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This is what the anti-cycling agenda wants you to think. In reality, helmets are not worth the trouble. They potentially could make a difference in a very small

This is what the anti-cycling agenda wants you to think. In reality, helmets are not worth the trouble. They potentially could make a difference in a very small percent of bike accidents and they slightly discourage biking, leading to worse overall safety and health. It's just absurd to say they are "needed".

CydeWeys 9y ago
> In reality, helmets are not worth the trouble. Who are you to say that? Most of my cycling is to and from work, on my own bike. Wearing a helmet costs me nothing in the way of inconvenience. I simply leave the helmet on the bike when I park it at home and at work (both secure locations). Who are you to issue some blatant proclamation that "in reality" this isn't worth the nonexistent trouble?
- SCHiM 9y ago
  I live in the Netherlands, bike everywhere I go (almost). 99.9999% of the people on the street don't wear helmets, not when commuting, not when on a recreational drive. The most serious bicycle accident I ever saw did involve someone's head, but not a way where any helmet would have helped (his steering tube broke and sliced off half his face). I've fallen a few times, at high speeds too (rounding a corner that hasn't been de-iced ended with my hip getting closely aquatinted to the asphalt), reflexes seem to have taken care of protecting my head. I think they might offer some protecting in high speed accidents where even your body does not have time to turn your head away from the ground, but I think in those cases the chances of breaking your neck are just as high.
  - CydeWeys 9y ago
    I think I'll take the word of experts over one person's anecdotes. The experts say that wearing a helmet helps prevent injuries. This is also not theoretical to me. I hit a big pothole last year at speed, wrecked, and broke my ankle. I was wearing a helmet and the helmet struck the pavement. My head was completely uninjured. It may not have been uninjured had I not been wearing the helmet. Saying "reflexes protect you" is seriously underestimating how much ragdolling is going on in the split seconds while you're going over the handlebars before smashing into the road or some object.
    - SCHiM 9y ago
      Well I certainly did not study how much your helmets protects you... But, given the fact that, like I said, virtually everybody here cycles, I'm aware of the fact that nobody in my family ever hit their head in a way that caused any permanent damage. None of my friends ever have, none of my teachers, coworkers or anybody else I know (maybe they died before they met me?). The type of cycling I'm talking about is very close to the speed that our reflexes are evolved to deal with, I know exactly how it feels to fall of a bike and I'm not underestimating anything I'm sure. But going back to the original point: So does a helmet help prevent injuries? Yes I'm quite sure they do. Is it worth the bother to lug your helmet with you everywhere? Nope, not for me, and not for anybody else I know, including my 90 year old grandmother. We might as well wear full body armor on the sidewalks, I also think they'd prevent injury in certain cases, but most of the time it'd just be inconvenient and hot.
      - dvtv75 9y ago
        > I'm aware of the fact that nobody in my family ever hit their head in a way that caused any permanent damage. You do, of course, have professional medical assessment to back this up? Because otherwise this is simply assumption and anecdotal data presented as a fact.
      - CydeWeys 9y ago
        > The type of cycling I'm talking about is very close to the speed that our reflexes are evolved to deal with Yeah, well, I go a bit faster than that, whether it's commuting or fitness cycling. You have to, because you're on the street a lot of the time with fast-moving cars. Cycling in the US is a bit different than cycling is in Europe, so the safety measures you consider appropriate over there are different over here. > Is it worth the bother to lug your helmet with you everywhere? Did you read the part of my comment where I said that I always keep my helmet with my bike? I'm not lugging my helmet with me anywhere ever. It's not a bother, it's just always on my handlebars. And guess what, I also have a Citibike bikeshare membership, and sometimes I don't wear a helmet while riding that because I don't have it with me. Not having a helmet with me won't stop me from riding. By the same token, though, easily having a helmet accessible, which describes most of my riding, definitely will get me wearing it! I should also point out that >90% of all my fellow bike commuters at work, as well as >95% of the fitness cyclists I ride with, wear helmets. Not only does it just make sense as a reasonable precaution you can take (like wearing your seatbelt in a car), but I'd very much stand out if I didn't wear one.
  - xapata 9y ago
    A friend of mine got cut off by a minivan and his head went helmet-first into the side window. It's rare enough, but perhaps worth a little discomfort. On a group ride, the cyclist in front of me hopped over a pothole and his fork snapped on landing. In addition to getting punctured by one of the pieces, he went helmet-first into the ground. At the hospital, he couldn't remember the accident. I was glad he'd been wearing a helmet. Side note: if you're riding an aluminum bicycle, you should change the fork if it's ever had a strong impact. Hairline fractures are serious. Or just go with a steel frame, since they won't snap.
    - CydeWeys 9y ago
      I too have my anecdotes about myself and my friends who got into accidents and wear very glad they were wearing helmets. One friend in particular was struck by a hit-and-run driver on a suburban road and was injured quite badly; he could've died if not for his helmet.
