The argument against skiing helmets runs along the lines of your last thought. People are much more prone to ski (or board) like they are invulnerable if they have a helmet. I do ski with a helmet, but I must admit I started because it was the only way to get my kids to where their’s. And, shortly after a friend’s child was seriously injured when an airborn boarder clobbered her (her helmet reportedly saved her life), a skiing bud pointed out that I didn’t need a helmet because I might hurt myself, I needed one because someone might ski into me.
I don’t think it applies to bikes, though. Falling hurts too damn much, and a helmet won’t stop that. I take no one ever drives to visit where you are? And everyone’s garage is clean enough that their cars fit? And sidewalk blocks are never lifted or missing?
Your argument about running is crap. I run seriously, and so do my friends. I have only ever read of one serious running accident. Some world class triathlete (IIRC) fell into a ravine and broke his neck. He lived, but is a paralyzed. Since it was his neck, I doubt a helmet would have helped. The only time a helmet might help is when hit by a car, but in every case I know the cause was “massive internal trauma”. The thread has several postings about bicyclist who either suffered serious injury or escaped because of a helmet. I personally know a bicyclist who was hit by a car. His wife died. His back was broken. Did his helmet save his life? I don’t know.
Two of my co-workers have been knocked out cold by being hit by a messenger on a bicycle. Since this is Chicago it’s not a matter of getting up speed on a big hill - we don’t have that kind of hill. They get that fast and dangerous on the flat. The messengers didn’t do too well in the crash, either, but since they were wearing helmets they weren’t knocked out.
I used to work with a lady who suffered severe and permanent brain injury from falling off her bicycle.
I am now a believer in helmets and wear one whenever I bike.
I wear mine pretty much all the time I’m on my bike. I’m prety well used to it by now. I go through helmets about 1 a year (sweat just screws up the straps after a while).
I wear a helmet in accordance with the local laws. Where I’m living now, I where one all the time. Where I used to live, I didn’t wear one at all (they were required for road use only, I always took bike paths and trails.)
I ride my bike to work almost every day, but no, I dont wear a bike helmet, and I dont even own one. Why? I guess it has to do with me growing up in a carefree environment. Yes, I have wrecked a a few bikes, even chair sledges have had their frames splinteren in “high speed” competitions down icy roads. But never did any of us kids get seriously injured. As with a not so juvenile habitus anymore, I have survived bikecrashes too. So I guess my opinion on the whole “better safe than sorry” idea of using a bike helmet, is that I prefer not to use one. As mentioned in an earlier post, it is sometimes plain silly to go about overprotecting everyone.
You know that you’re supposed to ride on the sidewalk on that bridge, right? The worst part is coming off the north end in winter – it tends to ice up, and you have the fun of running across a lane of traffic from one sidewalk to the other
For what it’s worth, my local council is considering lifting the helmet laws because they want more people to exercise, and helmets are turning people off biking altogether.
I always wear a helmet. In fact, here in London, I can’t remember the last time I saw someone without one. Traffic here is a nightmare and even the most experienced riders I know have been in scrapes. You can be the best cyclist in the world, but that doesn’t necesarily help when a double decker bus doesn’t see you.
Two weeks ago, a friend had to go to casualty to get her head checked out after a road accident on a bike. Luckily she was wearing a helmet. Unlike my best friend at college who has suffered permanent brain damage from hitting his - unprotected - head on a curb when a van tried to squash him. This was one week before his graduation. He’s got his degree - he just doesn’t remember taking it.
I’ve worn helmets all the time for close to 15 years now, and actually used my helmets twice. Both times were single rider accidents. Both times, I felt my helmet bounce off the pavement. The first time, I was descending too fast on a jeep trail in Summit County, and went into 40 foot slider, with my head bouncing along the road as I ground to a stop. Oddly enough, as I was bouncing along, I actually had time to think how nice it was to have something between my head and the rocks.
The second time was a very low speed fall. I was pulling over to change a flat front tire, turned too tightly into a driveway, and the tire rolled off the rim. Even though I was only going five or six mph, I dropped so fast I didn’t have time to clip out or even get my hands off the bar. Even though I was riding conservatively, with no obstacles or pedestrians nearby, I hit hard enough to break my pelvis and bruise my ribs and hand.
Simply, you’re forgetting the third possibility:
Rider hits ground.
