I rode a bicycle for many, many, many years–and many (etc.) miles–before I even knew there was such a thing as bicycle helmets. In fact I don’t think they existed in the early years of my bike-riding.
In those years I was blown off a highway by a strong crosswind, door-prized (once), caught on the rearview mirror of a truck whose driver didn’t see me as he made a left turn right in front of me (conveniently not noticing that there was a bike lane), nudged off the road by a Volvo doing the same maneuver also without looking, and suffered various other mundane wrecks of the sort that befall a somewhat careless young person and then a bike commuter. And I turned my palms and elbows into hamburger, cracked my tailbone, skinned my knees, and–well, that’s about it. Never once did anything happen to my head, although I came close once when a bridle I had looped around my neck got caught in the rear wheel, somehow (nothing kinky, I was on my way to the stable at the time).
So no. I never wear a helmet. Never. I don’t even have a helmet.
(I did mostly wear one when I had a motorcycle. Not always, though. I didn’t like it–interfered with my vision, made my neck sore, gave me a headache. But I was moving so much faster, and I think it was a law anyway.)
However, I got helmets for my kids and made them wear them. They got the same skinned knees & elbows I got and helmets without so much as a scratch, although I’m pretty sure they took them off when they weren’t biking with me.
I want to point out that I knew someone who worked for several years for a bike messenger service that had maybe 20 people out on bikes, in traffic, all day long. They had to wear helmets. In all that time there were some wrecks, yes. But only once–once–in seven (I think) years of 20-some people putting miles and miles on their bikes, did someone have a wreck where the helmet actually protected his head.
So I think this helmet thing is part of some overprotective craze, which has also resulted in a dearth of diving boards at swimming pools. At the one nearest my house first they took out the high dive. This year the low board is gone, too. You are still allowed to dive in off the side (only in the deep end, of course), but what do you bet that somebody scrapes their foot on the side of the pool and they decide the risk isn’t worth it? Back when they had diving boards you were free to dive off them or not. Now you have no choice.
I bike to work every day it’s not pissing down with rain and do all my weekend errands by bike and never have to ride on a road. All of MK is criss-crossed with red-ways (pedestrian/bike routes) occasionally I’ll have to cross a road but that’s no different than crossing on foot.
If I had to ride on roads with cars or did any racing or off roading I would definitely wear a lid, but for the riding I do it doesn’t feel necessary.
FWIW I always wear a seatbelt the only time I’ve ridden in a car not wearing one was a three minute drive in a coworker’s vintage VW Beetle (which didn’t have any) and it felt very uncomfortable.
Well, as someone who can run for miles on rough trails at about 10 mph, I can answer this one. You are much less likely to fall and hit your head when running than just about anything else. When you fall running, your legs hit first, then your upper body, and your hands and arms are always in a position to protect your head. Take the Pikes Peak Marathon. People have died during the race from heart attacks. People running downhill have taken nasty spills, but I don’t recall ever seeing a head injury. Trail runners lose toenails, not teeth. Now, running in the city, I don’t know. I can see where you might hit your head getting hit by a car, but even then, your legs and body would take the greatest impact.
On a road bike, you are off the ground, head first, and your feet are locked in. It is very easy to hit your head. Surely someone besides me remembers the Tour De France rider who hit his head and died? It was 1995.
I think kids screwing around on bikes in the 70’s were less likely to hit their heads because of how and what we rode. When I was a kid, everyone had “banana seats” and we were always playing Evel Knievel. Yeah, I took some spills, but the bike always took the worst of the impact, because coming off a ramp my front wheel was up and my weight was back. Even when my handlebars came loose and I did a header, the bike absorbed almost all the energy. And, a boy my wife knew died on his bike. He rode into a parked truck, hit his head and died.
What about that thing you do? You know, that one where you check driveways to make sure there aren’t any cars backing out? I mean, if you can’t do that, a helmet won’t help you much in the long run.
