11 ms·

I've been cycling to work in downtown LA for nearly 8 years, 4 miles each way. I'm faster than a car over that commute. The weather is fantastic, and I am physi

I've been cycling to work in downtown LA for nearly 8 years, 4 miles each way. I'm faster than a car over that commute. The weather is fantastic, and I am physically in great shape. Mental benefits are huge. I've gone about 15,000 miles in dense urban environments without any accidents of any kind. There are a number of keys to this: - Think like a driver -- it helps to be a good driver first - Think, period. Don't listen to music, pay attention. - Don't ride in the door zone. Don't let drivers make you ride in the door zone. If you need the lane, take the lane. It's your right. - Use flashing lights on front and back, at all times of day. Nobody else except emergency vehicles is allowed to have flashing lights. There's a good reason: they are unmissable and very distracting. - Wear brightly colored shirts and a bright colored helmet. - If you don't wear a helmet, don't worry about it, it doesn't mitigate that much risk. The exercise benefits of biking do way more to increase your life expectancy than skipping a helmet does to reduce it.

troncjb 9y ago
> If you don't wear a helmet, don't worry about it, it doesn't mitigate that much risk. The exercise benefits of biking do way more to increase your life expectancy than skipping a helmet does to reduce it. This is very, very stupid advice.
- maw 9y ago
  Citation needed. (FWIW, I always use a helmet except when I use shared bikes, which is rare, only a few times a year. I get on one of my own bikes, helmeted, hundreds of times a year.)
  - troncjb 9y ago
    I really don't need to cite anything to tell you that if you get in an accident you are better off wearing more protective gear. I don't care that very few cyclists get in bad accidents compared to walkers and joggers. I care that if I am in an accident, my brain doesn't become a smear on the pavement.
    - maw 9y ago
      You're assuming that accidents are equally likely with and without helmets and ignoring OP's point that, on balance, you're better off biking without a helmet than not biking at all. You might actually be right here. I do not know. Either way, don't expect "I really don't need to cite anything" to convince anybody serious.
      - bkor 9y ago
        Don't understand why this has been downvoted. The research behind helmets is exactly why in The Netherlands helmets aren't mandatory. For one, they reduce the amount of people who cycle. Thus they take a car with higher speed, etc. Secondly, wearing a helmet causes cars to be less risk adverse when interacting with you. Lastly, most helmets are utter crap. They tested various and the majority sold in shops are of very poor quality (don't help at all). Strangely, in Denmark most cyclists do wear a helmet. To me it's very inconvenient. E.g. where to store the damn thing when going anywhere?
- wbkang 9y ago
  I totally agree. "Cyclists without helmets triple their chance of death by head injury" https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2012/10/15/cyclists_without_helmets_triple_their_chance_of_death_by_head_injury.html https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2012/10/15/cyclists_without...
  - sandover 9y ago
    Look at it in terms of effect on life expectancty. The risk of death from 1 hour of cycling reduces life expectancy by about 24 minutes. Wearing a helmet probably changes this by a couple of minutes. - http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/06/13/bicycling-the-safest-form-of-transportation/ http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/06/13/bicycling-the-safe... - https://nwurban.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/cyclings-impact-on-life-expectancy/ https://nwurban.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/cyclings-impact-on-... 1 additional hour of sitting and watching TV in the evening, in an already sedentary life, probably has a similar effect on life expectancy. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/17/get-up-get-out-dont-sit http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/17/get-up-get-out-dont... The exercise you get from that same session of cycling for 1 hour INCREASES life expectancy from 3-9 hours. - http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2013/03/minutes-exercise-longer-life http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2013/03/minutes-exercise-longer... - WHO study, http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/exercise-lengthens-life-regardless-12-11-06/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/exercise-l...
    - abakker 9y ago
      I'm not sure it is appropriate to think about helmet use as having a bearing on life expectancy. The data on helmet accident avoidance is terrible. i.e. we have no idea what the severity of an accident "would have been" because that kind of data is never reported. Anecdotally, I've needed my helmet many times, but never reported its use to anyone. you could theoretically look at the injury rate for non-helmeted people, but, again, you don't know how representative that rate is of the population. You are assuming that the non-helmeted accident statistics sample is representative of the cycling population. I am not sure that is true.
