With safety equipment I tend to prefer simpler designs. A lump of polystyrene in a shell is pretty good, and doesn't have loose wires or flat batteries to worry about. It's a lot cheaper too.
But the problem with traditional helmets is that they tend to be built to pass a safety standard. Some people want the helmet that is much better than that standard.
So it's nice to see someone experimenting with new techniques.
Helmets do not do as much as you think. They are not really very good for the types of accidents that bicycles have. For example, see: http://www.bicycling.com/senseless/index.html
I don't know, I have personally fallen off a bike travelling at around 25km/h and hit the side of my head on the pavement. If I wasn't wearing my helmet(and that was a regular, $40 helmet) I don't know if I would be still here - the helmet cracked,but my head was still completely intact,so I guess they have to work to some extent.
I have two pieces of relevant experience. Firstly I hit my head on the side when I was about 16 on a bike with no helmet, in a slow speed accident. I had unpleasent concussion, about 10 minutes of retrograde amnesia and 5 minutes or so of post traumatic amnesia. Some weird vomiting symptom about 3 days into recovery which would have been cause for serious concern if it repeated itself. I think I was off school for a whole week.
I passed through high school with my usual marks (top end of the middle), and onto an undistinguished but advanced university education. Another friend was involved in a human versus baseball bat assault (skull fracture I think) around the same time and had big problems for a few years.
I also worked in brain injury rehab for 4 years or so in my mid 20s. During that time I would have interacted with hundreds of patients with severe traumatic brain injuries. During that time I saw one paitent with a bike related TBI. Bike at full speed versus cow. I don't remember if he was wearing a helmet but his potential as a person was dramatically reduced, although nothing easy to observe casually.
I used to be for compulsory bike helmet laws. These days I think the indirect risks of a reduced number of cyclists on the road (as evidenced by the australian experience) outweigh the direct risks of a small number of TBIs. I wear a helmet when I have longer distances to travel, or need to make use of dangerous main roads (I tend to cycle on wide underutilised sidewalks where possible). For short distances I don't wear a helmet. It's a risk, but a small one.
Argh, this kind of anecdotal evidence makes me crazy. Helmets aren't skulls. You have no idea whether the forces that caused the helmet to crack would have caused similar injury to your head had you not been wearing the helmet, nor do you have any idea whether the forces the helmet managed to absorb before failing are a significant fraction of the forces your head experienced during the accident. Nothing about your experience is sufficient grounds for the conclusion you draw at the end of your comment (that "they have to work to some extent"), nor can any single accident experience provide such grounds.
Let me rephrase that - if I, somehow, had to be in that accident again and fall head-first to the pavement, I would once again choose to be wearing a helmet, and I don't need a scientific research to make that choice. If you don't like that it's anecdotal - well, I can't help that.
And I think that hitting the pavement with the helmet instead of my head is indeed how the helmet should work, so it most certainly "works to some extent".
Unless you want to argue that I would have been just as fine hitting the ground at 25km/h without a helmet?
Or is your entire(and only) point that no one should ever mention anything they have ever experienced unless they can back it up by research by an approved institution?
"Unless you want to argue that I would have been just as fine hitting the ground at 25km/h without a helmet?"
Why not? Humans are pretty resilient. Maybe you wouldn't have, but I see no reason to dismiss so easily the possibility that you might have been fine.
Mentioning personal experience is fine, but you shouldn't make broad statements from it unless the experience actually justifies it.
Think of it like this: somewhere out there is a story that's the opposite of yours. Some guy wrecked his bike and hit his head without a helmet and was fine afterwards. He then concludes that helmets don't work. His reasoning is no different from yours, yet reaches the opposite conclusion. Clearly the reasoning must be flawed.
I am your guy hitting his head after a cycling accident and being fine afterwards. Would it surprise you that, in spite of being fine, it is right AFTER this accident that I decided to start wearing a helmet? Judging by your argument, you would call me illogical.
Why would I call you illogical? Did you conclude that wearing a helmet was a good idea based solely on your anecdotal experience, completely ignoring wider realities? Or did you actually think it through and not base your conclusion on a single event?
