# Why have bike helmets become mainstream? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 11, 2009, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-bike-helmets-become-mainstream/485402 "2009-02-11T18:38:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![No\_Wikipedia\_Cites](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@No\_Wikipedia\_Cites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/No_Wikipedia_Cites)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-bike-helmets-become-mainstream/485402/1 "2009-02-11T18:38:16Z")
Back when I was a kid, nobody wore helmets, and even our protective suburban parents said nought of it. Yet now even big strong adult men wear what to me seem ridiculous little styrofom hats. How did this safety device become so socially acceptable? I never see anyone NOT wear a helmet now, but back in the day I never saw anyone wear one. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-bike-helmets-become-mainstream/485402/2 "2009-02-11T18:48:08Z")
Back when I was a kid, most office workers thought nothing of smoking a packfull in the steno pool. Many municipalities passed laws requiring children to wear helmets (and many outlawed smoking in public buildings) but changing societal wisdom has a lot to do with it as well. ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-bike-helmets-become-mainstream/485402/3 "2009-02-11T18:54:34Z")
nevermind ---
**Author:** ![jk1245](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/49beb7/32.png) [@jk1245](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jk1245)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-bike-helmets-become-mainstream/485402/4 "2009-02-11T18:56:38Z")
Same thing with seat belts, really. In addition to the laws enacted, people just came to the realization that it was a good idea, and didn’t really cost you anything or hamper your lifestyle in any way. ---
**Author:** ![JoelWhy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@JoelWhy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelWhy)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-bike-helmets-become-mainstream/485402/5 "2009-02-11T18:58:26Z")
I knew an experienced bike who was riding extremely slowly in a parking lot. Somehow, she lost control and landed right on her head. She was fine, but her helmet was split down the middle. I’m no safety nut, but yea, I’d definitely make my kids wear a bike helmet. ---
**Author:** ![Busy\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@Busy\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Busy_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-bike-helmets-become-mainstream/485402/6 "2009-02-11T19:31:44Z")
Changing attitudes to health and safety in society at large are probably the main drivers. Professional cyclists on the road didn’t used to wear helmets, now it’s mandatory in the Tour de France. A minor contributor could be that mountain bikes are popular nowadays - my WAG is that they sell more than road bikes. Either way, they must account for a substantial proportion of bike sales. That the sport of mountain biking requires a helmet is intuitively grasped by all - even the type of cabbage who wouldn’t be inconvenienced by brain damage from a crash on the trail. Although everyone who buys a mtb doesn’t hit the trails in anger, there must be a lot of helmet sales from bike shops on the back of mtb sales. ---
**Author:** ![Cagey\_Drifter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@Cagey\_Drifter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cagey_Drifter)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-bike-helmets-become-mainstream/485402/7 "2009-02-11T19:39:36Z")
It turns out that recent medical studies have shown that taking a powerful blow to your head can cause brain damage and death. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-bike-helmets-become-mainstream/485402/8 "2009-02-11T19:39:51Z")
> [@sassyfras](#): > > Back when I was a kid, nobody wore helmets, and even our protective suburban parents said nought of it. The same protective suburban parents that let us… - Ride around in the car without seat belts? - Play with Jarts? - Run around the neighborhood unsupervised all summer long? As others have said, over the past few decades, societal views on appropriate safety precautions have changed. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-bike-helmets-become-mainstream/485402/9 "2009-02-11T20:22:32Z")
When i was a kid, i rode everywhere. My friends and i were on our bikes for hours at a time; they were like an extension of our bodies. None of us ever wore a helmet, and sometimes i marvel that we managed to make it through to adulthood without at least one of us splitting his skull open on a road or a tree or a power pole. I would not, as an adult, even consider riding a bike without a helmet. When i was a kid, we lived in a sub-sub-urban area, where there was very little traffic, wide roads, and lots of bush and parks and trails. My friends and i at least had the advantage that, if we came off our bikes, the most likely reason was rider error. As an adult living in the city, any riding i’m likely to do involves negotiating multi-lane roads with parked cars and all the other hazards of modern motoring. You can be the most careful cyclist in the world, but you can’t predict what other people, especially people in cars, are going to do. A couple of months ago, i was out for a run, and as i approached an intersection i saw a car stopped in the middle of the intersection, and a bicyclist sprawled out on the road next to his bike. It was clear to me, even before i asked one of the bystanders, what had happened: the car had made a left turn across traffic, but had not seen the bike in the oncoming bike lane. As the car made the turn, it hit the bike broadside and knocked the rider over. Luckily for that guy, he had a helmet on. The very, very minor inconvenience of wearing a helmet is, for me, far outweighed by the added safety. And the rise of the helmet among bike riders suggests that many people feel the same way. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-bike-helmets-become-mainstream/485402/10 "2009-02-11T20:38:17Z")