      - 9y ago
- sandover 9y ago
  It sounds like you're not informed. https://www.vox.com/2014/5/16/5720762/stop-forcing-people-to-wear-bike-helmets https://www.vox.com/2014/5/16/5720762/stop-forcing-people-to...
  - troncjb 9y ago
    > Helmet proponents are right about one thing: If you're in a serious accident, then wearing a helmet makes the odds of a head injury significantly lower — by somewhere between 15 and 40 percent. (This is why ER doctors and brain surgeons are so pro-helmet — they've seen firsthand what happens in helmet-less accidents.) So this is why most of us wear a helmet. The logic is not "so few people get in accidents that if I wear a helmet it is likely to be overkill!". The logic is "if I get in an accident I will be very glad I am wearing this." Generally, you prepare for the worst, not hope that you are on (typo) the right side of statistics.
    - sandover 9y ago
      For this reason, I wear a helmet. But the health benefits of cycling vastly swamp the risk of death, so the helmet gain is only a small marginal difference. The person who is truly taking a risk is the person who doesn't ride a bike because of the perception that it's dangerous, and continues to be sedentary and drive a car to work. This person is literally reducing their life expectancy by years. (See links I posted elsewhere in the thread.) You need to be able to think about conditional probability.
      - troncjb 9y ago
        > so the helmet gain is only a small marginal difference This is such, such flawed logic. If you are a cyclist getting hit by a car, the averages and statistics don't matter at all. If you are the cyclist getting hit by a car, the helmet is not a "marginal difference". Your protective gear matters. You need to consider the individual cyclist when you are making sweeping statements about the usage of protective gear.
        9y ago
- froindt 9y ago
  To throw an anecdote in, my brother was riding straight through an intersection on green when a driver turned into him. Witnesses said he flew up around 10 feet, up and over the car, and completely shattered his helmet when he landed. He got out of the hospital after 2 days with 3 broken vertebrae. He likely would have been in for over a week if he hadn't died. That helmet made all the difference. Yeah it's still probably a net increase on your life expectancy to ride without a helmet compared to driving, but most people wear seat belts even though almost every mile driven doesn't result in a crash.
  - sandover 9y ago
    I wear a helmet too! But it doesn't change the truth of the sentence: "The exercise benefits of biking do way more to increase your life expectancy than skipping a helmet does to reduce it."
    - s73v3r_ 9y ago
      But that sentence doesn't make any sense! There is precisely ZERO reason to skip the helmet!
      - inopinatus 9y ago
        That assertion is incorrect. There are reasons. Reasons that you and I might find vain or foolhardy, but reasons nevertheless.
        s73v3r_ 9y ago
        Maybe in the sense that there are reasons to shoot yourself in the dick, but I don't think anyone would take those as being a reasonable argument.
        inopinatus 9y ago
        If that comparison was apt, we wouldn't see so many people out riding sans protection. But we do, and it's because they have a share bike that didn't come with a helmet, or they were worried about messing up their hair, or they lost their helmet, or they left it at the destination, or they're a rebellious teenager who just doesn't care, or no-one educated them about the risks, or they just forgot to put it on. A better comparison would be to flossing your teeth, or wearing sunscreen: everyone should do it, but not everyone will do it.
- pboutros 9y ago
  Such a bummer -- the rest of the post was so good. It's really easy to say "I've never had an accident" and "don't worry about not wearing a helmet".
- outside1234 9y ago
  this is like saying you can keep drinking whiskey after quiting smoking because your life expectancy is greatly increased. these things are additive, not either/ors.
- imperialdrive 9y ago
  I've biked heavily for 30 years... advising people to wear a helmet never works. What works 99% of the time is the first freak crash. Not a crash where they felt like they were speeding, or not paying attention, or drunk... then they think it was avoidable. It takes a crash where you hit a rare little crack in the road, or a bump hidden in the shadows, or a car doing a u-turn out of the blue... then it 'clicks' Or, in my case, you witness someone take a minor fall and tap their skull on a curb and seizure and not be quite the same from that point on. If you're reading this and don't wear a helmet, you should consider experimenting with mind altering drugs as well, may as well enjoy the moment.