Argh, this kind of arguing makes me crazy. It makes it seem like your only reason for commenting is to make yourself feel superior.
Can you seriously say that it would be better to fall on your head and scrape along the pavement without a helmet?
I would prefer to slide along my helmet, not my skull.
So, "they have to work to some extent" is an entirely reasonable thing for him to say. Either I lose some hair and skin or I scrape a helmet. It's obviously doing something. Common sense.
First, wearing a helmet is going to alter the kinetics of your head during the accident, possibly for the worse.
Second, wearing a helmet can alter the behavior of people around you in ways that impact your safety. For example, car drivers may drive less carefully around a helmeted rider.
Third, wearing a helmet can alter the behavior of the wearer.
Now, does that mean that helmets don't improve safety? I would guess they probably do. But let's make the argument based on sound reasoning and data, not insults and "common sense".
You had been downvoted at the time of my reply. I don't know why - you make some good points.
> But let's make the argument based on sound reasoning and data, not insults and "common sense".
I strongly agree. When someone talks about homeopathy it's easy to dismiss it as nonsense, and we only need a few studies to tell us it's nonsense. But when someone makes a calm, sensible claim with a reasonable method of action ("helmets protect the brain") it's more important to get good quality science to investigate these claims, to eliminate our biases and to eliminate confounding factors.
Imagine a crash where someone's head scrapes along the ground. Now give that person a helmet. With the wrong materials the helmet will "snag" the ground. This could mean that the head sticks while the body keeps going, risking severe spinal injury.
While the science around driver perception of helmet-wearing cyclists is weak it's a reasonable statement - "drivers give less room to people wearing helmets because they assume a better rider". That could be testable in driving simulators, and that would give use good quality data.
It's nice to hear anecdote. "I wear a helmet because ..." or "I don't wear a helmet because ..." are good things to hear. It gives context to the data and the science. But these are not reasons for everyone to follow the advice.
It's fun to watch a crowd of nominally intelligent people so thoroughly mix up arguments with the conclusions.
If you make a bad argument in favor of wearing helmets, then it's a bad argument regardless of whether helmets are effective. But the moment you call it out, you get nothing but people talking about how irresponsible you are for recommending people not wear helmets.
The exact same thing is going on over in the Arafat discussion. People make crazy arguments about how Arafat (or other people) was killed and then, when called out on it, act like it's the conclusion being attacked, not the reasoning.
Some people overlook the potential for concussions or traumatic head injuries, anything except massive skull damage, when considering safety headgear. Cycling is a very diverse activity and many only consider safety issues they expect to encounter.
I agree, the lack data really makes it _impossible_ to decide who is in the right here. I propose an experiment: go ram your head into a brick wall with and without a helmet. (To reduce the variance of your estimate, you'll probably want to perform ~10ish trials.) Then report back, and we'll finally get to the bottom of the extremely nagging and tough to judge question of whether wearing a helmet is an improvement when it comes to smashing one's skull into inanimate objects.
I guess I would trust common sense in this case. I mean I've been hit in the shins with a hockey puck while wearing shin pads a few times, they seemed to work. This is anecdotal, but I don't think a double-blind study is needed to show that shin pads protect your shins from hockey pucks.
I personally know people who object to helmets, and refuse to wear them even though we have a helmet law in my city.
I'm not entirely in agreement, but there is logic to this line of reasoning:
1. Helmets, and helmet laws give the impression that cycling is a dangerous activity, and discourage people to cycle.
2. the biggest thing you can do to increase the safety of cycling, is create cycling infrastructure and put more cyclists on the road (I believe this is backed up by hard data, but I have no citations).
3. It follows from 1 & 2 that helmet laws make cycling less safe for all of us by decreasing the number of cyclists on the road.
There is more to their argument than that, but that's the one I personally find most convincing. I still wear a helmet though, so clearly I'm not entirely convinced.
As a side note, research has shown it may be safer in the sense that drivers give more birth to helmet-less cylclists. They see those with helmets as more professional and better equipped, and apparently pass them at higher speeds and closer clearances.
