 Poster: A snowHead
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| rayscoops wrote: |
| rob@rar, so are you saying you would not ski as fast with out a helmet as you would with one? |
At any one time? Maybe, maybe not. Difficult to have any hard and fast (excuse the pun) rules about any one run I do, on any particular day. I might not ski to my absolute limit of comfort without a helmet on. All I can say is that my intention for that day's skiing will determine what I wear on my head.
Next week, for example, I'll be teaching beginners and I won't wear a helmet as I'll be skiing slowly, will spend a fair bit of time looking backwards and will want to have as much peripheral vision and hearing as possible. Last week I skied a lot with my girlfriend at a leisurely pace, but some of the days she finished early and I normally stuck a helmet on because I was spending a lot of times in the bumps and had a tendency to blow out. Horses for courses, helmets for skiing at your limits.
Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Tue 6-01-09 20:59; edited 1 time in total
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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rob@rar, would you say that some peripheral vision is lost by wearing a helmet? I can not remember if that was the case when I wore one for a season and I may yet get another lid? but to be honest most of my trips are short breaks and I try to keep my packing to a minimum, i.e. one board bag and one hand luggage bag.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| rayscoops wrote: |
| rob@rar, would you say that some peripheral vision is lost by wearing a helmet? |
For me it's goggles that lead to a small loss of peripheral vision, and as I always wear goggles with helmets (and often with hats) the two go hand in hand. Not a big issue for normal skiing, but if you are looking around a lot (teaching somebody for example, or boarders trying to minimise their blind spot?) then it becomes an issue.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Mmmm I took the plunge the other day, wanted to do a bit of photography and went out without my lid (and poles as it happens). Nothing happened, even although I had a big metal box on my back, I eventually skied the same as normal. IMHO there is no 'false sense of security' you just do what you do. Agree with rob@rar about goggles and peripheral vision, I were shades normally, with a pair of yellow goggles in my pocket for low/flat light.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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How may Hlemet wearers check,test them for safety. i.e after there dropped or banged for hairline cracks. If like motorcycle helmet if there dropped or cracked they are renderered useless?
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| stanton wrote: |
| How may Hlemet wearers check,test them for safety. i.e after there dropped or banged for hairline cracks. If like motorcycle helmet if there dropped or cracked they are renderered useless? |
Ski Helmets with very few exceptions, rely on compressible material, normally polystyrene foam to absorb impact. The outer 'Shell' does not pay a significant part in the protection offered by the helmet, unlike Motorcycle or Motorsport crash helmets, where the outer shell is fundamental to it's strength, protection and energy dissipation.
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stanton, None, I would think....
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Or throw them away after 3 years - since the bulk of the protection comes from the polystyrene foam, I think, rather than the wafer-thin plastic exterior. Where carbon-fibre is used, this can have its own problems, with damage from an external clout being hard/impossible to detect.
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Rather confused here, my 'hat' doesn't have any 'polystyrene foam' just an outer skin and a 'suspended' inner. Me thinks we are being rather pedantic here. Surely, if you clout a tree, for example, anything covering your brain (assuming you have one) will limit the damage??
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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i often wear shades with a helmet. If weather nice, shades. If weather nasty, goggles. Simple really 
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| Quote: |
Rather confused here, my 'hat' doesn't have any 'polystyrene foam' just an outer skin and a 'suspended' inner. Me thinks we are being rather pedantic here. Surely, if you clout a tree, for example, anything covering your brain (assuming you have one) will limit the damage??
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Bingo!
That's the bottom line for me. What anyone else wants to do is entirely up to themselves.
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gortonator, Yes, totally agree with that... Yup, simple.
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You know it makes sense.
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| allanm wrote: |
| Rather confused here, my 'hat' doesn't have any 'polystyrene foam' just an outer skin and a 'suspended' inner...... |
My two do. Is yours a bit like a builder's helmet - care to show a pic of the interior?
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| element wrote: |
........ Surely, if you clout a tree, for example, anything covering your brain (assuming you have one) will limit the damage??
