I started riding more than 50 years ago and have never worn a helmet until very recently. My joining the ranks of the Magic Foam Hat Brigade has nothing to do with safety; I still think helmets are silly and completely unnecessary. But I finally was convinced by a special lady who means the world to me. She didn’t use statistics or gory accident stories like others who have tried (and failed) to talk me into it over the last few years. Instead, she looked at me with a sad expression in her lovely eyes and told me she worries about me. After that there was no way I could refuse her without feeling like an ungrateful jerk. Besides, it’s a very small concession to make if it avoids causing distress to the woman who brings so much joy into my life.
Similar but mine was when my son was born. I decided I needed to maximise my chances of being around as he grew up. So I wear a helmet when commuting but not on longer rides in the country. Inconsistent I know but that’s how it is. Now my son has grown up he doesn’t wear a helmet at all but that is now his choice not mine – he did when he was younger ‘cos we made him.
@Widsmith I had a similar experience, and was emotionally blackmailed by Mrs OnSea into wearing a helmet for about ten years. Then SHE started riding a bike again, and started asking ME if she really had to wear a helmet. So we did some research, decided it was inconclusive, and given that she was an adult bimbling around town rather than racing or doing Danny Macaskill-esque stunts, it probably wasn’t an issue.
So now she hardly ever wears a helmet (the exception being if it’s raining – it keeps her head dry), and I only wear one when riding fast bikes with skinny tyres (I have form on mis-judging the limiting friction in cornering…). But as most of my riding is also in the bimbling around category, most of the time I don’t wear a lid.
As an illustration of the magical properties the medical profession ascribe to helmets, Wife did have a nasty fall about three years ago. She landed on her left arm, breaking the radius and dislocating her elbow. The comment from the paramedics was that she should have been wearing a helmet – one of those special elbow helmets, I guess!
That’s an interesting coincidence–I also had a fall on my bike about four years ago, landed on my left arm and broke the end off the radius where it enters the elbow ( a “proximal radial fracture”). Guess I could have used one of those elbow helmets too, though there was no paramedic to tell me so. There was surprisingly little pain, so I kept riding, went thome and had lunch, then decided to go to the doctor because my elbow kept making a funny “popping” sound. The pain didn’t come until after the cast was off a few weeks later and I started physical therapy.
I know I am going to start something here but. Why? Wearing helmets has been compulsory for M/C riders for years and nobody claims that they fail to live up to expectation – especially the A&E folks who have to put us together again. Before anybody starts, M/C helmets are a different design and much better protection, etc, etc. What puzzles me is why nobody has made a similar design for us? Okay, the weight-weenies will complain but I have worn my full-face, Fibreglass etc M/C helmet when riding a bike now and again and the only complaints are that it slightly deadens the noise making it hard to use stereo sound to detect traffic and harder to turn my head, but mirrors will help there as they did on my M/C. HEAT – yes the heavier skid-lid is warmer and thus a problem for us when it is hot. I am sure a ventilated version for us can be made? The full-face design has saved my boyish good looks on a number of occasions (judging from the after-crash damage to the helmet! Some people seem to automatically get ‘up in arms’ when they think that their free will is being eroded, with good reason most of the time, but seat belts etc on motors have saved many people. Is that a bad thing? Many humans have a carefree outlook on life and fail to take adequate precautions to look after themselves. It may be that a feeling of being ‘at risk’ makes us feel ‘dangerous’ and we think that by challenging fate and getting away with it makes us feel invincible. Do we have so little regard for the feelings of those who love us that we will not take every available precaution that just MIGHT save us from injury? (Compliments to Widsmith above for a well-made comment)
Tencon – I think it’s a question of risk assessment. People tend to fall off M/Cs at higher speeds than cyclists so a big heavy helmet has a major impact on injury & death statistics. (Governments that pay for a health service will think it worth legislating to save money in hospital costs.) So it’s also sensible to wear a helmet when (pedal) cycling fast, eg. when racing – higher risk of head injury in a fall. But for utility cycling, mostly at slow to moderate speeds, then as the Dutch famously find, whats the point in wearing something that’s often uncomfortable, needs either carrying around off the bike or spending time tethering & untethering when off it, and especially for the fair sex can muss your hair, when cycling injuries are so rare?
Cyclists who are struck by motorised vehicles apparently suffer and sometimes die from limb and body injuries – so helmets will only sometimes make a difference there.
The greatest use for head protection is in falls; if, as in motorcycling, these are common and commonly result in head injury, then legislation is appropriate. If rather rare (eg, walking) then legislation is not. Don’t know if horse riders are obliged to wear head protection, but from the number & severity of their head injuries legislation could be sensible. What jarrs off a good many cyclists is that governments seem keen to make us wear helmets, but aren’t fussed about horse riders and car passengers, both of whom are at high risk of head injury but don’t have any legislation aimed at them.