Your first point is a strange one. Are you saying that cycling is not dangerous enough to warrant wearing a helmet? If so, then the other points are moot, and you could have simplified your argument to just "there's no need to wear a helmet".
If on the other hand, you believe that cycling is dangerous enough to wear a helmet, then you're effectively saying that people shouldn't wear them in order to 'lure' other potential cyclists into cycling. That's just ludicrous!
So if they can help reduce injury, shouldn’t they be mandatory, just like motorbike helmets? Australia tried it in the early 90s and the result was a 15 to 20 per cent drop in the number of hospital admissions for head injuries. That would have been great, but it also reduced the number of cyclists by around 35 per cent.
----
A recent study in the British Medical Journal showed that cycling has a positive health impact around 77 times larger than the potential for serious injury; essentially, there’s a small chance that you’ll come a cropper, but a very large chance that you’ll reduce your likelihood of suffering mental illness, heart disease and obesity. That means the laws were hugely counterproductive
actually, it has been shown in the Netherlands that wearing the helmet is yes safer, but laws requiring helmets discourages some people from riding out of a variety of reasons. In aggregate, the GP is stating that looking at the cycling system in light of greater participation is a more effective/better solution than requiring helmets.
It would not necessarily be inconsistent to oppose mandatory helmet laws while wearing a helmet oneself.
I'm not sure what I think about the laws. But I do question the claim that helmet laws are primarily responsible for the drop-off in cycling in the US over the last several decades. I would want to see some strong evidence for that before accepting it. Just off the cuff, I would expect it has more to do with the fact that people prefer cars, and that US government policy is to keep the price of gas as low as possible.
>create cycling infrastructure and put more cyclists on the road //
I think you mean put more cyclists on dedicated cycle lanes segregated from traffic. Surely they're far safer than mixing cyclists with automobiles.
Mildy humorous anecdote: First and only time I've hit my head cycling was my first time out wearing a helmet, hit a low branch as I'd not allowed for the extra clearance.
He probably would have received a mild to moderate traumatic brain injury. The common case for a moderate injury is a year or three of recovery, if you're reasonably lucky.
Next week: "I stood on a rusty nail and my foot got sore, I'll try not to do that again" guy gets taken apart for not standing on 1,000 nails in a double blind study to get statistically significant results of nail-standing-induced badness. And no, I don't know how one would introduce the double blind element either :-)
Honestly, sometimes sharing experience and telling stories is just that. Wish HN would stop picking on people for such contributions.
When I fell sans helmet, I rolled on the ground but my head never contacted the ground because my shoulder was in the way. I still wear a helmet for long distance or traffic rides.
It's slightly more complex than that. If the helmet cracked then the force of the collision was transferred to your skull. Admittedly cracking the helmet would have taken some force out of the collision, but the moment it cracked it became useless.
This is why you throw away a 'used' helmet. It is the process of cracking - or even merely deforming - that is the protective act. That it's useless after cracking doesn't mean it hasn't done it's job. It's like saying the crumple zone of a car is useless because it crumpled in the accident.
> If the helmet cracked then the force of the collision was transferred to your skull.
This does not make any sense at all. Your skull absorbs some force in all cases. The exact mechanics of what happens are definitely complex, but compressed and cracked polystyrene is still better than hitting your head directly on concrete, just as hitting your head on asphalt is. That is of course leaving aside the question of how much force was absorbed before it cracked and what was left afterwards, but in all cases it's not a binary assertion.
That article does not appear to be making the argument that helmets are worthless, only that they don't protect against concussions.
The $40 helmet is one of the great success stories of
the past half-century. Like seat belts, air bags,
and smoke detectors, bike helmets save countless
lives every year. They do a stellar job of preventing
catastrophic skull fractures, plus dings and scrapes
from low-hanging tree branches and other common nuisances.
Likewise, US safety standards haven't been updated to reflect more modern medical research on their seriousness.
>"Here's the trouble. Stat #3: As more people buckled on helmets, brain injuries also increased. Between 1997 and 2011 the number of bike-related concussions suffered annually by American riders increased by 67 percent, from 9,327 to 15,546, according to the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, a yearly sampling of hospital emergency rooms conducted by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)."
