rydabent

Again the false assumption that people will ride less safe if they are wearing a helmet is false for one reason. As I have stated many times, the only time I am aware of my helmet is when I put it on, and take it off. I DO NOT ride along and keep thinking I have my helmet on so I can ride in an unsafe manner. I dont ride up to each intersection and think gee I have a helmet on so I can run that stop sign or stop light. I would suggest 99% of cyclist just like me DO NOT ride along thinking about their helmet all the time.

mconlonx

If you go back through this thread, you'll come across a marginal, inconclusive study indicating that risk compensation is not straightforward regarding cycling and helmets.

Riders who usually wear helmets, like you, ride safer when they ride without helmets.

Riders who usually don't wear helmets, don't ride less safe when they ride with helmets.

As regular helmet wearers, you and I would probably ride safer if we rode without them...

350htrr

That is not the same for me as when I do ride without a helmet I am always thinking slow down be careful, you don't have a helmet on...

rydabent

350

Riding helmetless and riding fretting and worrying about getting hurt dont seem like too an enjoyable ride.

mconlonx

But you'll ride safer...

350htrr

ryda, Thus I pretty well ALWAYS wear a helmet... Probably also ride faster too and have way more fun...

BikerBBC

I think this might be accurate for a short amount of time because you will be conscious of the fact that you do not have a helmet and you will be more aware of your surroundings, etc. But after you have gotten used to riding without a helmet, you would probably be riding the same as when you had a helmet - i.e. you would be riding no more or no less safe than before.

mconlonx

Could very well be. Makes sense.

But not anything the previous cited study examined.

njkayaker

Riders who usually wear clothes, will likely ride "safer" (more slowly) when naked.

Six jours

This is an illuminating post, in that it illustrates a key issue with helmets: the idea that they make you "safe" and that you needn't worry about "getting hurt" as long as you are wearing one.

Helmets make a cyclist slightly less likely to suffer head injury. They do very little to help protect against life-threatening head injury, and absolutely nothing to prevent other injuries ranging from a nasty case of road rash to a nasty case of spending the rest of your life steering your wheelchair with a blow tube. And that, really, is the point the "anti-helmet" people are trying to make: helmets don't make you safe. Where and how how you ride makes you safe. Or not, as the case may be.

So helmets, essentially, are foam and plastic security blankets, allowing today's cyclist to expose himself to danger without having to feel like he is exposed to danger. Or, perhaps most commonly, to expose himself to something that really isn't very dangerous at all (despite the reputation) and then claiming that his survival is due to the helmet.

Six jours

This is also illustrative, and brings to mind all the times I have seen and heard folks say things along the lines of "When I realized I had forgotten my helmet, I very carefully rode home to get it." IOW, I don't need a study to understand that many of today's cyclists view their helmets as "courage for your head" and would ride much more carefully (if at all) if they did not have helmets. This is a tragedy, considering how little real protection bicycle helmets actually offer, and probably goes a long way toward explaining why crashing is so much more common today than it was in the pre-helmet era.

Six jours

Short version:

Who is safer - the cyclist who understands his vulnerability on the bike, or the cyclist who thinks his magic hat makes him "safe"?

350htrr

You are lumping two things into one, Yes a helmet "can" be a "courage for your head" mentality, but it can also be an actual safety measure that can/does make some difference in the event of head bouncing off the pavement. How much of a difference is up for debate, but it's far from useless or worse than useless causing more harm than good as some people are saying... As for more crashes today than before helmets were common I suspect the ratio would be the same today as yesteryear, just that the reporting/record keeping of crashes has increased... JMO

Six jours

Well, I have never argued that a helmet is useless. I have only argued that a helmet is not nearly as protective as some would have us believe - in particular because cycling is not (or at least does not have to be) especially dangerous.

I also wonder if the appearance of more crashes is as simple as the fact that there are far more cyclists now than there were when I was racing. I do not have a good answer for that one way or the other, but I do know that today's attitude of "If you are not crashing every XXX miles you are not going hard enough" or "I expect to crash XX number of times a season" is a relatively new thing. Thirty years ago it was perfectly reasonable to expect one could go a whole season of racing without falling off - and crashing during a training ride was considered shameful, rather than a reason to brag about your latest scars.

Does helmet use have anything to do with any of that? I honestly don't know - but I do know that serious injuries (let alone deaths) were incredibly rare in the pre-helmet days, but seem common if not routine now.

rydabent

So--------------who here actually puts on a helmet thinking that I can ride dangerously and get away with it?

achoo

Where's the evidence that such people exist?

The fact that riders who normally wear helmets ride more carefully when not wearing a helmet does not in any way imply that riders who put on helmets start riding more recklessly.

That's one unsupported assumption.

Cyclists tend to either wear helmets or not. They also seem to me to ride the same pretty much all the time.

If you don't want to wear a helmet, fine. You're an adult.

But justifying not wearing a helmet by fantasizing that helmets don't really provide any protection is risible.

achoo

No one.

howsteepisit

But why would I care if rydabent rides dangerously and gets away with it?

mconlonx

This line is not supported by anything Six Jours has ever said...

gsa103

The death rate has fallen by 60% since 1970. https://www.cyclehelmets.org/papers/c2014.pdf
Fatalities were more rare simply because there were fewer cyclists, not that it was safer.

Six jours

In England.

Six jours

All over Bike Forums, for one thing.

I read that line, then thought about it a while. Then I read it again, and thought about it some more. Then I actually laughed out loud, because once thought through and thoroughly understood, it's an incredibly stupid thing to have written.

Agreed. And just as soon as you can point out where anyone here - anyone at all - has said that, I'll join you in making fun of him.

njkayaker

This is silly. It's a false dichotomy.

As far as I understand, people riding drunk, at night without lights, or "salmoning" are not wearing helmets more often than not.

(And the helmets are not causing the "safer" behavior.)

njkayaker

Skye is anti-helmet. So is closet biker (in a concern troll way). So was meanwhile. And anybody calling them "magic hats". People have short memories.

Six jours

This is BS.

You either like arguing against stawmen or you have comprehension issues.