Princess Diana and the helmet argument.

[gordon taylor]

A while ago, I was with a couple of people who were wringing their hands over the death of Diana. I'm afraid I dismissed their angst with a cursory "she wasn't wearing a seatbelt, so what do you expect" response.

I consider any driver or passenger who chooses not to wear a seatbelt to be an ignorant, selfish moron... but I applaud cyclists who chose not to wear a helmet as free spirits.

I get annoyed with non-cyclists who see cycle helmets as the absolute key safety fundamental on our roads.

Am I a hypocrite?  (Acknowledging the helmets on ice thread.)

[Wowbagger]

IIRC, that car was in such an unholy mess that I'm not sure a seatbelt (or a helmet) would have ben a lot of use to her.

I understand that people who wear seatbelts are statistically more likely to survive a crash. I don't know of any statistics which suggest that helmet wearing while riding a bike improves the rider's chance of surviving a crash.

I did read somewhere a while back that front seat passengers in cars are statistically much more likely to benefit from wearing a helmet than cyclists are. Can't remember where I read that though.

[Feline]

The body guard who was wearing a seatbelt in the front survived, and the front of the car took the brunt of the impact IIRC

[Euan Uzami]

A while ago, I was with a couple of people who were wringing their hands over the death of Diana. I'm afraid I dismissed their angst with a cursory "she wasn't wearing a seatbelt, so what do you expect" response.

I consider any driver or passenger who chooses not to wear a seatbelt to be an ignorant, selfish moron... but I applaud cyclists who chose not to wear a helmet as free spirits.

I get annoyed with non-cyclists who see cycle helmets as the absolute key safety fundamental on our roads.

Am I a hypocrite?  (Acknowledging the helmets on ice thread.)

I get very annoyed by that as well.
Victim-blaming is due to a subconscious desire to find a reason to withhold sympathy: for them to admit that someone died (or suffered other misfortune) through no fault of their own, is to admit that the same thing could happen to them.
But seat belts are obviously mandatory because there is overwhelming evidence that they save lives, whereas there isn't for cycle helmets.

[Polar Bear]

Given that the stats show that helmets make little difference to cycling fatalities but seatbelts are proven to significantly reduce vehicle fatalities, not at all.

[Cunobelin]

My question is why drivers are allowed to choose to inflict greater injury through their choice of vehicle.

If someone buys a Jeep Cherokee with a EuroNCAP of no stars then they know that in a given condition they will inflict injuries and or death that would have been less had they bought a vehicle with a 5 star rating

[Feline]

My question is why drivers are allowed to choose to inflict greater injury through their choice of vehicle.

If someone buys a Jeep Cherokee with a EuroNCAP of no stars then they know that in a given condition they will inflict injuries and or death that would have been less had they bought a vehicle with a 5 star rating

I would like to see additional training and licensing required for vans and large 4WD vehicles that would include specific training on awareness of pedestrians and cyclists.

An annual expensive course that they would have to pay for and be highly inconvenient would be even better, something to dissuade the Chelsea tractor brigade from running these totally inapppropriate vehicles. This weather and the poor gritting doesn't help that cause though, I have heard several people discussing that their next car will be a big 4WD in the past week

[LEE]

IIRC, that car was in such an unholy mess that I'm not sure a seatbelt (or a helmet) would have ben a lot of use to her.

Diana ended up embedded in the dashboard.  The rear of the car (where she was sat milliseconds earlier) was pretty much intact.  

The bodyguard survived despite being in the mangled front-end of the car.  He was wearing a seat belt and hence avoided head-butting the dashboard at 70mph.

It's up to the individual to draw their own conclusions.

"Slack Kills" is what F1 drivers say.  They walk away from 200mph impacts because they are wearing seatbelts.  That allows the crumple-zones to perform their job and dissipate the forces
I've no doubt Diana would be alive if she'd worn a seat belt.  I'm not saying she wouldn't have been badly injured but, looking at pictures of the car, I think the only injuries she'd have received would have been from the seat-belt.  The front of the car did its job and crumpled.  It's just unfortunate that Diana was flung into the crumple-zone.

In an unrelated incident I head-butted the ground in an MTB accident.  Fortunately I had an inch or so of expanded polystyrene between ny cranium and the ground when it happened.  I don't think it save my life but I know it saved me the pain of stitches, a prolonged stay in A&E and possibly a fractured skull.

It's up to the individual to draw their own conclusions.

[Adrian]

It's up to the individual to draw their own conclusions.

Is the correct conclusion that it is better not to be you?

[LEE]

It's up to the individual to draw their own conclusions.

Is the correct conclusion that it is better not to be you?

What do you mean?