>"Of course, concussions are more readily diagnosed now than they were 15 years ago. That likely accounts for some of the increase. It's also possible that some of the 149 fewer riders killed every year survived to get lumped into the brain-injury category. But that still leaves thousands unaccounted for. We're left with this stark statistical fact: The concussion rate among bicycle riders has grown faster than the sport." //
So, yes 9327 -> 15546 is a 67% increase and as they rightly say the increased survival rate contributes as does the improved diagnosis.
>"that still leaves thousands unaccounted for" //
Except they already said that daily commuting had increased over years 1995 to 2009 by 60%. Which seems rather like it would account for a whole heap of those thousands of extra injuries; that there are a lot more cars might account for a lot more injuries occurring too.
It's an interesting piece and the MIPS helmets probably are better but overall it just looks like it's there to sell the most expensive bike helmets as being the only possible option, especially the emotional CTA in the final para.
Not quite what that article is saying. A better characterisation would be "helmets are better than nothing, but don't do much for the most frequent kind of head injury in bike accidents". Helmets do do good things for some of the types of accidents that bicycles have.
It's an important distinction to make, because some people will use it as an excuse to peddle the idea that helmets are worse than not wearing one. It's a great article, well-written and researched, but it should be noted that the author concludes by saying he still has his daughter wearing an old-style helmet while he waits for a next-gen one to become available.
Wow. What an interesting article. Every time I think about quitting my daily HN addiction I come across something like this. Thanks for the link. Very interesting.
Thanks you for posting this link. After having a family member go thru a concussion this year, I see how difficult they are to deal with. I hadn't even thought about this in terms of bicycle helmets. I'm going to replace ours now that I know more about it.
This helmet - http://www.kraniums.com/ - mixes it up a bit from traditional materials - I would guess it would reduce the sort of injuries that cause concussion as well but I can't find any information on that
I really doubt that is the point. To me the obvious thing that no one has mentioned is fashion.
Actually fashion can be such a severe problem with helmets that many people would rather risk their lives than wear one. In fact, in some countries (like Thailand), that is normal.
So when it comes to safety practicalities, the reality that has been demonstrated is that the unattractive appearance of helmets can often mean they aren't used at all. If a device like this were more accepted then that could save many lives.
My assumption has been that worrying about the unfashionable nature of bike helmets was mainly restricted to the developed world, and that people in the developing world were likely not wearing helmets because they are an added expense (above and beyond the expense of just getting a bicycle in the first place).
It is possible that airbag devices could 'save many lives' (if helmetless riders wore them), but I am not convinced that more wouldn't be saved by wearing helmets.
That said, the work on putting airbags on the exterior of vehicles to protect cyclists and pedestrians seems very promising, and I hope it comes to market soon.
What I'm saying is that +5% wearing the new device would be better than +0% who didn't wear anything because they didn't like helmets and the device didn't exist. I think it could be a lot percent actually.
The Thai people I spoke to told me helmets weren't fashionable. They also don't wear seat belts, since those aren't cool either, and those are already installed, so there is no added expense in that decision.
Working at a local hackerspace in Malmö (Sweden) a few weeks back a girl came in with one of these and complained that it was annoying that it kept poking her in the neck all the time. When she pointed to where it was itching it accidentaly exploded around her head. Sounded like a gunshot. No one was hurt, many where shocked. Better safe than sorry I guess.
As a cyclist, I could point out that relative to a normal helmet this thing is hugely expensive and very prone to user error (must be charged, must be turned on). But I could live with both of those things. The real deal-breaker is that it doesn't look any more comfortable than a regular helmet.
Cycling on a hot day, my scalp gets all sweaty and uncomfortable, but at least the helmet has big air vents to minimize overheating. You want me to replace that with a thick, bulky scarf? No. In July, I'd be miserable after 10 minutes.
Not to mention that if I were riding in the summer there is no way I would want something wrapped around my neck as it would decrease my ability to cool myself down. Sure, having something on your head is not much better but helmets these days have quite good ventilation.
