Herbie53

sense of mortality that seems to have come from age I suppose. Never wore one in college -- even in races when allowed.

Cracked mine 2 weeks ago whilst softening the fall for my bike in a wet, leafy corner.

waldowales

Bought one the week after I started riding again. Too many miles on motorcycles to feel comfortable without a brain bucket.

KrisPistofferson

I got in a MTB wreck and was really lucky just having my arm tore out of the socket. I bought a helmet in the early Nineties when it was still completely nerdly to wear one, but I've wrecked since I started wearing one and could have sworn I would have broke my skull if not for the helmet. If I take a short trip down to the store I''l usually leave it at the house, though.

pipes

common sense they never had them when I was a kid . they do now and I wear one now

mike

Years ago, I had an eccentric friend who chose not to own a car. He bicycled everywhere - enormous mileage. I think he commuted something like 45 to 55 miles or more a day if you included all his post-work activities.

After several years of feeling sorry for him, I finally decided to try bicycle commuting too. I asked his advice. He said, "Mike, no matter what, you have to promise me that you will wear a helmet. I thought it was unnecessary at first too, but I was hit by a car once and it saved my life".

For some reason, I made the promise to my friend and lived by it. I always wore my helmet.

Then, one day my front wheel locked up and I did an endo; head-over-heals. My forehead cracked right on the edge of a concrete curb. Fortunately, I had my helmet on which saved me from splitting my skull. I am sure that if I had not worn my helmet, I wouldn't be typing this right now.

Now, I wouldn't think of riding without a helmet. I shudder to think of riding no-hands and no-helmet in my youth.

aaronechang

For the first 30 yrs of my life I never ever wore a helmet when riding my bike. This includes riding through the neighborhood as a young kid, biking to school in HS with one hand while carrying a full-size violin (in a case) with my other free hand, and biking to class while I was in college. Back then, no one really wore helmets and the ones who did looked like complete dorks (or so I thought). When I got to college my parents would send me Bell helmets but they would just collect in my closet unused. Come to think of it - no one else I knew in college wore a helmet either.

I'm a bit ashamed to admit it now, but I think the main reason I didn't wear a helmet in college was because it wasn't fashionable. That - and I was too young/naive/immature to appreciate that the safety benefits of helmet use easily outweigh any helmet-hair / inconvenience. Nowadays - it seems like the vast majority of cyclists wears helmets (from the pros to the casual riders and weekend warriors). Helmets also look a lot cooler now than the mushroom bowls they used to make in the 80's and early 90's. I believe these 2 factors have done a whole lot to make helmet use quite socially acceptable now, to the point where people look at you funny if you aren't wearing a helmet.

The funny thing is - nowadays I could care less about looking cool or out-of-place. For increased safety, I actually choose to wear one of the rounded helmets (Bell Citi) instead of the racer-type helmets with a dozen vents. If you can believe it, back in college I used to wear a blue Houston Astros cap to class every day because I was usually too lazy to comb my hair in the mornings. It was always a challenge to keep it on my head since the wind would often blow it off. So yeah - I would wear that silly Astros cap every time I rode my bike but never wore a helmet.

Anyways, when I moved back to Houston about half a year ago I dug those old Bell Helmets my parents bought for me a decade ago and started to put them to use. About 4 months ago I got hit head-on by a vehicle making an illegal left turn. My wife was riding right behind me (I crossed through the intersection first, thank goodness). According to her, I went flying up onto the windshield, rolled across the hood onto the pavement. I say "according to her" because from my POV all I remember is a huge car grill in my face and then a few seconds later being sprawled onto the pavement. After the accident I ended up spending 6 hrs in the emergency room hooked up to an IV machine.

I'm not certain if the helmet saved me from death, but I definitely would not want to go through the same thing again without one. I'm just so glad I finally wised up and decided to wear a helmet BEFORE I actually got into a big accident.

Moral of the story - kids are naive/stupid and often think they're invincible. That's why they need parents to nag them to do things that are for their own good (like wearing seatbelts and helmets). I always thought my parents were being overly paternalistic (isn't that what parents are for?) by insisting I wear a helmet. Nowadays, there is no way I'd let my kids ride without one.

Newspaperguy

A guy I knew was in a traffic accident while cycling in Calgary about 14 or 15 years ago. He was in a coma for a while and had memory loss from the injury. It took him a few years before he was back to normal. At the time of the accident, he and his wife were expecting their first child. When he regained consciousness, he couldn't even remember having met or married his wife. It was a stressful time for that family.

When I got my helmet, a year or two before it became law in B.C., I noticed almost immediately that I seemed to get a lot more respect from the motoring public. That's been an added bonus.

JonathanGennick 

Blame my kids. When I got back into biking, I realized there was no way that I was going to get them to wear helmets unless I did too. So I did. There was an initial period in which I felt awkward and conspicuous. But that went by quickly.

I can't say that my helmet has ever saved me from "the big one". It has, however, saved me from some good head bumps that I would have gotten from tree branches.

aubinmg

I started commuting on the early nineties when my kids were just starting to ride their own bikes. We made them wear helmets so I had to lead by example. Shortly afterwards I got clipped by a clown in a pickup and was very glad to have the helmet. No exceptions since then.

Tinuz

Maybe that faceplant will do some good then!

I never wore a helmet until I moved to the US (3 months ago). They still make me feel very unsafe for some weird reason. It seems that the annoying bucket on my head breaks my concentration . My reason for wearing one is mostly the pressure of a friend who keeps insisting....the second reason is that traffic here seems....idiotic? I have been cycling in traffic since I was 6 and I have never had some many people 'oversee' me as in the past three months. I know that the helmet does very little...but very little is better than nothing, right?

