closetbiker

Because you're not understanding the nature of an individuals experience to that of a groups experiences, what you're doing is wasting everyones time.

electrik

Wrong, you're using the term anecdote to dismiss actual common scenarios. Get real... go ahead and lie to me i don't care because facts are facts. If you want to tell me people don't split their scalps open when they land on them I am ready to laugh.

Do you wear no helmet to feel free? How will you feel the wind in your hair or the helmet when you can no longer feel the top of your head because the nerves were torn to ****.

Six jours

So, electrik, if I post a picture of a cyclist with massive facial injuries, does that mean you'll wear a full-face helmet?

electrik

Maybe - I certainly won't sit here and tell you that is anecdotal evidence.

Further, the choice to not wear the full-face helmet is not a condemnation of all helmets - because i know where your little brain is going.

closetbiker

and this is what you're not getting. It's not common to receive head injuries on bikes any more than it is to receive them off a bike, which is, not not common.

Here's another link you won't bother to read, but I'll provide for you anyways.

electrik

I'm through reading your links they're all awful. I told you head injury is common enough to make me and many others take it seriously. You anti-helmet guys are a bunch of jokers who've just got ****ing lucky. Look at the odds and think about that.

I pray your luck does not run out because eventually you will be caught without and it will be shocking for you.

Six jours

Well, CB, on behalf of Americans everywhere I recommend you sue electrik for defamation of character. At the very least, your government ought to be able to force him to remove his "location" tag.

electrik

? Utter nonsense. Why don't you already post the pictures you threatened to... you know the ones of the guy who crashed without the FF helmet. The ones that show what a helmet can protect against...

Hippiebrian

That's it right there. It's just not common enough to recieve head injuries while cycling to require protective gear. For me, any other arguement is moot. I don't wear a helmet walking, showering, or mowing the lawn. I don't wear one when climbing a ladder (where the incidence of head injuries is actually higher than in the shower). And I don't wear one while bicycling.

It really isn't that dangerous. Period. It is more dangerous to not cycle, and if we want to promote cycling to a horribly obese and oil addicted nation (and increasingly, world) we have to let them know that. It is more dangerous for an obese person to not cycle than to cycle without a helmet. Period.

electrik

You should be very careful taking any study he posts, there is a selective process going on such that only a study which shows an anti-helmet bias will ever be posted. Secondly head injury is NOT like scraped elbows or broken ankles - it is to be taken much more seriously. Nobody is saying it's as dangerous as driving without a seatbelt, but it's up there if you get into a crash.

Lastly there is NO dichotomy here, it isn't helmets or no cyclists. Don't be lead to believe that.

Hippiebrian

Too much time is spent these mitigating extremely unlikely injuries. Kids don't climb trees any more. Parents are afraid to let their kids play out of their sight. People are advocating putting helmets on everyone who rides a bike. Jungle gyms are non-existant. Kids in school aren't allowed to run unless they are in gym class, and sometimes even there they aren't allowed to. If any of these activities were a 100th as dangerous as people these days seem to think they are, there would be no one alive over 40. These things didn't kill or injure enough people to even really consider statistically.

What's killing people these days is inactivity, and a lot of that is due to the percieved dangers of certain activities, like cycling. In reality, it is more dangerous, by far, to make people believe that physical activity is so dangerous it requires special protective equipment than it is to promote them getting out there because what's really killing them is the sitting and eationg Cheetos. Expodentially more people die from heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and hardening of the arteries due to obesity and inactivity than are even injured on a bicycle. Then, when you consider just head injuries on bicycles, the numbers are so low as to be statistically almost non-existant.

What I'm saying here is we need to focus on what is really injuring people (inactivity) and quit trying to make something so benign as cycling look like it is extremely dangerous. It isn't. In fact it is one of the safest activities I engage in on a daily basis. Let's make it fun again!

electrik

It never stopped being fun and helmets don't ruin fun. People like those anti-helmet guys(you?) here make it a HUGE deal out of something that just isn't.

Further, nobody is saying cycling is extremely dangerous, but if you engage in an activity long enough you will face those sorts of injury a helmet can prevent and you want to prevent head injury -trust me.

Lastly, head injuries are not statistically non-existent, whatever that means. It sounds pretty convenient and just you try telling somebody who has suffered one that.

chasm54

Do you wear one while driving your car? Exactly the same argument applies. Or when walking around? Ditto.

If you engage in any activity long enough you will die while doing it. That doesn't mean it requires protective clothing. If we try to eliminate all the tiny risks we run, our time will be less enjoyable and our health almost certainly worse than had we simply got on with being active, risk-taking people. One person in a thousand will avoid a severe head injury while the rest of us live shorter, less healthy, more miserable lives.

And that is without even considering the fact that evidence suggests that helmets don't make much difference to whether cyclists get hurt or not...

sudo bike

Why do you immediately assume I've never had such an injury?

