a heavy object attached to your body by a thin, fairly weak neck, your head is very likely to hit the ground if you fall at speed.

Also, I live in a place that has social healthcare so, it makes sense to mandate safety since we all foot the bill.

Bicycle helmets are probably more equivalent to mandating homeowners to use insulated wire in their wiring than mandating everyone have a nuclear bunker which is very expensive and extreme ...unless of course your hair is the biggest deal on earth.

doktrin• 13 years ago

it makes no sense to force an everyday commuter to wear such a thing for a very dubious return in safety while we put up with automobile transport and retarded city designers. Bicycle helmets are the equivalent of telling homeowners they should build a nuclear bunker for their home because we have no interest in ensuring safety standards for nuclear reactors fearing that could cause prices to go up.

This reads like a rant for rants sake. The article wasn't about helmet laws but rather helmet technology and safety standards.

To the "dubious return" point you made - why should bike commuters not optimize for their situation? It scarcely matters whether or not their city could have been better designed. Assuming they don't intend to move to the Netherlands, it makes eminent sense to maximize their safety while on the road.

jessaustin6• 13 years ago

Bravo revelation, keep fighting the good fight. My favorite quote from TFA was: "More helmet laws had come into effect, but head injuries didn't go down at all." This would be confusing if one believed the marketing! Simultaneously, of course, the helmet laws perfectly performed their intended functions: discouraging cycling while forcing people to buy yet another damn commercial product.

All the complainers are either cranky motorists or sidewalk cyclists. They feel slightly more guilty right-hooking a commuter who isn't wearing a helmet than some day-glo Lance wannabe. Witness their guilt turned to fury at the mere mention of actual facts about bicycle helmet effectiveness!

PencilAndPaper8• 13 years ago

perhaps the incidences of head injuries dont go down, but what happens to the severity of those head injuries when helmets are being worn. If you classify a bruise on the forehead and a severe cerebral contusion both as "head injuries", you are unlikely to see much of a difference between wearing a helmet and not in terms of head injuries

nether5• 13 years ago

force an everyday commuter to wear such a thing
Bicycle helmets are the equivalent of telling homeowners they should build a nuclear bunker

Um, your head gets a bit sweaty and you have to shell out $40. You look kind of dorky too, like the rest of the 50% of cyclists wearing helmets. That is not nearly the inconvenience of "building a nuclear bunker." It's more like asking the homeowner to pay a small premium on his insurance for a slightly riskier residence.

freiheit2• 13 years ago

You build a nuclear bunker once. Maybe every 30 to 50 years. The tiny inconveniences of a helmet are daily. It all adds up, and is likely quite a bit more inconvenience over a lifetime.

cbr• 13 years ago

"If an incremental safety improvement results in higher manufacturing costs, the realized value of the improvement must outweigh those costs."

That actually sounds pretty reasonable.

steelframe6• 13 years ago

How much incremental value would you put on permanent brain injury vs. a mild concussion?

VLM• 13 years ago

The real cost is anyone who ever wore an old model helmet who ever got into an accident of any sort will sue them the moment they change to a new model.

Picture yourself on the stand at trial trying to explain why you didn't safety recall every model 1 after you released model 2. So did you intentionally design model 1 to be faulty? It'll just be awful.

This huge headache has also been an issue for general aviation.

The third reason is improvement R+D costs money, and with virtually no protection from Chinese copies, all that money is lost unless you can convince people to pay more for a genuine helmet rather than a cheap copy with the same improvement.

You can imagine some poor embattled CEO saying "forget it all, just license this years disney characters, put some yoga pants in the ads, and call it good".

stox• 13 years ago

Although the appearance has not changed much, the mechanics have. Helmets built in the mid 1970's were too hard. As a result, during certain accidents, they would enhance the likelihood of breaking one's neck. Later designs would absorb much more of the impact, providing greater protection.

steelframe6• 13 years ago

As someone who cycles thousands of miles every year and who has smashed a helmet on the pavement in the past, I happily paid over $200 for a MIPS helmet -- the only one I could manage to find for sale in the U.S.

sliverstorm4• 13 years ago

For what it's worth, motorcycle helmets are in a similar position. As I read this article, it's like a flashback to a similar article about motorcycle lids.

Both are spec'd and designed for crazy impacts that are not frequent in the real world, and sacrifice low-speed impact protection in the process.

I suppose you could say helmet standards are like an example of unintentional, slightly misguided test-driven development.

