While an important study and shocking findings, I find it irritating that this is front page news on the BBC Sport website, whereas the launch of the season and the first round of matches is hidden away.

This is a sample of 50 people, and the amount of damage headlines like this have on the sport is untold. It is very difficult to get away from there being some sort of agenda in the BBC. I wonder if a similar study on Rugby Union would deliver similar results, and if so, what prominence it would get on the BBC website.

...and yet some people don't understand why shoulder charges have effectively been banned out of the game. It isn't and never was due to individual shoulder charges, but that not penalising (and in fact celebrating) massive hits which clearly lead to concussion would open the sport to reasonable claims that it deliberately ignored player welfare with respect to head injuries - in turn massively increasing the sport's financial exposure to being sued by former players suffering from long-term effects.

I'd love to read any peer-reviewed studies on helmets safety in Cycling. I myself have had 4 or 5 serious falls over the years resulting in head collisions with the floor or tress while mountain biking. I personally don't like wearing them but I know from my own experience they've saved my head on quite a few occasions. Particularly because previously (nothing to do with cycling) about 20 years ago I cracked my skull badly, making my brain bleed, put me in a coma for a week, which also gave me meningitis to boot.

Obviously, I'm slightly different because I use a full face helmet a lot of the time when downhill MTB'ing and have been saved a few times when my head has smashed straight into trees at high speed or the floor, just leaving the helmet cracked or smashed. I also on my way to a trail a few years ago in Scotland was hit on my handlebars by a car and went over them and my head hit a curb, again I went to the hospital for precautions but the helmet saved me once again and although it was a MIPS helmet it was what you'd call a standard MTB helmet, rather than full-face downhill jobbie. Me personally I stay away from riding on the roads as much as possible, too many idiots that think it's funny to clip your handlebars.

I've read a few studies about cyclists in towns/cities who wear helmets and high vis clothing, not getting the same car room when they overtake that a non-helmet non-high vis clothing does, that can lead to accidents.I know Cyclists with helmets have said that drivers are more aggressive & give them less space to operate, and are generally more likely to ignore safety measures when sharing the road with a helmeted cyclist. but that's a bit of a different story. I've also read a few articles about helmet riders riding above their respective talents causing more injuries as well.

Anyway luckily in our Country compared to say, Aus, which apparently the helmet law has had a huge effect on the number of people that take up cycling over the years Downunder particularly in females, you can choose whether to wear a helmet or not.

Anyway, just a quick question do you cycle yourself in any form (road, trail, downhill etc) and have you had the misfortune to put the helmet, no helmet to the test yourself?

You think they've saved your head ..but from what, the maximum in lab testing proves that even on the strongest part the top bit, it struggles to lower the forces from a simple trip type fall/low speed incident to below that were concussion occurs. It might save you some minor bruising and lacerations but the reality is they do diddly squat.
Those who wear helmets most definitely have more incidents copared to those that don't, even in racing circles helmets have done nothing except make cycle racing more dangerous/crashy and more prone to death despite all the improvements across the board with better brakes, better tyres, better marshalling/warnings, on course medi care etc.

A cracked helmet is a failed helmet, that applies as much to a full face as it does for a road type helmet, for a helmet to work even remotely the same as the testing in lab it MUST compress. What tends to happen is that helmets split/are wrecked due to the high forces and this far exceeds the limitations, a rider will pronounce it 'saved them' all the whilst ignoring that when that happens (the wrecked/split helmet) fails to fully compress which means it doesn't even reach the in lab (best case scenario) reductions which as I said even at low speeds aren't enough to reduce the forces imparted on the brain to below a simple concussion threshold.

Add into which the additional weight on the head which has a noticeable difference when coming off at speed to what happens to your head AND the additional circumference which again increases the chance of hitting your head at all.
Add in a massive dollop of risk compensation (this applies to children particularly but also racing/competitive types) and allied with the inability of helmets to actually prevent what some (but not manufacturers) claim is precisely why we have not just a zero increase in safety for people on bikes (despite other interventions and lower incident rates for pedestrians) but actually it has a negative effect on safety.

I've been a mainly road rider for 30+ years covering around 190,000 miles in various countries and eveything from high density/high speed roads for commuting, utility and fast weekend riding to touring, though I've never raced (guys my size usually don't do well even if I had the talent.lol). I've come down alpine passes at circa 55mph and done a little bit of DH/trail riding BITD but again just for leisure but haven't done any for years.

I've never worn a helmet ever and wearing one would have killed me in my one big off as it most certainly would have snapped my head back and definitely my head would have hit the ground due to the extra circumference thus my brain would have been sloshed around badly not to mention the likelihood of a broken neck.

I've been struck by vehicles a couple of times, ran into by a ped from the side of the road and have a couple of fractured elbows and usual grazing for my troubles, near misses are a daily obstacle but you get hardened to it, I've been running the gauntlet with HGVs on the daily commute since I was 17 when drivers were far better behaved.

I'm an advocate for road safety and know pretty much all the studies including those by certain types whom are state sponsored like Jake Olivier who shouted loudly how great helmets were despite using flawed methodology and lying about the head injury counts (he uses such minor injuries as a cut lip by a non helmet wearer as a head injury) and dismissing his own advice on meta analysis so that he could match his findings to that of his sponsors that being NSW state government. A state who set up police stings so they can fine people not riding with helmets to $400 a go (same a s speeding) and $100 fines for no bell ffs but ignore the carnage caused by drivers.

Malta have just removed their helmet law so it leaves Canada, Jersey, Aus/NZ, some states in 'murica and the racing fraternity to wake up to the fact that helmets are the 2nd worst thing to happen to cycling since motorvehicles could go above 10mph.
Even the boxing world woke up to the fact that wearing headgear only increased the concussion rates.

No offense but apart from asking you if your head has taken the no helmet smash to the floor, I just asked you to point me in the direction of the peer-reviewed papers on cycling helmets because I'd be interested to read anything like that.
It was obvious from your previous post your feelings about cycling helmets. By the way, it wasn't just me that said that the helmet saved my head and potentially my life, especially already having a cracked skull before, it was the Doctor in the hospital., Which when you consider I've hit my head on both trees at about 30mph and rock at 20mph, I'd agree. Also, the thing that put me in a coma and nearly killed me years ago, was when someone scumbag hit me with a piece of wood around my head, wish I had a helmet that day!

cyclehelmets.org/ to get you started

cyclehelmets.org/ to get you started