Helmet use is not nearly universal in my area, but it’s getting better. I’m encouraged to see more small children wearing helmets, but still discouraged by the number I see wearing them _incorrectly_. The most common error I see is the helmet slouched toward the back of the head, but sometimes I even see them sliding off sideways. People still really need to be educated about the importance, not only of wearing a helmet, but also of wearing a _properly-fitted_ helmet. Parents, a bike helmet isn’t like a pair of jeans - you don’t buy it with the idea that your kid will “grow into it”. It needs to fit properly _now_. A helmet also does no good if you haven’t fastened the chin strap. All of that would be addressed if people bought the helmets in bicycle shops where a trained salesperson could explain proper usage. Unfortunately, I suspect most children’s helmets are purchased in the same big box store that supplied the bicycle. I very nearly wrote Hillary Clinton a nasty letter when Bill was still President, after seeing a photo of her riding a bicycle with her helmet all the way to the back of her head. “Providing a bad example for those children you claim to care so much about, you!” Alas, I just sighed as I realized it was a “photo op” and it was probably an ignorant AP photographer who wanted the helmet out of the way so that her face would be more visible. ---
**Author:** ![Dahu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dahu/32/3416_2.png) [@Dahu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dahu)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-bike-helmets-become-mainstream/485402/11 "2009-02-11T20:44:51Z")
Just though I’d weigh in here with the other side of the coin. I do a lot of cycling, and personally, I don’t like wearing a helmet. I don’t wear one in a car or while I’m walking or running, and I think it should be down to individual preference. On the face of it, it does seem obvious that helmets offer protection, but there are some arguments against this. [Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet)has an interesting article. A selective quote: > [@](#): > > Overall, cycling is beneficial to health – the benefits outweigh the risks by up to 20:1.[24]. To cycling activists, the major problem with helmet promotion is that in order to present the idea of a “problem” to match the solution they present, promoters tend to overstate the dangers of cycling.[25][26] Cycling is no more dangerous than being a pedestrian.[27][28] A UK opponent of compulsion has pointed out that it “still takes at least 8000 years of average cycling to produce one clinically severe head injury and 22,000 years for one death.”[29] Ordinary cycling is not demonstrably more dangerous than walking or driving, yet no country promotes helmets for either of these modes.[30] “The inherent risks of road cycling are trivial… Six times as many pedestrians as cyclists are killed by motor traffic, yet travel surveys show annual mileage walked is only five times that cycled; a mile of walking must be more “dangerous” than a mile of cycling…” The proportion of cyclist injuries which are head injuries is essentially the same as the proportion for pedestrians at 30.0 % vs. 30.1 %. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-bike-helmets-become-mainstream/485402/12 "2009-02-11T20:48:23Z")
Another factor leading to the increase is that helmets have become a _fashion accessory_, with dozens of colors, types, & styles. So bike stores have a greatly expanded inventory of them to choose from. And they carry a much higher profit markup for the stores than the bikes themself. So you have all the bike store sales clerks just automatically assuming that the bike buyer will also get these accessories, and leading them to the display of helmets, and asking them what color & style looks best on them. Plus selling them matching knee pads, and fingerless riding gloves, and spandex biking shorts, etc., etc. The whole industry of bike shops is pushing helmets (and more) to bike buyers, which has a lot of influence. You also have many of the stars of the biking contests or tournaments producing their own line of helmets & accessories. People (especially young people) buy the helmet endorsed by their biking hero. (And the fact that all these stars war helmets on the televised events reinforces the idea that wearing a helmet is ‘cool’.) ---