There is a social problem with helmets in that people who don't want to mess up their hair or makeup don't like wearing them. I don't particularly like the idea of relying on a battery-powered barrier device, but for someone who won't wear a helmet, this product is better than not wearing anything.
Bicycle helmets are just bizarre. No one wants to admit that the problem is with 5 ton liquid fuel propelled potential wrecks and their woefully inadequate (both in what nature has granted them for the task and their attitude) drivers.
Give me proper streets, not pyrotechnic strapped to my neck.
Helmets have saved my life not once, but twice. Both times were off road, at slow speeds, doing things that shouldn't have been a big deal. Neither involved any cars, but one resulted in a concussion and the other a severely sprained neck and a root canal. Both helmets were shattered.
Lots of people know and say that cars are the real problem, but unless you can snap your fingers and make them all vanish, I'd suggest you try putting a helmet on instead.
Yea, in the Netherlands nobody wears a helmet, but it's far safer to bike there than in the US. People find it almost as strange to wear a helmet on a bicycle as wearing a helmet for walking or driving in a car.
What if you land on a pointy surface ... gravel, sand or sharp stones? Sure it's good protection, but let's think this through first.
(I am convinced that regular bicycle helmets are crap, as there are no decent standards or crash tests being done with them. The least I would call an improvement is a downhill helmet, a motorcycle helmet would be preferred as speeds for severe crashes are quite similar.)
As you can see, it's fairly rigorous. The main criticism is that by setting strict rules it discourages innovation. But that doesn't mean there are no decent standards or crash tests.
No helmet can stop concussions. If they could, the NFL would redesign football helmets and save themselves a lot of trouble. G-forces are G-forces, whether you're in a helmet or not.
EDIT: There are a lot of very smart people working on this problem. But it's a hard problem.
From the Associated Press:
In a series of interviews with The Associated Press, representatives of the NFL, its players' union and the four equipment companies that make every helmet worn in the league all agreed there's no football helmet -- in production or on drawing boards -- that can eliminate concussions. And there might never be one.
to patdennis (apparently there is a max level of replies): I think you underestimate the amount of force an NFL player takes when they get hit. NFL helmets stop 99.9% of concussions. If a cyclist wore one they would not get a concussion falling off their bike at 20 km/h or even getting hit by a car. NFL players get concussions because big collisions between players are more similar to getting in a "severe car accident"[1] which is tougher to guard against.
Very very cool. Although it seems it wouldn't help if something runs into your head before impacting your bike or body. Like a truck with a high bumper. Or entering a free-fall and landing on your head. But I suppose those are relatively few of bike incidents.
And that's why we have regulations. So people can only purchase an innovation that not only looks great, but is actually more effective, in like 2 to 5 years which it will take to approve it.
I'd be really curious to see video of how this works with some common "updo" hairstyles. My girlfriend wears her helmet most of the time. But if we're going out for a nice dinner, she'll wear her hair up in a bun on top of her head. If we're on bikes ( a common event ) she generally skips the helmet to accommodate her hairstyle. I wonder if this inflatable helmet would get hung up on this wad of hair and prevent full deployment.
The website raises a few red-flags about Hovding for me.
1. It must be charged to operate.
2. It has an on/off button even when charged to ensure it doesn't accidentally inflate when you're putting it on, suggesting this is a problem.
3. Once inflated, it's done. You have to buy a new one. The website suggests your insurance may pay for this, which implies they definitely won't even if it did not inflate in an accident.
This is certainly an interesting concept, but it's expensive, has two additional points of failure vs a helmet (must be both charged and switched on to work), has a high probability of inflating when it shouldn't, and isn't reusable. Technically, most bike and snowsports helmets aren't reusable after an impact either, but you can certainly wipe-out in a way that would trigger the Hovding but wouldn't cause a head-impact, thus wasting the Hovding in an accident a helmet could come through unscathed. I can certainly see why this isn't catching on.