  - WD-42 9y ago
    I've been mountain biking for years. I've broken 2 helmets in crashes, due to hitting the ground hard. One did result in a concussion, but I was fine the other time. If it weren't for the helmet I imagine things could have been a lot worse.
    - CydeWeys 9y ago
      And yet, strangely enough, I've gotten into online arguments with people who argue that because the helmet broke it didn't do its job, and therefore wasn't worth wearing. This line of thought utterly escapes me. One wonders if they'd look at a modern automobile that was mangled nearly beyond recognition in a terrible wreck, but that allowed its passengers to escape with only minor injuries, and say that it didn't do its job, and that they may as well have just been standing there and been struck by a car going highway speed and turned out just the same.
  - notzorbo3 9y ago
    I'm also a Dutchy and I'd like to clear something up. Biking in the Netherlands is not like biking almost anywhere in any other country. There are separate bike paths everywhere, cars drive slower in areas where bikes are also allowed. Bikes are first-class vehicles that cars often have to give the right of way for. People bike a lot slower at 7 to 10 mph. Drivers are accustomed to bikes being everywhere. We've also been biking our entire lives. You can see kids from the age of 4 participating in normal traffic (under parental supervision naturally). That's how safe biking in the Netherlands feels: parents let their 4 year olds bike on the same road (not a separated bike path) as cars. This is why, for Dutch people, wearing a helmet during normal daily biking instinctively feels like nonsense. And I don't know a single person from another country that, after having lived here for a bit longer, still wears their helmets here. I don't know of a single helmet study that takes such conditions into account. It's always "this many people died", but never do they mention if they were biking to the local supermarket or going 20 mph downhill in the forest on their mountainbikes without a helmet. I believe if you want to get people biking, you should invest in making biking feel as safe as it feels in the Netherlands. In the meantime, wear helmets.
- spodek 9y ago
  If you are serious that a helmet costs you nothing in inconvenience and creates no trouble, do you wear one when you walk down the street? You have it with you, you could fall while walking, and it could protect you.
  - dvtv75 9y ago
    What's the likelihood of a fall while walking vs the likelihood of a fall while riding, per hour of activity undertaken?
  - CydeWeys 9y ago
    You are making very disingenuous arguments here and you damn well know it. Bicycling is both at a much faster speed than walking and is also much more likely to cause a fall or collision with an object in a way that could have you striking your head. Your comment is not at the level of quality of an argument I would expect to see advanced on HN.
    - halostatue 9y ago
      Much faster. I am typically riding at 20–30km/hr when commuting, and my bike only has two gears. If I had more, I know that I’d increase my average speed a few km/hr.
paulcole 9y ago
>This is what the anti-cycling agenda wants you to think. LOL well it worked. I've never driven a car and bike everywhere. Also cracked my helmet (not my skull) in a slow speed fall when I landed on my butt and fell backwards banging my helmeted head on the pavement.
- quadrangle 9y ago
  I don't know where to put this in an already dense thread but: Helmets are good for those willing to ride with them. For those who will only ride without a helmet, far better for them to bicycle without helmets than to not bicycle. THAT is the point. To the extent that helmet-wearing reduces total bicycling, we are worse off if we push helmets. To the extent that you're talking about someone who would bike either way, wearing a helmet is a good extra safety measure. But bicycling without a helmet (especially, as the article emphasizes, in a culture of widespread biking) is far safer than driving a car.
  - halostatue 9y ago
    This is a good point: better get people on bikes at all, then convince them that using protective gear is better than not using protective gear. Lots of people roller-blade. When they start, they don’t usually start with all the pads and guards…but most experienced bladers have them. Even in cycling, lots of people don’t wear cycling gloves (I can’t entirely blame them; I have a funny hand tan…), but in the event of an accident, they can save your palms from being shredded.
  - akvadrako 9y ago
    Well put.
dahart 9y ago
> In reality, helmets are not worth the trouble. Where are you getting this information? Statistics from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety Fatality Facts: Bicycles - 2014 "Helmet use has been estimated to reduce the odds of head injury by 50 percent, and the odds of head, face, or neck injury by 33 percent." "During the past few years, no more than 17 percent of fatally injured bicyclists were wearing helmets." Statistics from New York City "Almost three-quarters of fatal crashes (74%) involved a head injury. Nearly all bicyclists who died (97%) were not wearing a helmet." http://bhsi.org/stats.htm http://bhsi.org/stats.htm
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

CydeWeys 9y ago

> In reality, helmets are not worth the trouble. Who are you to say that? Most of my cycling is to and from work, on my own bike. Wearing a helmet costs me nothing in the way of inconvenience. I simply leave the helmet on the bike when I park it at home and at work (both secure locations). Who are you to issue some blatant proclamation that "in reality" this isn't worth the nonexistent trouble?

