Originally posted by Merriwether
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I'm not saying any benefit that helmets provide can be provided some other way.
As I've said several times already, I'm saying that the expected benefit of helmets is low, not because they are redundant, but because the likelihood of a severe collision with one's head is not very high while cycling. Given what objective data show, the likelihood of a head collision while cycling is no greater than while walking near traffic, or riding in car. It's less than the risk of serious brain injury or death while swimming. Yet no one insists that you have to wear a helmet while driving, and no one insists that you must wear a life vest while swimming. No one says helmets or life vests are "necessary" for these activities.
But people, including you, do insist that you must wear a cycling helmet. It's very "important" to do this, you say. Well, I'm wondering just why it's so important to wear protective gear against this risk, but not the others. I've asked this over and over, and you don't respond. You keep acting as if you're replying, but in fact you ignore this point I've made over and over. In your last post, you say that I just think that you can provide all of the benefit of helmets with judo rolls.
I'm interested in what have to say about the actual benefits of helmets given a crash
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Mr. Merriwether.
Perhaps details of the experience I mentioned in my last post will help clear up some of the questions you raise.
I lived in the Los Angeles basin at the time, and had been doing touring rides with the L.A.Wheelmen bike club for many years with no serious mishaps. I biked to work about half the time, only about six miles each way. No problems, but I still used a helmet every time. It just came to be a habit, whether I needed it or not. I never expected to fall and hit my head, but it was no big deal to wear it.
I know you're thinking that anyone needs to wear a helmet riding in L.A. traffic no matter what. Well, my incident happened in the north part of Redondo Beach, on a residential street, with no moving traffic nearby. I was on my way to work. I did
*not* fall and hit my head on the ground, so that judo roll mentioned earlier wouldn't have helped. It was a sudden incident that can't be predicted.
I was trudging up a short hill, getting near the crest. I was near the right edge of the street and the coast seemed to be clear. I glanced down to the right as I was shifting to see how the adjustments I had made to the deraileur stops the night before were working out on a real hill. That was my big mistake, of course. I thought everything was clear, but hidden just beyond the crest of the hill was a parked van in my lane. I went head-first into the back of the van. Bent the fork and frame and the front wheel, and crashed the helmet and my clavicle. If the disintegrated helmet was any indication of what my head would have looked like without it, I wouldn't have survived without it. There was no warning, of course. If there had been any, the accident wouldn't have happened. If I were paying attention as I rounded the top of the hill, it wouldn't have happened either, but that's the reality of it.
So, if you compute "the likelihood of a severe collision with one's head," it happened once in over thirty years of serious bicycling, in my case. I guess that's about 0.001 of the bike trips I've made. So far the second helmet is still in good shape. So is my first head. I don't know how to get a second chance with that.
Best of luck in the lottery of life.