DigitalJack• 13 years ago

I've always thought Motorcycle helmets are most effective at low speed due to their mass.

sliverstorm4• 13 years ago

I'm not sure I follow. How would their mass reduce effectiveness at speed?

devilshaircut6• 13 years ago

If you want protection from injury on your bicycle, you are better off with a motorcycle helmet than a bicycle helmet, end of story. As has been stated by previous posters, bike helmets are largely ineffective. Bike helmets solve the cyclist protection problem for a small subset of crashes.

The only real innovation I've seen in bike helmets lately is this:

http://www.hovding.com/en/how_it_works?/en/how

Without this kind of total reimagining of bike protection, I doubt it is possible to innovate on what is currently classified as a helmet for cyclists.

EDIT: Link already posted by a previous poster, of course.

steelframe6• 13 years ago

I agree that a motorcycle helmet would offer more protection than your typical bicycle helmet. Unfortunately, a motorcycle helmet is a complete non-starter for road cyclists. No one I ride with would even tolerate a full-face mountain biking helmet.

I've been watching the airbags closely since they were first introduced. I look forward to standards bodies developing test methodologies and certifications around them. Then, I'll look forward to the reliability reports and injury statistics as they are adopted.

devilshaircut6• 13 years ago

Of course it is a non-starter. I agree, and I would never wear a motorcycle helmet on my bike. I don't even wear a helmet. My point is simply that the degree of protection a bicycle helmet offers is oversold.

MartinCron• 13 years ago

Once you go that far, you might as well ride a motorcycle or a scooter. You can wear much better safety gear and are fast enough to keep pace with traffic.

jessaustin6• 13 years ago

Once you go that far, why not drive an SUV? You won't even notice all the scooters and pedestrians you run over!

The reason we ride bicycles is that bicycles are perfect vehicles, and require no "safety gear" whatsoever.

nether5• 13 years ago

You can wear whatever safety gear you want on a bike. It's just that bicycle crashes are usually so low energy that motorcycle gear is overkill. On a motorcycle, road rash can grind flesh off down to the bone. Nothing's stopping you from wearing a motorcycle jacket, full finger gloves etc. every time you get on a bicycle though.

devilshaircut6• 13 years ago

There is nothing preventing a cyclist from wearing motorcycle gear on a bike. I would never do it though because it isn't practical. But this is precisely the point I am getting at and in fact I do not wear a helmet at all.

As for saying "you might as well ride a motorcycle or a scooter" - you're missing the point entirely. As a cyclist, I don't ride for any other reason than I prefer it.

If you want to say that a car is slower, I would beg to differ. In normal commuting traffic, I blow past the parking lot that urban streets effectively become at rush hour.

kevinpet2• 13 years ago

"Bike helmets solve the cyclist protection problem for a small subset of crashes."

Bike helmets reduce the risk of injury in virtually all crashes that an improved helmet would reduce it. They simply don't reduce it as much as an improved helmet would. I don't stress too much about biking with a conventional helmet. Mine is a few years old and I'd like to replace it with a MIPS helmet when they are available, but as it is with a conventional bike helmet, my concerns with biking are:

1. Getting run over by a bus, in which case the helmet is quite moot.

2. Crashing and hurting myself, which with a helmet is unlikely to kill me, but may result in trying to stuff my bike in the back of my wife's car while dripping blood.

The Hovding is something I would never in a million years wear. I want protection from tree branches and similar, and I don't want to worry about throwing out a $300 single use item after a minor spill.

devilshaircut6• 13 years ago

I don't know if you ride bikes or not. Regardless of this, you should know that bike helmets are safety rated for low-speed crashes only. An example of this collision is a stationary object - e.g. the ground - impacting a moving object - e.g. your head - at a speed of 11-14 miles per hour.

This is what I term "a small subset of crashes".

Realistically, cyclists ride faster than this. And realistically, the types of collisions you want to protect against are not between you and the ground but rather you and a moving object, such as a car. Bike helmets are not rated for these kinds of crashes.

I would not use the Hovding either. The reason I presented it is because it represents a radically redesigned bike helmet.

Anyhow, as I said before, the only thing you can wear to really prevent bad bike accidents is a motorcycle helmet, which are in fact rated for high speed collisions.

lambda• 13 years ago

If you want protection from injury on your bicycle, you are better off with a motorcycle helmet than a bicycle helmet, end of story.

