Always. There’s no real reason not to. Also, since I’m a paramedic I get to see what happens when you don’t wear a helmet and smack your head on a regular basis.
Absolutely. A car hydroplaned on a wet street one day and took me and the bike with it. There was no time to react whatsoever. All I could think as I went headfirst toward the ground was how much I loved my helmet. I walked away from the wreck… and bought a new helmet the same day.
Always, trail or street.
+1
FWIW, I use snow chains on my bicycle in the winter too. Fun times!
Always. Ever since I got rear-ended by a van coming onto a roundabout at 5am in the morning while I was on my way to a cleaning job.
That was the moment I realized it wasn’t about how fast I am or how good I am at evading dumb drivers.
I got scraped up good, but my head was intact thanks to the helmet.
I’d love to ride without one, but if you’re on the trail, you never know when a root is gonna come under your wheel. And if you’re on the road, there’s plenty of asshats out there. Even doing 30, the asshat I encountered crushed my bike and could have killed me.
Wear your helmet. It could save your life.
And for everyone out there saying ‘well, I never wore a helmet when I was a kid, and I’m still here’, all I’ve got to say is ‘Yup, you’re still here. You’re the lucky one. The ones who didn’t get lucky aren’t here to talk to about it.’
Always when riding on the streets or on the hike & bike trail.
The only time I don’t is sometimes when my grandson and I ride our bikes to the park a couple blocks from our house. Since I ride on the sidewalk with him, I sometimes don’t wear a helmet, but I always make sure he’s got one on. (he’s 8.)
Wear the blasted helmet!!!
When I was Hit By A Car On My Bike.
Wear the blasted helmet!!!
More Bad News
Wear the blasted helmet!!!
Always. To be honest, I can’t really fathom why anyone WOULDN’T? Do you not wear your seatbelt either? Are you one of those people that gets out of your seat when the seatbelt sign is still on? Do you Jaywalk?
I should add that a helmut saved my face once too. I was only going about 15 km’s an hour and went to go from the road to the lane curb. I misjudged and my rear tire hit the sidewalk curb and over the handlebars I went, face first into a gravel alley. If it wasn’t for my helmut, my entire face would have hit the gravel, but because I was wearing it properly, it prevented my entire face from hitting and I only needed 3 stitches in one spot.
Count me in the helmet crowd. (Although it has been years since I rode a bike.)
A lot of cyclists claim that helmets can cause bad neck injuries and even paralysis because of the extra twisting force caused by the larger diameter and increased friction of a polystyrene helmet compared with the skull.
That said, I always wear a helmet when mountain biking and usually on the street.
But then a helmet will do precisely zero if you get hit by a car at any speed. They’re only rated for something like a 7mph impact, so I wear it more to protect my noggin from branches and suchlike on the trail, which it does pretty well.
Cite?
Always.
it’s not how fast you go, it how fast you stop that matters, I hit hard enough to break my helmet on my last crash, damn glad it attenuated the impact to my head
Always with the helmet. No matter what I hit, I’d like to keep those brain cells intact. You still have to be careful, mind, but I’ve hit my head on branches while riding, and it makes me happy to have the skid lid.
You only need to wear a helmet if your skull is not as hard as asphalt. Or rock. Or wood. Stuff like that there.
Falling 4 feet, sideways, off a stationary bike and striking your helmet-less head provides enough acceleration/deceleration to cause a moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury. This is why there are NOCSAE standards for bike helmets. Put that helmet-less head on a moving body/bike and the risk of brain injury increases. However, the helmet-clad head/brain is free from injury.
Simple at-home exercise: get a watermelon that fits in your helmet. Put it in the helmet and drop it from 4 feet (helmet side down). Next, remove the helmet and drop it… imagine what your brain would look like (and be prepared to clean the helmet).
A lot of motorcyclist claim the same thing. They say the force of the helmet will snap your neck. Funny, but the same thing would then happen in a car without a helmet and wearing a seatbelt. It makes zero sense.
I’ve fallen twice pretty hard, once at 17, lost two front teeth. Then again a couple of years ago when I just ran off the side of the road. Hurt my foot, my wrist, and fell on my head. I can tell you I have no problem wearing my helmet.
Clearly, I am in the minority here. Let me make a few points.
It would be beneficial to my health, statistically, to wear a helmet all the time.
If I were to commute to the other end of town, I’d wear a helmet, even though 60% of it is on completely separated bike paths.
I live in a super bike friendly town. Drivers are generally not aggressive for the most part.
I live 3 blocks from the beach and about 1 1/2 mile from downtown. I can take bike paths that are completely separated from automobile traffic downtown, the farmer’s market or the local market about 80% of the way. 15% of the rest of the way is on tiny surface streets where anyone with a modicum of sense is driving slowly.
90% of people cruising around downtown are not wearing helmets. This is probably not atypical in beach communities.
Bicycle deaths in this town are covered very seriously and for extremely long periods of time. The two most media covered bicycle deaths recently were this kid and Kendra Chiota Payne. I am quite sure that both were wearing helmets.
To me, the greatest danger for bicyclists is the unmitigated gall of “cycling enthusiasts”. Their training group (I refuse to to call it a peleton) feels like they can disobey every traffic law. They clog the entire lane when they could be riding in single file. They blow through every stoplight and stop sign. They are aggressively taunting drivers and inciting road rage. There is a local rural intersection where a small road meets a major highway. “Cycling enthusiasts” blow through the stop sign and challenge cars driving on the major highway doing 50mph.
All these assholes are wearing helmets. They are way more at risk of death than I.
In Isla Vista, the student ghetto of UCSB, the bicycle is king. You have to be very very careful because bicyclists do not have lights and do not stop for stop signs. Kids don’t realize that drivers cannot see them at night.
About 5000 pedestrians and 700 bicyclists int he USA die every year. Do all you guys wear helmets when walking around town? Clearly it will be much safer.
I’ve ridden from Canada to Mexico. I’ve ridden 3 double centuries and 3 double metric centuries. I always wore a helmet.
I’ve been in probably 30 bicycle accidents. I’ve had maybe 3 concussions, all of which were because of junior high school stupidity. In every single accident except for one, I’ve been able to throw out an arm to protect my noggin.
The point I’m trying to make is that asshole cyclists wearing helmets are probably more at risk of injury and death than I. Also, kids (college students) do an even worse risk assessment that me. I guess none of you guys engage in statistically risky behavior like talking on a cell phone while driving. When I die or am permanently incapacitated, you guys can tell me you told me so. And one more time, I admit that it would be safer to wear a helmet.
Nobody wore bike, or skateboard helmets when I was a kid…I don’t even think such things were sold. I hit my head on the pavement REAL hard a few times. Not from going fast, just walking speed really. Any one of those could have been a real problem, just dumb luck I didn’t fracture my skull.
So now helmets are in fashion and every store sells them…so I wear the damned things, cause I don’t bounce like I did when I was a kid.
My brother’s skull was saved by a helmet. So was mine. Enough said.
I can get on board with the seatbelt in cars. I could probably even be persuaded that a seatbelt on a plane is going to do something after falling 10,000 feet if you showed me some statistics. But jaywalking? You’re really putting that in there? Are you talking about crossing on a green or crossing where there’s no crosswalk? Because I actually believe you’re more in danger from some asshole whipping around a corner when the walk light is on than if you stand in the middle of a block away from any intersection, look both ways, and cross when it’s safe.