Though I ride bike since ~25 years and fell quite often in the beginning, I cannot remember ever having made contact head-to-ground. Injuries of knees, hands, elbows and hips (in this order) occurred of course. In the rare cases I happen to underestimate physics nowadays I mostly manage to hop off the bike somehow and let it crash alone (someone should video that for evaluation).
Because helmet compulsion stops people cycling which increases obesity levels, cardio-vascular disease levels, and generally impacts a nation’s healthcare costs. This has been proven in Australia where helmets were made compulsory and immediatley over half of schoolchildren who cycled to school stopped cycling. Motor traffic levels went up and child obesity went up.
Perhaps you should read the evidence at the provided links before making facetious comments.
From the first article:
“Surveys show Western Australia’s mandatory helmet legislation reduced public cycling numbers by at least 30%, yet total hospitalised cyclist injuries did not decline at all. The reduction in head injury numbers was marginal. West Australian cyclist numbers recovered in the decade to 2000 but hospital admissions were at record levels from 1997, roughly 30% above pre-law levels by 2000. In essence, the results strongly suggest that the mandatory wearing of helmets increases the risk of accidents and thus injuries.
In 2012, the cities of Sydney, Perth, Fremantle and Adelaide are calling for a trial exemption or eventual scrapping of bicycle helmet laws so they can encourage cycling and avoid the bike share failures suffered in Melbourne and Brisbane.”
I can’t give specific numbers, but I can confirm from looking at school bike racks over the years that the levels of children riding to work in this part of the world has also declined significantly since 1977. It would be interesting to see how much of that is attributable to the relatively recent U18 helmet law and how much is attributable to other factors (e.g. huge increase in students attending schools that are not in their local vicinity, significant increase in “helicopter parenting” with its attendant irrational behaviour as it relates to safety, increase in wealth causing a decline in modes thought to be specific to “poor folks”, etc. etc.). I wonder if any of these factors apply in the Australian situation?
Fancy that. I always thought that it was the other way around. Like: “Look, I’m this cool sportive person.”
BTW: If my partner came at me with worrying doe eyes trying emotional blackmail to make me wear something as pointless and ridiculous like a bike “helmet” he’d better be prepared to get on someone elses nerves in his further life.
I can’t fault her sweet, kind and gentle spirit for caring about me, even though I believe her concern to be misplaced. And as I care more about her peace of mind than my own pride, it is a very small sacrifice to make. It took me 57 years to find her; she’s already lost a husband within the past year; she won’t be ready to start dating again until at least sometime next year; and I’m not willing to worry her unnecessarily or risk our growing relationship over something so silly as a bicycle helmet.
If you have a major fall, than difference between wearing a helmet and not wearing one is that you can tell the story later. It’s called natural selection.
So true. I grew up in the 60s and 70s when almost every child, and a very large proportion of adults, used a bicycle as their main mode of transport and no-one wore cycle helmets. It was awful, the streets were littered with dead cyclists. Oh wait…
That’s exactly why I resisted wearing a helmet for so long. I first started riding somewhere around 1959 and never needed a helmet, so it seems ridiculous for me to think I need one now. By the same token, none of us wore any sort of protective gear when roller skating or skateboarding or sledding, played on playground equipment made of unpadded steel on playgrounds paved with asphalt, and just generally accepted that sometimes when you play, you get hurt–no big deal, for us or for our parents. Bruises, scrapes and even broken bones were a normal part of childhood and it always seemed a little odd to me that I never had a broken bone (until breaking my arm four years ago, at the age of 53). Any kid who wore a bike helmet when I was growing up (if such things even existed back then) would have been considered a “sissy” by everyone, probably including his own parents.
What drive me nuts about the helmet debate is that people talk like it’s all or nothing. Yes, a helmet will NOT save you if you are plowed into by a car going 40 mph. There are many situations where a helmet will not help at all. But those aren’t the only situations. There are also random, relatively minor events where where a helmet could be the difference between walking away or a concussion. If people don’t want to wear helmets, I’m fine with that, adults have the right to choose. For me, it doesn’t have to be a life or death decision… I will wear a helmet for those “Could have gotten hurt but didn’t” instances (as well as my wife’s peace of mind).
Well said. I’ve broken a couple of helmets falling off my bike and while I might not have died if I hadn’t been wearing the helmet, I would probably have been more badly injured. It seems a small step to take to make a possible difference. Like the seatbelt in my car, most of the time I don’t need it, and it won’t save my life in every circumstance. But in my opinion it’s worth wearing it just in case something happens, because it can prevent something worse happening.
I like my helmet(s). Gives me someplace to put my sunglasses when I’m not wearing them, keep a mini-light mounted up there for reading cue sheets and fixing flats in the dark, and a video camera to capture all the cool stuff (and dumb stuff) that happens around me while riding.
