The Brain Bucket Bash by Les Earnest
This article appeared in the September 1989 issue of Cyclops USA.
Part 1. Skirmishes
Tradition
usually takes precedence over common sense.
The adoption of a strong helmet rule by the U.S.
Cycling Federation in 1986 struck many as an abrupt and unexpected change, and
was met with massive but brief resistance from a large segment of the bicycle
racing community. The way in which that
change came about provides some interesting insights into the political
processes of the Federation and other sports governing bodies. This is an account of the events surrounding
the helmet rule change as experienced by the author.
Head injuries have been an unfortunate part of cycling
since the sport began in the late 1800s.
Indeed, the tendency of the old “high wheeler” bikes to periodically
pitch the rider onto his head, often with traumatic results, earned for those
machines the apt nickname of “Widowmaker.”
The introduction of the chain-driven “safety bicycle”
in the 1880s greatly reduced the frequency of head injuries, but while bicycle
technology advanced rapidly, there was no comparable effort made to directly
protect the rider’s most vulnerable component: his head. Bicycle technology stagnated during the first
half of the 20th Century and so did helmet development as the world
successively shifted its collective attention to motorcycles, automobiles and
aircraft.
Leather helmets with soft padded straps over the head
did not come into widespread use in the
The first specific call for improved helmet standards
in bike racing in this country was apparently made by Arthur K. Friskel, a
Dr. Friskel initiated an
accident reporting system within the League, but few district representatives
bothered to cooperate. He also tried to
get the Board of Directors interested in developing and requiring better
helmets so as to reduce the observably high frequency of head injuries. His efforts were met with indifference by the
Board.
In a memo dated
“As almost all serious bicycling
injuries are due to brain damage, I suggest that we seriously reconsider our
helmet standards. Minimal safety
precautions would require:
1. A rigid outer shell of material
such as plastic or fiberglass.
2. An inner compressible energy
absorbing liner of material such as styrofoam
(expanded polystyrene) or Gentex polyvinyl
chloride.
3. A sponge rubber inner padding
for comfort and a good fit.
4. A strong chin strap with a 4
point attachment to the helmet to reduce rotation.
5. Padded helmet
edges, especially at the back, to prevent injury to the back of the neck and
cervical spine.”
This was a very foresighted statement, which
unfortunately was ignored by the officers of the League.
There were no helmets of the type Friskel
described at that time other than some designed for hockey and they did not
have adequate liners by modern standards.
Bureaucrat’s dilemma
During my first tour as USCF Chairman Board of
Control, I found myself in a dilemma regarding the existing helmet rules. In 1981, a
I reviewed the USCF helmet rule, which said:
No
helmet may be used which restricts the vision of the wearer. Helmets may be of rigid molded material or
padded straps with a maximum distance between the straps of 45 mm. Straps should not be made of simple strips
serving no purpose. Helmets shall have a
chin-strap which shall be securely fastened when in use and shall be securely
attached to the helmet by a double strap completely surrounding each ear.
This rule, which was obviously written badly, was
based on a similar rule of the International Cycling Union (UCI). It clearly gave riders the right to wear the
traditional leather helmets even though they were arguably unsafe.
Though I sympathized with the promoter’s position, I
declined to approve a special rule that would have forced most riders to buy a
new helmet in order to compete in her particular race. I proposed instead that she offer special
prizes to the first riders across the line wearing the better helmets. She decided to use this suggestion.
I felt uneasy about refusing her request inasmuch as I
believed that we needed a better helmet standard, but it appeared to me that
“hard shell” did not necessarily mean “safe.”
There were a number of hard shell helmets made by SkidLid,
Pro-tec, and others that had very little
energy-absorbing material inside and appeared to offer inadequate
protection. Thus, simply requiring that
hard shell helmets be worn would not have ensured that riders had substantially
better protection. What I believed was
needed was a performance
specification of a safe helmet rather than a structural one.
I gave the Board of Directors a written report of my
ruling in this case and pointed out to them the need for a better helmet
standard [L. Earnest, USCF Board of
Control Report,
Though several Eastern directors had been on the Board
for decades, none of them mentioned Friskel’s work;
indeed, they had probably forgotten it inasmuch as it didn’t interest
them. One director did mention later
that he had heard of some group that was then developing a bicycle helmet
standard “based on the motorcycle helmet work,” but he couldn’t recall who it
was.
