charles vail

It relates in the sense that most Dutch and Chinese ride without helmets, literally millions of them. I do not believe helmets help much but............I wear one most of the time out of consideration for my wife.

sknhgy 

Up until August 3rd I (thought I was) bulletproof and rarely wore my helmet. Then, on the 3rd I was coming down a hill and a dog ran out in front of me. We collided hard. I ended up with my collarbone broken in two places and multiple bruises, road rash, bangs, bumps, etc. Luckily my head was only badly scraped. I now have a plate in my shoulder. Until then, I was always able to control my crashes. I could roll, or fall on top of the bike and let it take the brunt of the fall. When me and the dog hit I went completely out of control and I actually blacked out for a moment. When my recovery time is over I will not get on the bike without a helmet.

Denny Koll

Helmet Nazis always claim to have had their lives saved multiple times by their helmets. Any time they crash they say "my helmet saved my life."

I wear it most of the time but it's not a religion.

stevage

Should have had another option:

4) Yes, because the law requires me to.

BA Commuter

I choose to wear one all of the time when I'm riding, because the time I feel it's only a short ride and it's not necessary might be the time I need it to help save my head.

I could care less if it makes me look like a bubble head and dorky. Non bicyclists already think we're whacked...

lns55

I don't know why the " helmut vs no helmet" debate keeps popping up. There are at least a hundred threads regarding this issue. My two cents. If you love to ride your bike, then ride it. It really does't matter if you've got a helmut on or not. It's totally a matter of personal preference. I've rode with'em and without 'em and I would'nt dream of trying to tell someone how to ride their bike.

kyhokie

I wear mine 99% of the time. I always wear it if I am on the road or the trail. I don't wear it when I am in the yard or back on my farm in grass fields.*shrug*

chipcom 

Have not worn a helmet unless required by a race, group ride, charity ride or other event for over 40 years.

Bezohh

Never owned or used a bike helmet while riding.

Throwmeabone

If you consider a helmet just a "styrofoam hat," then nothing is stopping you from wearing a skiing, skating, or even motorcycle helmet that can offer more protection. A bike helmet is a compromise between not trapping excessive heat and protection. Either way it is definitely better than nothing.

12bar

I always wear a helmet when on a bicycle or motorcycle, no exceptions

corripio

When I was about 14, my town made it illegal for anyone under 16 to ride without a helmet. At the time, I found this silly because I had been riding almost 10 years without one and never had a problem (and for that matter, my mom had been biking for 25+ years without a problem). Along the same line of reasoning, I had also been riding around in cars for 14 years, always properly buckled in...we had never been in a car crash, so why do I wear seat belt?

The statistics have already been posted here about the efficacy of helmets and the correlation between death and non-helmet use; these should be compelling enough to convince most reasonable people that wearing a helmet will help reduce injure if they are in an accident, regardless of how long they've been riding without one. We understand better now what happens to the body in a crash than we did 40 years ago; just because you've spent 40 years without a helmet, doesn't mean you shouldn't embrace "new" technology to help minimize your risk.

Helmets aren't a panacea. Wearing a piece of polystyrene on your head is no substitute for using your brain and riding smart, but it's also a very simple thing to do to help reduce your risk of serious injury or death because other people on the road aren't always thinking and behaving safely.

I try to eat a balanced diet and exercise to stay healthy...but there is no guarantee that will be effective. I try to ride smart and wear a helmet to prevent serious injury...but, again, there is no guarantee that will be effective either. But personally like not having brain damage, so I wear a helmet almost all of the time.

uke

One of the more interesting things I learned in the probabilities class I took in undergrad was the concept of the geometric distribution. It basically describes an event whose probability is reset each time the event occurs.

For example, a fair coin has a 50% chance of giving a H or T. Likewise, a tossed die has an equal chance of delivering a 1 through 6. The neat thing about geo distributions is that they're memoryless. So even if you flip 40 heads in a row (something very unlikely), the probability of tossing an H or a T on the next flip is still 50%.

Why did I think of this? Well, it kind of looks like riding could be modeled in a similar fashion. Someone earlier referenced riding for 40 years without a helmet. The thing is, though, each time you get on a bicycle, you'll either have a potentially brain-damaging crash, or not. That's a Bernoulli distribution, but something for a different thread. Prior experience does come into play on a bicycle, vs. in a coin flip, but it becomes completely irrelevant once the crash occurs.

Meaning, 40 years of non-risk crashing has very little to do with what happens the next time you fall. There isn't a memory there. The concrete doesn't take into consideration how good of a cyclist you were before it connected with your temporal lobe at 20mph. Given a potentially-brain damaging fall, all that matters from that point on is the degree of trauma experienced by the contact area. Experience (or lack thereof) riding without a helmet doesn't translate into a lesser risk of injury once the crash occurs. The only factor with the chance of reducing that risk is some form of head protection.

