What I don't understand is how people can believe that helmets don't help enough to wear one and even can cause some increase of risk because of a few studies/tests out there that concluded that and they stop wearing helmets... There are dozens of studies that say the total opposite, that helmets can save lives and reduce injuries, helmets certainly can't & don't save you from everything and in a VERY small % could make things worse... But really?

This is why the debate is so acrimonious. People like yourself simply cannot understand how others may have different points of view about whether wearing helmets is justified.

We all make decisions every day on where on the risk spectrum we want to be. Different people will make different decisions on the same things. I don't speak for others, but, without meaning to insult anyone here, I simply don't care whether others understand how I make my decisions. Not do I care or try to understand how they make theirs.

BTW- there are people out there who simply cannot understand how bicyclists are willing to put their lives at risk by riding in traffic.

This is invidious. It's that sort of thing that makes the "debate" so acrimonious.

Anyway, it's not the "different points" that he's commenting on. It's the common antihelmet position that possible/speculative problems with helmets must be true (and possible//speculative benefits must not be true). I agree that position doesn't make much sense. What's odder is that these possible/speculative problems disappear for for mountain bikers!

I disagree. I was simply quoting the persons words, What I don't understand is how people can believe that helmets don't help enough to wear one....., and commenting.

When someone says he simply cannot understand how someone could have a different opinion that his, then the acrimony has begun.

What I'm waiting to see is for more of the helmet proselytizers to change their tone and say things like "I totally disagree with you, but understand, accept and respect your decision". They can feel free to call me an idiot, as long as they couple that with acceptance of my choice to be one.

I don't ask for agreement, I only ask for respectful disagreement.

Let's try this again.

You aren't making an argument here. You are just insulting him.

It's possible that he's heard arguments and not found them convincing (but you don't allow for that, it seems). A lot of those kind of arguments aren't convincing!

Read his words,----- he saying he doesn't understand how people can not believe what he does.

One of the reasons this thread is so acrimonious is that people are dividing people into pro helmet and anti helmet. That's not a reasonable decision. Obviously folks who choose to wear a helmet are pro helmet to a degree, (though not necessarily pro mandatory use), but those who don't wear helmets aren't for the most part anti helmet. We're just not pro helmet, and that's a big difference.

I understand different points of view, it's the conclusion the non helmeteers have come to after supposedly reading most of these studies that confuse me... so far some of the reasons some people have given for not wearing a helmet...

1; Helmets won't save your life
2; Helmets can actually increase injuries.
3; I am such a good rider it would never happen to me.
4; Helmets are only good for bumps & scrapes maybe not even that
5; The 2 or 3 studies done that say helmets are useless are correct, and done right
6; The 12+ studies done that say helmets are usefull are incorrect, and done wrong.

The real reason I suspect, is that people are willing to take the chance of nothing happening to them because they assessed the risk and concluded that it was low enough for them to take the chance... But that's not what most are saying, definitely not earlier in this thread.

By the way I agree that If you are willing to take the risk and say that, then you should do what you think is best for you. But not to tell other people any of the 1 - 6 reasons they are really not good enough. JMO

No, he didn't say that. Read the rest of his words. What he said, in total, isn't unreasonable.

What he said (to paraphrase) he doesn't understand how people can believe a few studies saying helmets are bad and ignore the many studies that say they are useful.

You and I are on the same page. The helmet argument is a risk/benefit assessment, plain and simple. I can't and don't speak for others, but I've never wasted my time disputing the studies. To argue that wearing a helmet us useless is pointless, but equally pointless is arguing that only idiots and the reckless would ride a bicycle without one.

No, I'm whinging about you arguing minutiae that mean little to anyone outside your head.

Riding safely has little to do with helmets, more to do with experience.

PS: My reading ability is awesome.

Riding safely has nothing to do with helmets.

If we all go off tangent far enough the mods will close this thread. I think the mods got so bored with this thread they just decided to abandon it altogether and let the nuts play with the cuckoo's and see how far insanity can go, after all this whole thread is a great example of Einstein's definition of insanity on both sides of the argument. I wonder if the NSA cares about all of this?

F'the insanity idea... I am sitting here having a few brews... and a brain storm happens, OK maybe just a brain fart.... Anyways, the reason this thread is soooo long, and filled with acrimony is, that there is at least 3 different criteria being discussed here, at the same time...