And I have absolutely no interest in riding on the sidewalk. When I’m on my bike, I’m a vehicle, not a pedestrian, and expect to be treated as one. I’ve been chewed out for rolling through stop signs, my father actually got pulled over for speeding on his bike, and we both deserved it (although he didn’t get a ticket because he threatened to frame it). On the road, people are looking for traffic. On the sidewalk, you’ve got people ducking in and out of shop doors in the city, and garden hoses, dogs, children, and lawnmowers in the suburbs. I feel much safer out with the cars.
I didn’t always wear my helmet. But I was wearing one when I collided with another bike going the wrong way in the bike lane. I was going 17 mph and our bikes hooked and my head went right into the payment. The paramedic said I’d be a vegetable without the helmet. Instead, I just had a headache.
There shouldn’t be any need for seatbelts either but accidents do happen no matter how careful you are.
Even if you’re on the sidewalk, you still have to cross streets occasionally and what if you’re somewhere with no sidewalks? Bikes are functionally invisible to many drivers who aren’t paying attention.
“Bicycler hits Pedestrian” = “usually = some scrapes and bruises but sometimes also = a fractured femur requiring 6 weeks of traction and a hideously expensive airplane ride back home because it happened on the other side of the Atlantic and you can’t sit up so the airline wants you to buy 4 first-class seats for your stretcher”. Yes, this actually happened to someone we know. He “lucked out” on the transportation issue, he was a civilian travelling on military business so he got to come home on an military transport which was not a lot of fun either but at least didn’t have to lay out nearly 20,000 dollars for airfare.
Anyway - Back when I could still bike, yes I wore a helmet every time. The odds of me “using” it weren’t great but the price if I happened to omit it the one time I did need it was too great to pay. My kids bike around our block (2-ended cul-de-sac, no thru traffic, no fast cars, people pretty much always on the lookout for kids) and don’t wear helmets then. But if they leave our street, it’s helmets or no go.
I don’t bike, but when my son is old enough to do so, he’ll wear a helmet or stay home. I don’t think it’s a huge hassle to wear a helmet and it can make a huge difference in injuries. Also, I think it’s the law here :).
Like outlierrn I work ER, and about two years ago I treated a 12 year old girl for a bike wreck. She’d been riding with her friends and lost control of her bike coming down a hill. Not stunting or doing anything stupid, just riding. It was an ugly wreck. She was road rash from head to foot, and she brough her helmet in with her. The helmet was in three pieces. Her head was intact. It was all the convincing I’ll ever need.
Ever since high school, after I saw a friend in the hospital after his bike crashed through a car’s rear window when the car stopped suddenly in front of him. He was wearing a helmet (he would have been quite dead without one, as he already had a shunt implanted in his skull to drain off fluid buildup from an unrelated medical problem). It took several rounds of plastic surgery before his face no longer resembled hamburger meat.
My brother-in-law fell off his bike once and my sister who was riding with him rode over his head. He had some cuts but came out of it much better than if he hadn’t had his helmet on. Every once in a while you do hear about someone that died from a bike accident who wasn’t wearing a helmet. That’s enough to convince me.
Another incident I know of involves a motorcycle but it could just as easily happen to a bike rider. My wife is a physical therapist who has worked many years in nursing homes. Once she had a young male patient who was there due to severe head trauma from an accident when he hit a turtle and was not wearing a helmet. Now I’d say it is just a fluke that he hit a turtle but that really doesn’t matter now. He is in his 30’s and is going to spend the rest of his life living in a nursing home.
No matter how good a rider (bike or motorcycle) you are there are just too many things that you have no control over and you just never know when there might be a “turtle” in the road.
Yes.
Always and for two reasons;
(1) I’ve seen my biking neighbor’s head, or what’s left of it, after he was life flighted following a crash.
(2) How can I expect my child to wear one if I first don’t set a good example.
Used to be a %50 of the time wearer (long time commuter and trail rider), until seeing the results of a low speed crash between two riding companions about 10 years ago. When the dust settled and scrapes were compared, I noticed a four inch gash in one of the guys helmets, he’d hit his head on the large chain ring of the other rider. Instead of finishing the ride and having a few beers, he could’ve spent the rest of the day in the ER with a severe laceration and possible skull puncture/fracture.
Knowing how I rode as kid and teenager (and still living despite the odds) I’ll make damn sure my kid wears one.