The funny thing is, I went down twice because of potholes/different bike in the US (the roads are a f-ing disaster in this country!) and both times smacked my head....I very rarely did this back in the Netherlands without a helmet..But let's not get all anecdotal here. One thing though....I have some empirical evidence that your skull is much, much, much more impact resistant than any helmet...That is to say, when I was young I flew headfirst into a railing, without a helmet, at 40kph and all I got were some bruises (and of course the famous skull vs. curb). That is to say...when your helmet cracks, don't think your skull would crack.

One neat advantage is the good excuse for a bad-hair day

AndrewP

50 yrs ago I always wore a helmet when on my motorbike (Douglas Dragonfly). When I started cycling in the early 70s there werent any bike helmets available. When I was on vacation in Cape Cod in 1978 I noticed quite a few cyclists with Bell helmets. When I got home I started looking in the bike shops for a helmet and I bought one that was a bit more stylish than the Bell - it had an Italian sounding name.

bkrownd

I don't recall bike helmets existing when I rode my Scrambler 36/36 very dangerously as a kid up to 1983. By the time I got my first bike as an adult in 1994 helmets were common, so I got one. Simple as that. (Interestingly, for all the blood spilled from my knees and hands as a kid I never came close to landing on my head until I got my adult bike and ran into a car in traffic)

BarracksSi

Maybe you don't remember much because you rode so dangerously...

j/k

NorskeDivision

I always have, ever since I was a kid in the 80s. I've also always worn one while skiing, if it makes sense while cycling, it makes sense while skiing. Also the newer ski helmets offer nice insulation and protect your head from the ski lift bar.

There's a pretty strong selection bias here simply because there are no brain dead, dead or paralyzed people posting here who would have benefited from a helmet. For the most part, the only people posting here are going to be those who either do wear a helmet or do not wear a helmet and also haven't had a serious accident. There are of course a few lucky people posting who've had minor head collisions, that's going to be the minority though.

sknhgy 

Last August I hit a dog and broke my collarbone. I always wear one now.
About a month ago I was riding off-road and my head hit a tree and broke my helmet.
I was unscathed.

San Rensho 

Many years ago, I saw a newb in a race hit a curb at around 30mph, launch and go head first into a concrete abuttment. The crack of his helmet against the concrete made one of the most sickening sounds I have ever heard. He was in convulsions on the ground and I had to turn away, I couldn't watch. He was wearing what was at the time, the nerdiest helmet you could get, one of the first Bell "mushroom head" helmets.

I though for sure he would be severely brain injured, the hit was so hard. I saw him two days later at the local bike shop, his arm in a sling and some bruises, but basically none the worst for wear.

From that day on, I wore a hardshell helmet in races. Not the Bell, but a Brancale, which was similar to a hockey helmet.

closetbiker

Interesting to note just how many started to wear after seeing or hearing of some fall/collision/impact.

I based my use on what I thought were acurate representations of what happens to everybody. Not just me or someone I know.

Maybe I'm just more analytical by nature.

Laika

The second time I went over my handlebars as an adult w/o suffering so much as a scratch on my noggin, I figured I'd used up all my luck.

Newspaperguy

I think I would have started wearing a helmet even if I hadn't known someone who suffered a serious accident. Traffic on the highway can get rather intense in summer. The motorists are polite to cyclists but it just takes one accident to change things forever.

closetbiker

As I posted earlier, I hadn't, yet put the helmet on.

Things have changed up here 12 years after the law and wearing rates are down. I'm wondering if those anecdotal reasons have taken a 180. There's many stories up here about cyclists wearing helmets and are still suffering serious injuries.

Another interesting development is that there is now an entire generation who grew up with helmets. It's just the old guys who remember what it was like in the days before helmets, and as youth often do, some young people discount the older persons experiences.

pipes

My real reason was after working 5 yrs in a emergency room as an orderly in a major trauma unit at the time that would convince anyone .

closetbiker

https://www.networks.nhs.uk/uploads/0...and_health.pdf

https://www.cyclingpromotion.com.au/i...pr08V3prf1.pdf

BarracksSi

What the first link says about helmets:
The second one has the word "helmet" only once:

Not sure if either of these papers apply here at all, and they certainly have nothing to do with pipes's experience dealing with head injuries in the ER.

closetbiker

The obvious point made from linking these reports is (in the Australian reports summary),

"Risk-benefit analyses consistently report that the health benefits of cycling outweigh the risks by factors ranging from five to one, to 20 to one."

so if someone has an impression/ feeling/ understanding that cyclists are filling hospital ER's they could be mistaken.

This is in no way involves the helmet argument, it's to point out that cycling, on balance, keeps people out of the hospital, rather than put them in.

If I remember correctly the most frequent reasons for visits to ER's are, chest or stomach pains and fever. The leading causes for visits due to unintentional injury came from falling (bicycles exempted), motor vehicle collisions (bicycles exempted) and cuts. People riding bicycles do end up in Er's of course, but they make up a tiny portion of patients.

Comments like pipe's are what can be most charitably described as misleading and can been seen as harmful to advocacy because it's not an accurate picture of the health benefits of riding a bike.

I suppose I can see the helmet connection here. It could be made to be seen as a solution to the claimed problem but again, that would be based on perception, not reality and this thread is about peoples reasons for starting to wear a helmet and people have their perceptions. Pipe could have seen 10 cyclists in the ER and remembered them but he might not have remembered the 1,000 patients who were there that may not have been had they been riding their bicycle on a regular basis.

BarracksSi

So why are you posting them in a helmet-oriented thread?

And did you work alongside pipes in his trauma ward?