  - 3pt14159 9y ago
    Take everything you just said and apply it not to a bicycle helmet but to a full face motorcycle helmet. Now do you see how you sound? Bike helmets marginally help, but the same marginal difference is found going from bicycle helmets to full face motorcycle ones. I’ve broken my face in 4 places in a bike accident where the only thing that would have helped would have been a motorcycle helmet, but I don’t go around town wearing one or telling other people to. I like the air in my hair and I’m ok with the additional risk that not wearing any helmet carries. I’m careful in otherways but I’m an adult making an informed choice about the relative risk.
    - imperialdrive 9y ago
      Shoot, now I'm getting paranoid... I've talked to a handful of people in full helmet gear and it's a similar painful story... definitely thought about the face/chin-plant scenario. I prefer the full peripheral vision but I'd be singing a different tune if I lost teeth or broke a facial bone... sorry to hear about your accident.
    - darly 9y ago
      You don't actually need a full face motorcycle helmet, that's overkill for cycling speeds (and uncomfortable with exertion). I regularly commute to work by bike and after a bad fall where I almost landed on my face, I decided to upgrade from a normal helmet to a full face bicycle helmet. You can get a decent one for ~$150 and it'll give you some protection even if you fall flat on your face. Highly recommend as a normal helmet doesn't do much for your face and a lot of falls could result in facial damage.
- vbernat 9y ago
  Most people here seems to miss the point. If you tell people to wear an helmet to cycle, they won't cycle.
- oppositelock 9y ago
  The assumption is that wearing a helmet somehow reduces the odds of exercise. Just keep your helmet with your bike, and you'll never forget it. I've been cycling to work for years, which which has varied from 10 miles one way, to 1 mile. I always wear my helmet, and in all these years an many thousands of bike miles, it only been "useful" once. A drainage grate was covered over with leaves, I didn't see it, my front wheel fell in, fork snapped off, and I flew over the handlebars, headfirst into the curb. My helmet split in two and I had a massive head bruise, but had I not been wearing it, I'd be dead.
  - sandover 9y ago
    > wearing a helmet somehow reduces the odds of exercise Helmet paranoia DOES reduce the odds of exercise. On a group level, at the level of public health, that's PRECISELY what it does. I encourage you to read about it, that's why they call it the helmet paradox. This piece is a nice summary. http://www.howiechong.com/journal/2014/2/bike-helmets http://www.howiechong.com/journal/2014/2/bike-helmets Bike helmets protect our heads, but they also do the following: 1. increase your chances of getting in an accident 2. discourage cycling Here's what to do: 1. If you want to be healthy, ride a bike instead of driving. 2. If you want to be even healthier, consider maybe putting on a helmet, but be mindful it doesn't increase your risk-taking behavior. I choose option 2, but option 1 is also great.
- mcsb1 9y ago
  Actually not wearing a helmet is very clever advice. In the Netherlands almost nobody wears a helmet and yet it is one of the safest places to cycle. In fact we all tend to overcompensate safety with more risky behaviour. A car is basically a 1.5t full body steel armor. And then we go and drive at speeds far beyond of what this armor can protect us from. If you'd remove the body work and make it a buggy, people would drive a lot slower. Personal anecdote: I bought a helmet a few years ago. While it was still in delivery I came into a situation where I was not sure what a car was doing and I caught myself thinking: "with a helmet I'd not braked" - but rather taken the risk. Thus I have never worn it and it is sitting there collecting dust. Another abstract example: no country is more obsessed with "low carb" and "low fat" than the US. Yet no other country produces more plus sized people than the US. Yet another example is Michael Schumacher. Without the helmet he may not have taken the risk to go into unknown terrain. I feel vulnerable without a helmet and that keeps me alive.
- s0rce 9y ago
  This is heavily disputed. I suggest you read both sides of the argument and say something constructive.
- u801e 9y ago
  I think it's better to concentrate on educating riders on bike handling skills and skills they need when riding in traffic rather than concentrate on helmet use to the exclusion of all else.
kyoung18 9y ago
I once crashed head-first at 20 mph into hard asphalt. Point of impact was at my right frontal lobe. My helmet cracked. If I wasn't wearing one I'm sure it would have been my skull instead.
- matte_black 9y ago
  Having seen a cyclist without a helmet killed in a similar accident, I can guarantee you would have been dead.
steve_adams_86 9y ago
Oof, I'll chime in here. My helmet has saved me from two head injuries I'm so glad and grateful I didn't have to endure with my skull alone. I suspect I'd have some terrible scars and possibly some concussion damage if I took your advice.