[Clandy]

This is quite an interesting and well made presentation on the subject of helmet wearing and the culture of fear:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/07o-TASvIxY&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/07o-TASvIxY&rel=1</a>

[Adrian]

It's up to the individual to draw their own conclusions.

Is the correct conclusion that it is better not to be you?

What do you mean?

You fell off and hit your head on the deck. Last time I fell off riding my MTB I ended up with my head in a bush. Better to have my outcome than yours.

[LEE]

It's up to the individual to draw their own conclusions.

Is the correct conclusion that it is better not to be you?

What do you mean?

You fell off and hit your head on the deck. Last time I fell off riding my MTB I ended up with my head in a bush. Better to have my outcome than yours.

I broke my collarbone and some ribs as well.  I didn't need any more broken bits that day.

[sas]

In general I'm in favour of free choice where the consequences are very likely to be limited to the person who made the decision. Wearing/not wearing a helmet on a bike doesn't affect anyone else regardless of whether or not they work, whereas if those seatbelt ads from years ago are true then not wearing one could cause you to fly forward and hit the front passenger/driver, or go through the windscreen and injure someone else or cause another accident.

[simonp]

Given that the stats show that helmets make little difference to cycling fatalities but seatbelts are proven to significantly reduce vehicle fatalities, not at all.

OH RLY?

Risk compensation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Seat belts clearly do help if you're involved in a crash, but how do you stop people driving less carefully when they feel more safe?

[Jaded]

Driving doesn't improve health.
Cycling almost invariably does.

[Adrian]

You fell off and hit your head on the deck. Last time I fell off riding my MTB I ended up with my head in a bush.

And we all thought you were gay 

Well, it was an accident.

[Regulator]

I'm exempt from the requirement to wear a seatbelt when driving.  But you can guarantee that I will wear one.

As others have said, the evidence that seatbelts save lives is overwhelming.  The evidence that cycle helmets save lives is underwhelming...

[andygates]

This is a false debate.

The reason car crashes kill is the huge amounts of energy involved: it has to go somewhere - crumple zones or making mince, it's all the same to physics.

Motorcycles, where the energies are high, same thing, and sensible helmet laws exist and apply and -- because they're sensible -- are almost universally adhered to.

Cycles do not have the same energies.  If I ride into an underpass stanchion, I will not utterly paste my self across it leaving teeth embedded in the concrete.

[Honest John]

Seatbelts work
Helmets don't.

[ScumOfTheRoad]

"Slack Kills" is what F1 drivers say.  They walk away from 200mph impacts because they are wearing seatbelts.  That allows the crumple-zones to perform their job and dissipate the forces

Well, they are tightly strapped into form-fitting carbon fibre seats. They also wear carbon fibre helmets - which can withstand a 55 ton tank driving over them there is an article in Race Tech magazine on the latest helmet standard.


An F1 driver sits in a completely rigid carbon fibre 'tub' - which also contains the kevlar fuel bladder. The back of his seat butts onto the fuel bladder. It is the best place for it - keep the volatile fuel within the safety cell.

There are crumple zone structures - there are two carbon fibre 'tubes' at the sides which are side impact crash tubes, and the rain light to the rear of the gearbox is on a short crash structure.
The front nose is also crash tested, and should deform to absorb energy. Search for the video online of the US F1 nose undergoing a crash test. US F1 claimed this was their nose passing a test - most people who saw that had severe doubts on that score, it looks a failure.

    YouTube
        - US F1 Team - Nose Crash Test
  

The padding round the cockpit rim is I suppose a type of crash structure - it is removable within a certain number of seconds so the driver can be extracted.

Your basic point is true - the driver is fixed into a rigid structure, which is tested to survive a very major impact - hence you see those dramatic shots of cars with the front torn off etc.

Also of interest are the wheel tethers - wheels and hubs are tied onto the chassis, to prevent loose wheels flying off at high speed and hitting another car.

[Hot Flatus]

Seatbelts work
Helmets don't.

Did for me when I came off in the summer

[Domestique]

Speed kills

[simonp]

Seatbelts work
Helmets don't.

Did for me when I came off in the summer

I've fallen off several times, hard enough in one case to break a bone, but never succeeded in hitting my head. In all those instances I was wearing a helmet. It stands to reason that now I've mostly stopped wearing one (snow/ice being the main reason I wear one) when I do fall off I'll hit my head.

The case for mandatory seatbelt wearing is weakened by the fact that motorists are much more of a danger to others than cyclists, so any risk compensation element means the danger posed to others increases at a result of seatbelt use.

[Steve GT]

Seatbelts work
Helmets don't.

Did for me when I came off in the summer

Yep, me too.
I wear one out of choice. I would not want to see any law being passed to make the wearing of helmets  compulsory.