Ugh, I feel you; I got passed, cut off, and then brake-checked on Thursday by an impatient driver racing to get into the drop off line at the high school (like it's not embarrassing enough for the poor kid that his mom drives him to high school in America, but she has to have a collision with a cyclist in the entrance to the school parking lot as well). I did hit the minivan; slid into it while trying to stop and caught my front rack on the corner of her rear bumper. I went forward upon impact and took the handlebars in the gut, but came down on my feet and straddling the top tube. If anyone had said anything about me not wearing a helmet, I think I would've thrown my bike at them.

Not all urban cyclists ride in the same manner, and not all urban environments present the same risks; a blanket yes or no answer might be correct for some urban cyclists and incorrect for others. I know that this isn't what you want to hear, but in the absence of more conclusive data than what is currently available, I think that answer to your question is: maybe. Stupendously unhelpful, I know.

Risk compensation, by the way, is not completely up to the individual. When you consciously engage in risk compensation (Is the quicker trip worth the more dangerous route? All the time or just this one time? Should I ride home on this low tire, or walk home and pump it up when I get there? The rest of this route is too high for my bouldering pad to stop me from breaking my ankles, but the rest of the route is pretty easy, so should I go for it or climb back down?) you have a large degree of control over the decision. But your brain is performing risk calculations and compensating all of the time on a subconscious level. When you feel safer, the brain will ratchet down conscious attention levels in accordance to the amount of reduced risk perceived.

Like emotions and reflexes, the brain is constantly undergoing processes that make you you, but over which you have no control (freaky, ain't it). An example would be how the brain processes information from your eyes. Your eye, wonderful little camera that it is, takes in every bit of data available to it; it doesn't exclude data from any of the photons that strike it from the information that it sends to the brain. The subconscious brain, however, only sends some of that image on to your conscious brain. There is a level of evaluation of the importance of the data gathered by the eye that is sorted before you are aware of the data on a conscious level, and so you don't see some things that your eyes perceived.

A common experience among people in sudden and unexpectedly high stress/risk situations, e.g. car crashes or bear encounters, is that time slows down. Time doesn't slow down, but at the moment that the brain is aware of the sudden increase in risk, the brain ramps up the amount of environmental information available to the conscious mind. At that moment, people in these situations are so much more aware than they normally are, it can seem that the experience is stretched temporally, when in actuality it is increased experientially.

We all have this feeling that if we pay attention, we gather in all of the available information from our environment, when in truth we have much of that information edited out before we even know. Since this information was never available at a conscious level, we never know that we were missing part of the picture until the part that we missed suddenly becomes very important; if it never does then we continue believing that we are getting the whole picture. Such is the limitation of conscious experience, to be bounded not only by your senses, but by the amount of sense information that you consciously perceive.

Well, the whole truth is that anytime you fall and land on your head in a way that would cause injuries that a helmet would prevent, then you are better off with a helmet.

The questions, as always, are 1) how often do you fall and land on your head, 2) are you worried enough about the kinds of injuries a helmet can prevent, 3) what kind of injuries can a helmet prevent, and 4) what are your perceived downsides to wearing a helmet, and do they outweigh numbers one two and three?

Numbers one, two, and four can only be answered by the individual. Number three, of course, is a matter of significant contention.

Riding without helmet, turned into an oncoming van. Maybe he had insurance, or maybe he gave the finger to the doctor and hospital who put him back together, but hey, doctors are rich, right, they can do this for free.

(Warning - injury photo)
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d1...r/headcase.jpg

So the solution for people who turn into oncoming traffic is... Styrofoam.

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=227664

So this isn't you? Did you post this just to point out that it's possible to get hurt in traffic? I'd post some of the pics from my multiple bike/car crashes, but none of my injuries were pic worthy. Plus I didn't hit my head in any of them, although I did taco a couple of front wheels. Maybe I need to start riding with a cow-catcher?

And what about those who run into vans with helmets on and are just as injured as if they had no helmet on?

Nope, doesn't make sense for urban cyclists. Chances of injury are so small that the inconvenience of having to wear one and lug one around with me far outweigh the benefits.

If I'm going on a ride to the nearest watering hole after work on a B-Cycle and take a bus home, I don't want to have to deal with the helmet inside the watering hole and while at work.

If I'm going to ride to the grocery store, I don't want to have to deal with the helmet hanging outside in the weather, or carrying it around with me while going shopping.