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Not a lot.
| Quote: |
| The problem is that current helmets simply cannot do much if you slam into a tree or other stationary object at the typical speed of an intermediate skier/boarder. |
Still you are entitled to your belief system if it gives you comfort. I do wear a helmet if I know I am going to be skiing thorugh trees - reduces the risk of cuts and abrasions.
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Poster: A snowHead
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achilles, Giro G10. Quick google will find loads of info on it.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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allanm, says EPS (expanded polystyrene) liner here.
How ski helmets work
| Quote: |
| EPS (expanded polystyrene is truly the best material for snowsport helmet liners. Why? Because EPS offers the most consistent performance over the widest range of conditions; gram for gram it absorbs more impact energy than other materials; and it's incredibly light. |
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| achilles wrote: |
| element wrote: |
........ Surely, if you clout a tree, for example, anything covering your brain (assuming you have one) will limit the damage??
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Not a lot.
| Quote: |
| The problem is that current helmets simply cannot do much if you slam into a tree or other stationary object at the typical speed of an intermediate skier/boarder. |
Still you are entitled to your belief system if it gives you comfort. I do wear a helmet if I know I am going to be skiing thorugh trees - reduces the risk of cuts and abrasions. |
I don't know why you keep saying "not a lot" when you post that link.
It doesn't really support your hypothesis.
All that the part you quote says is that it won't stop you getting killed in a full on collision with a solid object.
It doesn't say anything anywhere in that report which suggests a helmet doesn't give much protection.
Of course it will be most effective in preventing what would always have been minor injuries - any protective clothing at all has that effect. But that doesn't mean it is no use in more major (but non-fatal) incidents.
Any incident where you would have suffered non-fatal trauma to the head will almost certainly have that trauma reduced by a helmet.
But most fatal head injuries are well beyond "just" fatal, and so a reduction in severity still doesn't bring them back into the survivable range.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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alex_heney, well said.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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| achilles wrote: |
alex_heney,  Our sweet relationship continues. 
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| Quote: |
Sweetheart, read this very carefully, I shall say it only once 
I have already said that I do wear a helmet when skiing through trees to protect myself from minor injuries. However, element said that "Surely, if you clout a tree, for example, anything covering your brain (assuming you have one) will limit the damage". I think "Not a lot" is a reasonable response, in view of Dr Langrams's comment that "the problem is that current helmets simply cannot do much if you slam into a tree". In view of that, your remarks that "It doesn't say anything anywhere in that report which suggests a helmet doesn't give much protection " suggests that you don't understand English. In which case there is little point in discussion with you.
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You are taking those words in isolation, when they should not be read in isolation.
The words "the problem is that current helmets simply cannot do much if you slam into a tree" were mainly referring to whether the helmet would protect you from being killed by such a collision, as is clear from the next sentences in the report "Such accidents are the usual cause of traumatic deaths on the slopes and, despite the increasing rates of helmet use, the incidence of these accidents remains static. So the message is, wear a helmet, but don’t think it makes you invincible – you still need to ski and board with care and watch out for trees. "
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alex_heney, well said, again. Those people who post contrary positions to helmet use often seem to argue that because they don't make you invincible there is no point in wearing one. I don't understand that position at all. Fortunately there are very few fatalities on the slopes, so protection, or not, from death is not a very relevant point for helmet wearing IMO. But there are very many more accidents where you lose a day or more of your precious holiday because of a bang or cut to the head. I've twice had mild concussion which meant losing a day and two days of a week long holiday, including two days of expensive ski instruction. Both accidents were the result of hitting my head on an icy piste without wearing a helmet. I had a very similar fall on the first day of this season, this time while wearing a helmet. Other than being winded and having a touch of whiplash the following day I was fine to carry on skiing.