SCHiM 9y ago
I live in the Netherlands, bike everywhere I go (almost). 99.9999% of the people on the street don't wear helmets, not when commuting, not when on a recreational drive. The most serious bicycle accident I ever saw did involve someone's head, but not a way where any helmet would have helped (his steering tube broke and sliced off half his face). I've fallen a few times, at high speeds too (rounding a corner that hasn't been de-iced ended with my hip getting closely aquatinted to the asphalt), reflexes seem to have taken care of protecting my head. I think they might offer some protecting in high speed accidents where even your body does not have time to turn your head away from the ground, but I think in those cases the chances of breaking your neck are just as high.
- CydeWeys 9y ago
  I think I'll take the word of experts over one person's anecdotes. The experts say that wearing a helmet helps prevent injuries. This is also not theoretical to me. I hit a big pothole last year at speed, wrecked, and broke my ankle. I was wearing a helmet and the helmet struck the pavement. My head was completely uninjured. It may not have been uninjured had I not been wearing the helmet. Saying "reflexes protect you" is seriously underestimating how much ragdolling is going on in the split seconds while you're going over the handlebars before smashing into the road or some object.
  - SCHiM 9y ago
    Well I certainly did not study how much your helmets protects you... But, given the fact that, like I said, virtually everybody here cycles, I'm aware of the fact that nobody in my family ever hit their head in a way that caused any permanent damage. None of my friends ever have, none of my teachers, coworkers or anybody else I know (maybe they died before they met me?). The type of cycling I'm talking about is very close to the speed that our reflexes are evolved to deal with, I know exactly how it feels to fall of a bike and I'm not underestimating anything I'm sure. But going back to the original point: So does a helmet help prevent injuries? Yes I'm quite sure they do. Is it worth the bother to lug your helmet with you everywhere? Nope, not for me, and not for anybody else I know, including my 90 year old grandmother. We might as well wear full body armor on the sidewalks, I also think they'd prevent injury in certain cases, but most of the time it'd just be inconvenient and hot.
    - dvtv75 9y ago
      > I'm aware of the fact that nobody in my family ever hit their head in a way that caused any permanent damage. You do, of course, have professional medical assessment to back this up? Because otherwise this is simply assumption and anecdotal data presented as a fact.
    - CydeWeys 9y ago
      > The type of cycling I'm talking about is very close to the speed that our reflexes are evolved to deal with Yeah, well, I go a bit faster than that, whether it's commuting or fitness cycling. You have to, because you're on the street a lot of the time with fast-moving cars. Cycling in the US is a bit different than cycling is in Europe, so the safety measures you consider appropriate over there are different over here. > Is it worth the bother to lug your helmet with you everywhere? Did you read the part of my comment where I said that I always keep my helmet with my bike? I'm not lugging my helmet with me anywhere ever. It's not a bother, it's just always on my handlebars. And guess what, I also have a Citibike bikeshare membership, and sometimes I don't wear a helmet while riding that because I don't have it with me. Not having a helmet with me won't stop me from riding. By the same token, though, easily having a helmet accessible, which describes most of my riding, definitely will get me wearing it! I should also point out that >90% of all my fellow bike commuters at work, as well as >95% of the fitness cyclists I ride with, wear helmets. Not only does it just make sense as a reasonable precaution you can take (like wearing your seatbelt in a car), but I'd very much stand out if I didn't wear one.
- xapata 9y ago
  A friend of mine got cut off by a minivan and his head went helmet-first into the side window. It's rare enough, but perhaps worth a little discomfort. On a group ride, the cyclist in front of me hopped over a pothole and his fork snapped on landing. In addition to getting punctured by one of the pieces, he went helmet-first into the ground. At the hospital, he couldn't remember the accident. I was glad he'd been wearing a helmet. Side note: if you're riding an aluminum bicycle, you should change the fork if it's ever had a strong impact. Hairline fractures are serious. Or just go with a steel frame, since they won't snap.
  - CydeWeys 9y ago
    I too have my anecdotes about myself and my friends who got into accidents and wear very glad they were wearing helmets. One friend in particular was struck by a hit-and-run driver on a suburban road and was injured quite badly; he could've died if not for his helmet.
- WD-42 9y ago
  I've been mountain biking for years. I've broken 2 helmets in crashes, due to hitting the ground hard. One did result in a concussion, but I was fine the other time. If it weren't for the helmet I imagine things could have been a lot worse.
  - CydeWeys 9y ago
    And yet, strangely enough, I've gotten into online arguments with people who argue that because the helmet broke it didn't do its job, and therefore wasn't worth wearing. This line of thought utterly escapes me. One wonders if they'd look at a modern automobile that was mangled nearly beyond recognition in a terrible wreck, but that allowed its passengers to escape with only minor injuries, and say that it didn't do its job, and that they may as well have just been standing there and been struck by a car going highway speed and turned out just the same.
- notzorbo3 9y ago
  I'm also a Dutchy and I'd like to clear something up. Biking in the Netherlands is not like biking almost anywhere in any other country. There are separate bike paths everywhere, cars drive slower in areas where bikes are also allowed. Bikes are first-class vehicles that cars often have to give the right of way for. People bike a lot slower at 7 to 10 mph. Drivers are accustomed to bikes being everywhere. We've also been biking our entire lives. You can see kids from the age of 4 participating in normal traffic (under parental supervision naturally). That's how safe biking in the Netherlands feels: parents let their 4 year olds bike on the same road (not a separated bike path) as cars. This is why, for Dutch people, wearing a helmet during normal daily biking instinctively feels like nonsense. And I don't know a single person from another country that, after having lived here for a bit longer, still wears their helmets here. I don't know of a single helmet study that takes such conditions into account. It's always "this many people died", but never do they mention if they were biking to the local supermarket or going 20 mph downhill in the forest on their mountainbikes without a helmet. I believe if you want to get people biking, you should invest in making biking feel as safe as it feels in the Netherlands. In the meantime, wear helmets.
spodek 9y ago
If you are serious that a helmet costs you nothing in inconvenience and creates no trouble, do you wear one when you walk down the street? You have it with you, you could fall while walking, and it could protect you.
- dvtv75 9y ago
  What's the likelihood of a fall while walking vs the likelihood of a fall while riding, per hour of activity undertaken?
- CydeWeys 9y ago
  You are making very disingenuous arguments here and you damn well know it. Bicycling is both at a much faster speed than walking and is also much more likely to cause a fall or collision with an object in a way that could have you striking your head. Your comment is not at the level of quality of an argument I would expect to see advanced on HN.
  - halostatue 9y ago
    Much faster. I am typically riding at 20–30km/hr when commuting, and my bike only has two gears. If I had more, I know that I’d increase my average speed a few km/hr.