Is it just me, or is anyone else having trouble with the comment system posting “What’s on your mind…” instead of the text you actually typed? I’m getting into the habit of highlighting and copying everything I write before clicking “Post” because twice today my text has disappeared when I tried to post it. Also, I’ve noticed over the last couple of weeks that email delivery of comments has gotten very spotty. For instance, every comment posted by anyone since my initial one this morning should have been emailed to me, but I’ve only received about a third of them. Maybe JSKit knows that Rick is getting rid of it and is trying to take revenge while it still can.
@Widsith: If I’m making a longish post, I compose it in a text editor (Notepad++) and then copy and paste it into JSKit. I’ve had some posts disappear and I had to rethink and retype the whole thing. The new system will be a welcome change.
I often compose mine in an editor too, mainly because the font size in JSKit is so small that I can’t read it very easily and often miss spelling mistakes, etc. Sometimes (like right now) I type it here, cut and paste it in an editor to proofread it and correct mistakes, then copy and paste it back here to post. I’m also eagerly awaiting the new system.
Of course I’m joshing when I say ’cause’. All we can infer from the above is that people in the Netherlands who wear helmets (pretty much exclusively sports cyclists) are around thirty times more likely to be involved in an incident that ends up in hospital than the people who don’t wear helmets (i.e. people just going about their everyday business, and not involved in some sort of sport).
Cycling as transport is not dangerous (gardening is more likely to end up in a trip to hospital) and needs no special equipment, while cycling as sport is only slightly risky, so you may want to wear a helmet when training and will probably be forced to wear one when racing.
Re: “sports cyclists above – Are these the ones who do so many miles that their accident numbers are bigger but their accidents per mile are the same I wonder???
NB: I pasted ‘sports cyclists’ from Karl’s comment above and my whole comment went into a supersized?bold font! Yet when I hit ‘return’ a couple of times it returned to usual midget size…
Also, I have been known to use the tool in IE8 that could zoom the page.
After my reload of Win7 and trying as hard as possible to NOT install IE9 – It loaded IE9 and I can’t find a link that enables me to load 8 instead!
Not only that, but since Vista general window sizes always open the same size as the last open window. I have tried various hints to stop this but it always returns to this annoying system. Window sizing under XP was perfect and we did not need any changes but MS decided that their latest fad was what we would all use like it or not. I hate these geeks!
While I am in ‘comlaining’ mode – Just an observation . . . On my screen, the left hand side of the whole thing seems to have been moved in and it covers some of the avatars etc. I assume this is an accidental misalignment as there is far too much white space on the right hand side
Sorry I can’t remember the right words /names to be more clear
I doubt it. For example, if an average person does 1,000 miles a year just pootling around (i.e. just 20 miles a week – probably a big underestimate), then that would mean that the sports cyclists would have to be doing 30,000 miles a year to have the same incident rate. That’s over 80 miles a day!
I have had exactly two (2) crashes in my cycling life of 44 years. The first was going over the guy-lines during a road race and tumbling down a river abnk. Was wearing a “hair net” as that was the only option then. HAd loads of scrapes and scratches from the flora of the riverside. The second was in central Pennsylvanis, US riding a MTB. That time the brain-bucket I had purchased only the day before likely saved me a pretty good TBI. It did not, however, prevent a stick from a pine tree from penetrating my right eye orbital. The resulting damage was pretty massive, and that optic nerve is dead today.
Did the helmet help? Mebbe. Would safety glasses ro goggles have helped? Never truly know as I wasn’t wearing them (it was too dark in the woods to see with them on). Do I wear a helmet when I ride? Yep. Keeps my family from worrying unnecessarily (though I do occasionally sneak out for night rides without one…ssshhhhh).
It’s tricky. Public health research shows that helmet use doesn’t seem to make the population healthier or cheaper to keep healthy. Yet for a given person in a given crash, a helmet can make a big difference in outcome. That single data point is not statistically significant, yet it is of primary significance for that given person. Another interesting phenomenon is the tendency for people to assume the same level of risk no matter what the level of protection that they enjoy (or even that they perceive they enjoy) … if the level of protection goes up, so does the level of riskiness of the behaviour. This could help to explain why the Dutch helmet wearers seem to end up hospitalized more often … the sporty types have a higher level of risk tolerance to begin with.
The purpose for wearing a helmet was explained to me this way… The body has evolved (or was created) to sustain a reasonable amout of impact when traveling at walking or running speeds. However, the body has not evolved (or was created) to sustain the impact of traveling at the speeds encounterd when traveling by bicycle. I mostly wear a helmet when cycling, and when I don’t want to I usually remember the information above.