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I think it is a good idea to wear a helmet generally (although there is some evidence that peeps ski more conservatively without one  ) but in the same way that it is suggested that wearing wrist guards as a boarder simply protects the wrist but is likely to send the force up the arm to cause a break further up the arm or at the elbow, does a helmet, when absorbing the effect of an impact at a reasonable speed, simple transfer the impact on to the neck / back / spine etc ? so whilst hear trauma may be reduced, is it at the expense of other injuries?
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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rayscoops, I'm no medic, but doesn't the fact that helmets mean a slightly slower rate of deceleration when you hit something not only protect the most crucial organ (your brain) but also help, marginally, with impact injuries elsewhere if you strike your head first? I've not read anything which says that the increased diameter of the helmet compared to your head places greater leverage on your neck (although I wouldn't ski with a chin guard or some of the full face helmets unless I was skiing gates because they do seem as if the can wrench the neck in the event of a twisting fall).
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achilles, Referring to the word clouting as in not "a right clouting" but the process of a single clout inflicted on the self by an angry tree often with an arboreal fist. I'd still consider there are degrees of clouting and this is affirmed by examples in this extension to 'striking' from an on-line dictionary definition ...
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/clouting
Verb 1. clout - strike hard, especially with the fist; "He clouted his attacker"
strike - deliver a sharp blow, as with the hand, fist, or weapon; "The teacher struck the child"; "the opponent refused to strike"; "The boxer struck the attacker dead"
... which would allow us to define clouting blows as both fatal and otherwise.
One of several (appropriate and otherwise) words that I might happily have used to describe what happened when my oldest lad headbutted a wall from his pushbike a few years ago was 'clouting'. Now even though gravity played a large part in the incident, it allegedly happened at less than 20 mph and still required a visit to 'Casualty' to sort out even though he was wearing a cycle helmet at the time. The secondary facial clout against the stone wall was not preventable by the cycle helmet (which provides much less facial cover than my skiing lid) but the primary main force clout which fractured part of the polystyrene under the helmet crown was. In my estimation though, that bit is important because I am certain that a 15-20 mph hard immobile object clout against the raw skull could be about as serious as need be.
Now this is pure speculation I know but if I extend the physics of this to skiing in the trees I'd roughly guess that there would be a number of clout types at 15-20 mph that although uncomfortable would not be debilitating. Without it, I would guess that many more of them would risk something more serious. Above say 20 mph, the impact energies might produce different results where worrying about what happened to my head is irrelevant anyway. So if I don't ski through the trees above 15 mph (which is a very easy speed limit to obey at my skill level anyway), the wearing of my helmet won't make me headbutt the trees more often but should the unlikely happen (and I am a total control freak so it's a long way off my agenda) it might be something I'm glad to have on my head.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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rob@rar, maybe, but the point is that there may be statistics to say there are less deaths due to head trauma as more people where helmets, but are there just alternative types of injuries that are occuring. If you wear a seat belt in a car you will not fly though the windscreen, but now we have speeding adverts on TV at the moment suggesting a crash with a seat belt on still means that your organs stop at 60 mph with all the possible consequences of, for example, the main artery to the heart being torn out.
It seems that whilst we restrict one type of injury, we simply move the general emphasis of injury to another part of out anatomy.
Edit - Actually the site that Achilles has referred to basically suggests that mosts deaths are due to collisions at speed, and death happens whether you have a helemt on or not,
Safe and responsible skiing is the only way to go 
Last edited by snowHeads are a friendly bunch. on Wed 7-01-09 11:35; edited 1 time in total
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| rayscoops wrote: |
| ... but now we have speeding adverts on TV at the moment suggesting a crash with a seat belt on still means that your organs stop at 60 mph with all the possible consequences of, for example, the main artery to the heart being torn out. |
That's a good example. Seat belts don't make you invunerable to collisions, but because they slow you down more effectively than collision with a hard surface such as a windscreen or a steering wheel they are generally better for you in a crash. Without the seat belt maybe you'd have a headfull of windscreen and a torn main artery from hitting the steering wheel. I think the point of that advert was not to stop you wearing a seat belt, but to stop you having 60mph collisions!
| rayscoops wrote: |
| Safe and responsible skiing is the only way to go |
Indeed, and depending on your attitude to risk you can choose to wear a helmet if you want to ameliorate some kinds of (inevitable) skiing accidents.