This kind of helmet, with modifications, would be good for back-country skiing, more for avalanche protection than for impact protection. Suffocation is a major cause of death in avalanches. When you are pulled under, snow generally gets everywhere and, once you stop, freezes fairly solid. Even wearing very warm gear you don't have much longer than 15 minutes before hypothermia will kill you (being packed in snow crushes your insulation and greatly increases the rate of thermal conduction to the ice surrounding you), but you can easily suffocate before that. This is why things like avalungs are fairly popular. However, avalungs are basically useless if you aren't very careful about keeping them in mouth-range (if not actually in your mouth) at all times, because you will not think to move it over from its convenient spot on your shoulder when an avalanche is bearing down on you, and you will not be able to grab it from your shoulder once you're immobilized by snow!
An inflatable hood that covers the face during impact and then deflates could automatically produce a bubble of air large enough to keep an avalanche victim from suffocating for 15 minutes, which is hopefully long enough for his AST trained buddies to find and dig him out! There are currently avalanche air-bags on the market which can be user-triggered. These air-bags supposedly help one float on top of an avalanche in addition to providing protection, which is obviously a good thing! However, they must be triggered, and generally don't come over the head. Something that would trigger automatically would be invaluable, although the difficulty of only triggering when appropriate is immense! If hovding's triggering system could work reliably in avalanche conditions it might be worth adding to avalanche air-bag units. I'd love to see radio controlled airbags in addition to automatic and manual controls though. This way, if your buddy is being swept away by an avalanche you might actually be able to trigger his bag even if he doesn't think to. This would be fantastic for heli/cat-ski operators as well.
Avalanche safety is a much higher price-point market than bicycle safety. It's a better target market for bleeding edge tech like hovding. If you could deliver a system that is reliable, even at a price-point in the thousands of dollars, cat/heli-ski operators would go for it immediately.
> 3. Once inflated, it's done. You have to buy a new one. The website suggests your insurance may pay for this, which implies they definitely won't even if it did not inflate in an accident.
Setting aside the risk of accidental inflation, this matches standard bicycle helmets. Once a helmet survives an impact, it should be replaced immediately and no longer used.
(1) Yeah, like a headlight, like a phone, ... keeping widgets charged is a routine part of modern life.
(2) Remembering to turn it on after putting it on doesn't sound difficult to me.
(3) I've done a fair bit of bike commuting, and though I always wear a helmet, I've never been in an accident in which I needed it. Statistically, I would expect this would never go off while I owned it; maybe once. The fact that I would have to replace it if it did is not a barrier at all.
Regarding #1, how many items do you have to keep charged where their charge state does not affect their normal operation, but can be life and death in certain cases? Both this and #2 are recipes for screwing up, because there's not much indication when you've done so most of the time. Even if we dismiss operator error, what are the odds you'll fail to notice it if the charger or the power switch break?
> Regarding #1, how many items do you have to keep charged where their charge state does not affect their normal operation, but can be life and death in certain cases?
I have something that is not at all life-and-death, and only needs to be charged once a month. I've been pretty good about keeping it charged. In the case of something more consequential, I have no doubt I would keep it charged. The device has a charge state indicator that looks like it would be a pretty good reminder.
Did you see the part where it makes a sound when you turn it on? Looks to me like Hövding have thought this through pretty well.
"Testing by the Swedish insurance company Folksam that compared Hövding to 12 conventional helmets found it performed at least three times better than the other helmets in a drop/hit test for shock absorbance" http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/2013/04/04/meet-t...
Given that the general idea looks fine, and I'm all in for anything that improves safety, I'll nitpick.
In the last test, the dummy' face (if it had one) ends up all over the floor, as the helmet only protects the forehead and, furthermore, slides a little. Given that regular bike helmets are longer on the front and rigid, in theory only the chin would hit the floor. Thus, a regular helmet would be better in that case.
Can anyone confirm or deny if that would be the case?
Go to 00:38, and assume that the dummy was hit by a lorry with flat face. The lorry would make a direct impact on the back of the head, before the helmet inflates.
Go to 03:55, and assume that the cyclist had hit a wall. This time too, the cyclist's head would hit the wall.
This would be awesome if it had a detector of coughing patterns indicative of water entering lungs (quite distinctive if you think of it): it would be selling like hotcakes to parents of young children learning to swim or going to camp.