AceyMan 9y ago
>>>If you don't wear a helmet, don't worry about it, it doesn't mitigate that much risk. The exercise benefits of biking do way more to increase your life expectancy than skipping a helmet does to reduce it. I'd read somewhere that up until some fairly high speed (40 kph?) that a helmet doesn't measurably lower the risk of injury. (Citations, pro or con, welcome!) And as the Vox piece points out, merely wearing a helmet induces drivers to reduce their caution, making the need for a helmet something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. I still wear my helmet when I commute or do longer rides but I'm beginning to put my toe in the water by going helmetless for short trips to lunch, the nearby park, etc. It may be my self-awareness about going sans helmet talking, but I'd almost swear that when I ride 'au naturel' drivers make more eye contact and generally seem to acknowledge my presence more than when I'm fully kitted out. Also: Schwalbe Marathons are the shiznitz. I have 42-622 Marathon Supremes on my new urban bike, and they grip like ... something really sticky ... and are like pillows, to boot (esp. coming off 25-622 road tires). More dough, but worth it for me. Zero flats in over two years, btw. (me: occasional bike commuter here in West LA for about eight years)
- pilom 9y ago
  Second vote for the Schwalbe Marathons. I got fed up with fixing a flat once a month when I lived in Pittsburgh and biked everywhere. Replaced my tires with Marathons and had to replace the tires for wear after a couple thousand miles before I patched another flat.
losvedir 9y ago
> If you don't wear a helmet, don't worry about it, it doesn't mitigate that much risk. The exercise benefits of biking do way more to increase your life expectancy than skipping a helmet does to reduce it. What a bizarre contrast. If I'm inferring your point correctly, you're addressing those who would otherwise ride a bike to work but don't because of a helmet requirement? Is literally anyone in that position? I get that biking + no helmet > no biking, but why is that relevant? Anyone commuting to work should have a plan to deal with a helmet, it's such a trivial thing to plan for and deal with compared to maintaining your bike, having parking for it, arranging showers, etc. For the one off scenario where you don't have your helmet on hand, then it's more of an interesting question: "should I chance it and ride the bike without a helmet this one time?" But in that case, your statistics about life expectancy aren't going to be relevant in the health case; one bike ride is not going to make you more fit or not, but it's very relevant in the chances of getting hit by a car case.
- inopinatus 9y ago
  This’ll sound vain - because it mostly is - but some folks really care about their hair and may have it in an aesthetic construct that helmet-wearing will obliterate. For those folks, wearing a helmet is anathema. Personally I recommend simply not riding in this situation, because helmets save lives. But I’m not everybody.
- secabeen 9y ago
  > For the one off scenario where you don't have your helmet on hand, then it's more of an interesting question: "should I chance it and ride the bike without a helmet this one time?" This is the issue right here. Habits matter, and getting out of a habit can destroy the habit entirely. If the argument is "always wear a helmet" and you cancel rides because of that requirement, I would think you are much more likely to fall out of the habit of riding. If you can continue to ride when you don't have a helmet, you keep that habit going, and next time, you're likely to have the helmet again, and keep accruing the benefits.
- xweb 9y ago
  https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/04/how-effective-are-bike-helmet-laws/521997/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/04/how-effective... Key point for this discussion: "In 1993, New South Wales, Australia, commissioned a study to see if a new helmet law for children was increasing helmet uptake. It did—but the researchers also found 30 percent fewer children were riding to school. In New Zealand, where helmet compulsion was introduced in 1994, the number of overall bike trips fell 51 percent between 1989–90 and 2003–6, according to one research paper." https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/do-bike-helmet-laws-really-save-people/2013/06/03/6a6532b4-c6df-11e2-9245-773c0123c027_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/do-bi... "Meanwhile, it seems that bicyclists wearing helmets may encourage riskier driving by motorists." Just to be clear, I'm not advocating against wearing a helmet if you DO commute on a bike. As someone who fifteen years ago cracked a helmet instead of his head after falling on some jagged pavement, I appreciate what a helmet can do for you. And there may be statistical support for wearing a bike helmet as well: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/sep/22/bicycle-helmets-reduce-risk-of-serious-head-injury-by-nearly-70-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/sep/22/bicycle... However, I think the OP's basic point holds. Being sedentary is a greater health risk than riding without a helmet.
