Trying to persuade a teenager to wear a deeply uncool cycle helmet whilst cycling is like persuading an anchovy to wear a tutu.
Even explaining that it could just save him from spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair, or eating meals through a straw is simply a waste of breath.
Teenagers are invincible. Fact.

This idea uses small cable reels which measure the amount of cable paid out, and when the correct amount is reached, release the brake handles on the bicycle.
The correct amount is, of course, the length of cable from the handlebars to the small hooks on the peak of the cycle helmet.
If too much cable is paid out, the brakes are automatically applied, to stop the bike hitting the rider after he/she has been thrown over the handlebars.
-- AbsintheWithoutLeave, Dec 28 2007

and then there is the psychology of the driver... http://news.bbc.co....omerset/5334208.stm
[po, Dec 29 2007]

US 9399398 http://www.google.com/patents/US9399398
Cited as prior art [xaviergisz, Oct 16 2016]

Hmmmm .... if the cable is sufficently strong, and well attached, and the helmet well strapped on, then it's possible that given certain sets of circumstances the momentum of the bicycle and rider [once separated] could interact to snap the rider's neck like a dry twig.

[+]
-- 8th of 7, Dec 28 2007


So if I lean in to pump up a steep hill, the brakes lock? Hmmm, maybe this needs a redesign. Though this really is even cooler than the elastic thru the sleeves so they don't loose their glove trick.

How about you rivet a magnet in their ear and then have a magnetic switch on the helmet that sends a radio signal to release the brakes? Wait they'd just get another magnet. So how about just riviting the helmet on their heads? No, that might be traumatizing. How about checking in on your kids and taking the bike away if they don't wear a helmet? Hmmm, parenting, that might work.
-- MisterQED, Dec 28 2007


non solution to a non problem-.
-- zeno, Dec 29 2007


// ones in which a helmet is useless. //

Not so; the helmet can be used to remove the remains of the suicyclist from the scene of the incident; a sort of garishly-decorated funerary urn.
-- 8th of 7, Dec 29 2007


The solution is either to make cycle helmets compulsory or, better yet, to let kids enjoy a few moments of life on the wild side and go helmetless. Perhaps, until these one of these solutions is adopted, you could simply Araldite the helmet onto your child's precious cranium?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 29 2007


Since most of those helmets are filled with foam, why not just spray a thick coating of polyisocyanate on their heads; comb and form it into a style before it fully hardens; paint it a suitable colour et voila - a permanent helmet.
-- xenzag, Dec 29 2007


//non solution to a non problem//
And your gripe with that would be....?

//why not just spray a thick coating of polyisocyanate on their heads//
This could lead somewhere, given the amount of hair sculpting products he ladles on.
Maybe I could substitute some two-parter foam product
-- AbsintheWithoutLeave, Dec 29 2007


Well, my gripe is that I am dutch. We do NOT wear a helmet on a bike. Period. Makes you look like a sissy. This invention would make one look like a supersissy. We dutch would rather die than look like a sissy, and we don't because we know how to ride a bike properly and we know how to crash with our bikes properly.

The secret is to let go of the steering and breathe out.
-- zeno, Dec 30 2007


//We dutch would rather die than look like a sissy//
Ah, yes. The same philosophy which made the VOC such a stalwart in today's markets. Batavia your facts right if you want to counter that one.
-- 4whom, Dec 31 2007


We'd Java you didn't Clog up the HB with you Dam puns ... we all remrembrant what happened last time.
-- 8th of 7, Dec 31 2007


<Delftly dykes under blow, and runs for moral highground>
-- 4whom, Dec 31 2007


Why do the brakes need to be actuated after a fall? In my experience, any crash strong enough to throw the rider will also knock the bike over, meaning it stops immediately anyway.
-- 5th Earth, Jan 01 2008


Or in my case, not realizing how powerful the brakes were on my new bike, promptly halt the bike and throw me a good distance down the hill.
-- normzone, May 08 2008


//Cited as prior art//

Ah, the wonders of the Halfbakery: keeping bad ideas unpatentable.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 17 2016


And the other side of that coin - Keeping bad patentable ideas.
-- normzone, Oct 17 2016


In Australia, we have mandatory helmet rules. People bitch and moan, but ultimately there has been a reduction in fatality percentages as a result.

Having had a few pretty spectacular spills over the years, both in traffic and on trails - I'm perfectly happy to wear a bit of sissy foam if it keeps my amniotic fluid nicely on the inside thankyou very much.

...Anyhow, surely this idea calls for bluetooth or some other near field wireless comms link rather than a physical cable?
-- Custardguts, Oct 17 2016


// a reduction in fatality percentages //

That's unfortunate - how is the population kept under control ? Do you trap them, or are their culls ?

We thought you might have learned your lesson after the rabbits ... introducing a known pest species into an ecosystem rarely works out well.
-- 8th of 7, Oct 17 2016


I like the polyisocyanate solution...

If the brakes are applied after the rider flies off, what difference will it make if the tires are no longer providing any significant traction in contact with the ground other than having a random projectile (which may have decided to go the other way around the spokes, and tree stump) attached to your head?
-- RayfordSteele, Oct 17 2016


When I saw the title i thought it was a sensible bluetooth helmet and a sensible bluetooth bicycle, being simultaneously sensible, otherwise the brakes would be on.

Or, a new teenager iWatch app that saves lives!
-- beanangel, Oct 18 2016



random, halfbakery