I've had a pretty serious head wound... from an accident in a pool with a diving board. Lots of stitches, still have the scar. Trust me, I know it hurts like a mother. I also know the way the scalp functions helps mitigate brain damage in the kind of accidents occurred in cycling. It aids in sliding across the pavement moreso than a helmet does, especially the touted comfortable vented variety, which tends to "catch". Why do you think they are trying to copy this in new helmet designs? For funsies?

Lessee... brain damage, ripped scalp.... brain damage, ripped scalp. Yeah, I think I'll take the ripped scalp. That's a lot less debilitating than brain damage.

I-Like-To-Bike

Yeah, sure! Based on your simple minded posts on this thread about bicycling risk and helmets I trust that your posts on the subject can be dismissed as know-nothing nonsense.

closetbiker

and I suppose if I told you you couldn't drive your car to Tokyo from Vancouver you'd say I'm anti-car as well?

It's at least as important to understand the limits of something as it is to understand what it is that the thing can do.

closetbiker

the funny thing is, I live in a province that forces people to wear helmets and he lives in one that rejected such a law.

It's zealotry like his that had our law passed, and reason that prevented such a law being passed in his

FastRod

I wear a helmet occasionally and I usually don't for example when I ride to school or take a cruise on the bike paths or go for a slow bike journey. I probably would when I ride on busy roads and stuff, to me it's a feeling thing. I don't see why people should force others to wear a helmet or not, I don't see why there is so much hate. It's the person's choice at the end of the day. I'm pretty sure you can die while wearing a helmet too as well as die without one and same for on and off the bike. I've had my accidents rolled over the bars, road rash on my knees due to tire skids and such but nothing major. I think riding with caution is way more important, better to prevent than to be in an accident. It's my own opinion, other's have their own of course and I respect that.

closetbiker

There is a contingent of people who think riding a bike will most surely result in a serious head injury, and that wearing a helmet will most surely prevent such an injury.

There is opposition to this of course. That opposition says cycling doesn't result in head injury nearly as much as the others say, and the use of helmets have shown they have had little, if any effect on reducing the few head injuries people on bikes receive.

There is an added element of bicycle bashing here as well. Riding bikes improves health, environment and safety, it doesn't threaten it, but promotion of helmets relies on showing cycling as dangerous, something it is not. Cycling is beneficial, helmet promotion says it's dangerous, thus the advocacy angle of the debate.


You're not alone in your opinion. Prevention is superior to mitigation.

Six jours

Once again I note that the ferocity of the helmeteer is often inversely proportional to his bike handling ability: "I crash all the time so you need to put on a helmet".

chasm54

Interesting. Given that you're in Australia, do I assume that the helmet law is not really enforced?

closetbiker

While I don't have stats in front of me right now (where did I file them again??), I believe the usage rate of bicycle helmets in Australia is around 68%. The Northern territory has an exemption from the law if the cyclist is not riding on the road.

This is a far cry from New Zealand (or the Capital district of Vancouver Island, BC) where there is vigorous enforcement and usage rates of over 90%.

Many areas that have helmet laws are lax in enforcement leading to usage rates that can be lower than other areas with no helmet law (I recently saw some information that showed Portland, Org. that has no law had a usage rate of 77% while Vancouver BC that has a law has a usage rate of 55%)

electrik

No, the car has airbags. You've assumed there is a HUGE cost to eliminate this risk, there just isn't. We eliminate small risks in this society all the time, they are the EASY ones to fix. Wearing a helmet is EASY and it eliminates certain types of injury. Wearing a helmet does NOT make you miserable. If anything the misers are you anti-helmet guys who've never crashed hard or just got **** lucky.

Indeed, a know it all like you can easily dismiss anything they so wish. Fortunately or perhaps not, reality will barge in on your party. Either way i wish you continued luck.

What does this mean... nothing. So there are limits to helmets? BIG DEAL. Nobody is saying they'll stop bullets or a speeding freight train, but that doesn't mean they're worthless. You didn't answer my question about how much you value feeling the top of your head... Isn't it ironic that once you can't feel it after a crash you'll probably decide it's worthwhile to wear a helmet. Experience is like that and until you have some real experience i don't care about your selective studies and anti-nanny state poppycock you fop!

You know, you'd think you be smart enough to take the advice of somebody who has taken a few tumbles about where protection counts. Frankly i've got more experiences than you on the matter, but you're a PRO right. A pro who has never had his nose bloodied... that is how you people can sit there going on about how helmets don't work, helmets are unfair, you don't want to clean up your room. Laughable.

mconlonx

Unless you're talking about more than links, then, nope, your wiki-link was the only one I missed. I went back and checked.

Any more links "nobody will read anyway" that anyone cares to post?

All links posted here so far (except the YT vid) are posted here. Updated today for omission (<-- singular) and additions.

You can hose a man down with a water cannon, but he can still be thirsty.

closetbiker

yeah, yeah. go ahead, promote injury. After all things have worked out so well in the last 20 years or so, right?