# Did you wear a bicycle helmet as a kid? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 27, 2009, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-wear-a-bicycle-helmet-as-a-kid/507953 "2009-08-27T20:38:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![silvermist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@silvermist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silvermist)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2009, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-wear-a-bicycle-helmet-as-a-kid/507953/61 "2009-08-29T15:58:40Z")
They didn’t have them then. Got a few skinned elbows and torn pantlegs from catching in the chain but that was all. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2009, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-wear-a-bicycle-helmet-as-a-kid/507953/62 "2009-08-29T16:18:27Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > Born late 70’s, midwest, I’ve never worn a helmet in my life and I’m trying to convince my wife our children won’t have to either. > > My wife says a helmet saved her fathers life, and I don’t doubt it, and I also don’t doubt by incredible coincidence every helmet wearing persons life was saved by it at one point. Or so they’ll say. Are you for real? It’s one thing to eschew them yourself, but for your kids? Anyway I grew up in the 90s and pretty much everyone did, even though I didn’t bike that much. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2009, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-wear-a-bicycle-helmet-as-a-kid/507953/63 "2009-08-29T17:40:57Z")
Thanks for reminding me of the time I fell out of my grandpa’s Volvo. > **[Volvo P1800](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo_P1800)** > > The Volvo P1800 (pronounced eighteen-hundred) is a 2+2, front-engine, rear-drive sports car manufactured and marketed by Volvo Cars between 1961 and 1973. Originally a coupé (1961–1972), it was also offered in a shooting-brake configuration toward the end of its production (1972–1973). Styling was by Pelle Petterson under the tutelage of Pietro Frua when Frua's studio was a subsidiary of the Italian carrozzeria Ghia, and the mechanicals were derived from Volvo's Amazon/122 series. > Marketed as a ... Door popped open on a turn, slipped right out under the seatbelt. I never really thought that helmet was a bad idea. Caught hell for it, but, then again, I had just about the first mountain bike on the East Coast, too. And I used it hard enough to bend the frame on two of them. (The Vette impact only bent the front fork and ruined both wheels. The bike actually survived that.) Sitnam: not much of a concidence. Early adopters of helmets tended to be people who, well, went in situations where they’d need them. In my case, this involved going down the sides of hills which didn’t technically have roads, bicycling in the dark in locations with drunk drivers, and showing people with BMXes that you could, in fact, do almost anything they could on their stunt bike, on my big-ass one. Not to mention, of course, that people on ten-speeds tended to have their bikes vibrate apart on rougher terrain, while I managed to keep traction considerably longer. Which made the eventual impact a bit worse. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2009, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-wear-a-bicycle-helmet-as-a-kid/507953/64 "2009-08-30T10:48:42Z")
Nope. And if I had worn one, it would have gone unused. Knee and shoulder pads, on the other hand… \*\* Freudian Slit\*\* must not live around here; almost nobody wears a helmet. I do live in a no-helmets-required-after-21 state, but still ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2009, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-wear-a-bicycle-helmet-as-a-kid/507953/65 "2009-08-30T21:43:02Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Nope. And if I had worn one, it would have gone unused. Knee and shoulder pads, on the other hand… > \*\* > Freudian Slit\*\* must not live around here; almost nobody wears a helmet. I do live in a no-helmets-required-after-21 state, but still I guess not. I just don’t see any good reason not to, still less to tell your kids not to wear them. That just seems messed up. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2009, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-wear-a-bicycle-helmet-as-a-kid/507953/66 "2009-08-31T01:58:22Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > I guess not. I just don’t see any good reason not to, still less to tell your kids not to wear them. That just seems messed up. I had a stepfather, when I was a small child, who felt much the same way about seatbelts. Nobody was going to tell HIM to wear a seatbelt, etc. He went so far as to forbid me to wear a seatbelt. Overprotective bullshit, he never wore a seatbelt and he grew up just fine, blah blah blah. I have a lovely scar and a little bit of nerve damage in my left knee from the injuries I sustained in our rollover car accident, thanks to his awesome no-seatbelt policy. Really I’m lucky just to be around to bitch about him, of course. My kids wear seatbelts. And bike helmets, too. (Not at the same time, though.) ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2009, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-wear-a-bicycle-helmet-as-a-kid/507953/67 "2009-08-31T02:00:39Z")
Never wore a bicycle helmet on my bicycle. Should’ve worn a cup, though. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2009, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-wear-a-bicycle-helmet-as-a-kid/507953/68 "2009-08-31T02:40:31Z")
1960s ------- none of us wore one. Like others, I am not even sure that there was such a thing. But after the one kid my age had a bad crash (when I was maybe 10) and joined the ranks of kids around us who were “a little slow” its something I thought about even way back then. By the late 60s when I moved on to motorcycles, I wore a helmet and still do. My brain may not be the best or brightest, but its all I have. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-wear-a-bicycle-helmet-as-a-kid/507953.md?page=3)