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Building a Better Bike Helmet Out of Paper
An anonymous reader writes "Inspired by nature, a London man believes the solution to safer bike helmets is to build them out of paper. '"The animal that stood out was the woodpecker. It pecks at about ten times per second and every time it pecks it sustains the same amount of force as us crashing at 50 miles per hour," says Surabhi. "It's the only bird in the world where the skull and the beak are completely disjointed, and there's a soft corrugated cartilage in the middle that absorbs all the impact and stops it from getting a headache." In order to mimic the woodpecker's crumple zone, Anirudha turned to a cheap and easily accessible source — paper. He engineered it into a double-layer of honeycomb that could then be cut and constructed into a functioning helmet. "What you end up with is with tiny little airbags throughout the helmet," he says.'"
I'd say it's the article at fault not the designer, but the reason polystyrene foam is already used in bike helmets is exactly the same - "tiny little airbags throughout the helmet".
I wonder how this compares? Does this absorb more energy?
And most of you survived to adulthood -- although, as your post illustrates, some did suffer lasting cognitive issues.
Although the article didn't make it explicit, I'm assuming that the helmet gets a coat of resin or something to water-proof it. Speaking for myself, I don't need rain to get a helmet wet -- I don't have great strength, endurance, or aerobic capacity, but I sweat like a champ.
As has been posted to Slashdot before, the data on helmet protection is equivocal. In many large scale studies, increase in helmet use does not reduce severe brain injuries, and could possibly increase the rate.
Why? 1) Helmets might make bikers less cautious; 2) helmets might make car drivers less cautious; 3) a helmet can only absorb so much energy, and in many categories of severe crashes you're going to cross the threshold of severe brain injury regardless of a helmet (in other words the range of energies a helmet can protect you from might not overlap well with the kinds of crashes you need to worry about).
None of the reasons you post support your suggestion that helmet use does not reduce severe brain injuries or actually increase it. They are ludicrous at best.
In 30 years on a bike, I've never ever seen someone say, oh, I have this helmet, lets see if I can skid right under that semi and out the other side. People who take ridiculous risks will take them without helmets just as often as with.
The research only supports one assertion about increased injuries caused by helmets, and that is a marginal increase in neck injuries from the helmet catching on the roadway surface as you go sliding along. However, even this research recognizes this increase in neck injuries is a trade off compared to abraded to the bone head road-rash that would otherwise occur in the identical crash.
That being said, when broadsided by a semi, a helmet won't help you. And its probably pointless to require them by law.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I hate to say it, but my impression is that linking to http://cyclehelmets.org/ for issues of helmets is like linking to WUWT for issues on climate change. It has a particular position, and runs with it (whether that is intentional or not). They are by no means unique in this, and are also not the only position in the discussion to do it.
That said:
1. Dumb cyclists will be dumb, and if someone rides less cautiously because they think a helmet will protect them they are dumb
2. Dumb drivers will be dumb, and if a driver is really driving less cautiously around a cyclist on the basis that a helmet will protect the cyclist they are not only dumb but outright dangeous
3. Crossing the threshold with 100% of the force is still probably going to be more damaging than crossing it with 50% of the force (if 50% is absorbed by the helmet)
4. And many are caused by non-rotational impacts, which helmets reduce
5. Dumb cyclists are dumb, and if the pool of cyclists is largely made up of dumb cyclists then that doesn't mean helmets reduce safety, just that if a bunch of less dumb cyclists were added to the pool they would dilute the apparent stupidity of the group overall. Not saying cyclists are stupid, but rather that the number of stupid cyclists is the same irrespective of whether it is 100 stupid cyclists in 101 total cyclists, or 100 stupid cyclists in 1000 total cyclists.
6. If #5 is in fact true (and there is little agreement on it) then this is true, and indeed having more cyclists on the road very likely does make it safer for all cyclists.
There in another arguments for not requiring helmets, also based on the idea that requiring helmets reduces the number of cyclists: even if helmets do reduce the likelihood of death or brain injury in an accident, the advantage of improvement in overall community health as a result of more cyclists offsets the disadvantage of a subset of these being dead or brain injured.
Also, 4) many severe head injuries from cycling crashes are caused by rotational forces, which helmets can exacerbate. 5) helmet requirements almost universally reduce the number of cyclists (or reduce the growth in cycling), leaving the cycling pool with more adventurous and risk-prone bikers; 6) corollary of #5, fewer cyclists means less road time experience between cyclists and car drivers.
See http://cyclehelmets.org/.
You're just trying to rationalize your personal dislike for helmets.
Saying helmets don't protect your head is like saying water isn't wet. It's fucking risible. Trying to prove helmets don't protect by using statistics from different groups (cyclists who wear helmets are a different type of rider from cyclists who don't) smacks of desperation.
Tell you what. I get to smack you upside your granite skull with a car door. You can put on a helmet or not. Your choice.
But the brain damage has already been done.
Why do these arguments sound so familiar? Probably because they're so similar to the arguments people used to make against seat belts.
"They'll increase accidents because they make it harder for drivers to stretch and look around!"
"They'll trap me in a burning or sinking car!"
And, my all-time personal favorite (yes, I've actually heard people say this):
"They'll prevent me from being thrown clear of the collision!"
People will persistently find the very stupidest reasons for not doing something that bugs them. Yes, each of these eventualities might have killed a few drivers who would've been spared if not for their safety belts. But those numbers are absolutely dwarfed by the number of lives saved and serious injuries prevented.
I've only been in one significant bike accident, and I was lucky enough in that one that my helmet didn't come into play. But looking back at the accident and the pattern of my injuries, I can't explain how the helmet was spared. I sure as hell am not tempted at this point to ride out without it.
After RTFA, it seems that the most obvious material to make the helmet from is woodpecker skulls. Didn't anyone else get that?
There are actually helmets designed to reduce the rotational forces though. For example, I remember my own university trumpeting one helmet design in which a kind of inner helmet was allowed to slide inside an outer helmet on a low-friction liner. Simulations demonstrated a reduction maximum strain forces on the brain. There's a presentation on it here by the company which now manufactures them: http://mipshelmet.com/how-it-works/the_invention and since it's a simple design I suspect that it will be a component of the helmet of the future.
However, honeycombs make excellent single-use shock absorbers, so those surely have a place in helmets as well.
Even if the site you link to were reasonable there is every reason to believe that helmets can be made truly excellent and made to give incredible protection both against shocks and rotational forces.
Responding to oneself is generally bad form, but:
http://www.badscience.net/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2013-12-13-17.12.05.png
In summary (and partially concordant with the person I initially criticised): On a community-wide level, requiring people wear helmets may not reduce head injuries, but on an individual level if you are cycling and can add a helmet to your cycling without changing your behaviour, you are probably safer with the helmet.
(This requires a bit of reading into the paper, and a couple of assumptions: Assumptions are: drivers don't suddenly start being dickheads around you because you're wearing a helmet, and you don't start being a dickhead because you put on a helmet. If those two hold, then the case-control rather than community-wide studies are more applicable to the individual choosing whether or not to wear a helmet).
Well, given we know the forces and situations involved: Helmets are clearly only addressing the symptom of the bigger problem.
The solution is to correct the design flaw and build structures where the chest houses the brain instead of a ridiculous appendage.
If input lag was a problem then why put the visual cortex in the back of the skull, and motor cortex so far from the feet?
Let's upgrade to impact resistant brains and bodies that can survive in the vacuum of space while we're at it.
Intelligently Designed... Pah!