While better helmets were becoming available, then,
there were no meaningful standards and no reliable way for riders to determine
the relative safety of alternative designs.
The helmet manufacturers had quite a bit to say through advertising but
a lot of it was bullshit, as usual.
Something to hang a hat on
An informative helmet review article appeared in Bicycling
magazine in March 1983 that included impact test results from the Snell
Memorial Foundation and comfort ratings from the Washington Area Bicyclist
Association (WABA). This article
mentioned that a helmet standard was under development by the American National
Standards Institute (ANSI). Here at last
was something that I thought I could “hang my hat on.”
I was already familiar with ANSI’s role as the
principal national standards organization in the
I later learned that the ANSI helmet standard had been
stable for sometime, but SkidLid President Kevin Montgomery
had joined the Z90 committee and had done his best to prevent its adoption by
that body. When those efforts failed, he
used appeals at two levels within ANSI to further delay its release.
I confess that I was still wearing a leather helmet at
that time. I had planned to switch to
one of the
Late in 1983 I received a request from the Lehigh
County Velodrome (
In the same time period, I became aware that race
organizers at the Santa Clara County Velodrome (
I perceived that one possible explanation for
Peterson’s unyielding stance was that one of his major sponsors was SkidLid and that it would be awkward to have the sponsor’s
helmets banned from the track. I found
it surprising that the county would have adopted a “hard helmet” law without
convincing evidence that it would promote safety. I knew Don well enough to not believe
everything he said, so I contacted the county law library and requested a copy
of the ordinance covering the velodrome.
Upon examining it I found that there was no mention of “hard helmets,”
as I suspected. In fact, it said that
any rules governing the use of the velodrome had to be approved by the
I called Peterson’s bluff and wrote to the country
recreation authorities, pointing out the discrepancy between the velodrome
rules and the county ordinance and recommending that they adopt the forthcoming
ANSI Z90.4standard. The recreation
authorities invited Don Peterson to review and comment on my proposal. Don lined up several local “experts” such as
bicycle component manufacturer Phil Wood, who contributed the following
evaluation.
“I understand that this paper
was presented as part of an argument petitioning the park velodrome people to
reduce their safety standards. Their
hard hat rule is based on experimental evidence and I do not expect them to
abandon it. I particularly am unable to
believe that they would be vulnerable to anything as nebulous as this test
procedure draft.”
Though I had known for a long time that Phil was a
curmudgeon, I was surprised that he would put anything this absurd in writing.
Don Peterson followed up by having a lawyer send me a
threatening letter filled with legalistic nonsense. I told Don what he could do with his lawyer
and eventually won the local struggle over helmet standards, but I later paid a
heavy political price.
Getting antsy over ANSI
The ANSI Z90.4 helmet standard was finally released in
April 1984, after all appeals against it within ANSI had been heard and
rejected. Though the Snell Foundation
had played a major role in developing that standard, they later released one of
their own that specified a higher drop height for certain impact tests (2 meter
drop versus 1 meter for ANSI). Thus any
helmet that met the Snell standard would apparently also meet the ANSI
standard.
I knew that any attempt to strengthen the USCF helmet
standard would meet with substantial political opposition, so I focused on
getting the lesser ANSI standard adopted.
I hoped that its status as an industry standard might make it possible
to reach a favorable political consensus within the USCF Board of
Directors. I knew that many directors
were rather conservative -- in fact reactionary -- and that it would take
strong and persistent arguments to talk the necessary 2/3 of them into
supporting a change.
An opportunity to start this political negotiation
appeared in May 1984, the month following the ANSI release. The New York-New Jersey political cabal that
had controlled the Federation during nearly all of its existence set out to
overthrow the President (Phil Voxland) and to fire
the Executive Director (Dave Prouty) because they were not following the
cabal’s directions. They arranged for a
special meeting of the Board in
As it turned out, the cabal made two mistakes: they
stupidly failed to follow the constitutional requirements for calling a special
meeting, which meant that Voxland, Prouty, and their
supporters could legally block any overthrow attempt, and the cabal didn’t
count its votes accurately – they didn’t have enough followers to do the
hatchet job even if they had set it up correctly.
Though the Chicago Board meeting was largely a waste
of time, I took advantage of the situation to formally initiate a review of the
ANSI helmet issue and to beat up on Voxland over his
earlier attempt to usurp the Technical Commission’s responsibility for
selecting race officials for the Olympics.