**Author:** ![Busy\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@Busy\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Busy_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-bike-helmets-become-mainstream/485402/13 "2009-02-11T21:14:56Z")
> [@Dahu](#): > > Just though I’d weigh in here with the other side of the coin. > > I do a lot of cycling, and personally, I don’t like wearing a helmet. I don’t wear one in a car or while I’m walking or running, and I think it should be down to individual preference. On the face of it, it does seem obvious that helmets offer protection, but there are some arguments against this. [Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet)has an interesting article. > > A selective quote: The helmet debate is very unbalanced because what opponents are really arguing against is nanny-statism - at least that is how things go here in the UK. Some people get exceptionally wound up by the government telling them what to do, and see a potential ruling of traffic law making bicycle helmets mandatory as a possibility in the near future. I have sympathy with this position, it would be the act of a nanny state to make bike helmets compulsory. That’s no excuse for the proselytising and untenable argument put forward around helmets not protecting you on a bike, though. Or as is sometimes trotted out - helmets actually increasing your chances of injury in an accident :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-bike-helmets-become-mainstream/485402/14 "2009-02-11T21:20:24Z")
I’d really rather not have to, but it is safer. And hey, if this guy’s gonna wear one and risk ridicule, I can hardly refuse: [http://www.usmagazine.com/files/obama-bike-b.jpg](http://www.usmagazine.com/files/obama-bike-b.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-bike-helmets-become-mainstream/485402/15 "2009-02-11T21:39:27Z")
You can get serious injury or death with a bike head injury and helmets prevent a whole lot of those injuries. Falling off a bike and hitting your head on something hard is a a high probability injury compared to many other things. ---
**Author:** ![Ponderoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponderoid/32/19221_2.png) [@Ponderoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponderoid)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-bike-helmets-become-mainstream/485402/16 "2009-02-11T22:57:28Z")
I ride in city traffic. Best reason I have for wearing a helmet: As a mount for a mirror. I hate hate hate having to look down at a handlebar-mounted mirror. It’s awkward to keep looking down all the time, and it shakes too much. My head is a much more stable platform. \*\*\* Ponder ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-bike-helmets-become-mainstream/485402/17 "2009-02-11T23:10:59Z")
18 months ago a co-worker got hit by a car while riding his bike. He didn’t wear a helmet. My co-worker was at fault and the car driver didn’t do anything wrong; in fact he picked up co-worker and drove him to the closest E.R. My co-worker was in a chemically induced coma for 2 weeks, went through extensive plastic surgery and is still not fully himself. He candidly admits that he loses his temper for no reason, that his relationship has taken a lot of strain, though they still survive as a couple and family. All in all, having seen what a simple accident at low speed can do, I’m certain I’ll never ride a bike without head protection again. And there are models with flames now. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-bike-helmets-become-mainstream/485402/18 "2009-02-11T23:17:56Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > I’d really rather not have to, but it is safer. And hey, if this guy’s gonna wear one and risk ridicule, I can hardly refuse: [http://www.usmagazine.com/files/obama-bike-b.jpg](http://www.usmagazine.com/files/obama-bike-b.jpg) And he’s wearing it correctly! /applause ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-bike-helmets-become-mainstream/485402/19 "2009-02-12T01:28:17Z")
> [@Busy\_Scissors](#): > > The helmet debate is very unbalanced because what opponents are really arguing against is nanny-statism - at least that is how things go here in the UK. It’s not just this. Helmets are compulsory here. I get a newsletter from a cycling organisation that lobbies for more cycling etc and they do surveys. There are a lot of people who say that one of the things that puts them off cycling here is the need to wear a helmet. Some people are very conscious of how they look. Helmets are uncool. They mess up your hair. Etc. ---
**Author:** ![Snnipe\_70E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@Snnipe\_70E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snnipe_70E)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-bike-helmets-become-mainstream/485402/20 "2009-02-12T04:18:37Z")
> [@sassyfras](#): > > Back when I was a kid, nobody wore helmets, and even our protective suburban parents said nought of it. > > Yet now even big strong adult men wear what to me seem ridiculous little styrofom hats. > > How did this safety device become so socially acceptable? I never see anyone NOT wear a helmet now, but back in the day I never saw anyone wear one. People got wise. I use to commute on by bike. Did not think a helmet would protect me from a car hitting me. I figured their speed would wipe out the advantage of the helmet. Dumb Dumb. I forgot about my own speed! I was traveling about 18 MPH when a car pulled out in front of me. I plowed into the front fender. Flew through the air hit the hood head first split the skin about 7 inches. That was 29 years ago. My wife tells me I had a personality change. My short term memory is still short. For over five years I could not read a menu, could not remember what I had read. some mistaked because I forgot to follow safety procedures almost cost me major injuries. some times I can nor remember how to spell simple words. A broken arm or other bone can be painful really painful, but it will heal. Maybe cause you problems latter in life. But scrambled brains, does not hurt, but it is really hard to live with. I still would have been hurt, but not as bad. If you ride on the street use one. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-have-bike-helmets-become-mainstream/485402.md?page=2)