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I may have found a good reason for a bike helmet!
Well, apart from it being a good place to mount the camera which had a flat battery by this point, I have a feeling it saved me a trip to a hospital at the very least.
Quick sum up - I got hit across the back of the head by a high mounted van wing mirror at a speed differential of around 40mph.
Longer - I crested a hump back bridge towards the end of a long ride (for me) of 25 miles. The bridge is pretty narrow and double white lines adorn the roadway. I take primary when crossing it to avoid stupid passes. After the crest I'll move over if I see nothing coming the other way.
Today I was a bit slower than usual due to muscles claiming that 100 miles in 3 days is too much (I'm trying to work up for a 70 mile day towing a trailer in the summer). I moved over as I sped up and before I saw the Yaris coming the other way.
A good thing I did. A van came over the bridge behind me at full revs and apparently trying to catch air. If any brain cells in the driver's brain did engage, I can only assume they went "Oh S***" as he realised he was landing with no control head on into a Yaris or rear ending a bike.
So he did the only *sensible* thing *cough*. He accelerated through the erm... gap.
I got a very hard smack on the head from his wing mirror and the Yaris ended up taking emergency avoiding action onto the pavement.
The lady driving the Yaris blew out a tyre and may have knackered some suspension.
The van shattered his wing mirror and passenger window (the mounting sprang round on impact and caved it in.).
I have the attached image of my helmet.
I *think* that's an imprint of the interior workings of the mirror where it hasn't just gone to pieces vertically.
I'm not an advocate of compulsory helmets. The chances of this incident are stupidly slim that this isn't an argument in favour of wearing them all the time either (even when riding a bike!)
I get the feeling that something taking lots of the impact, distributing the energy and breaking apart that wasn't my skull was probably a good thing. It's also occurred to me that the 12mph rating is into the ground. That's a sudden stop. An estimated 40mph energy differential is a lot less energy given that the impacting item was sprung and only a few Kg in spite of what it was attached to.
Tomorrow... I may not be out on my bike. I have a bit of a headache. The day after. I'll be out. I won't be wearing a helmet. I haven't got a spare.
If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.
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82 comments
How is it that all the discussion is about speed limits and not that the van driver was entirely in the wrong in going over a hump back without being sure of the other side? I drive a van and cross hump backs every day. You have to give way if there is some one else on or nearer the bridge. It's just common sense. The van driver should be done for at least "driving without due care".
Hmmm, I've had one speeding ticket in my years of driving, and I have to say that such a polarized view quite grating.
I picked up a ticket from some cheeky copper sat with his gun next to the de-restriction sign moving from a 30 - 70mph speed limit.
I was apparently doing 40mph, after getting on the gas pedal a little earlier than I should have, having driven at the speed limit through the village in question. Still, it was speeding so caught fair and square I suppose.
It was however in my opinion a very cynical placement of a camera. If the PC had been placed on the entrance to the village in question, not the exit, I'd have been less disgruntled about things.
To me it was a revenue/statistical operation... easy pickings. What grates is not so much the £60 fine, its the 5 years of increased insurance premiums plus the £20 to finally remove the points from the licence. Very annoying.
Anyway, I guess my point is, its easy to be holier than thou, until you get caught yourself, then you'll see that far too often its not about saving lives, its about meeting quotas.
I've been driving since 1979. For many years all over Europe as a rep. To my deep shame I got a ticket in 2007 on the A303 for doing 79mph on a 70mph dual carriageway. I was in the car with my son. We were chatting away. It was very early on a Sunday morning and the road was empty.
I did not lament the placing of the camera or the fact the road was empty. I considered the fact that whilst chatting away I had not checked my speed, ot seen two warning signs about a camera which may have prompted me to chack my speed and I had not seen a bloody great yellow speed camera as I approached it.
I had a word with my self about how much attention I was actually paying at the time.
I was driving. I knew the speed limit, I was warned several times about the camera, I was flashed, I paid the fine. No whingeing.
My apologies, the word 'guideline' was indeed used.
It is, however, exactly that - a guideline. Prosecutions have - and will - be made at lower speeds than those.
That's harsh, given that the same ACPO pdf I've just seen indicates device accuracy tolerance to 2 mph
Yep it is, but there will be people who can say (some no doubt on this forum) they've been done through a camera at 32 and got the ticket through the post. In the end its a guideline not a strict ruling and that leaves it open to the person setting the camera up.