I used to wear a helmet ALL THE TIME. Even though I rode at like 5 kph on footpaths (I was a kid, it’s allowed). Throughout high school I rode to and from school and always wore a helmet because I knew that if you don’t YOU WILL DIE. Then one day I decided to go to a friend’s place and… just didn’t wear a helmet. I’m still alive. The kind of riding I do doesn’t require a helmet, since I don’t ride on main roads and just potter around the neighbourhood, on footpaths or bike paths on quiet suburban streets. And I still go at 5 kph. Anyone who tells me to PUT ON YOUR HELMET! YOU ARE ENDANGERING YOUR LIFE!!! gets the response “You know what would be even safer? FULL BODY ARMOUR!” There’s riding, and then there’s riding.
You really can’t do it on a sidewalk - often there’s a wall right up to the edge of the sidewalk. That’s not just Japan; in my current apartment complex there are a few driveways lined with hedges and trees. When I’m walking on the sidewalk, I can’t see the car coming out of the parking lot until I’m 2 ft away from the driveway. A pedestrian can stop in 2 ft; a bicycle cannot.
I’ve had several friends in Japan hit by cars while riding bicycles. All were riding on a sidewalk, and hit by cars coming from a side road. Car drivers are used to straddling the sidewalk and then stopping to check for traffic on the road.
Besides scr4’s reply, there is the fact that your average sidewalk crosses a driveway just a few feet from where a cars are typically parked on the driveway (and not in the garage). Almost everyone starts backing before they look, and with only a few feet of travel, and thus just a few seconds to react, you are much more likely to get hit. (Granted, on a mountain bike, you might be able to hop the curb, but you still have to hope the car sees you.) Being on the road is safer, because almost everyone checks the road before they back onto it.
And, I seriously doubt you go just 5 kph. That is a decent walking speed, and pretty hard to do on a bike. But, believe it or not, I know a woman who got a concussion going about that speed. She was just going around the block, and hit a sandy stretch on a corner. Bouncing your head off cement at bike height can do some serious damage, even at low speeds. (Personally, I don’t wear a helmet out of fear of death. I wear a helmet out of fear of serious head injury. Having to learn to talk again would pretty much suck.)
I only ever ride a bike as a form of recreation - I want to derive pleasure from it. If I wear a helmet, my head gets hot and itchy and the whole experience becomes unpleasant. There is no point doing something “for fun” that is very far from being fun, so I skip the helmet.
For general bike trail riding, I don’t wear one. They are uncomfortable, sweaty, and are the equivalent of wearing a football helmet to a baseball game just in case you get bonked on the head with a home run ball. Statistically possible, sure, but still silly.
I wear my helmet ALWAYS, even if I’m just riding on the trail. I really hate wearing it - one of the pleasures of riding a bike (and skiing, and riding motorcycles and horseback riding and pretty much everything else I like to do) is that feeling of the wind blowing through my hair.
However, I’m now on my fourth bicycle helmet. This is because the first three are in pieces and no longer usable, having nobly sacrificed themselves for my skull. In one of the incidents, I had a fairly bad concussion with extended loss of consciousness in spite of the helmet.
Someone upthread mentioned that there’s a relatively small chance of being involved in an accident while bike riding. This is not true for me, unfortunately. One of my worst road rash episodes was from a crash on the bleeping sidewalk. And yes, I managed to slam my (helmeted) head against a utility pole on the way down.
If I could buy better muscular coordination and balance, I would. Since I can’t, I wear the stupid helmet.
To those who said bicycle helmets are hot and uncomfortable - have you tried at least a few good-quality helmets? Mine (an older version of the LAS Astrom) has a dozen huge holes and it’s cooler than a baseball cap. Quite comfortable too. But I did have to try several different brands before choosing the most comfortable.
I wear a helmet every time, except that I may forget it once or twice a year. It’s the same logic as wearing a seatbelt: probably never useful, but it may save my life. Helmets are only uncomfortable the first couple times you wear them; after that, you get used to them and they’re no longer uncomfortable. The best reason, though, is low-hanging tree branches. With a helmet, I can lower my face and let the branches bounce off the top of the helmet. Without it, I’d have to stop and walk my bike around the obstacle.