An accelerometer would be able to detect the unique thrashing signature of a body trying to stay above water; it differs greatly from swimming or kicking to stay afloat.
If they want to actually sell any they should put a video demonstrating the product on the front page and not limited by being Apple Quicktime only nor hidden behind a "super nanny" logo.
this is great, but it wont save any lives if no one is around or if the kids are expected to be playing in water. There was a death at a day camp in my neighbourhood last year; the kids were under watch, adults were swimming with the kids,but because of all the activity (outing at the pool for day-camps can get really crowded) the life guards did not spot the kid in distress and he drowned. A device like this that inflates when distress is detected would have save that life.
Part of it's practicality. In NYC we now have a bike share - grab a bike from any station, ride around, return to any other station. Frequently I'm out and about and feel the need to grab a bike and do something - but I don't because I don't have my helmet with me.
At the same time, I really don't want to have to lug my helmet around everywhere just in case I want to take a short ride.
Having a compact "helmet" all the time that takes up next to no space (and is inconspicuous to boot) would be very nice.
When cycling is a sport/deliberate activity, rather than a transportation method/incidental activity, the dynamic changes.
The only purpose I can think of for this is to keep your hair all pretty. No serious cyclist would use this. Specifically, I ride downhill bikes and can guarantee I'd be dead already if I were to wear this for protection. With a real (full face) helmet, I have already endured multiple concussions, a broken neck and countless other injuries to the head/neck area so consider me a qualified test dummy.
Obviously you are not the target market. Impacts are expected in downhill riding, unlike most forms of cycling. You don't see off-road car racers relying on airbags either--they aren't fit for the purpose.
From this comment, it is obvious you do not do a real commute. I have worked at various bike shops throughout my life and most recently I own one. Almost every commuter or road cyclist I have ever spoken too has been hit by a car, hit a car or been in a serious wreck at least once. If they had been wearing this silly contraption then many of them would not still be riding today. It is just absolutely ridiculous unless your priority is looks.
I checked it out pretty thoroughly. All the wrecks they test are best case scenarios. Put some obstacles in the way of the fall and results will dramatically change. Anything remotely sharp would end this holiday.
> All the wrecks they test are best case scenarios.
I didn't see a comprehensive list of scenarios. Are you referring to the 3-minute video? I don't think that was intended to show "all" the cases they tested.
I guess the thrust of your criticism is that it doesn't protect against all possible accidents. Surely you're aware that a helmet doesn't either. (A friend of mine died in a bike accident -- his helmet was insufficient. I don't know enough of the details of the accident to hazard a guess as to whether this device would have worked better.) Probably, there are some accidents where a helmet would work better, but I have no problem believing there are many where this device would perform better. (It's much larger, when inflated, giving it much better cushioning ability. Helmets, as noted elsewhere in this thread, aren't very good at preventing concussions -- I expect this device would be much better.)
Precisely my point. Not even a real helmet is 100% and there is no way this is as good as a real helmet. Just no way. Also there is a chance of failure if your power source or gyroscope malfunctions. Why would you take that chance? For nice hair? Not a good idea.
For "serious cyclist" think commute, not downhill. It's a completely different target, noone would wear a full face helmet while cycling to his/her office, and convenience/safety would reasonably be thought as a tradeoff, not picking security first.
By commute do you mean a casual cycle down the sidewalk? Commuting is dangerous and people get killed everyday. wonder how well this would work with a head on into a pole or when being hit by a car. I don't know what you see, but I see a bloody mess. The only way this contraption will work is ideal circumstances, which would be a blacktop with no poles, rocks, sharp objects, cars or any real danger for that matter. If you ride on something like this then go for it. I think it's dumb.
Sure a bad accident they get destroyed. But what happens if you fall off your bike over something simple and not even get a scratch. Helmet will still work fine. Will this get set off for minor things? And if there's no damage can it be reset? Seems like an expensive $500 helmet that would only be useable once.
But the problem with traditional helmets is that they tend to be built to pass a safety standard. Some people want the helmet that is much better than that standard.
So it's nice to see someone experimenting with new techniques.