If I'm going to ride to the movies with my wife, I don't want to have to carry the helmet with me inside the movie theater or leave it strapped on my bike outside in the weather.

If I'm going to ride to a coffee shop, I don't want to have to find a place on the table to set the stupid thing down.

These are all regular things that this urban cyclist does. It just doesn't make sense to me to wear a helmet for the few miles I'm on my bike when the chances of injury are very small.

Helmets can't prevent stupid moves in traffic.

Ya know ... we've all gotta be nuts going out in traffic on these things, helmet or not. I used to ride road bikes until a pretty nasty accident 14 years ago (helmet unscathed). The difference between then and now is that then I KNEW I was nuts - blasting down hills at over 50 mph on two little skinny tires and nothing between me and death if I miscalculated for an instant.

After not riding for about 10 years, I started again, just sort of tooling around to the store, trying to build a little exercise into doing errands. But it's STILL totally nuts. But I think it's finally starting to sink in that reality is different from the way things should be or the way I'd want then to be. There are laws that say my bike is a vehicle, and that I'm subject to the same rules and entitled to the same courtesies that a motorist is. But those laws don't make it true, and I'm learning that lesson a little more every single day. I find myself thinking it's ok to take a longer route that isn't as hostile, that just because I have the right of way doesn't mean I'm going to be allowed to take it ... we've all been there. I know - I'm beating a dead horse here. In the end, I'll do what I'm comfortable with, as will we all. An interesting argument, and plausible. I have no way of knowing whether it goes beyond plausible to true. I suppose I could overcome my uneasiness, take off the helmet, and see if I ride more defensively. As far as the motorists are concerned, I honestly don't believe my helmet affects them. The ones that pass me with a clearance of inches, or that attempt the right hook, aren't doing that because they think I'll be ok if they hit me. I half think they're hoping I won't be ok, so I'll never be in their way again.

A good friend of mine (who doesn't ride on streets, only basically deserted developments or bike paths), was trying to make me see this from the motorist's point of view (which shouldn't be that hard, given that I'm a motorist myself enough of the time). She thought that taking the lane and then plodding along at 10 mph on a 35 mph road that most people push to 45 mph is extremely inconsiderate and is inviting hostility. Asked me how I feel about people in cars that do that when I'm trying to get somewhere on time. Of course, where that line of thinking goes is that I don't belong on the street, and certainly not on that busy, 35 mph street. I don't like that conclusion. But I think it does describe how motorists feel about us. I don't think whether or not we're wearing helmets changes that at all.

Bottom line: I think I'm going to start going to a different supermarket - one in the center of town, on the main street, where even though there's lots of traffic, nobody expects to move fast. Helmet? I dunno - I'll probably keep wearing it, just because I have for so long it feels weird not to.

FIFY. Not everyone is inconvenienced by dealing with a helmet.

I don't know that it's any more nuts than driving a car in high speed traffic; I feel less at risk cycling around town on well selected routes with reasonable (to me) traffic speeds than I do driving down the Seward Highway at 65 mph with all the summer fishing and tourist traffic. And I think that the idea that I need pilot a 2 ton rolling box in order to get a few miles across town is nuts, and a culture where this is an accepted belief is also nuts; I feel more sane than most by cycling. And, symmetrically enough, I feel that cycling keeps me more sane by provided me with an enjoyable commute, which the car and the bus do not do.

Once you get used to it, you'll probably cease any increased defensiveness that you gained by making yourself feel more exposed. If you don't believe that the helmet is adversely affecting you, I'd say to keep wearing it.

Might be a good idea; definitely worth a try.

I don't buy it. Helmets aren't exactly convenient. Somewhere along the line, wearing a helmet is going to be an inconvenience. Whether or not you chose to deal with the inconvenience is up to you.

And they're not exactly inconvenient. Whether I perceive choosing to make a helmet part of a bike ride as inconvenient isn't really different than perceiving choosing to make a bike lock, backpack, or panniers part of my ride as inconvenient; all have varying levels of usefulness giving the purpose of the ride, and all are easier to leave behind than bring along.

Sure, it's all nuts. The number of traffic deaths, injuries and property damage we have every year are proof enough of that.