I didn’t wear helmets as a kid - I rode my bikes from early childhood until about 16 or 17 with no helmet, and then my bike at the time broke because it was a poor quality bike. Back then, where I lived, there were no laws and almost nobody wore helmets.
When I was 22 I rented a bike here in Vancouver, and the rental included a helmet which was probably the most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever worn ever. I tried to deal with it for maybe 5 minutes, and then I had to carry it. It was horrible.
A few months ago (I was 25), I bought a new bike and my boyfriend bought me a new, fancy helmet. It’s actually comfortable. I like wearing it. So now, I wear a helmet 100% of the time, no questions!
Now all I need is a helmet equivalent for my entire body. Riding over the Burrard bridge makes me go :eek:
No, never. I don’t own one any more. All of my travel is by bike or on foot. My two kids are usually with me when they are not in school – they also cycle to school and home most of the time. One is in the child seat on my bike about half the time and on his own bike half the time, and the other is on his own bike. They don’t wear helmets either; though they do have them for skateboarding and skating on the, um, jesus, this is my native language. What do you call a place where you have jumps and tunnels and ramps and so on for skates/skateboards? I can’t remember suddenly.
In any event. There, that place, the 6 year old wears one. The 4 year old isn’t quite up to all that yet.
I have never seen a bicyclist with a helmet since we moved here, except on racing/touring teams passing through or for offroad cycling, also mostly teams. I have considered buying them, especially when I saw one last year in the US which looked just like Speed Racer’s helmet. But then the problem becomes, how to get it off them at night. But then the added margin of safety which comes from the infrastructure here just makes the risk so much smaller it hasn’t seemed worth it.
I would guess that from one third to one half of all travel takes place on a bike around here. We live in a small city or a large town, depends on how you look at it.
It seems to me the intelligent response lies closer to the area of urban planning and management of road use and traffic flow than it does to requiring bicyclists and pedestrians to armor themselves against inevitable injury.
Yes and yes. I have short hair, my helmet doesn’t particularly bother me, I barely feel it most of the time and it weighs nothing, so why not? I’ve only got one head and more protection is better.
I always wear a helmet. It’s saved my skull more than once, especially the time I lost control on a steep downhill, flew off my bike and landed head first. My brother is still around today thanks to wearing a helmet. He was trail riding in the desert, slid on some loose rocks, and BAM!!–his helmet looked like someone had hit it with a ball peen hammer just above his ear.
It doesn’t matter how fast you’re going, or where you ride. One solid blow to your cranium can do a lot more than spoil your day.
Nope. When I was a kid my parents made me, but except for the few times I rode with my dad or sister, the helmet pretty much stayed stashed in the garage. I don’t even have one any more (right now, I don’t have a bike, either).
In a way I can understand the argument for helmets, and maybe I am being stupid. I have two primary reasons for not buying one: one comfortable enough to wear would be way outside my price range, and I have no motivation to do so. I wear always wear a seatbelt because I’ve personally been in a car accident, and even if I hadn’t, I know enough people who have been to know that A) serious accidents happen, and B) seatbelts make them less serious. But I don’t know anyone who bikes, has had amajor bike accident and survived serious brain damage because of a helmet I don’t deny it happens, but it doesn’t seem like any significant threat.
Not where I live. Here driveways are long and people have closed garages and the streets are quiet enough that I can hop onto the road if I’m not sure. I would definitely wear a helmet if I was cyling anywhere that actually had cars, or places like Rottnest Island (where I stacked it spectacularly when I was 12; my helmet FTR did nothing) because even though almost all the traffic is made up of other bicycles there are very steep hills. Wearing helmets in the conditions I ride under probably would save a couple lives, but so would wearing helmets while out walking. After all, you could fall and hit your head on the ground! (This isn’t entirely sarcastic since it has also happened to me and I received a lump on the head which COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED had I been wearing a helmet.) I have been more observant since I stopped wearing a helmet, which can only be a good thing. Too many people forget that helmets don’t convey invulnerability and getting hit by a car backing out of a driveway while wearing one isn’t so much fun either.