
Paper cycling helmet wins James Dyson Award - alexwoodcreates
http://www.thememo.com/2016/11/17/paper-helmet-paper-cycle-helmet-dyson-award-cycling-news/
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jbob2000
I am skeptical. I want to see some side-by-side videos of this vs. a
traditional helmet.The fact that this article didn't include any proof of the
safety features tells me that this is a just a marketing ploy.

> “I do all my exploring by bike but I don’t like riding in those cities
> without a helmet,” said the Pratt Institute graduate.

So buy a fucking helmet and bring it with you.

~~~
zeroxfe
> So buy a fucking helmet and bring it with you.

Wow, that's harsh. She built something novel and potentially very useful. If
you live in a city, it's impractical to carry your helmet everywhere you go
all the time, and you'll surprise yourself at the number of times you need to
quickly rent a bike (but have no helmet handy.)

If it passes the safety certifications and rolls out, it will very likely
increase the proportion of cyclists wearing helmets.

~~~
jbob2000
Who are these people that think a helmet is impractical to carry? You also
have to leave your bike somewhere everywhere you go, isn't that inconvenient
too?

I rode a bike for 2 years in downtown Toronto, wearing a helmet the entire
time, and never once did I think that the helmet was inconvenient. You carry
it up to your office and leave it on your desk. Or you turn it upside down and
it's an adhoc shopping basket. Or you clip it to your backpack. Or you loop it
through your bike lock.

There are a million ways to answer the "inconvenience" problem that don't
involve wearing a pseudo-helmet.

~~~
zeroxfe
> Who are these people that think a helmet is impractical to carry?

People that use shared city-bikes irregularly (like me.) I don't always go out
expecting to use a bike, but life isn't always predictable (subways busted,
cabs not available, unanticipated change of plans, etc.)

> I rode a bike for 2 years in downtown Toronto, wearing a helmet the entire
> time, and never once did I think that the helmet was inconvenient. You carry
> it up to your office and leave it on your desk. Or you turn it upside down
> and it's an adhoc shopping basket. Or you clip it to your backpack. Or you
> loop it through your bike lock.

Good for you for not finding it inconvenient. That doesn't mean that other's
also don't.

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scblock
The solution is better cycling infrastructure, not a paper hat. Paper hats
won't magically make bike shares more popular, but they do help perpetuate the
myth that a helmet makes you safe. No helmet can protect you from the things
an inattentive driver can do.

~~~
bigato
Wearing a helmet decreases the possible damages to your head on a hit, and
nothing else changes that fact.

~~~
lucvh
Wearing a helmet can be demonstrated to be more effective in terms of number
of lives saved by being worn by pedestrians and motorists, rather than
cyclists. Are you saying that we should all wear helmets when out in public?

~~~
bigato
I am saying only what I said, if you doubt you can read it again above.

The numbers you are referring to[1] do not mention lives saved but rather head
injuries by transportation modes. They say nothing about seriousness of the
injury. And I am pretty sure that when biking downhill at 70km/h chances are
that a head injury will be more serious than the one i'd get by falling on the
sidewalk while walking. I actually hate using a helmet while biking, and often
go out without one when I am biking at a leisurely pace. But when I go out to
train or to get to places fast, I prefer wearing the helmet.

[1] [http://www.howiechong.com/journal/2014/2/bike-
helmets](http://www.howiechong.com/journal/2014/2/bike-helmets)

------
mentos
The few times I have gone biking in NYC with CitiBike I decided to forgo a
helmet with the mindset that my exposure was limited to only a few hours. When
I finally bought a bike I bought a helmet.

I think a vending machine selling these paper helmets next to bike share
kiosks would probably be the best bet but I still wonder if I would have
bought one due to the unattractive design.

If they could create an ultra cheap paper helmet that looked a little cooler I
think that would be easier for the general public to adopt?

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kitcar
Just this morning my son and I were playing with a "expandable vase hat" we
bought in New York a few years ago - wonder if that was her inspiration -

[https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?initiative_id=QRW_20161...](https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?initiative_id=QRW_20161117064128&SearchText=paper+vase+hat&productId=1688781432)

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bigato
This other article has a bit more information about this helmet:
[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38004215](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38004215)

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uptown
Essentially recyclable/replaceable at $5/each, but I wonder how well they
perform in protecting the head under adverse weather conditions.

~~~
giarc
>The unusual design is made from waterproofed recycled paper,

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matt_morgan
The important thing here is the folding. But this one seems more promising:

[https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/morpher-folding-helmet-
te...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/morpher-folding-helmet-technology#/)

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fowkswe
It seems like an iteration with a plastic coating could make this a product
with a longer life.

~~~
maxerickson
And then use expanded polystyrene for its superior ability to absorb energy.

