Originally Posted by
closetbiker
well, if you keep on riding your bike, the odds of living longer will be in your favor.
As for that bad feeling at a funeral caused by a nagging guilt that a helmet might have made a difference, speaking from an area that does have an all-ages MHL, once you see helmeted cyclists die at the same rate as non-helmeted riders, you start to realize a helmet doesn't make a difference.
All the cyclists in my city that have died in the last 4 years were wearing helmets, and in the years since our MHL was passed, the exact same numbers have died post, as pre-law. The same numbers of helmeted have died as non-helmeted.
The express purpose of our law was to reduce deaths to cyclists. Since this hasn't happened, I'd say the law is a failure.
Yeah, but you mis-understand the power of the anecdote I experienced-- she was hit in the part of the head that a helmet would have actually protected. The damage was pretty bad, I think-- she was buried with a scarf around her head. I won't say helmet would have saved her, but it might have. Something like that sticks in your brain hard. Very hard. I can recall her in the casket now as I type this, very clearly.
You see something like that, it does make you think. Yeah, I wear a helmet almost all of the time now, I didn't before. I'm honest about the limitations, though, and recognize the real problem isn't helmetless riders.
Before my co-worker's accident, I was once stopped at a light and a woman in a Volvo pulled up next to me. She berated me for not riding with a helmet. I replied if she was truly concerned for my safety, she should stop driving her car. I'll stand by that.