A visit to the ER is going to cost me $3500 before I see a doctor or have an x-ray performed. A $100 bike helmet represents a smart investment in avoiding going to the hospital or becoming brain damaged.

When California enacted a mandatory helmet law there was one group that suffered, the recipients of donor organs. When young men were killed in a motorcycle accident there was usually massive head trauma but their internal organs were intact and good for donating to others.

My concerns over the years was keeping my head cool, and the first Bell helmets were very hot and not healthy to wear, and the forward visibility. Many helmets I have had to trim the forward brim to allow me to see the road ahead while bent over the handlebars. Thankfully the newer helmets are much better designed and do not block my view of the road.

A white helmet (based on motorcycle accident data) is significantly safer than a black one in terms of motorists driving over a bicyclist, but this is seldom mentioned.

I never ride a bicycle without wearing a helmet.
In winter time, I use helmet for snowboarding. It’s more expensive than average bicycle helmet but it provides much better protection from crash and cold.

I’m not surprised!
Liberally using reflective 3M strips on helmets and other aspects of one’s bike, such as back of the rack, if present, seat post, under the seat bags (many come with reflective strips) is a good idea to make yourself very visible to motorists or motorcyclists late in the evening and nights.

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I have been wearing a helmet for years but on my last 70 mile ride it was 28-32°F and I decided I would be more comfortable wearing a stocking cap that would make my helmet not really fit on my head. I have to say It felt great not wearing a helmet. I rode from the time I was probably 6 years old to my late 20's without a helmet but then they started being required in races so I just got used to wearing one. . It felt so good not wearing a helmet on my 70 mile ride I think I am going to skip the helmet for most of my rides.

All safety questions aside, there is no denying the experience of riding a bicycle is more enjoyable without

for sure and the risk reward thing favors the reward for me at this point. heck it might add to my safety as right now I have hills that I try and hit over 40mph on every time I ride and perhaps without a helmet I will keep the speeds under 35mph....

Sure,and that is related to my observation that if some cyclists believe it is "too dangerous" to ride the way they do without a helmet, it probably is also "too dangerous" for those cyclists to ride with it.

I wasn't thinking so much from a safety standpoint as much as having my beanie blow off at over 40 mph.

I was thinking of safety from an actual hazard reduction standpoint.

If the riding conditions are considered "too hazardous/dangerous" for safe riding, wearing a helmet will not significantly mitigate the actual hazardous situation, though it may make the helmet wearer feel safer.

Saying a prayer might have the same effect for those who believe in the power of prayer/true beief to alter reality and reduce risk.

There's some truth to that. I've heard there have been studies that cars give wider berth to bareheaded riders than helmeted, for similar psychological reasons.

I'm a pretty slow/conservative (aka lazy) rider generally, so I'm not taking many risks either way. But when I don't have my helmet on, while it does feel nicer, I definitely miss the situational awareness I get from my helmet mirror.

I too appreciate the boost in situational awareness gained by having a mirror available to use while riding amongst traffic. No need for an extraneous helmet when the mirror is already mounted elsewhere.

I always wear a helmet. Especially mountain biking. Been in a couple of crashes where the helmet did it's job and protected my head/brain. My uncle had a really bad crash in his neighborhood traveling around 15 mph. If he didn't have a helmet on, he would have been dead on the scene instead of a concussion and some broken bones.

Crashes can happen anytime, anywhere. and I'm not taking the risk by not wearing one.

Admittedly, a bicycle is not a motorcycle, but I'm reminded of a guy I knew back in Oregon - he was a highway patrolman. There weren't mandatory helmet laws for motorcycles in Oregon then (are there now?). The highway patrol dudes had slang for motorcyclists without helmets:

"organ donor".

I made a living riding motorcycles....and you are absolutely right a bicycle is not a motorcycle. My first responder friends usually say the difference between a motorcyclists without a helmet vs one with a helmet is a closed casket vs an open one........

Indeed. But there is something known as proportional risk.

From everything I have read over many years, the difference between a $280 helmet and $28 helmet is definitely not proportionate to their priceifference. When you buy a fancy helmet, you are paying for their more fashionable design, better air flow scheme so your head stays less hot in summer, and mostly for all the money they spend in advertising and sponsoring.

We started buying bicycle helmets for our children from Chikdren’s Hospital’s gift shop when we learned that their helmets were thoroughly tested and they were as safe as the best ones. Hospital sold these helmets without any profit as a community service. Some years later they started selling helmets for adults. Majority of our helmets were and still are bought from them. A couple of them got knocked in accidents and we replaced them promptly with new.

