One is enough to make it worthwhile.

Not true. Helmets have proven to reduce head and brain injury. Read here:

http://depts.washington.edu/hiprc/about/prevention.html

I don't care if you wear one, just have enough insurance to pay for your own rehab.

My reasoning:

TBI = bad.
Northern MN winter biking = occasional slip/fall.

Toss in some variables like outrageous numbers of drunk drivers, living on a giant hill + sleet/snow/sand/ice/salt on roads, and almost no road maint... Eventually, you go down.

Had 2 crashes where helmet did its job and walked/limped away with head unscathed.

hang on... you're saying that my helmet caused my crash? you can possibly actually be meaning that... can you?

the plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence".

partially correct. the purpose of helmets is to crush instead of your skull.

i mean, if you don't want to wear your helmet, that's fine. i'm not going to accost you on the street and lecture on safety or anything and i'm not going to say that the taxpayer shouldn't foot the bill for your medical treatment if you hurt yourself and i'm certainly not going to support any sort of helmet legislation.

what i am going to ask of you, though, is not to attempt to campaign against wearing helmets. okay?

no one's implying causation of anything. what i'm saying is that helmets do not provide nearly the amount of protection that consumers are led to believe, and that pedestrians would benefit-- again, statistically speaking-- from a helmet more than a cyclist. not sure how you feel corelation != causation from that...

(and yes, i was kidding about the "you wouldn't have fallen..." thing)

ok, fair enough. so i ask, then-- since a pedestrian in an urban environment is more likely than a cyclist to get hit by a car (not raw numbers but based on percentage of bikes vs pedestrians and their respective number of accidents per capita), should everyone start wearing helmets when walking as well?

arguing on the world wide web is something i do. i honestly don't think helmets are bad as much as i think frivolous debate is fun.

So, you're telling me that when I don't wear sunblock, and I get sunburned, my not wearing sunblock had no notable role to play in my getting sunburned? And that when I wear sunblock, and I don't get sunburned, my wearing sunblock had no notable role to play in my not getting sunburned?

Let me drop the rhetorical questions. I think you are full of BS.

the reason you get sunburned is because you spend too much time hiding from the sun. if you had more sun exposure (and from a younger age), you 1) wouldn't get sunburn (see tropical people, surfers, etc), and 2) wouldn't have as high a chance of vitamin d deficiency related cancer as you currently do (again, statistically speaking).

there wasn't widespread use of sunblock before the 60s, yet somehow we managed to live for thousands of years without it...

bizarre. maybe we all had bike helmets to block the sun.

ed: but seriously, you should research this if you haven't already. it's just a wikipedia article, but it may (or may not) serve a s a good starting point:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunscreen_controversy

If you get hit by a car at speed you're ****ed, helmet or not, bike or not. Getting hit by cars isn't what helmets protect you from. They protect your head when you're going 20pmh, hit a stationary object like a parked car, and go over your bars. They protect you when you go down because your drunk ass is sprinting through a parking lot at night with no lights on and hit a speed bump that you didn't see (thanks helmet!) or when you hit some gravel in a corner and go down.

Getting struck by a car is a red herring.

I misread you, I apologize. The "helmets actually make you more likely to get killed" argument is often used because of some anomalous statistical evidence and I assumed you were making that argument. I see your argument now, and I don't disagree.

1) Helmets do not provide bullet proof skull protection as some believe. This is true, I don't dispute this.
2) Nonetheless, they do provide a degree of protection that can be the difference between a significant degree of suffering, and not suffering. As I said, I went headfirst into pavement, my helmet prevented me from having a significant injury. If I had been hit by a car and launched 40 feet before going headfirst into a truck, my helmet would not have saved me, but this is not the case. In my accident, it helped.

I think what everyone is getting at is there isn't any reason NOT to wear a helmet from a safety standpoint. You don't like them, fine, don't wear one. Arguing against the basic fact that "with a helmet you are safer than without a helmet" is foolish though.

I have noticed the same thing. When I lived in the US, and when I didn't have a stitch of bike-specific clothing, drivers acted like I was a homeless bum or day laborer. Many cars made no effort to move out of my lane when passing me.

yeah but people sitting on their couches would benefit even more... oh wait you're just making random **** up.

I hit the ground (and then a downed tree) at about 35mph during a race. Broke my collarbone, hurt both shoulders, and road rash on the back of my neck and head. The helmet I was wearing broke in almost every possible place including where the back left side all but disintegrated exposing the base of my head to the ground (thus the road rash). I took a trip to the emergency room as a result. Came away with NO head injury at all despite the speed of the crash and the destruction of the helmet.

Obviously a helmet is not going to protect your body from the trauma brought on by a run in with a car but in situations where for whatever reason you hit the ground (crash in race, being knocked off your bike, tall bike fall... whatever) and you hit your head the helmet is probably going to either save your life or at least greatly decrease the severity of your head injuries.

I'm not telling anyone to do anything but most peoples reasons for electing to not wear a helmet are pretty weak and I know what most of them are because before this happened I pretty much only wore one when racing. As soon as the collarbone heals and I am back on the bike you can bet your ass there will be some styrofoam strapped firmly to my skull.

Just sayin...

maybe don't be so clumsy next time.

that's a pretty gigantic troll ya got there.

what else is there to do on here?

Where does this stat come from?

my butt.

Got anything else in there for us?

Don't encourage him. We all know he does.

Helmets mess up your hair.

i wear a brain bucket

I've always wanted to come up with some stupid signiture line like everyone else. Well....this thread inspired me.

i've got one of those bern helmets. It was the only thing I could find that would fit over my dreads

+1.

your mom resembles her remarks.

ps, anyone notice that the guy who is incapable of stringing together a single coherent phrase is on the world wide web talking about "darwinism at work"?

good times.

How is it that I disagree with sp00ki but still want to take his side on this one?

Stop being such a dick.

here is what i want to know. there were some badass Bell helmets on some of the track riders i think it was the dutch, i would so wear that if anyone knows where to find em.

add the laser helmets that track riders wear to that list (though i probably wouldn't wear those either).