Only one more, actually.

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I'll have to look at this.

I like this site. It has a clearly stated purpose and provides links to both sides.

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This is the the same person behind most of the stuff at the following:

https://www.cyclehelmets.org/

Based on this: There is a lot of exposure to wearing helmets in other contexts and it typical that people will treat using bicycle helmets as a similar case. That's why it's "obvious". Clearly, that conclusion could be wrong.

Not true. Some people say that helmets increase neck injuries and others say that they keep you from rolling "safely".

And the "no helmets" advocates have what "perfect" objective data exactly?

Man, you are stupid. I've never stated my position!

They are not "required" to do so. People advocate things all the time with out any data. They may be so required if they are trying to legislate helmet use (but no one is talking about legislation).

I have never made that claim! Pay attention!

There's your "cognitive dissonance". Why?

You are imagining my position. I haven't said what my position is.

You don't care and you appear to think they have no value and that the value they provide isn't obvious but you wear one anyway. Strange. Irrational.

Failling while clipped-in is common. The "need" for a helmet appears to statistically very small. That is, they "function" only for rare events.

You posting links again that you don't even read?

Your issue is equating risk - yep, if I fall and hit my head, I am likely to cause damage - or perhaps break the rock based on how hard you think my head is. But, so will I if I fall while walking.

And just riding reasonably you are likely to have the same chance - the issue is not do strange freak accidents happen - but whether it is a freak. Wrap youself in bubblewrap if you want to - but be consistent. Wear your helmet while you are walking, and particularly in the shower (might improve the smell)

The question is not to me - will it help. Sure, it might. The real question is how common is the accident. From what I have seen - I will need to ride about 3,000 years before I will hit my head riding like I do. I think the odds of living that long are pretty slim.

Just want to know - how bubblewrapped is your life?

You clearly are not reading. Or if you are, you are not understanding. I will state this ONE more time for you. Slowly.

Hypothesis 1: Helmets increase safety (reduce head injuries).
Hypothesis 2: Helmets decrease safety (increase neck injuries/cause brain to twist in skull).
Null hypothesis: Helmets neither increase nor decrease safety.

Pay attention, here's the important part: Hypotheses 1 and 2 are entirely separate claims about the effect of helmets upon safety, relative to our null hypothesis, which is that helmets have NO effect. Each of these hypotheses is a bold claim in need of evidence. Without sufficient evidence, we must default to the null hypothesis. No matter what we are talking about, the null hypothesis is ALWAYS "no change," whether we are talking about seatbelts, cigarettes or bike helmets.

The distinction I am trying to make you understand is that saying "helmets are ineffective" is entirely different from saying "helmets are dangerous." Someone saying the latter has got to prove it. Someone saying the former does not. If someone claiming that helmets increase safety presents compelling evidence to that effect, we reject the null hypothesis. As I've tried to explain multiple times, THIS is the sticking point. It is entirely rational to be opposed to, say, helmet legislation, on the grounds that it is ineffective, inefficient and discourages people from bicycling, without any belief whatsoever that helmets pose a safety risk to the population at large. Your presentation of the debate as simply "helmets are good" vs. "helmets are bad," betrays a poor understanding of both rules of logic and argument and the views that people actually have on this subject.[/quote]


This is a foolish question. Which advocates are you talking about?


I think you're projecting.

Oh, please. Semantic games are not charming, and they are clearly not your speed. Your position is abundantly clear. What are you saying, that in spite of your clear conviction that helmets are obviously safer, you don't wear one?


I'm not talking about people being forced or required by some human institution to present data, you ninny. I'm talking about the rhetorical obligations of the burden of proof. Last I checked, that's what this disgusting little chit-chat was all about.


Blah, blah, blah.

Why not? I do not know whether or not helmets improve safety, nor whether or not they decrease it. On balance, I think that it is less likely to be a danger to my safety than a benefit. I only wear my helmet on road rides, or rides of more than few miles. I don't wear it for my short commute, or tootling around town or campus. My helmet makes little difference in my life.


No value? Hardly. Helmets provide lots of value. Wearing a helmet allows me to be accepted more readily into most facets of cycling culture, especially road cycling culture. Wearing a helmet keeps my mother from worrying, which in turn keeps her from nagging me and becoming upset, which makes my life difficult. Wearing a helmet ensures that, in the event that I am involved in a collision with a a motor vehicle and seriously injured, that I will not be assumed to be responsible for my own injuries irrespective of whether or not a helmet might have prevented them. Wearing a helmet is entirely rational for these and other reasons. Not wearing a helmet is also perfectly rational, on the grounds that an incident is unlikely and that a helmet may not prove to be of any benefit should anything occur. You have a problem with thinking in more than two dimensions, I think.


What proportion of people riding bicycles use clipless pedals? Of those, what proportion are likely to strike their heads at the kind of velocity that would be obtained from an unarrested fall from three feet or greater? How is falling over on a near-stationary bicycle inherently more dangerous than falling over from simply walking or standing? In other words, why should I care about how often cyclists fall over while clipped in? I've fallen at slow speeds several times. Judging by my experience, body armor would be a better investment than a helmet.

