I might remind everyone that this is a cycling forum. We really dont care about what happens to people walking riding horses skiing digging wells or playing tiddley winks.

There is a strong correlation between non-helmet use and fatalities. There is also a strong correlation between alcohol use, wrong way cycling, riding at night without lights, and various other behaviors and fatalities. The question is which of these perceived risky behaviors carries actual risk.

The population studies of helmet effectiveness in the wake of mandatory helmet laws are useful to help break out actual vs perceived risk. In such cases helmet use has increased substantially without a corresponding decrease in fatalities. So, we know that simply increasing helmet use doesn't have a significant effect on fatalities.

If you look at the Netherlands, they have low helmet use and still have relatively low (per hour or per mile) fatalities compared to the U.S. Many people balk at such a comparison saying that the Netherlands is special because they have legal protections, facilities, and a strong cycling culture that results in good safe riding practice. That would be correct, but nonetheless, it shows that widespread helmet use is not a precondition for safe cycling. Other factors are more important.

So, while it is true that in the U.S. not using a helmet is correlated with bicycle fatalities. It doesn't appear to be a causal relationship.

Speedo

My own personal arguement is based on part fact and part personal belief. Fact: A helmet reduces risk of injury or death. I say reduces, not prevents. Anyone who disagrees can look up any number of these facts anywhere on the internet or in written publication. It may be a 1% risk reduction or a 100% reduction in any circumstances, whether you are a cyclist, horse rider, parajumper or whatever. Belief: Its my belief that you cannot put a price on human life. If I spend 20 bucks on a helmet or 200 bucks, it doesnt matter, its a price in my opinion worth paying for that 1% or 100% reduction of possible injury or death.
None of us can predict whats going to happen a mile or a year down the road and whilst you may be a world class cyclist or a weekly commuter with all the skill of a 2yr old, accidents happen whether its your fault or not. For that reason, Ill spend my money on a helmet over a titanium bolt that saves me 9 grams anyday. Rant over.

The flip side, of course, is that no one really knows how anyone else rides either, so any suggestion regarding what kind of protective gear other people should use or ignore is unwarranted.

Too bad. This sentence largely contravenes the prior one. You really can't know the abilities of other cyclists. Perhaps they are perfectly capable of riding "where and how" you ride without significant risk.

Great. I don't have any helmets that show signs of "serious contact with solid objects". Should that be a reminder that safety gear is unnecessary?

I tell ya what helmet supporters. I don't have a helmet to wear. If someone would like to help me in protecting myself and in spending the word of helmet advocacy, heres what I'll do.

Send me one size large helmet, cause I have a big head, and not only will I gladly wear it but I will also tell others I know and meet about the importance of wearing a helmet while cycling. Otherwise,I may never buy one.

Check with your Health Care plan. Mine provides them, many health care plans do- check the fine print on your plan. If that doesn't work for you and you honestly cannot afford to purchase a helmet check with local bike advocacy groups and clubs, many of them have give away plans as do some municipalities- though usually for children.

I never said I couldn't afford one.

I guess I'd want to know how many bike crashes they have in the netherlands, and what types of bike crashes the have, compared to the US -- speed of the bike and any other vehicles involved in the crash, specific nature of bodily impacts sustained during the crash -- that sort of thing.

Otherwise, the correlation may be specious.

And you can trip and fall down the stairs too. Why wouldn't you wear a helmet for each use of a stairwell?

Well, that's kind of the point. They have all kinds of bike specific facilities, they have laws that are protective of cyclists and pedestrians, both of those things would improve their risk against getting smacked by a car, as a result they have low rates of fatalities relative to us. Places that just run up helmet usage don't seem to have a corresponding improvement in rates of fatalities. Places that do things to actually reduce risk have low rates of fatalities. Focus on what works, not what doesn't.

Speedo

I live in a 5th floor apartment...I use the elevator :P
And based on your logic, would you jump from a plane without a parachute based on that it only reduces the risk of plummeting to the ground rather than prevents it?

And I said "if".

But you were implying. I'm simply say that if people care so much about my head to tell me what I should do with it then maybe they should send me a helmet.

as much as I hate helmet/seat belt analogies - here goes...

if you don't wear a helmet on the stairs, but but do on the bike, it'd be like putting your seat belt on for a drive, taking it off after a block, continuing on with your drive sans-belt for many more blocks, only to put it back on for the last block.