Cycle helmets are only designed to withstand an impact equivalent to an adult falling from a STATIONARY standing position to the ground. They are not designed for high speed impacts. What you are wearing is, in fact, just a placebo.
The gold standard for cycle helmets id the Snell B90 standards. That ensures a helmet will survive an impact of “100 J for all testing regardless of headform size or weight. Given an ideal frictionless mechanical test facility, this impact energy represents a 2.2+ meter drop of 5 kg”
Eh, if this place gets more like the Netherlands ( ROFLMAO! ) then I might stop wearing a helmet, but probably not, I don’t generally wear a hat, so the helmet gives some protection to the shiny bit up top.
It took me a while to find identifiable landmarks, but I knew I recognized the area from the first eucalyptus tree. That whole stretch of north western SD County was our playground when I was growing up in the 50s and 60s.
I ride with a helmet (and have been since the days of the original Bell Biker) because I would rather be in the position of having an accident and finding out the helmet was unnecessary than having an accident and wishing that I had worn the helmet.
I ride with a helmet to keep my bride of nearly 73 years from saying “I told you so.” It saved my noggin on a ride in October 2011, from which my shoulder is still recovering. I also wear one because, like it or not, I’m a role model in our small town. I’d rather be seen as encouraging safer behavior among the young riders than othewise.
I don’t wear a helmet because, like it or not, I’m seen as a role model in my small city. I’d rather not be seen as encouraging fear-based marketing of useless junk.
It’s pretty clear to me why helmets are so popular in the USA, where I live. We have a motorized-vehicle fatality rate (per unit population) that is 3-4 times that of a typical European country. People are scared to ride and are vulnerable to fear-based marketing. As it stands, the fatality rate in the USA is decreasing, but only for people on the _inside_ of cars. The rest of us are left to a) run and hide, b) put on a helmet and hope for the best, and/or c) advocate for safer roadway designs.
@Robert Niece: Niece catch! Today’s title is for the day after tomorrow (July 6th). Yesterday’s title is for tomorrow (July 5th). If the fireworks don’t keep Rick up too late, I expect that we’ll get the proper titles in the next day or two.
Fixed – sorry… I moved and didn’t have access to the computer until just now. Should be good to go going forward… well, except for the pesky commenting system.
There are two separate questions that are often confused as being the same:
1- Should on wear a helmet?
2- Are cumpulsory helmet laws a good idea?
As far as I know, I have yet to see any logic behind NOT wearing a helmet, other than getting messed up hair. However, the compusory law part is more complicated.
If I am just tooling around an area that I feel is very low risk, I will sometimes skip the helmet. However, I mtb a lot, so a helmet is so second nature I almost feel naked without one.
I’m not sure why people always assume that complaints about helmets are based on “messed up hair” or a concern for “fashion.” Am I the only one who gets annoyed at constantly being told that something I started doing 30 or 40 years before the advice-givers were born is suddenly “unsafe” unless I wear a piece of plastic that hadn’t even been invented back then? I think I’ve been around long enough to make those sorts of decisions for myself. At least the lady who talked me into wearing a helmet is within a year of my own age.
I’ve stopped wearing my helmet of late, but only when the majority of my ride is off-road on tracks and trails. Of my 2 major on road tumbles my head never make contact with the road/pavement/tarmac etc. but it did save me (I think from) being scalped by the brush and rear tyre of the road sweeper that pulled ou tin front of me. I wear one for the same reasons as Widsith really and my wife has the same attitude to helmet wearing as his special lady.
I started riding more than 50 years ago and have never worn a helmet until very recently. My joining the ranks of the Magic Foam Hat Brigade has nothing to do with safety; I still think helmets are silly and completely unnecessary. But I finally was convinced by a special lady who means the world to me. She didn’t use statistics or gory accident stories like others who have tried (and failed) to talk me into it over the last few years. Instead, she looked at me with a sad expression in her lovely eyes and told me she worries about me. After that there was no way I could refuse her without feeling like an ungrateful jerk. Besides, it’s a very small concession to make if it avoids causing distress to the woman who brings so much joy into my life.
Similar but mine was when my son was born. I decided I needed to maximise my chances of being around as he grew up. So I wear a helmet when commuting but not on longer rides in the country. Inconsistent I know but that’s how it is. Now my son has grown up he doesn’t wear a helmet at all but that is now his choice not mine – he did when he was younger ‘cos we made him.
@Widsmith I had a similar experience, and was emotionally blackmailed by Mrs OnSea into wearing a helmet for about ten years. Then SHE started riding a bike again, and started asking ME if she really had to wear a helmet. So we did some research, decided it was inconclusive, and given that she was an adult bimbling around town rather than racing or doing Danny Macaskill-esque stunts, it probably wasn’t an issue.