At any rate, this was sweet. I never thought I'd have a non-scholastic use for this stuff when learning it, but...there you go!

Bjalf

Don't have one. If it ever becomes mandatory, I'll probably ride less.

cg1985

I knew someone who had their head run over when wearing a helmet. he got up, dusted himself off and tossed away the helmet that cracked in half. He was fine. I shudder to think what results would have occurred without the helmet.

I have a little book that goes over some stats from MDOT (michigan dept. of transportation), and it states 85% of brain injuries can be prevented while wearing a helmet. I like those odds better than without.

Nothing is 100% safe, but it'd rather play the odds that keep my ability to speak like a normal human.


Also, my hair, ironically, looks better after it's been in a helmet for a while, so that helps too.

I answered sometimes, sometimes not. 100% of the time I wear it commuting. 90% of the time recreation. Though when I ride the 200 yards from my office to the coffee shop (no road, just parking lot), I don't wear the helmet. vOv

corripio

That's an interesting take on it. I sometimes think of it in a more canonical sense; crashing is a subset of bike riding; consequently, you want to do everything you can to avoid sampling the "crash" region of phase space.

Ways to bias yourself away from the crash region:
1. proper bike maintenance
2. knowing the rules of the road
3. being observant
4. riding defensively
5. making yourself very visible
6. knowing your route
7. experience (experience is not complacence...there is always more to learn)
8. weather
etc.


As you've pointed out, there really are only two options when you bike, you either crash or you don't. But the weight of each of these two outcomes is not always the same. If your handlebars are loose, brakes don't work, had a few too many beers, and you swerve down the middle of a busy road, the probably of crashing increases. Experience may help to make crashing a less likely event, but the outcome may still be the same; you are completely correct, the pavement doesn't care how much experience you have when you're head goes crashing into it.

Also note that injury is a subset of crashing...there is less you can do to bias yourself away from injury during a crash, thus it's a larger subset (i.e. if you crash you are likely to get hurt)...to avoid injury you have:
1. helmet
2. experience (i.e. knowing how to fall in a controlled manner)

JeffS

Wrapping your head in bubble wrap is also probably better than nothing.

Better than nothing is an argument used by people who can't be bothered to actually think through a decision.

bckpck2rev

I also always wear gloves, if I fall I go hands first and hope it breaks the fall, yea and maybe my arms but at least not the noggin. I do not wear one, my doctor friend who I ride with tells me over and over I should, he does and he spits stats at me daily. I haven't crashed in 2 years of daily commuting.

corripio

I disagree. If that "something" can reduce the likely hood of a severe injury, even by a small amount, it is in fact, better than not utilizing it. The safest way to avoid an injury from biking is to not bike...but we all know how well advocating abstinence works in other areas :-).

It's all about risk management and reducing your risk (and keep in mind it's not just conjecture, there have been statistical studies already quoted here to support the use of helmets, as well as physiological studies on the effects of crashes and helmet use on the brain).

The previous poster was saying basically say "yes, I'd like some sort of protection over no protection, even if that protection isn't perfect."

Scout!

Risk management is about balance, not minimization. Balance the risks associated with bicycling against the enjoyments. I don't see why we should expect everyone to arrive at the same solution.

mconlonx

Helmets are cool and I relish any excuse I get to wear one. I grew up reading Asterix & Obelix and they wore helmets. Ceasar wore a helmet, as did Alexander the great and Ghengis Khan. Patton wore a helmet. Jack Nicholson wore a helmet in Easy Rider. Valentino Rossi wears a helmet, as does The Stig.

I went down on a bicycle once and cracked a helmet instead of my head--rogue pothole, unattentive moment, and I was over the bars, barely doing 10mph or so, uphill.

I don't care if you wear a helmet or not. I do. 'Cause they are way cool and I welcome any time or activity where I get to wear one in public and it is seen as socially acceptable.

Motorcycle and bicycle helmet laws are a joke. Too often, in agruing for these laws, helmet law proponents lean on the social responsibility for those who get hurt who are not wearing helmets--I don't want to pay for long term care of those who suffer brain injuries as a result of not wearing a helmet. Hogwash--if this was the case, anyone in a car should have to wear a helmet as well since most brain injuries are caused by car accidents.

littlewaywelt

Ski helmets don't offer any more impact protection than bike helmets, and in many instances, less. Heavy helmets like motorcycle helmets increase the risk of neck injury.

uke

I like your way of looking at it too. You're right; even if things are out of your hands once you're actually crashing, you can take steps to minimize the risk of entering said crash region. Good points.

uke

https://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/e...rds/749-1.html

bmclaughlin807

Aren't there enough of these idiotic threads???