I read about this airbag helmet thing. What do you think?

[HittheroadJ]

I read this Hövding ? Airbag for cyclists
I must admit that my first reaction was dismissive (will never catch on), but I may be wrong.
Would you trust your head in this?
cheers,
J.

PS I have no link whatsoever with the product. Just trying to make my own mind up.

 

[jackhandy]

Not B£%%>y Likely

 

[tillson]

I think I have seen this before, probably on here. It's not something that I would like to wear and I wonder how prone it will be to going off at the most inconvenient moments (sadly something which I have experience of, but not with bicycle helmets). This could even prove to be dangerous under certain circumstance.

On a positive note, I suppose that it is recognition that when head hits pavement, it is important to bring the head from X MPH to rest in a controlled and gradual way (ie reduce the acceleration forces on the brain).This is something which the mass produced polystyrene helmets don't do. The sponge inside these helmets does nothing to reduce the acceleration forces because there is not enough of it to compress, and the polystyrene is virtually incompressible too, so all force is transmitted directly to the skull and then into the brain via the skull wall.

I think the future of a properly protective cycling helmet lies in some form of collapsible honeycomb structure for the outer shell. Something which will deform and reduce that abrupt and damaging stop which is characteristic of the present mass produced helmets.

 

[Zebb]

Nope, I will just stick to my woolly hat. And use standard helmet when on the off road red routes.

 

[CoachMark]

...... I wonder how prone it will be to going off at the most inconvenient moments ...

I remember when I worked on car airbags in the 90s we had to spend a lot of time on the 'fire'/'no-fire' threshold to balance the risk of injury when it didn't go off against the cost of replacing the air-bags when they did. This was all in the context of being a secondary safety system (seat belts being the first). Perhaps this idea might work fitted into a helmet and designed to only fire in more extreme circumstances.

 

[Cakey]

On a side note . When using my helmet, cars get closer .
When with the wife they go on the otherside of the road.
Must know her

 

[jackhandy]

Since putting a bullet camera on my helmet I seem tp get less close shaves:

Those I do get are mostly White Van Man.

 

[MikeyBikey]

Agree about the polystyrene, we're probably kidding ourselves that these expensive bits of plastic will save us. Didn't someone try eggboxes ? Trouble was stopping the cardboard absorbing water and comical appearance :-D, but reinforces impression of vulnerability. Most ironic helmet would be carved from the poly packing around a motorcycle helmet, well not THE most, but keeping it tasteful. ;-) Mikey
thought - someone must have tried an inflatable helmet, yes?

 

[ghouluk]

i don't understand how this works....an airbag stops a specific impact in a specific direction, your head hits the deflating bag rather than an infated one.

Airbags in bike leathers work in much the same way, they inflate ultra fast on crash and are deflating at impact.

this inflates and seems to stay hard......must be the viagra doncha know....but i don't really understand it

 

[flecc]

I saw a film of it being demonstrated with an over-the-bars stunt rider and it did work ok, but I can envisage a glancing collision with road furniture pushing back the front of the airbag and still resulting in the forehead being struck hard. Only a proportion of accidents just impact the upper head onto the road surface, and almost none hit the back of the head which this protects most.

 

[MikeyBikey]

That's a great idea! Have a fake camera , lenses front & rear, with dummy flashing red lights. Why fake? Coz it's the deterrent effect we're after, good video no use to you if you're dead :-(
Must get some rechargeable flashing lights for my helmet, to add to the diy retroreflective flashes I've stuck on.

 

[john h]

just buy a high viz POLITE CYCLIST jacket it makes cars slow down till they pass you, they think it is a police cyclist ( works great)