1; The chance of your head hitting the pavement, bouncing off and retaining some sort of injury requiring a hospital visit on a normal ride per 100,000... 10% (made up number)
2; The chance of your head hitting the pavement, causing some sort of injury requiring a hospital visit on a normal ride... 50% of the 10% ( made up number)
3; The chance of the helmet saving you from some sort of "major injury" once said head hits the pavement on a normal ride... 10% of the 50%( made up number)

1; 10,000 people actually hit their head a year.(made up number out of 100,000)
2; 5,000 people actually visit the E-R with an injury.
3, 500 people actually have some kind major or even a debilitating injury, (or die).

Thus, the kind of thinking the non-helmeteers have of... Oh, it's only 0.5% chance of me needing a helmet... And there is a greater % chance of injuries doing other things so I don't need a helmet... That is the kind of thinking the allows people to take chances like not wearing a helmet... BUT 500 people still could have used a helmet to reduce the injuries they got.... And you could be one of the ones that could have used the helmet to reduce the injuries...JMO

Yeah, you've got a point. But it's perfectly possible to be pro-helmet (even if it's just vaguely) without being a whack job, so I probably should have clarified my definition of "pro-helmet".

At any rate, maybe I haven't been paying enough attention, but I was kind of surprised at njkayaker's recent rabidity. I always thought he was a bit more moderate than that and was wondering if some not-too-bright relative was using his account without permission.

Fine. Nobody is telling you not to wear a helmet, if you think that 0.5% risk is worth mitigating. The argument is simply that the rabidly pro-helmet camp (the folks who feel good about yelling at helmetless strangers on the bike path and posting things like "you're an idiot if you don't wear a helmet" on internet forums) are completely ignoring all the other 0.5% risks that they take on a daily basis.

So to be consistent, you lot need to either A) be complete A-holes about all sorts of routine "risks", or B) quit being such complete A-holes about this particular "risk".

Excellent six jours, excellent.

Actually he doesn't have a point when he called me a fanatic because he just likes to piss in peoples arse wholes. I've said repeatedly, if you dare to read back through all 270 boring pages to find them, that I didn't care if someone wants to wear a helmet or not, just as I don't care if people wear seatbelts or not...does that sound like a fanatic? He can't accept the fact that the overwhelming number of studies proved that wearing helmets have some value in protecting one's brain. Mconlonx has a problem, he doesn't comprehend what he reads well at all, he's probably some middle school kid who found a forum he can hang out with and tell everyone he's an adult...wait, I take that back, most middle school kids comprehend better than he does, and this is why he keeps going over the same mantra that I'm a fanatic because he doesn't have the intelligence to read or understand what he reads the way I know you would if you read my posts.

..."whack job" is so hurtful. I prefer to think of myself as "eccentric" and "unique".

... I think maybe you just don't know how to wind him up.

.
.
...what the hell happened to meanwhile, anyway? He was very entertaining.

This whole thread is what happens when you cross a Bulldog with a Shi(t)su...

Ad hominem.

He kept calling people stupid and got banned for a while. He didn't return after the ban expired.

It was quite amusing when he accused a poster here of being a transsexual who was making up stories to get attention. Search for "ladyraestewart" in an older helmet thread.

May I point out even tho it is a remote possibility that even a scratch under some circumstances could be fatal. These days an infected scratch with bacteria that are resistant to drugs can develop into life threatening or life taking incidents.

BTW besides being against MHLs I have never yelled at anyone to wear a helmet. I have complemented young kids with their parents that they are wearing a helmet.

Thank you for confirming my hypothesis... You zeroed onto the 0.5% and concluded, that the chance of needing a helmet is low enough to not wear one. I zeroed in on the 500 people who certainly could have used a helmet, thus deciding that I should wear a helmet as a last resort/line of defence.... That, I suspect is the major difference between people who decide not to wear helmets and people who decide to wear a helmet... JMO

Mconlox is one of the very few posters here who takes a middle ground and doesn't allow himself to be boxed into corners defending increasingly nutty arguments. In fact, the only knock against him that I can think of is that he doesn't have enough sense to stay out of this thread.