We should probably swerve at what appear to be random intervals as well. That would cause most drivers to give us lots of distance and attention.

There seems to be a lot of concern about the fact that you can hit a pothole or crack in the road and be knocked off, and not just hit by a car, so therefore a helmet is necessary, but this as I said before applies to walking along the road etc, etc.

No one (in the vehemently pro-helmet lobby) seems to see that cycling is just one event amongst many everyday events that yield a risk of unforseen accidents that may result in you hitting your head.The strange desire to focus purely on this one event whilst ignoring all the others as acceptable everyday risks that need no form of protection baffles me.

Maybe a helmet would help in the freak situation where a: your fall from your bike unexpectedly b: you were going sufficiently fast to be a danger c: your fall happens to be in such a way that your head is liable to hit the road d: your natural instinct to protect your head fails and you do actually hit it on the road. But all of these events together are more unlikely than a trip in the shower, stumble over a step etc, but all those risks are deemed acceptable, and not warrant any protective gear.

My main objection to all this debate is the stance that the majority of the pro-helmet people hold, that those who choose not to wear a helmet are in some way idiotic bufoons, because they chose not to see the risk in the same way as them.

I would politely counter with the notion that people with cycling injuries (such as the gentleman over in the Wear your helmet! thread who posed with the Campagnolo cage screwed to his head) who believe that a helmet would have helped them, are roundly dismissed by the anti-helmet crowd, often with mockery and ridicule.

It is a never-ending debate, and while sucked into it at one time, I now leave it at this: If you want to ride without a helmet, go right ahead. I will ride with one and hope neither of us meet in the hospital.

Is there any particular reason you idiots can't wear an 8oz. helmet that you generally forget you have on, just on the off-chance that it might save you pathetic bike weenie LIFE?

Do us a favor. DON'T wear a bike helmet. Let Darwin sort this out.

I think the point is that if everyone would stop wearing helmets, hot dutch women would suddenly start riding around our cities so we could take pictures of them... or something.

In a crash their are two impacts:
1. your head on the ground, car, tree, etc
2.your brain against the inside of the skull

Dont wear a helmet and you will never have to worry about the secondary impact because there will be no skulll.

No problem with wearing a helmet. In fact, I wear one at most of my group rides.
What I can't stand is the belief that not wearing one is suicidal, that you'll be dead within 10 mins if you ride barehead, that cycling is one of the most dangerous sports, that if you fall, you'll always hit your head, and if you hit your head, automatically you're dead or in vegetative condition - unless you're wearing a helmet, in which case you'll be fine.

It's not that I can't wear one, it's more that I choose not to.

Maybe the theory of natural selection will indeed come into play and I will be selected out of the gene pool, leaving your fearful, risk averse genes to propogate.

Is there any particular reason you don't wear a helmet around all day long? Just on the off-chance that you trip and fall down some stairs somwhere?

I am far too coordinated and graceful for that to ever occur.

The issue - as has been stated by policy makers and insurance companies., is simple. Mandatory helmet laws give the idea that cycling is dangerous whereas, it is no more dangerous than walking and many other activities we participate in that we wouldn't think of wearing a helmet.

So, what happens is that when it comes time to encourage the kiddies to ride - the mom says "No, I know that cycling is dangerous because that lycra'd nut down the street yells at people if they don't wear a helmet..."

So, Johnny sits in front the the TV getting fatter and fatter - which is much more deadly.

The point? Simply, beware the law of unintended consequences. If you convince people that not wearing a helmet is dangerous - they most likely will consider riding a bike itself is dangerous - which is sad, because it isn't when you use it for transportation. Racing anything is dangerous since your goal is to push to the limit - which at times you cross.

Please don't lump all us "pro-helmet people" into some elitist group. I merely encourage others to wear helmets for safety based on my own experience. I have in the past not worn a helmet myself and have admitted it many times. I don't look down on those who don't wear them.

However, I am disgusted with those who try to convince others that the practice of not wearing helmets is the "safer" option and that helmets may in fact cause more harm than good. As has been posted over and over in here, common sense should prevail and this thread should have ended pages ago. But there are some (who may be trolls or not) who are trying, unsuccessfully IMO, to go against common sense and persuade others to do the same.

Simple: Head hits pavement (regardless of how or why, by car or pothole, clipped in or not...) sans helmet and the head will be injured more than if a helmet was on at the time of impact and there to protect the skull - which is the only thing the helmet is for (God knows it isn't for fashion).

Now, those who argue against that are idiotic bufoons (and not because they don't wear helmets, which is their personal choice). And the game of providing dubious statistics, using hyperbole and the like cannot take place of common sense. Whether people choose to use their common sense is absolutely up them. It's their heads.

I'm glad to see you've softened somewhat since you wrote this a couple of weeks ago: "I do, again IMO, think not wearing one is dumb. Sorry...it's like smoking. I see someone smoking and I think, "dumbass.""