I'm not going to drive myself even more nuts worrying about it. I think the epiphany I'm having is that the roads really DO belong to the cars. I may have the moral high ground when I insist on riding on that 35 mph, busy road. But being too adamant about insisting on my rights will probably get me hurt. On the other hand, I'm not giving up riding, and intend to do more, not less of it, crazy or not. There are other roads to take. Maybe part of getting the hang of car-lite living is figuring out when to do what (like avoiding the school drop off and pick up times), and also figuring out what the best way to get there is. Cycling shouldn't add more stress to life.

As far as the helmet is concerned, yes - it's inconvenient. When I rode my road bikes just to ride, the rides tended to be MUCH longer, and I would only have to remove my helmet when the ride was over - I didn't have to deal with carrying it into stores, or restaurants, or the library. Didn't have to deal with helmet-head (what can I say - I'm a child of the '60s, and I still like to wear the hair that's left to me a little longer). I could get myself totally Fredded up to the nines, and not worry about having to walk around in public like that. So yeah - it's much more inconvenient now that I'm using the bike to do errands, and want to just look like just another person doing errands, rather than a cyclist doing errands, if you know what I mean.

But it's still just a minor inconvenience (to me). Honestly, dealing with my lock and the whole "making the bike secure" routine when I'm making multiple stops is much more inconvenient, as is finding a nearby lamppost or street sign. Overall, I'd say the wearing the helmet wins over not wearing it, for me. I still might like to get one of those dorky cycling caps, though, and put it on after taking my helmet off... :D (Though that might defeat the purpose of not advertising that I'm doing errands on a bicycle. ("Who's that sweaty man wearing the funny hat, Mommy?" "Oh, he's a cyclist, dear. He's saving our planet one pedal stroke at a time by not using his car to go pick up sushi.")

True that. The only reason I was riding by there at drop off time was that I was about 20 minutes later than usual, and as a consequence I was made even later because of the collision and ensuing conversation (which was surprisingly civil). But yeah, when I first went car-free I spent a lot of time riding different routes in my city, learning alternate ways and gauging the intensity and flavor of traffic for each. After a while you know where to go and where not to, and you don't have to think so much about it. It'd be nice to take the most direct route every time, but like you said, the roads belong to cars; I prefer to avoid roads where motorists are emphatically aggressive about this unfortunate fact, and roads where the speed difference can be significant life or death issue.

I find dealing with locks to be a minor inconvenience, but I've lost a bike due to being too lazy to deal with it, and that was way more inconvenient. On the incredibly rare urban rides where I bring a helmet and have intermediate stops, I just lock it to the bike. And when it's on my head I don't notice it at all (my current helmet, anyway; some previous helmets have been varying degrees of annoying when worn).

I've lost a few bikes that way, when I was much younger (grew up in NYC - getting your bike stolen was something that happened every couple of years). As far as the inconveniences are concerned, they're all minor in my book, and all entirely tolerable. I carry the helmet with me, though I guess I could lock it to the bike.

You guys are absolute morons, if you don't think this guy would have had a better outcome with a helmet, it's just crazy to think. I encourage you all to NOT wear a helmet, natural selection is a good thing in your case.

Seems to me that "natural selection" works best at weeding out the kind of morons that, say, turn in front of oncoming traffic. So on behalf of the human race, I have to say that I'm not too pleased with you morons trying to thwart Darwinism.

Nature obviously wants you dead. Do we really want helmet wearers living long enough to pass along their genes?

Well, he might not have had that nasty gash on the top of his head; he definitely wouldn't if hadn't turned into oncoming traffic and hit a van.

Our maybe not having a helmet on which could have caused greater rotational forces breaking the cyclist neck. So the temporary lose of a little skin and blood was better than a broken neck.

So who is the real moron, the guys looking at the facts for judgement or the guy looking at a picture to make his decisions.

:lol:

I'm relieved to see you that you are asking for opinions. Please keep in mind that, to the best of my knowledge (and do correct me and please state your verifiable credentials if I am wrong), no one who posts in this thread with any regularity qualifies as any kind of real world expert on this subject. No matter how many thousands of posts, no matter how confidently they state their "opinions" they are just that- "opinions" expressed by anonymous posters on the internet.

I've shared information posted in this thread with two highly qualified neurologists and one leading expert in sports injuries and concussions and all of them agree they wouldn't waste their time debating some of the fallacies that get perpetuated in this thread on all sides of the issue. However, the consistency in their "opinion", for what it's worth, is they all wear bike helmets when they ride a bike.