Though I supported Voxland on nearly all
issues and did not wish to oust him, I was not above taking advantage of his
weakened political condition to accomplish my goals.
When I called for the establishment of a committee to
review the ANSI standard, there was no response from the Board. I had hoped that an ad hoc committee
might be formed, but in view of their disinterest I volunteered the Technical
Commission as a review body, which was accepted by the Board. I offered to give copies of the ANSI standard
to anyone who was interested but received only one such request
The cabal did succeed in ousting Voxland
in the regular elections late in 1984, but their candidate imploded and
resigned just 2 months later and Voxland promptly
regained control. The cabal had to wait
until 1986 to pick off Prouty.
In order to assess the frequency and cost of head
injuries for the helmet study, I needed to collect accident reports as well and
medical and liability damage claims.
Upon seeking this information I found that there was no reporting system
within the Federation for race accidents.
I was eventually able to get some useful damage claim summaries from the
Federation’s insurance carriers, but I had to twist the arm of the insurance
agent rather hard before I got it, even though he was a USCF director! (There is a lot more that could be said about
business dealings between USCF directors and the Federation, but that would
carry us far off this topic.)
An apparently unsolicited letter from Bill Montgomery,
President of the San Diego Velodrome Association, to USCF President Voxland dated May 4, 1984, argued strongly against adoption
of the ANSI Z90.4 helmet standard and speculated that their association’s
contract with the City of San Diego might be jeopardized if riders’ freedom of
choice was restricted by the adoption of such a rule. The author of this letter somehow neglected
to mention that he was also an officer of SkidLid.
Flipflop failure
In Dave Prouty’s recent book
[David Prouty, In Spite of Us, VeloNews Press, Boulder,
CO, 1988] relating his experiences as the
first Executive Director of the USCF, he gives himself much of the credit for
bringing about the adoption of the ANSI helmet standard in late 1985, and for
successfully dealing with the insurance crisis of 1986. He somehow overlooked the fact that he helped
cause that crisis by helping to defeat the ANSI helmet rule in 1984 when I
first proposed it to the Board.
I had placed the proposed ANSI helmet rule on the
legislative agenda of the October 1984 meeting of the USCF Board of
Directors. In mid-September I was
pleased to receive a letter from USCF attorney Brian Geddes
that generally supported my proposal on the grounds that it would reduce the
Federation’s liability.
I was dismayed to receive another letter from Geddes just over two weeks later that backpedaled from his
earlier position. He had apparently
received new advice from Dr. Tom Dickson, a sports medicine specialist in Trexlertown. Dickson had received strongly negative
responses from riders after stricter helmet standards were imposed there, and
had concluded that the riders must be right.
Dickson also had participated in the blood boosting
fiasco at the ’84 Olympics just before this incident, though we didn’t know it
at the time. He later
“blew the whistle” on his co-conspirators in an apparent attempt to avert
attention from his own unethical conduct. [L. Earnest, Coors is safer than
tea, Cyclops USA, August 1988].
At an Executive Committee meeting just preceding the
October 1984 meeting of the Board, I attempted to talk Prouty, Geddes, and Voxland into
supporting the ANSI helmet standard and offered to modify the wording to deal
with any concerns that they might have. Voxland was
strongly opposed, arguing that race officials are incapable of enforcing such a
rule and that adopting it would increase the Federation’s liability in that we
would be taking responsibility for helmet adequacy. Voxland
couldn’t have been more wrong, but he appeared to sincerely believe his own
arguments and he matched me for stubbornness.
Voxland instead wanted all
helmet technical requirements removed from the Rule Book and to assert there
that the Federation has no responsibility for the adequacy of helmets. His theory was that by disclaiming
responsibility for helmet selection, the Federation could avoid being sued by
people who injure themselves as a result of wearing an inadequate helmet.
Unfortunately, Voxland’s
theory was inconsistent with the way in which our wonderful legal system
actually works: nearly everyone who gets seriously injured sues everyone who
was even remotely connected with the race and they usually collect from whoever
has deep pockets. The only practical way to reduce liability would be to reduce
the frequency of serious accidents.
In the Executive Committee discussion, Prouty played the
role of the Good Bureaucrat, carefully explaining that he was not necessarily
opposed to the ANSI helmet standard but thought that “We should study it some
more.” My counterargument was that while
they were studying, riders were being maimed and killed. When they discounted that claim, I became
irate and interjected that “The blood will be on your hands,” which brought the
discussion to a close with an uncomfortable silence.
