maximushq2

To me these threads don't inspire me to get a helmet or not get one, they just get me to think about the choice, which is all I can expect.

maddyfish

My commute is .3 miles. A car has no passed me on my commute since August. I rarely see a car in either direction.

yoyostock

I've got a 1-mile commute along a bike/running path, but it's very dark. I wear a helmet.

I've also got a wife and two young kids...can't afford to have a freak accident, causing my brains to be spilled on that dark bike path.

Rob_E

The Ken Kifer article brings up some good points that I've also heard elsewhere. I wear a helmet for the piece of mind of people who worry about me, but I'm not convinced that any statistics have conclusively shown them to be as essential as our common sense tells us they should be. I pretty much coast down hill .5-1.0 miles to the bus stop every morning, often with my helmet on, but just as often with it attached to my trunk, where I put it so that I don't forget it. But then sometimes I do forget it, and that doesn't bother me, either. Truthfully, if I find I've forgotten it, I'm not sad at all because that means the ride home with the wind in my hair will be that much more enjoyable. I just don't mention that to my wife.

There's definitely some terrain and weather conditions where I would feel more comfortable with a helmet than without, but there's also situations where I don't mind not having it, or even prefer leaving it behind.

savethekudzu

I wear my helmet, under a little bit of protest, almost every day.
I used my helmet for the first time today.

I actually was thinking of wearing a baseball cap instead, due to a light drizzle that was getting on my glasses. But I wound up taking a spill on a MUP bridge and fell sideways; my head took the brunt of the impact, and the bridge surface took a good bite out of my helmet. Even so, I was stunned for a few minutes. I'm sure that without the helmet, I wouldn't have finished my trip. As it is, I didn't have any trouble finishing and continuing my day - but tonight or tomorrow I'm getting a new helmet.

No question.

jimisnowhere

Every crash I've had I've landed on my forehead. Buying new helmets is getting old.

DataJunkie

I land on my arms and wrists. Wrist guards would be a better choice for me. Still wearing my helmet.

cyccommute 

It ain't the cars that you need to worry about. I've been hit by a car...helmet never touched the ground. I have biffed 4 helmets, my wife has biffed one and my daughter has biffed one.

My 4? One was when I went off a water check, caught sweet air and forgot to hold onto my right handlebar. Went down on my right and got thrown over the highside and smashed my head on the rear left. Saw double for a few days over that one.

Another was when my dogs pulled me off my bike because one of them was deathly afraid of drainage grates. She stopped and I didn't.

Another was when I missed a corner on a street at a high rate of speed, caught a curb and did a perfect Greg Louganis on my head. Very, very nice layout with a pivot on my forehead, landing flat on my back.

The last one was when I was standing and climbing a hill on a miss adjusted bike. The gears slipped and I smashed straight into the ground.

Not a car in sight on any of these.

I'll keep wearing my helmet, thanks.

Neil_B

I'm unstable enough on a bike that sooner or later I am going down. I want the protection - I only have one head.

Pig_Chaser

That pretty much sums up my thoughts on helmet use. Although, now that i'm accustomed to wearing one, i feel naked if i don't.

ItsJustMe

I had my front wheel slip out on me rounding a corner and hitting an almost invisible patch of sand last year. No cars within a mile of me. I wound up with 14 stitches in the lower part of my face due to sliding along the pavement, and a dent and scrapes (and a crushed visor) on my Bell Citi. That saved me from at least a bunch more stitches farther up on my face, around my eyes (and possibly rocks in my eyes, there was a lot of loose gravel too) and possibly a concussion.

BigDaddyPete

I have a love/hate relationship with mine. I've never found one that's really comfortable no matter how hard I tried and they certainly don't do wonders for my hair. There are no points for style. But, I was almost hit last winter, fell off the bike evading the car, broke both my arm and my helmet. Head was ok, well at least as ok as it was before the fall. And the law states that my kids, 3 and 1.5 need to wear helmets, it's much easier to get them to wear them if I'm wearing mine. So I wear it, because my kids see me on the bike everyday, and there are far to many JAMs out there for me to risk it.

climbhoser

It's funny, but everytime I fall I use my helmet, sometimes more severely than others. Falls have seem an inevitability in my commuting, whether from ice, sandy roads or just being stupid and bold on wonky terrain (going WAY too fast on dirt paths with waterbars, for instance, cost me my AC ligament in my shoulder and a helmet).