Then I say again that speed enforcement of that nature is more about revenue raising or box ticking and would do nothing to get the public 'onside'
I'm onside. Speeding fines are voluntary taxes. I am all for them. Blimey if the police were resourced to be able to enforce laws properly on the road we'd get the national debt paid by the start of May.
On my ride to work today 16 miles I have seen at least 200 cars speeding ( I wasn't counting ) at least 5 vehicles parked on pavements. dozens in bike boxes at lights. A fair few on the phone. not to mention defective lights, substandard driving and the like. I bet if I had ANPR ther's have been quite a number of uninsured vehicles or with no MOT. And that doesn't even pick up drivers with no licence or people driving cars that are insured but not for them.
I see the police ignoring most of this and I understand why. They'd run out of time on the defective lights alone and they have to prioritise.
I have zero sympathy, none zipp zilch nada for people fines for speeding. Speed limits are posted, cameras are warned about if you get caught then you weren't paying attention either.
Voluntary taxes which generate revenue is one of the very best reasons for enforcement. It's like a a charitable donation from people with an attention span problem.
Yep, revenue raising, plain and simple. In the USA the force issuing the ticket gets half the fine so it can bump its own revenue quite easily whereas over here it ALL goes to the chancellor so he can give tax breaks to his cronies - sorry slipped off track there !
Mind you a camera van will be set at a certain speed and i've known them be set at the likes of 32mph in a 30 limit but if its through the vascar or laser then the 10% +2 will probably be used.
' I'm glad there's the common sense 10%+2mph guideline here in the UK'
er....there isn't, and hasn't been for quite some time.
and you know that how ?
because all the traffic lads i work with will take that into account.
er......I'm not a traffic cop but have just seen a table on an ACPO pdf that indicates that 10%+2mph seems to be the threshold for a FPN. The ACPO link goes straight to downloading a pdf but this link below shows the same information. I know it's only a guideline and the individual officer still has discretion but I doubt that plod would bother reporting / ticketing a person knowing that it doesn't meet charging standards, unless he/she can evidence other factors that justify it.
http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/road_traffic_offences_guidance_on_fix...
Well, notwithstanding that there's usually a disparity between what the speed on the tomtom says and what the car speedo says, we'll agree to disagree in that I don't see creeping a few mph over the NSL is much of a big deal, and you seemingly think it is.
As alluded to in an earlier post, ACPO seem to be of the same opinion as me.
Well yes the speedo is normally slightly under (by law http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2001/25/contents/made#sch3) which means if you aim for dead on the limit then unless you're really slack then you're unlikely to go faster than the limit.
But if you aim for under 80 as suggested above then there's a fair chance you're going too fast. Speeding is a big deal because the extra speed makes everything worse: more congestion, less reaction time, more crashes and more damage when crashing. Remember the adverts with children getting knocked down at 30 and dying compared to 20 and living? Same theory, but bigger crashes with much more kinetic energy at 70 and 80.
Yet another thing that ACPO is out of touch with reality about, then!
It's the rules. I don't understand why you think you can choose which ones to ignore. How many pick'n'mix sweets can you take before it becomes stealing? Victimless crime, blah blah blah.
I can't see why it is really so difficult to drive 5 or 10 km/h slower so you're BELOW the 110 km/h limit.
Is that 'watching the speedo' excuse the best you can come up with?
Indeed. Able to check the speedo enough to stay below the limit + 10% + 2mph but not enough to stay below the actual limit without doing a load of maths?
Pull the other one, it's got bells on!
It's the difference between glancing at the speedo and seeing the needle between 70 and 80 (in the UK) and knowing that's ok as opposed to having to take a longer look to ensure its dead on 70 or below. Not much of a difference but if you're wanting motorists to be attentive to the outside world then it's another distraction.
I could also point out that if the original poster was a brit then they'd be working in a system they're perhaps unfamiliar with, and looking for the little numbers on the speedo, not the usual mph.
Reading the speedo does not take a different amount of time depending which side of which line it is... and seeing the needle between 70 and 80 is not OK. It means you're going faster than the speed at which that road is considered safe, so you've less time to react and it'll take longer to stop - and you're breaking the law, even if you are unlikely to be prosecuted by our pathetic law enforcement system.
I'm sick of how almost everyone now seems to believe that road laws don't apply to them because they're an above-average driver with a better-than-average car and how much disruption, death and destruction is caused every day by cars ploughing into houses, trees and other road users, providing graphic disproof of that belief!