The elephant in the room of this thread is the on-going poll, where, despite all the posts and information that would seemingly contradict the choice, the large percentage of respondents choose to wear a helmet. Then count the posts in the thread and you'll see that the helmet skeptical posts far out number the posts by those who advocate the use of bike helmets.

It would seem that many riders, and certainly the vast majority who have voted in the poll, simply choose the bike helmet as one of several tools in an arsenal of things we do to be safe on a bike and then go out and ride- 'nuff said.

Despite the claims to the contrary the ones most obsessed with helmets in this thread are the occasional "helmet zealot" but more usually helmet skeptics desperate to justify their choice to not wear one.

No expert here, that's for sure - I was just asking questions. I don't even have an OPINION, at least not a fervently held one. And yes, I did notice that the silent majority of respondents wear a helmet either all the time when they ride, or at least some of the time. I'm in the group that wears it all the time, and have for the last 20 years or so.

What got me motivated to participate in the discussion were the assertions that a helmet might not only be useless for mitigating injury, but might actually do more harm than good in a collision. If that were proven to my satisfaction, I'd give up the helmet in a heartbeat. But while I've gotten some interesting plausibility arguments to support that view, I've seen nothing more than that. The statistics I've seen presented seem to make the case that wearing a helmet is at worst neutral, and is likely beneficial in some cases. And so I will continue to wear my helmet.

What separates a "highly qualified neurologist" from any other neurologist? And what is their opinion regarding emerging scientific opinion that moderate to significant brain injury is resultant from rotational force, which helmets do not mitigate, and not lateral force as had been previously thought? The fact that two doctors, smart as they must be to have become highly qualified in their fields, hold to an older model of belief in a field that is rapidly changing and growing doesn't prove much to me.

An appeal to the crowd does nothing to bolster an argument as true. Something like 6 out 10 Americans reject the theory of evolution in favor of the biblical account of creation. Where I live I might be lucky to find 2 out out 10 Alaskans who are willing to accept the possibility of global climate change, and less who would admit the possibility of anthropogenic climate change. Just because a majority of people believe a thing, in no way makes that thing true. For more examples, please look to the entirety of human history.

Believers in minority opinions might come across as "desperate", seeing as how they consistently reject the majority belief and end up constantly defending their own. But this doesn't make them wrong, just out-numbered.

and one can't forget, if the validity on numbers issue is on the table, that it's only in certain groups that helmet use is the majority.

Helmet use by cyclists is the minority position by far including in the areas that have the least amount of injuries to cyclists.

If the wisdom of the crowd is the issue, one can't select a certain portion of the crowd that isn't representative of the crowd as a whole and say that small portion is representative. If you did that, it'd end up looking like a couple of small case control studies that have favorable result from helmet use and think that it'd be representative of results if everyone wore helmets.

And we know that's not right.

True. That's why published, attributed information is worth much more than someone's report of what their friend (an astronaut) reputedly said about the dark side of the moon. Publications tie claims into real-life reputations. Anonymous reports by anonymous posters which claim variously, a) a helmet saved my life; b) some anonymous expert agrees that I'm right, are false appeals to authority.



Wow! Not just neurologists, but hightly qualifed ones! Not just an expert in sports injuries and concussions, but a leading one!

Please publish the names and titles of your "leading experts" with their approved, on the record, statements. I can dig out any number of neurologists, engineers, sports doctors who have researched the problem of concussion with helmets and come to the conclusion that a helmet which would do anything to mitigate serious injury is too large, heavy and vision restricting.

By contrast here is what happens when experts are actually _on the record_ :

1. As of the publishing date of this article he ran one of the UK's helmet testing laboratories:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=6685511

Well, helmet skeptics are usually the ones facing a problem with their choice. Helmet wearers have the freedom to do as they like without interference in general. Or are we oppressing you somehow?


Apparently for you, 'nuff has not been said. Not content with exercising your choice, you come back again and again to this thread.

So, according to you, you wear a helmet. You are not forbidden by law to wear a helmet and then ride at high speeds down hills on which you expect there to be deer. You can do what you like. No one has ever shouted at you to take off your helmet. When you travel to other countries you don't have to think about whether or not you need to wear a helmet there. You do not face a situation where many club rides or sportives mandate you to take off your helmet, despite your firmly held belief that it will prevent you from facing minor injuries.

Yet somehow, you feel a need to persistently, and over a long period of time, post on a thread in which all participants are willing members. Why is that? If I were looking for a definition of obsessed, or zealot, I think I'd be coming back for a further look at your behavior.