Here's a previous design project paper bike hat that apparently already failed
to get to market:

[http://www.bikeradar.com/commuting/news/article/pulp-
nonfict...](http://www.bikeradar.com/commuting/news/article/pulp-nonfiction-
the-paper-helmet-37951/)

I guess this one also won't meet safety standards and won't ever be for sale.

~~~
24gttghh
Well that helmet looks pretty ugly and has no venting. This paper-board
honeycomb helmet looks better and is well vented.

------
hammock
Quick plug for one of the coolest non-helmet bike helmets ever:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikYFfxpu3I0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikYFfxpu3I0)

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SonicSoul
hate to be the one to say this but there's a certain aesthetic quality that's
missing. How many people would wear what essentially looks like a mix between
an open book and half bowling ball on their heads?

~~~
bigato
It looks light, practical and cool if you ask me.

~~~
SonicSoul
I respectfully agree with 2 out of 3 of those adjectives :)

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f_allwein
interesting, but does not look like the best solution to the problem of "how
do we supply bike share users with helmets?", given that they can only be used
a few times.

~~~
proactivesvcs
The problem is actually "how do we make bike share users safer?"

I'd suggest more effort is put into making the infrastructure better, since a
flimsy helmet (made of cardboard or polystyrene) is not a solution to any
problem other than sales figures.

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wvjovborkjwdbf
the only time a bike helmet is actually worth wearing is when mountain-biking
and then you need to wear a full motorbike-style helmet because most injuries
are to the mouth not the head

~~~
SippinLean
Completely false, any time you're on a bike will benefit from a helmet's
injury risk reduction, specifically to the frontal lobe. Especially if you're
sharing the road with motor vehicles.

~~~
wvjovborkjwdbf
at any time a vehicle could plough into you while you're walking on the
pavement

~~~
pwinnski
Anything is possible, but cars very rarely hit pedestrians, although they very
often hit cyclists.

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brudgers
Duplicate (and recycled):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12976586](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12976586)

~~~
joosters
But no discussion there, so a bit of a pointless link.

~~~
brudgers
The moderators sometimes change links to point the original source (linking to
the original source is one of the HN guidelines). Particularly where the link
is blogspam based on a more informative source.

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tejohnso
Helmets are counter-productive for cyclists.

[http://www.howiechong.com/journal/2014/2/bike-
helmets](http://www.howiechong.com/journal/2014/2/bike-helmets)

[https://www.cnet.com/news/brain-surgeon-theres-no-point-
wear...](https://www.cnet.com/news/brain-surgeon-theres-no-point-wearing-
cycle-helmets/)

~~~
Shorel
I do agree those tiny helmets don't look like much help. But not all helmets
are like that.

I use a full helmet, shaped like the one you use when riding a motorcycle,
just not as heavy.

It already saved my face from scratches in one fall I had.

~~~
Grishnakh
Enormous amounts of testing prove that those "tiny" helmets do in fact help a
lot. Cyclists aren't normally exposed to the magnitude of forces that
motorcyclists are in crashes, due to their lower speeds, but they're still
exposed to speeds well above those that are normal for human bodies to be
propelled at, and in an environment surrounded with very hard, unnatural
surfaces (concrete, asphalt), so the forces they can experience are well above
those the human skull is designed to protect.

I had a friend in college who worked in a university lab testing bike helmets;
this was 20 years ago now. They're only gotten better since then.

But it's true, bicycling helmets don't do much for protecting your face. But
that's not what they're designed for; they're designed to reduce or prevent
brain injuries from knocking your skull on the road or a curb. A full-face
motorcycle helmet would be even better, but there's a tradeoff there in weight
and ventilation (and cost), things that are more important to bicyclists than
motorcyclists. Even a lot of motorcycle helmets aren't full-face and don't
protect the face at all. But the idea with safety equipment isn't to
completely eliminate all possible injury, it's to reduce risk to a reasonable
degree; for the injuries you're likely to experience as a cyclist, a good
cycling helmet is designed to protect against those. But it's not going to
help keep a branch from poking your eye out on a backwoods trail.

Finally, the charge against bike helmets from all these anti-helmet people
lately isn't that they don't help prevent injuries (they absolutely do), it's
that they allegedly cause _more_ accidents by making _car drivers_ more
reckless around cyclists. The claim has nothing to do with physics, and
everything to do with psychology. Personally, I think it's a terrible argument
to make, and if there's any truth to it, it simply shows that we absolutely
need to mandate that cyclists are provided with physically separate roads from
cars. Considering how dirt-cheap cycling trails are to build compared to car-
roads, how much better for the environment cycling is than driving in cars,
and how much public health would be improved by more cycling (which would
reduce healthcare expenditures greatly, and also improve workplace
productivity and reduce sick time, all important factors for good
capitalists), there's simply no excuse for governments to not be buildings
lots and lots of safe cycling paths and encouraging cycling.