Remember that protection is a balancing act. You are reducing the already low chance of catastrophic injury. However, in exchange for that, you are increasing your weight, drag, reducing your ventilation, giving yourself helmet hair, increasing the sweat your head is bathed in at the end of the ride, etc. Tossing a motorcycle helmet in may reduce your risk of injury even further, but remember, catastrophic crashes are relatively rare, they can kill you in many other ways than simple head injury, and a motorcycle helmet is way too heavy, hot, and unventilated for riding a bike, as well as restricting your vision and hearing and thus probably making it more likely for you to be involved in a crash. I would be very surprised if motorcycle helmets actually made you safer once you took all of this, as well as the effect of suppressing your desire to ride due to the discomfort and inconvenience (thus losing the benefits of the exercise it provides), into account.

kamjam• 13 years ago

This was a really interesting read. To think that all this research spawned off a visit to the bike shop to replace his daughters bike helmet!

The Air Attack perfectly illustrates what drives most helmet innovation: performance

For most everyday commuters, some safety is required at a reasonable price. So a $40 helmet will suffice. For more serious and avid cyclists, they will more likely splash out for the more expensive honeycomb MIPS design.

It took a while for the article to get there, but I was thinking all the time I was reading this about the lightweight honeycomb bike helmets that the British Cycling Team adopted for their Olympics:

http://www.designweek.co.uk/news/crux-product-design-creates...

http://www.trackcyclingnews.com/olympics12bchelmets.html

Extensive testing found that aluminium honeycomb, often used within the aerospace industry, worked well as a material for the helmet core. When combined with the unique dual shell, it was said to outperform previous designs in terms of absorbing impact energy efficiently and ensuring deceleration forces weren't transferred to the wearer.

mixedbit• 13 years ago

Inflatable bike helmet hidden in a scarf is quite a revolutionary idea in this space (already on the market, but expensive):

http://gizmodo.com/5949067/the-ridiculous-high+concept-infla...

nether5• 13 years ago

Helmets have changed substantially since their introduction, starting with the "hairnet" designs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet#History_of_desi... also shown in the classic film Breaking Away), better foam/shell materials, fitting, visors that protect the nose from ground contact, and specialization toward different types of cycling. Full-face helmets are used in mountain biking for frontal impacts.

pconf• 13 years ago

This isn't really an educational article. I say that because of the studies it selectively cites and the conclusions they reach.

For example it's fine to call a facial skin abrasion a "head injury" if you are clear about that definition in the research. It's another thing to cite research about "head injuries" and helmet use without mentioning what they means by a head injury.

The article also fails to cite research that contradicts the authors bias. Academic work such as Robinson's longitudinal study of AU or numerous pieces in the British Medical Journal (as referenced at http://www.boycottbell.com/ ) appear to have been carefully avoided.

For these reasons, and the fact that Bicycling Magazine is heavily funded by helmet advertising, it would be naive not to see the advertising influence in this article which goes out of its way to appear to be educational.

The unfortunate result of this sort of "journalism" is that people with little cycling experience and no knowledge of epidemiology read it and assume it is true despite the fact that 98% of the world's bicycling population don't wear helmets and their incidence of true head injuries are uniformly lower among them than the US' helmeted riders. Another downside to this propaganda is that many kids never take up cycling in the first place and many of those who do ride are afraid to venture outside of bike paths, sidewalks and super-low-traffic routes.

From a foreigner's perspective this illustrates American's naivete with regards to sales and marketing and their relatively undeveloped bicycling ecosystem. I for one hope both of those dysfunctional cultural attributes improve with the rising price of petrol.

rdouble2• 13 years ago

In the USA people tend to ride bikes with frame designs inspired by either road or mountain racing bikes. This type of bike geometry makes it easy to get thrown over the handlebars and land on your head should you have an accident.

However, in countries like China, the Netherlands and Denmark, the most popular bikes are typically upright designs that haven't changed much in 100 years. These bikes are pretty much impossible to get thrown over the handlebars, and as such you will never land on your head. The same goes for beach cruisers, bromptons, citi bikes / velib, kids bikes and anything described as a "leisure" bike.

For cyclists who use this sort of bike it doesn't matter that bike helmets haven't changed much, because they are unnecessary for safety, anyway.

dragonwriter• 13 years ago

Your position seems to presume that you cannot receive a head injury in a bicycle accident without being thrown over the handlebars, which is rather emphatically not the case.

freiheit2• 13 years ago

If you fall to the side at low speeds, you're more likely to land on your shoulder or arm. (knee and hip are likely involved in such a fall, too)

rdouble2• 13 years ago

Sure, it's theoretically possible but you'd have to try pretty hard to hit your head falling off a dutch bike. Anyone who manages that should probably not be riding a bike in the first place.

Bicycle helmets haven't changed since their introduction

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