So now she hardly ever wears a helmet (the exception being if it’s raining – it keeps her head dry), and I only wear one when riding fast bikes with skinny tyres (I have form on mis-judging the limiting friction in cornering…). But as most of my riding is also in the bimbling around category, most of the time I don’t wear a lid.
As an illustration of the magical properties the medical profession ascribe to helmets, Wife did have a nasty fall about three years ago. She landed on her left arm, breaking the radius and dislocating her elbow. The comment from the paramedics was that she should have been wearing a helmet – one of those special elbow helmets, I guess!
That’s an interesting coincidence–I also had a fall on my bike about four years ago, landed on my left arm and broke the end off the radius where it enters the elbow ( a “proximal radial fracture”). Guess I could have used one of those elbow helmets too, though there was no paramedic to tell me so. There was surprisingly little pain, so I kept riding, went thome and had lunch, then decided to go to the doctor because my elbow kept making a funny “popping” sound. The pain didn’t come until after the cast was off a few weeks later and I started physical therapy.
If people choose to wear cycle helmets that’s fine. It’s when helmets are made compulsory that it becomes a problem.
I know I am going to start something here but. Why?
Wearing helmets has been compulsory for M/C riders for years and nobody claims that they fail to live up to expectation – especially the A&E folks who have to put us together again. Before anybody starts, M/C helmets are a different design and much better protection, etc, etc. What puzzles me is why nobody has made a similar design for us?
Okay, the weight-weenies will complain but I have worn my full-face, Fibreglass etc M/C helmet when riding a bike now and again and the only complaints are that it slightly deadens the noise making it hard to use stereo sound to detect traffic and harder to turn my head, but mirrors will help there as they did on my M/C.
HEAT – yes the heavier skid-lid is warmer and thus a problem for us when it is hot. I am sure a ventilated version for us can be made? The full-face design has saved my boyish good looks on a number of occasions (judging from the after-crash damage to the helmet!
Some people seem to automatically get ‘up in arms’ when they think that their free will is being eroded, with good reason most of the time, but seat belts etc on motors have saved many people. Is that a bad thing?
Many humans have a carefree outlook on life and fail to take adequate precautions to look after themselves. It may be that a feeling of being ‘at risk’ makes us feel ‘dangerous’ and we think that by challenging fate and getting away with it makes us feel invincible.
Do we have so little regard for the feelings of those who love us that we will not take every available precaution that just MIGHT save us from injury? (Compliments to Widsmith above for a well-made comment)
Tencon – I think it’s a question of risk assessment. People tend to fall off M/Cs at higher speeds than cyclists so a big heavy helmet has a major impact on injury & death statistics. (Governments that pay for a health service will think it worth legislating to save money in hospital costs.) So it’s also sensible to wear a helmet when (pedal) cycling fast, eg. when racing – higher risk of head injury in a fall. But for utility cycling, mostly at slow to moderate speeds, then as the Dutch famously find, whats the point in wearing something that’s often uncomfortable, needs either carrying around off the bike or spending time tethering & untethering when off it, and especially for the fair sex can muss your hair, when cycling injuries are so rare?
Cyclists who are struck by motorised vehicles apparently suffer and sometimes die from limb and body injuries – so helmets will only sometimes make a difference there.
The greatest use for head protection is in falls; if, as in motorcycling, these are common and commonly result in head injury, then legislation is appropriate. If rather rare (eg, walking) then legislation is not. Don’t know if horse riders are obliged to wear head protection, but from the number & severity of their head injuries legislation could be sensible. What jarrs off a good many cyclists is that governments seem keen to make us wear helmets, but aren’t fussed about horse riders and car passengers, both of whom are at high risk of head injury but don’t have any legislation aimed at them.
Though I ride bike since ~25 years and fell quite often in the beginning, I cannot remember ever having made contact head-to-ground. Injuries of knees, hands, elbows and hips (in this order) occurred of course. In the rare cases I happen to underestimate physics nowadays I mostly manage to hop off the bike somehow and let it crash alone (someone should video that for evaluation).
Because helmet compulsion stops people cycling which increases obesity levels, cardio-vascular disease levels, and generally impacts a nation’s healthcare costs. This has been proven in Australia where helmets were made compulsory and immediatley over half of schoolchildren who cycled to school stopped cycling. Motor traffic levels went up and child obesity went up.
Learn more here: http://www.cycle-helmets.com/
and read why the CTC UK is also against helmet compulsion: http://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=4641
Ok, let me understand your thought process… Helmets causes obesity??? That’s like equating condoms causing pregnancy….
Perhaps you should read the evidence at the provided links before making facetious comments.