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rayscoops, I have a dent (or two) on the front of my lid where I head-butted a hard icy piste - wasn't going fast or out of control or anything, just slipped forwards. In my mind I would have definitely been injured to some degree had I not been wearing my lid. I 'escaped' totally injury free. There have been a couple of other instances where I'm pretty sure the helmet has saved me from, perhaps, minor injuries. Of course these helmets aren't going to save you from death, but they may save your day. As I said before, IMHO helmets are just a bit of damage limitation, that's all and that's how they should be viewed.
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You know it makes sense.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| rayscoops wrote: |
| allanm, I too wore a helmet the season before last and have lots of dents in it to suggest it saved me from some bumps, but since I stopped wearing it I have not hit my head? so maybe I am boarding more responsibly without one |
Or you're a better boarder now than when you did wear a helmet, so you can board well within your limits at higher speeds and in more complex terrain?
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Poster: A snowHead
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Mmmm... OP's question was 'Who wears a helmet' it was always bound to become 'Reasons for not wearing a helmet'.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| rob@rar wrote: |
| rayscoops wrote: |
| allanm, I too wore a helmet the season before last and have lots of dents in it to suggest it saved me from some bumps, but since I stopped wearing it I have not hit my head? so maybe I am boarding more responsibly without one |
Or you're a better boarder now than when you did wear a helmet, so you can board well within your limits at higher speeds and in more complex terrain? |
yes probably but I think also I just take it easier without a helmet, and board more within my increasingly rising/better skill/limit as i progress. I also feel I have more sensation/feeling with the surroundings/wind etc and sort of sense the speed I am boarding, more so without a helmet than with a helmet
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Axsman, the beauty of a forum
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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This all defies logic to me, sorry.
They will reduce the severity of an injury, hopefully enough to prevent death.
The more common scenario is it will reduce injury enough to not ruin your day/trip/season/year.
Anyone who disagrees with this, probably doesn't need much of a brain to protect.
I agree that under certain circumstances a helmet will not save your life. Sking at 90mph into a tree or falling head first into a super massive black hole ... (prob still stop your brain from being vaporized a billionth of second quicker)
But that is not an excuse for not wearing one.
As far as I can see there is only one reason people don't wear a helmet .. vanity. All other arguments are excuses for this.
Tux
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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tuxpoo, Hit the nail on the head
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| tuxpoo wrote: |
As far as I can see there is only one reason people don't wear a helmet .. vanity. All other arguments are excuses for this.
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Rubbish!
There are sensible reasons for not wearing one. I prefer the comfort of a hat. I don't like the loss of peripheral vision. I don't like the loss of hearing capability. I don't like the sense of disconnect from the mountain environment I'm in. I don't like banging chairlift bars on my head. I don't like the cost of a decent helmet. I don't like having to cart the damn thing around the place.
None of those reasons have anything to do with vanity. Choosing to wear a helmet or not should be all about your attitude to risk, balancing a range of factors both internal and external.
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tuxpoo, IMHO your post goes to the crux of the matter. Not about helmet wearing, but as to why these threads ALWAYS become multi-paged arguments.
As rob@rar so eloquently explains, there are many reasons NOT to wear a helmet, and as your post highlights there are also many reasons why you might chose to do so. It's all about personal choice, and personal acceptance of risk.
The never-ending story starts when one 'side' ridicules the other for their personal choice. Then the same old (perfectly sensible) reasons for or against are marched out for (re)inspection, when the argument really boils down to "anyone who [does|does not] wear a helmet is a fool".
This is not an argument based on provable facts, but on subjective preference and as such can go-on being debated forever.
Now does anyone fancy tackling a far easier subject, such as atheism?
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Axsman, does God wear a helmet?
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FAQ
Something of German origin from the last war in a shade of purple? 