Winters are cold here and a full size helmet used for skiing and snowboarding suits us quite well. I think they much safer than a summer version - very sturdy shell and thicker layer of closed polystyrene foam. Too bad children’s hospital doesn’t sell them. 😉

I can’t believe that in some states driving a motor cycles without wearing a helmet isn’t against the law - something to do with their objections about interfering with their freedom!

It's very true that the safety of a helmet is not proportional to its cost. At the momement, the helmets rated safest by the Virginia Tech testing lab also happen to be on the expensive side,

https://www.helmet.beam.vt.edu/bicyc...-ratings.html#!
but that is not the same as saying that safety and cost correlate. In fact, there are some rather inexpensive helmets in their rankings that rate quite well.

For example a few years ago I wanted a second helmet for my non-road use (because I didn't want to go for a road ride and then 30 minutes later, go out for errands with a helmet still sopped in sweat) and I bought a $50 Specialized helmet that was at the time 3rd or 4th in the Virginia Tech rankings.

OTOH, some recent technologies (e.g., MIPS, Wavecell) have also added a premium to the helmets that have them, and so there is a bit more of a relationship between safety and cost.

Oh yeah, something else- manufacturers generally tend not to make claims that their helmets are "safer" (though again, with new technologies such as Wavecell, some have begun to make such claims). Doing so would open them up to litigation. So typically they tell you that all of the helmets sold meet federal standards and therefore are equally safe. However, objective testing (i.e., Virginia Tech) shows that that isn't precisely true.

A problem with this legalistic approach is that if all they will say is "meets federal standards", then there is no motivation for the manufacturers to innovate and improve helmet safety. But again, with MIPS and other newer technologies, this logjam seems to have broken and manufacturers do now strive to improve safety.

Also, I think the existence of independent safety tests has put some pressure on them to improve. The "safest" scores on the Virginia Tech site have diminished in the last few years.

Thank you for useful information.

The rating list proves the point we were discussing, higher cost is not an indication of better protection, even with incorporation of newer technologies. Giant #10 costs $65 (score 9.13) and Specialized #15 costs $50 (score 9.55) whereas Bontrager XXX Wavecell costs $300 and appears at #68 in the list (score 11.6). One has to wonder if makers of helmets are missing the point of objective tests and focusing more on the design elements for marketing or the testing itself is not fully representative of safety of human head in motion.

I read the details of their protocol - it is interesting to note that the maximum tangential speed tested is around 16MPH. Since some bicyclists who are younger than I and in good physical shape, go well over this speed, why the maximum tested speed is not around 20 MPH. On a good day, even I can push 16MPH for a few flat miles.
The road is assumed to be equivalent to a 50-grit sandpaper… not too sure about many roads that will fit this assumption!

The obvious question then is the nature of the failure of material used in bicycle helmets. Does the material compress drastically (as opposed to progressively to provide continuous absorption of forces) such that the helmet simply turns into a brain-bucket?

In general, it’s always better to have multiple independent groups to test such things to increase the possibility of bias elimination, whether by error in design or by design. Ideally, our governmental agencies should ensure safety of public because in the long run, permanent brain damage is not only a burden to the family, it effects the whole society ($$, since that’s only what seems to count).

You may have noticed that the Virginia Tech lab is presently funded by an organization of insurance companies who invest some cash to help reduce vehicular injuries. That's their self-interest, but for the greater good.

Also, I agree that it would be good if there were more groups doing this kind of testing. It makes sense that the Virginia Tech lab develop one protocol and stick to it - they can't really be expected to do comprehensive tests on hundreds of helmets. Other labs with different protocols would be very helpful. I believe that CU also does some testing. One supposes that there are industry data that are confidential. In any case, the Virginia Tech lab is by far the most complete, and we should be grateful for their contribution.

If you give a hungry man potatoes and cabbage everyday, he will be happy enough because he has no other options!

Generally speaking, monopolies are never ideal. This is why competition which gives reason for each participant in the process to improve… as long as there is an effective way to prevent under the table deals for price or regulatory rules- fixing. Given the nature and ultimate goals of every business (to make ever increasing profits by doing whatever it takes), realistic solutions should come from governmentally funded multiple centers who must compete for grants and prove themselves to be more effective/better. Relying on insurance companies to fund safety may seem like something is better than nothing but it is barely just that!
On the other hand, looking at the track records of the FDA, EPA, and even the NIH of late… it’s difficult to put much confidence in our publicly funded organizations that are supposed to protect us, but do not always seem to do so. They are more concerned about the commerce.

The logjam that appears to be broken is the reluctance of some manufacturers to make claims that their "new helmet technology" allegedly makes their helmets ( or the helmets that incorporate the technology that they are licensing/marketing) safer than those helmets without such "newer technology" and therefore justify a higher selling price.

​​​​​​​https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8503260/