I think if I felt like I could go my whole life and seriously not fall I'd put the helmet away. If all I rode were good, paved streets I might have such confidence, but I like to ride, man! I ride even when there's ice, even on dirt trails and I ride in any conditions any day! This means I'm going to fall. I've taken one big ice fall this winter, luckily at slow speeds, and I fell on my side sliding about 20 feet. My helmet bounced my head off the pavement like an egg in a hammock. Nice.

None of my incidents have been auto related.

Nicodemus

christ another helmet thread.

but hey, thanks for the stupid video!

hyper7pro

When will people realize that helmets are there to.... sell more helmets!

climbhoser

...to people who fall and hit their heads

And here we go! So, DJ, who won the beer?

DataJunkie

I always win the beer.

climbhoser

Oh yeah! I forgot the deal.

Navy_Chief

I wear mine every time I get on the bike. I know that in the right circumstances it is going to be completely useless, but the other 99% of the time it may save me from a trip to the ER to get yet more stitches (I have had enough of them over the years) or get patched up from another head injury. Can't we all just accept the facts on this issue and STOP DISCUSSING IT for awhile please....

Chief

closetbiker

not long

Maybe you should



according to a report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, falls were the leading cause of hospital injury admissions, seniors accounted for over half of these hospitalizations, falls were responsible for 80% of head injury hospitalizations in seniors and cycling accounts for only 2% of hospital head injury admissions. Women were admitted to Ontario hospitals for injuries from falls twice as often as men.

and from https://www.nsc.org/issues/ifalls/falquiz.htm

3) True or False? Most fatalities resulting from falls involve sporting events like mountain climbing or parachuting.

Answer: False. Fewer than 4 percent of falling fatalities involve sports. According to the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC), more people died as a result of tripping on a level surface than in mountain climbing.

4) What accounts for the most falls that result in death?

1. Ladders
2. Stairs and steps
3. Slippery tile

Answer: b. More falling deaths result from stairs and steps, according to the CPSC. Beds rate second,
while ladders are in third place.

5) If you're over 65, what are your chances of falling?

1. 1 in 20
2. 1 in 5
3. 1 in 3

Answer: c. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), seniors have a 33 percent chance of falling in any year. Older adults are five times more likely to be hospitalized for a fall-related injury than for other injury-related reasons.

and check out this

https://members.shaw.ca/jtubman/deadhelmet.html

me too

vrkelley

Helmets just don't keep up with what people need on the road so you'll see all sorts of helmet mods...blinking lights, glow-strips, strap extensions to accomodate hats...caps, liners you name it!

If they wanted to sell more helmets...sell people 2-3 helmets with the right stuff on-board
1 winter helmet...not as vented, waterproof, hi-vis and lights built in...decent mirror that doesn't bob
2 summer helmet...like most seen today...hi-vis built and lights built in ...mirror

closetbiker

oh yeah. I forgot.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/22358.php

Pediatrics carried a review of patients under age 19 seen by pediatric neurosurgeons at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta between 1996 and 2002.

Sixty four of the total of 2,546 head injured patients treated had sports-related injuries. Less than 1% (17) treated had cycling-related injuries. Fifteen were golf-related.

golfing apears to need helmets more than riding bikes

closetbiker

from
https://www.helmets.org/helmcost.htm

why would they bother with all those add ons (that cost money) when they sell lots at a production cost of about $5 - $10 each and get $50 - $200 + each?

can't really blame the manafactures for doing well can you?

closetbiker

and from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet

Are helmets needed?

Ordinary cycling is not demonstrably more dangerous than walking or driving,[10] yet no country promotes helmets for either of these modes (although there was an experiment in Japan with walking helmets for children, which demonstrated no measurable benefit).[11] Detailed analysis of hospital admissions data also fails to support the idea that cycling is unusually dangerous: a study in the UK found that the proportion of cyclist injuries which are head injuries is essentially the same as the proportion for pedestrians at 30.0 % vs. 30.1 %.[12]

[10] a b M. Wardlaw (December 2002). "Assessing the actual risks faced by cyclists". Traffic Engineering & Control 43: 352–356.

[11] Effectiveness of Wearing Pedestrian Helmets while Walking from Home to School, Tatsuhiro Yamanaka, and Arata Ogihara. Paper presented by Yamanaka at Melbourne Injury Prevention and Control Conference, February 1996

[12] Data supplied to CTC by UK Department of Health

cyclezealot

if its more than the front gate, I have my lid on.