Given the opposition of the leadership, I knew that my
proposal was doomed, but I refused to back off.
In the ensuing debate before the Board, Voxland
and Prouty were joined in their opposition by Hannah North, who was the women
athletes’ representative, and a number of other directors. North was also the Marketing Director of SkidLid, whose products would have been barred by my
proposal, but she was apparently not bothered by such a gross
conflict-of-interest. This kind of
blindness or flagrant self-interest is sadly characteristic of many USCF
directors up to the present.
My proposal was soundly defeated – only 1 or 2
directors voted with me. The Board went
on to adopt Voxland’s proposal, which left no helmet
standards in the Rule Book for 1985.
Though I was badly disappointed by this defeat I didn’t sulk. As soon as I got home I started working on a
plan to reverse this decision the following year
Push comes to shove
Immediately following the defeat of my helmet
proposal, I compiled a list of arguments that I had heard presented against it,
then wrote a refutation of each. I planned to distribute this material to the
Board, but attorney Brian Geddes argued that it might
be used against us in some of the law suits in which the Federation was
involved. He requested that I instead
address the memo to him, so that it would be protected from outside eyes by
attorney-client privilege, and distribute it only to the officers of the
Federation and members of the Technical Commission. I did so reluctantly [L. Earnest, “Cycling helmet issues,” USCF memo to B. Geddes & Executive Committee,
As usual, during 1985 many people were seriously
maimed as a result of wearing inadequate helmets. As usual, many of them received substantial
medical payments from the Federation’s insurer and some sued the Federation for
damages even though it was they who had selected their helmets.
In the following months, I did not receive a single
comment on my memo, either argumentative or favorable, though I kept bringing
up this issue in my Technical Commission reports of January, April, and August,
1985. In the April report, I tried to
provoke a response from the Board by making the following observation:
“While I understand the philosophical issue of self-determination in
matters of safety, it is hard to be convinced of the correctness of that stance
in view of the ongoing carnage and spiraling insurance rates that it
produces. It is one thing to
philosophize about the right to make informed decisions regarding one’s choice
of headgear. It is another to scrape a
kid off the street who is having convulsions and whose depth of analysis
extended only as far as looking at the neat macho pictures of riders wearing
leather helmets in Velo-news.”
There was still no response from any director to these
arguments.
I was delighted to discover in this period that Dr.
Robert Bond, who had been my closest friend through elementary school, had been
writing about the importance of using adequate helmets [Robert E. Bond, M.D., “
My term of office on the Board expired in 1985, so I
had to run for re-election. A friend
named Tom Nee also planned to run for the Board and I publicly supported his
candidacy. We knew that cycling clubs
often voted on a regional basis, which meant that we would be splitting the
As it turned out, my earlier fight over the helmet
issue with my own club, San Jose B.C., became a factor
as they worked against my election. When the results came in we learned that
Tom Nee had made the cut but I was soundly defeated. In fact, all the incumbent
directors from the West were defeated that year.
Such purges seem to happen periodically in the West,
where the clubs apparently believe that anyone who has served on the Board for
awhile must be corrupt. I had been a beneficiary of such an overthrow in 1979
and became a victim in 1985. In the East the average tenure exceeds 10 years
and Ernie Seubert has been on the Board for 33
years. In the West, the average tenure is
currently 2.8 years (the highest it has been for sometime) and I have served
the longest (8 years).
My defeat left the office of Technical Chairman open, and Ernie Seubert happily
stepped into it. The simultaneous defeat
of Western Vice-President Ted Kirkbride left an
opening that was filled by Chuck Pranke, who was
aligned with the cabal. In addition,
Rich DeGarmo was ousted from his Vice Presidency by
Nancy Martin’s political manipulations, giving the cabal another position on
the Executive Committee. Though Phil Voxland was reelected as President, he and Prouty now faced
an Executive Committee that was controlled by the cabal, and I knew then that Prouty’s days were numbered. I wished him good luck and a happy
landing. I was subsequently surprised
that he lasted more than 6 months.
Being a stubborn kind of person, I did not accept my
defeat gracefully. I decided that
keeping my report on the helmet issue confidential was unlikely to bring about
the needed change, so my last official act as chairman of the Technical
Commission was to openly distribute it to the entire Board [L. Earnest,
“Helmet safety issues,”
memo to USCF Board of Directors,
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