From the first article:
“Surveys show Western Australia’s mandatory helmet legislation reduced public cycling numbers by at least 30%, yet total hospitalised cyclist injuries did not decline at all. The reduction in head injury numbers was marginal. West Australian cyclist numbers recovered in the decade to 2000 but hospital admissions were at record levels from 1997, roughly 30% above pre-law levels by 2000. In essence, the results strongly suggest that the mandatory wearing of helmets increases the risk of accidents and thus injuries.
As reported in March 2007 and based on data from Western Australia, Queensland and Victoria, the number of Australian children walking or riding a bicycle to school has plunged from about 80% in 1977 to the current level around 5%. The data on this website and on this page confirms that in Western Australia, the massive decline in cycling (and children’s health and safety) began in 1991 when the helmet law was enacted. In June 2008, research at Melbourne’s Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute found thatAustralia is now the fattest nation on earth.
In 2012, the cities of Sydney, Perth, Fremantle and Adelaide are calling for a trial exemption or eventual scrapping of bicycle helmet laws so they can encourage cycling and avoid the bike share failures suffered in Melbourne and Brisbane.”
I can’t give specific numbers, but I can confirm from looking at school bike racks over the years that the levels of children riding to work in this part of the world has also declined significantly since 1977. It would be interesting to see how much of that is attributable to the relatively recent U18 helmet law and how much is attributable to other factors (e.g. huge increase in students attending schools that are not in their local vicinity, significant increase in “helicopter parenting” with its attendant irrational behaviour as it relates to safety, increase in wealth causing a decline in modes thought to be specific to “poor folks”, etc. etc.). I wonder if any of these factors apply in the Australian situation?
Condoms leak, so they do cause pregnancy.
If people choose to wear cycle helmets that’s fine. It’s when helmets are made compulsory that it becomes a problem.
Not wearing a helmet is more a fashion statement than anything else.
Fancy that. I always thought that it was the other way around. Like: “Look, I’m this cool sportive person.”
BTW: If my partner came at me with worrying doe eyes trying emotional blackmail to make me wear something as pointless and ridiculous like a bike “helmet” he’d better be prepared to get on someone elses nerves in his further life.
I can’t fault her sweet, kind and gentle spirit for caring about me, even though I believe her concern to be misplaced. And as I care more about her peace of mind than my own pride, it is a very small sacrifice to make. It took me 57 years to find her; she’s already lost a husband within the past year; she won’t be ready to start dating again until at least sometime next year; and I’m not willing to worry her unnecessarily or risk our growing relationship over something so silly as a bicycle helmet.
If you have a major fall, than difference between wearing a helmet and not wearing one is that you can tell the story later. It’s called natural selection.
So true. I grew up in the 60s and 70s when almost every child, and a very large proportion of adults, used a bicycle as their main mode of transport and no-one wore cycle helmets. It was awful, the streets were littered with dead cyclists. Oh wait…
That’s exactly why I resisted wearing a helmet for so long. I first started riding somewhere around 1959 and never needed a helmet, so it seems ridiculous for me to think I need one now. By the same token, none of us wore any sort of protective gear when roller skating or skateboarding or sledding, played on playground equipment made of unpadded steel on playgrounds paved with asphalt, and just generally accepted that sometimes when you play, you get hurt–no big deal, for us or for our parents. Bruises, scrapes and even broken bones were a normal part of childhood and it always seemed a little odd to me that I never had a broken bone (until breaking my arm four years ago, at the age of 53). Any kid who wore a bike helmet when I was growing up (if such things even existed back then) would have been considered a “sissy” by everyone, probably including his own parents.
Love this one Rick…
The comments had been slowing down,,,
Ey ey Captain… Full speed ahead…
What drive me nuts about the helmet debate is that people talk like it’s all or nothing. Yes, a helmet will NOT save you if you are plowed into by a car going 40 mph. There are many situations where a helmet will not help at all. But those aren’t the only situations. There are also random, relatively minor events where where a helmet could be the difference between walking away or a concussion. If people don’t want to wear helmets, I’m fine with that, adults have the right to choose. For me, it doesn’t have to be a life or death decision… I will wear a helmet for those “Could have gotten hurt but didn’t” instances (as well as my wife’s peace of mind).
Well said. I’ve broken a couple of helmets falling off my bike and while I might not have died if I hadn’t been wearing the helmet, I would probably have been more badly injured. It seems a small step to take to make a possible difference. Like the seatbelt in my car, most of the time I don’t need it, and it won’t save my life in every circumstance. But in my opinion it’s worth wearing it just in case something happens, because it can prevent something worse happening.
I like my helmet(s). Gives me someplace to put my sunglasses when I’m not wearing them, keep a mini-light mounted up there for reading cue sheets and fixing flats in the dark, and a video camera to capture all the cool stuff (and dumb stuff) that happens around me while riding.
