Originally Posted by
mconlonx
Look around at the people who are riding without helmets in the USA. Who are they? Majority are working poor, unemployed poor, DUI riders, etc. I.e. Those without a lot of experience on bikes, those who can't afford or can't justify the expense of a helmet, perhaps those unfamiliar with US traffic law. I'd bet a good percentage of those who die or are seriously head injured are wrong-way cyclists.
The bare-headers in this thread are very much an outlier minority in the US--experienced riders who consciously choose to not wear a helmet.
To that end, inexperienced cyclists probably make up the bulk of those who die or suffer serious head injury. They happen to be a subset of cyclists with disproportionately lower incidence of helmet use.
So figures indicating whatever-times the death and serious injury rate compared to helmeted riders is perhaps less about the protective capabilities of helmets and more about rider inexperience and social issues.
Well I can't disagree with what kind of riders get into most accidents, but I'm not talking the chances of getting into an accident, yes a more experienced rider can certainly reduce the chance of getting into an accident but those numbers represent the actual numbers of people getting killed because of head injuries, while riding, not the chance of getting into the accident... The only thing it says about chance is that it's at least 4.5/1 more non helmet users were killed in an accident because off head injuries... That is what I get out of those statistics... Now what is the margin of error? who knows, but a 4.5/1 ratio is huge, so IF you do get in an accident involving head injuries you will have a 4.5/1 bigger chance of dieing irregardless of skill if you don't wear a helmet...