700c,
No offence, but it's that kind of reasoning that has me baffled. On the one hand, every little anecdote about a helmet *possibly* helping are seen as informative ("like in this incident, it's possible that it could help", you said), while on the other hand actual statistically meaningful data is dismissed ("they can be manipulated to back up any argument").
Pointing out how this kind of thinking - if it were logical and evidence based - should similarly lead one to conclude that pedestrians must wear helmets is then painted as "polarising" or "antagonising". Why is that? Why is it "antagonising" to point out a possible problem with how people are applying logic and/or evidence?
Sometimes I feel the problem is that people recognise there is some absurdity hiding here in advocating for one but not the other, and do not like to be confronted with that.
I fully agree with you BTW that "risk and probability must be factored in to anyone's decision as to weather or not to wear one" - though, I disagree thoroughly on basing such decisions on anecdata rather than more meaningful data. Next, I still find it very hard to fathom how, in the UK (and US and elsewhere), there is some kind of double-think or double-standards that get applied to cycling. So deeply rooted, that even the dedicated cyclists get "antagonised" when you point it out to them!
No offence taken!
why rely on anecdotes? I'm not. Nor am I relying on statistics. I don't think either will give you a definitive answer. I'm balancing risk and probability, adding a bit of common sense and drawing my conclusion accordingly.
Thinking that you can justify a decision, and be entirely confident in it, by either using anecdotes or 'evidence' is wrong when it comes to wearing helmets I feel. Doing this would apparently lead all pedestrians to wear helmets! which demonstrates the ludicrousness of holding such an uncompromising position. Not that anyone with any common sense would, of course.
Why do I feel that comment was polarising? simply because, suggesting that someone's else's reasoning would lead to all pedestrians wearing helmets assumes they will apply no common sense or be able to factor in risk and probability, just because of disagreement with their decision to wear a helmet!
Paul, if that was my comment about antagonisation - please I thought i'd put forward the logic behind that and the reason why I said it. It has nothing to do with the general discussion of risk and avoidance, in which i'm not really in disagreement with you. The figures i've seen seem to indicate there is a difference in the case of the cyclist and the pedestrian, even ignoring the issue of wing mirrors striking pedestrian which I still maintain, even without statistics, would
be a minority event. I have equally little time with others arguing the same way advocating the contrary position.
Anyway, i've said my bit on that before and i'll leave it there.
Glad the OP is OK after what must have been a scary incident
There's nothing contentious in the post I don't think - although the H word manages to provoke debate whether the OP wanted to or not!
- he got hit on the head, his helmet took some of the force and broke, he thinks it saved him from an otherwise more serious injury than he would have had with the helmet on. Seems reasonable?
We'll never know for certain about the efficacy of the helmet in preventing injury this time of course, unless on another day the same van driver got pissed again, had another go at going for that 'gap' which didn't exist, with the OP in the same position on the bridge, both going the same speed, this time without the OP wearing a helmet!
The statistics about road safety and helmet efficacy are pretty useless in informing the debate. Not least because they can be manipulated to back up any argument. The road death rates quoted here say less about the safety of cyclists and more about the safety of cars for their occupants.
Helmet safety statistics are pretty useless as you will never be able to control variables, e.g. behaviour and riding styles, you can't compare injury rates for the same incidents under the same conditions for the same population when wearing helmets vs not wearing helmets.
People then rubbishing helmet supporters' views by saying they *must* believe that pedestrians should wear them after one got hit by a bus mirror once whilst on the pavement are trying to polarise the debate and ignoring that risk and probability must be factored in to anyone's decision as to weather or not to wear one.
For these reasons, there's insufficient evidence to introduce a helmet law IMO (not that that would stop a government!), and conclusions drawn to support one side or the other are always fallacious, it's just the nature of this beast.
So I think that sums up where I've got to with helmets: I wear one, as like in this incident, it's possible that it could help. But do your own thing, factor in risk and probability and don't rely on statistics to keep you safe or inform your decision making!
French speed limits are really aggressively enforced. One trip down to the Vosges to ride for a weekend I got 3 tickets, all in 110kmph zones... 6, 7 and 9 over the limit.
There's a speed limit for a reason.
Too many dickheads think they are much better drivers than they really are.
I went through a speed trap a few years ago and took the offer of a driver awareness course rather than points on my licence. It was really good, a useful refresher after having a car licence since I was 18 and a motorbike licence since I was 24.