paulcole 9y ago

>This is what the anti-cycling agenda wants you to think. LOL well it worked. I've never driven a car and bike everywhere. Also cracked my helmet (not my skull) in a slow speed fall when I landed on my butt and fell backwards banging my helmeted head on the pavement.

quadrangle 9y ago
I don't know where to put this in an already dense thread but: Helmets are good for those willing to ride with them. For those who will only ride without a helmet, far better for them to bicycle without helmets than to not bicycle. THAT is the point. To the extent that helmet-wearing reduces total bicycling, we are worse off if we push helmets. To the extent that you're talking about someone who would bike either way, wearing a helmet is a good extra safety measure. But bicycling without a helmet (especially, as the article emphasizes, in a culture of widespread biking) is far safer than driving a car.
- halostatue 9y ago
  This is a good point: better get people on bikes at all, then convince them that using protective gear is better than not using protective gear. Lots of people roller-blade. When they start, they don’t usually start with all the pads and guards…but most experienced bladers have them. Even in cycling, lots of people don’t wear cycling gloves (I can’t entirely blame them; I have a funny hand tan…), but in the event of an accident, they can save your palms from being shredded.
- akvadrako 9y ago
  Well put.

dahart 9y ago

> In reality, helmets are not worth the trouble. Where are you getting this information? Statistics from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety Fatality Facts: Bicycles - 2014 "Helmet use has been estimated to reduce the odds of head injury by 50 percent, and the odds of head, face, or neck injury by 33 percent." "During the past few years, no more than 17 percent of fatally injured bicyclists were wearing helmets." Statistics from New York City "Almost three-quarters of fatal crashes (74%) involved a head injury. Nearly all bicyclists who died (97%) were not wearing a helmet." http://bhsi.org/stats.htm http://bhsi.org/stats.htm

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]