Shall we make a list of all the ways in which "common sense" has been invalidated throughout history?

I think everyone agrees that a helmet will protect our heads in some circumstances. This is completely intuitive and is also true. If you have a crash where your head resembles a dead weight striking an anvil, then I'm absolutely certain you would be better off with the helmet.

When I started cycling I believed that it was dangerous and that wearing a helmet made it much safer... riders who did not wear helmets were "dumbasses"... and I wouldn't be caught dead without one. The only reason I've changed my mind is because the evidence does not support the belief that helmets make us safer. I still wear a helmet most of the time, but also enjoy riding without one... especially if I'm just cruising around town doing errands, etc. And I don't think people who ride without ones are idiots.

The issue here is that the *percieved* effectiveness of helmets is much greater than their actual effectiveness at keeping us from getting killed. The reason that I focus on fatalities is because lesser injuries are not tracked, so there aren't any statistics for them. Based on population studies that compare fatality rates both before and after MHLs, there doesn't seem to be any benefit at all... just as many deaths as before. Even though I'm sure helmets help prevent deaths from certain types of impacts, either these instances are rare, or helmets have some negative effect that counterbalances their positive ones... most likely it is a combination of the two.

But cycling isn't as dangerous anyway as much of the perceptions would lead us to believe. Even in the US which has a relatively high fatality rate, it is estimated at only about 5 per 1 million kilometers (62 million miles), or 1 per 12 million miles. At the healthy rate of 5,000 miles per year, your risk of getting killed in any given year is 1 in 2,400. If you are an experienced cyclist, and don't take unnecessary risks then your odds should be considerably better than this.

Better yet, maybe hot American women will start riding around in our cities...

Thinking someone is a dumbass for having no common sense is not looking down on them, rruff. I'm nice to them, polite, I don't discriminate. I also don't call them a dumbass to their face or snub them. It's not an elitist attitude, it's my opinion based on they're not using common sense, which is dumb, IMO - one I'm entitled to.

You, however, are in the group that I do look down on. You are worse than a dumbass. You're like the guy who walks around offering ciagrettes to folks, swearing up and down that there is no evidence that smoking increases the chances of getting lung cancer and, in fact, may help protect against it. You then whip the cheap pamplet out of your pocket which shows graphs that make no sense and bogus statistics, insisting that you have mountains of evidence to support your stance. You're one of those.

As for the rest of what you wrote, I didn't read it. I'm done arguing with you on this as I mentioned previously.

take it from someone who knows. wear a helmet.

when I was young and dumb, I had an old Sony Walkman model 10 speed.
I was racing it down a hill once, without a helmet, going about 25MPH full blast down the street, when the chain snapped.
threw the chain right into the front wheel, where it turned sideways, and hit the fork, locking up the front whel, and twisting it into something resembling modern art.
I was thrown clear over the bike, and hit the street face first and slid, with the bike landing on top of me. I shredded the skin off one side of my face like I'd kissed a belt sander. I then got to stand up, and limp home with a 30 pound bike on the shoulder that wasn't skinned as well. Upon returning home, I looked in the mirror, pulled the flap of skin back over what was left of my right ear, and looked for some medical attention from my mother who thankfully is an RN.

A helmet would have saved my face. Thankfully the only scar I have from that learning experience is a small discoloration on my ear.. but the memory still lives strong, in my mind, now armored with a Garneau helmet.

I'm not disagreeing with you but I'd like to point out this line of argument fails to mention one assumption: MHL's cause a net increase in helmet wearing.

I'm really not convinced they do. I'm sure some people wear a helmet because it's the law, but I bet there are also people who don't because it's the law. But mostly I think the issue is that the accidents helmets are good for are impossible to get good statistics on because they rarely get reported (helmet or no helmet).

I think the "it scares people and makes them think riding is dangerous" is a much better argument.

But the OP was just ********: Let's do things that make other vehicles nervous to increase our own safety. Remind me to just leave the turn signal on my car on at all times, it should help people to remember I just drifted into their blind spot. I'm not trying to make a slippery slope argument here, I'm just trying to point out that the solution isn't scalable: As more people do things to make others nervous in an effort to be more visible those people lose their visibility because they become normal.

Not at all. 140mph used to be a monthly activity(old airstrip runs, couple times on the highway), I boulder higher than the rest of my mates, I'm certainly not a germ-freak, I never wear my life jacket on the boats, and I can think of plenty of times I'm thankful to be alive. For me a helmet while cycling is just one thing I'm stubborn with, mostly because of personal experiences and my dad's crash.

I have plenty of scars to prove myself.

Not finished with the juvenile name calling apparently. It's interesting that the things you accuse me of are the tactics that you are using... but I'm not. If you are interested in investigating this rationally, then please cite reasons for *why* you think that the references I've cited are bogus, and also provide references of your own that tell a different story. Anecdotes and testimonials are not references. I've already explained several times why these are not valid, and especially when we have access to statistics there is no reason to favor them. I have quite an open mind about this... I'd be happy to learn that helmets are effective, since I usually wear one anyway.