Since then I've been careful to keep my speed down and guess what? I use a lot less fuel and I seem to get where I want to go in the car just as quickly as before. I keep my speed down on the motorbike too (which is a bit harder) and the savings on fuel have been noticeable there as well. The reduction in wear and tear is noticeable as well as the brake linings last longer for both the car and motorbike.
I still like to drive fast though and I did a track day at Silverstone last year and plan to do one at Brands this year. If you want to drive fast, there are places to do it; either on a race track or the German autobahn network. Anywhere else is plain stupid.
I don't drive a BMW in case you didn't guess.
Ticketing for such minor infractions is a bit harsh though - less than 10kph (6mph) over the limit - surely encouraging drivers to spend more time looking at speedos and correspondingly less time looking at the road ahead. I'm glad there's the common sense 10%+2mph guideline here in the UK to take account of speedo inaccuracy and to not excessively and disproportionately penalise drivers. I know the French have had pretty shocking road safety stats in the past but this policy of enforcement sounds financially motivated.
Still, when in Rome and all that.....
fukawitribe: It's not fallacious. I'm taking the precise logic that commentators have used ("your life was just saved by a helmet, and you're still saying they're a daft idea?", "it's better than nothing", "without a helmet you'd almost certainly have [medical details]. … I'd be shopping for a replacement lid.", etc., etc.) and am simply applying it in another context, where the only difference is "pedestrian" instead of "cyclist". If it is fallacious to draw the same conclusion, then *bingo* - you've got the point!
The question then is *why* is it fallacious? The only possibilities are that there is some significant difference between "pedestrian" and "cyclist" that makes it an error to swap one for the other, or otherwise that the logic is simply inherently flawed. If the logic is flawed, then it must be flawed for *both* cyclist and pedestrian!
You say the error is that the cyclist, in the specific case of wing mirror strikes, is more exposed to this risk than a pedestrian. Though, I don't know how we could evaluate this as I doubt statistics are kept on the numbers of pedestrians and cyclists hit by wing mirrors.
Statistics are available for head injuries admissions though and, AFAIK, though there are some small differences, there isn't a large difference in risk of head injury overall between the two groups[1]. Increased use of helmets may have lead to a small decrease in rates in cyclists though, however the decreases in head injury tend to be accompanied by increases in other injuries[2]. It is not clear that helmets actually make cycling safer, indeed there is evidence the reverse may be true - KSI rates have not decreased amongst cyclists in the UK appreciably, and KSI rates in AU and NZ increased after helmet laws. All these high-helmet-use countries have significantly worse safety than low-helmet-use/high-cycling-rate countries like NL.
So here's the fallacy: If you argue that helmets make a difference to head injuries, and "every little helps", then, presuming you accept the evidence that pedestrians face quite similar risks, you *must* also argue that pedestrians should wear them.
I just don't understand people who try claim that "every little helps" and hence cyclists - and *ONLY CYCLISTS* - should wear helmets when on the road. I'd love to hear them explain their logic, or show *evidence* as to how the general cyclist faces different risks to pedestrians to justify the different safety approach (and merely speculating that cyclists might face some risk that pedestrians doesn't cut it, given we have actual statistics).
Otherwise, it just seems hypocritical and perhaps part of the UK's "single out the cyclist" culture (usually for hate) that's so ingrained, even the cyclists themselves propagate it! Even if that is unintentional on the part of the commentator here, and they are well-meaning. Perhaps it's some kind of Stockholm Syndrome?
1. E.g. see: http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/9/3/266.long and the DoT KSI and mileage figures.
2. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000145751100008X
Not definitive, but when I'm a pedestrian, I get more wing mirrors passing me than when I'm on a bike, plus the mirrors pass at greater relative speed. This is obvious because I'm moving about 10mph faster when riding.
Do you walk in the road a lot then? Because when i am a pedestrian there are lots more wingmorrors passing me, but they are generally MUCH further away. So far away in fact that its a non issue 99.95%* of the time. Its only when i am waiting to cross the road that they are awaywhere near me, and even then unless I'm stood right on the edge of the curb they are still an additional 18 to 24+ inches further away than they would be on the bike.
Re helmets, if you want to wear one do, applying the same logic to pedestrians and cyclists is, in my opinion, stretching the logic used to an absurd point. But i guess thats the intention. Make a decision based on the risk you percieve, your acceptance of that risk and the knowledge that a helmet is likely to lessen the severity of any impact to your head, how much difference that will make is again up to you to decide.
*yes this is just an arbitrary figure pulled from the air - so far i have never had this be an issue but i allowed the 0.05% on the basis that it might happen one day, maybe.
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