Does that make a lot of sense?

if a parachute wasn't reliable enough to prevent hitting the ground without an injury I wasn't willing to accept, I wouldn't jump

In the US, according to the CDC, falls are the leading cause of traumatic brain injury:

http://www.cdc.gov/traumaticbraininjury/causes.html
http://www.cdc.gov/traumaticbraininj...ernalcause.pdf

But what speculation? The speculation we're mostly seeing in this thread is vague claims about what helmets are designed to or actually have done: it's either things along the lines of "a helmet prevented a head injury when I fell" or "helmets are only designed for zero-speed crashes like a pedestrian falling." The former can't be scientifically proven without an A/B test--which is obviously not possible or desirable--and the latter has been debunked in detail here by actually referring to the testing standards that state what helmets are designed for and how they are tested.

From the Dutch Institute for Road Safety Research:

Dutch cycling casualty statistics and the measures that have affected them:

http://www.swov.nl/rapport/Factsheet...S_Cyclists.pdf

and from the same Institute:

http://www.swov.nl/rapport/Ss_RA/RA47.pdf (lots of interesting data and articles contained within this publication, including a bit about external car airbags designed to protect pedestrians hit by cars!)

and, similarly,

http://www.swov.nl/rapport/Factsheet...le_helmets.pdf

Since there are no motor vehicles zooming up and down my stairs, with distracted cellphonehead drivers behind the wheel, your analogy does not make a lot of sense.

This thread would benefit from refraining from these diversionary, ad hominem arguments that speak to (or slyly attempt to belittle) a particular person's behavioral choices, and instead keep the focus on bike helmets and cycling. If the stance is pro-choice, why not let the other guy be and not try to alter or undermine his beliefs or practices?

yes, and by definition, a TBI can be "damage to the scalp"

Lets be clear (and I'm sure you understand my position on this), a helmet can help reduce or mitigate minor injury. I would think a reasonable person would consider "scalp damage" within that definition


the speculation of risk.

Risk is an inescapable fact of life. Managing it is the goal. Key to risk management is placing risk in context.

It's not that something can happen, it's how likely it is to happen.

Risks are almost always a matter of probabilities. Unless someone can tell me what level of risk is associated with a given activity, they have no business telling me it is risky. Once I understand the risk in context, then I can determine how I want to manage it.

Making a risk management decision without an idea of its context can lead to increasing that risk

they're hardly diversionary, quite the reverse.

Not sure how we got to the topic of scalp injury, but here's how the CDC defines TBI:

http://www.cdc.gov/TraumaticBrainInjury/index.html

i.e., more than a mere scalp laceration, but an injury that adversely affects normal brain function. According to the CDC, the leading cause of these injuries in the US is falls.

The problem is when people imply, contrary to fact (see the quotes and links in my posts over the last few pages), that helmets are only designed to or capable of mitigating minor injury. Both the standards themselves and at least some expert opinion speaks of helmets reducing the chance not merely of minor scrapes, but of "serious head or brain injury" or even death.

Well, there have been countless statistics posted in this thread suggesting levels of risk associated with cycling; it's not exactly terra incognita :) It's up to you to decide how to proceed. If you want to compare cycling with walking, stairs, bathrooms, etc. before deciding, great, but that's ultimately not the real issue here: viz., what are your chances of hitting your head while cycling, how can a helmet help, what laws should regulate helmets, etc. It's not about whether you or I think we should wear one or about trying to convince someone else that their personal thought process in adopting helmet use is flawed. That is indeed diversionary.

Please PM me your shipping address.

PS: reports of the helmet I'll ship to you not helping you on a regular basis will be discounted by my own observations of the times I've not worn a helmet and not died. What's the point of this exercise?

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

While I'm more than willing to grant your argument credence, by the same logic, why should a study or report regarding helmet use where there is a MHL in a place, half a world and culture away, have any relevance in NYC reportage?

No idiot drivers on a stairwell?

How many potholes or other instances of subtandard repair/maintenance caused by motor vehicles that might contribute to a TBI injury do you encounter on stairway? In a shower?