Is it just me, or is anyone else having trouble with the comment system posting “What’s on your mind…” instead of the text you actually typed? I’m getting into the habit of highlighting and copying everything I write before clicking “Post” because twice today my text has disappeared when I tried to post it. Also, I’ve noticed over the last couple of weeks that email delivery of comments has gotten very spotty. For instance, every comment posted by anyone since my initial one this morning should have been emailed to me, but I’ve only received about a third of them. Maybe JSKit knows that Rick is getting rid of it and is trying to take revenge while it still can.
@Widsith: If I’m making a longish post, I compose it in a text editor (Notepad++) and then copy and paste it into JSKit. I’ve had some posts disappear and I had to rethink and retype the whole thing. The new system will be a welcome change.
I often compose mine in an editor too, mainly because the font size in JSKit is so small that I can’t read it very easily and often miss spelling mistakes, etc. Sometimes (like right now) I type it here, cut and paste it in an editor to proofread it and correct mistakes, then copy and paste it back here to post. I’m also eagerly awaiting the new system.
Of course, there’s the alternative view that helmets cause accidents:
“In the Netherlands, where cycling is ubiquitous, 13.3 per cent of the cyclists admitted to hospitals with injuries wore helmets — even though just 0.5 per cent cent of Dutch cyclists wear helmets.” See http://waronthemotorist.wordpress.com/2012/06/28/who-are-all-these-self-harming-dutch-helmet-wearers/
Of course I’m joshing when I say ’cause’. All we can infer from the above is that people in the Netherlands who wear helmets (pretty much exclusively sports cyclists) are around thirty times more likely to be involved in an incident that ends up in hospital than the people who don’t wear helmets (i.e. people just going about their everyday business, and not involved in some sort of sport).
Cycling as transport is not dangerous (gardening is more likely to end up in a trip to hospital) and needs no special equipment, while cycling as sport is only slightly risky, so you may want to wear a helmet when training and will probably be forced to wear one when racing.
“Courage For Your Head” … actual advertising slogan used to sell helmets.
Risk Compensation is a real thing.
Re: “sports cyclists above – Are these the ones who do so many miles that their accident numbers are bigger but their accidents per mile are the same I wonder???
NB: I pasted ‘sports cyclists’ from Karl’s comment above and my whole comment went into a supersized?bold font! Yet when I hit ‘return’ a couple of times it returned to usual midget size…
Also, I have been known to use the tool in IE8 that could zoom the page.
After my reload of Win7 and trying as hard as possible to NOT install IE9 – It loaded IE9 and I can’t find a link that enables me to load 8 instead!
Not only that, but since Vista general window sizes always open the same size as the last open window. I have tried various hints to stop this but it always returns to this annoying system. Window sizing under XP was perfect and we did not need any changes but MS decided that their latest fad was what we would all use like it or not. I hate these geeks!
While I am in ‘comlaining’ mode – Just an observation . . . On my screen, the left hand side of the whole thing seems to have been moved in and it covers some of the avatars etc. I assume this is an accidental misalignment as there is far too much white space on the right hand side
Sorry I can’t remember the right words /names to be more clear
I doubt it. For example, if an average person does 1,000 miles a year just pootling around (i.e. just 20 miles a week – probably a big underestimate), then that would mean that the sports cyclists would have to be doing 30,000 miles a year to have the same incident rate. That’s over 80 miles a day!
I have had exactly two (2) crashes in my cycling life of 44 years. The first was going over the guy-lines during a road race and tumbling down a river abnk. Was wearing a “hair net” as that was the only option then. HAd loads of scrapes and scratches from the flora of the riverside. The second was in central Pennsylvanis, US riding a MTB. That time the brain-bucket I had purchased only the day before likely saved me a pretty good TBI. It did not, however, prevent a stick from a pine tree from penetrating my right eye orbital. The resulting damage was pretty massive, and that optic nerve is dead today.
Did the helmet help? Mebbe. Would safety glasses ro goggles have helped? Never truly know as I wasn’t wearing them (it was too dark in the woods to see with them on). Do I wear a helmet when I ride? Yep. Keeps my family from worrying unnecessarily (though I do occasionally sneak out for night rides without one…ssshhhhh).
It’s tricky. Public health research shows that helmet use doesn’t seem to make the population healthier or cheaper to keep healthy. Yet for a given person in a given crash, a helmet can make a big difference in outcome. That single data point is not statistically significant, yet it is of primary significance for that given person. Another interesting phenomenon is the tendency for people to assume the same level of risk no matter what the level of protection that they enjoy (or even that they perceive they enjoy) … if the level of protection goes up, so does the level of riskiness of the behaviour. This could help to explain why the Dutch helmet wearers seem to end up hospitalized more often … the sporty types have a higher level of risk tolerance to begin with.
