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5 Helmets and Safety
Drivers should make conservative assumptions about helmet effectiveness and not assume that, because a cyclist is wearing a helmet, any less care is needed on the part of drivers.
The ANSI and SNELL standards for helmets require that the helmet provide reasonable protection against a fall of 1 to 1.5 meters. This corresponds to a velocity of 10 to 12 mph and is illustrated in the following figure, where green indicates relative safety, red indicates high risk (almost certainty of a head injury at some level, and yellow indicates the transition region).
The ranges in the figure are meant to be suggestive only, and not represent hard boundaries. Drivers should be aware that
- it is particularly important for cyclists to ride on the roadway in such a way as to provide as much time to correct any errors on the part of the cyclist or a motorist as possible.
- speed reduction just before an accident is critical for preventing serious injuries. It is more important for a cyclist to ride in such a way that drivers have more time to react than to save drivers a few seconds while passing.
- Certain parts of a vehicle such as the struts supporting the roof (which have to be narrow so the driver can see but stiff so that the roof does not collapse if the car flips over) are particularly dangerous for cyclists because impact will be concentrated in a small area, limiting the protection a helmet can provide.
While helmets provide a useful additional margin of safety, helmets are not 100 percent effective, and you should not depend on helmets preventing serious injuries.
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