The purpose for wearing a helmet was explained to me this way… The body has evolved (or was created) to sustain a reasonable amout of impact when traveling at walking or running speeds. However, the body has not evolved (or was created) to sustain the impact of traveling at the speeds encounterd when traveling by bicycle. I mostly wear a helmet when cycling, and when I don’t want to I usually remember the information above.
Cycle helmets are only designed to withstand an impact equivalent to an adult falling from a STATIONARY standing position to the ground. They are not designed for high speed impacts. What you are wearing is, in fact, just a placebo.
The gold standard for cycle helmets id the Snell B90 standards. That ensures a helmet will survive an impact of “100 J for all testing regardless of headform size or weight. Given an ideal frictionless mechanical test facility, this impact energy represents a 2.2+ meter drop of 5 kg”
You can read the standard for yourself here: http://www.smf.org/standards/b/b90astd
The sections you’re looking for are E 4.3 and E 4.4.
The comments section seems to be providing the free fireworks today.
@GVGeorge – but happily without rancour!
Eh, if this place gets more like the Netherlands ( ROFLMAO! ) then I might stop wearing a helmet, but probably not, I don’t generally wear a hat, so the helmet gives some protection to the shiny bit up top.
Would I ride like this WITHOUT a Helmet? Not likely. Even I’m guilty of Risk Compensation.
http://youtu.be/m4EKoE-xufs?t=30s
Would I ride like this WITHOUT a Helmet? Not likely. Even I’m guilty of Risk Compensation.
http://youtu.be/m4EKoE-xufs?t=30s
It took me a while to find identifiable landmarks, but I knew I recognized the area from the first eucalyptus tree. That whole stretch of north western SD County was our playground when I was growing up in the 50s and 60s.
Would I ride like this WITHOUT a Helmet? Not likely. Even I’m guilty of Risk Compensation.
http://youtu.be/m4EKoE-xufs?t=30s
I ride with a helmet (and have been since the days of the original Bell Biker) because I would rather be in the position of having an accident and finding out the helmet was unnecessary than having an accident and wishing that I had worn the helmet.
I ride with one too, because I have some crazy descents on my commute
I ride with a helmet to keep my bride of nearly 73 years from saying “I told you so.” It saved my noggin on a ride in October 2011, from which my shoulder is still recovering. I also wear one because, like it or not, I’m a role model in our small town. I’d rather be seen as encouraging safer behavior among the young riders than othewise.
“bride of 73 years”? That’s gotta be a typo….
Not if he’s 99!
I don’t wear a helmet because, like it or not, I’m seen as a role model in my small city. I’d rather not be seen as encouraging fear-based marketing of useless junk.
It’s pretty clear to me why helmets are so popular in the USA, where I live. We have a motorized-vehicle fatality rate (per unit population) that is 3-4 times that of a typical European country. People are scared to ride and are vulnerable to fear-based marketing. As it stands, the fatality rate in the USA is decreasing, but only for people on the _inside_ of cars. The rest of us are left to a) run and hide, b) put on a helmet and hope for the best, and/or c) advocate for safer roadway designs.
… And Kudos to Rick for launching today’s free fireworks. Very patriotic.
Usually the comic titles match the day’s theme, but the past couple of days don’t…?
@Robert Niece: Niece catch!
Today’s title is for the day after tomorrow (July 6th). Yesterday’s title is for tomorrow (July 5th). If the fireworks don’t keep Rick up too late, I expect that we’ll get the proper titles in the next day or two.
Fixed – sorry… I moved and didn’t have access to the computer until just now. Should be good to go going forward… well, except for the pesky commenting system.
There are two separate questions that are often confused as being the same:
1- Should on wear a helmet?
2- Are cumpulsory helmet laws a good idea?
As far as I know, I have yet to see any logic behind NOT wearing a helmet, other than getting messed up hair. However, the compusory law part is more complicated.
If I am just tooling around an area that I feel is very low risk, I will sometimes skip the helmet. However, I mtb a lot, so a helmet is so second nature I almost feel naked without one.
I’m not sure why people always assume that complaints about helmets are based on “messed up hair” or a concern for “fashion.” Am I the only one who gets annoyed at constantly being told that something I started doing 30 or 40 years before the advice-givers were born is suddenly “unsafe” unless I wear a piece of plastic that hadn’t even been invented back then? I think I’ve been around long enough to make those sorts of decisions for myself. At least the lady who talked me into wearing a helmet is within a year of my own age.
I’ve stopped wearing my helmet of late, but only when the majority of my ride is off-road on tracks and trails. Of my 2 major on road tumbles my head never make contact with the road/pavement/tarmac etc. but it did save me (I think from) being scalped by the brush and rear tyre of the road sweeper that pulled ou tin front of me. I wear one for the same reasons as Widsith really and my wife has the same attitude to helmet wearing as his special lady.