skylark 9y ago
Good advice all around until that last point. While any individual might personally engage in risky behavior, it's not correct to make a blanket recommendation. As the number of people who follow risky advice increases, the chance of someone being negatively impacted approaches 100%. This is why we have public policy to force seatbelts in cars, and why everybody should vote in elections - behaviors adopted on a wide scale can have significant societal impact even though the benefit to the individual is insignificant.
marme 9y ago
do not turn on your light to flashing at night. It distracts oncoming traffic and makes it more difficult for them to judge you speed and distance. Flashing lights should only be used during the day time https://www.bikelightdatabase.com/faq/ https://www.bikelightdatabase.com/faq/ https://averagejoecyclist.com/use-flashing-bike-lights/ https://averagejoecyclist.com/use-flashing-bike-lights/
jac_no_k 9y ago
Reasonable except for the helmet part. Anecdotal: I've gone through two smashed helmets. One due to taxi vs. cyclist and another when bicycle lowsided on wet leaves at a walking pace. Both times the helmet absorbed significant damage. Helmets are a layer in defense. It's not a perfect shield and will not help in catastrophic situations. However in the more likely situation, the helmet does help. Current cycling helmets are well ventilated and lightweight. We should be providing information about the risks and rewards. It's up to the cyclist to decide how they want to proceed. Me: 32km (20mi) each way, slicing through the Tokyo metro area.
josiahpeters 9y ago
I treat helmet safety like I do gun safety. ALWAYS TREAT A GUN AS IF ITS LOADED. If you don't, you behave differently around it always. And that's how people accidentally shoot their friends or themselves (even cleaning their gun). If you choose to not compromise on fundamentals like that, you are positioning yourself and others for less risk from the get go. Thankfully I applied the same ALWAYS mentality to wearing a helmet for my biking commute. I was obeying traffic laws when a pickup truck turned into me while I was traveling through a green light. I had right of way and he wasn't paying attention and clipped me fairly hard. I tried to break and skid about 10 feet as he turned into me. I ended up in the hospital with a severe concussion and a terrifying 6 hours for my wife as she sat next to me. Praying that my lost memory would recover as the concussion wore off. I was initially forgetful of us having been married for less than a year. Eventually I started remembering things again, quite a scary moment for us. Funny thing was I was riding to visit a friend who was just a few blocks away. He had recently criticised me for wearing a helmet to go less than a mile to visit him. Fast forward a year and finally getting the nerve to ride again. My first trip out and a teenager blows through a stop sign without looking and almost hits me. In broad daylight, flashing lights on my bike and all. There is an inherit risk in riding my bike to work. And a helmet may not provide a meaningful mitigation of risk. (I've never bothered to look up statistics, maybe you have?) However, I can control just a few variables to ride or not, ride defensively or not, and wear protective gear or not. I certainly have no control of the motor vehicles drivers or their distractions. So I choose the variables that I can control without losing the joy of commuting as a cyclist.

troncjb 9y ago

maw 9y ago
Citation needed. (FWIW, I always use a helmet except when I use shared bikes, which is rare, only a few times a year. I get on one of my own bikes, helmeted, hundreds of times a year.)
- troncjb 9y ago
  I really don't need to cite anything to tell you that if you get in an accident you are better off wearing more protective gear. I don't care that very few cyclists get in bad accidents compared to walkers and joggers. I care that if I am in an accident, my brain doesn't become a smear on the pavement.
  - maw 9y ago
    You're assuming that accidents are equally likely with and without helmets and ignoring OP's point that, on balance, you're better off biking without a helmet than not biking at all. You might actually be right here. I do not know. Either way, don't expect "I really don't need to cite anything" to convince anybody serious.
    - bkor 9y ago
      Don't understand why this has been downvoted. The research behind helmets is exactly why in The Netherlands helmets aren't mandatory. For one, they reduce the amount of people who cycle. Thus they take a car with higher speed, etc. Secondly, wearing a helmet causes cars to be less risk adverse when interacting with you. Lastly, most helmets are utter crap. They tested various and the majority sold in shops are of very poor quality (don't help at all). Strangely, in Denmark most cyclists do wear a helmet. To me it's very inconvenient. E.g. where to store the damn thing when going anywhere?
wbkang 9y ago
I totally agree. "Cyclists without helmets triple their chance of death by head injury" https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2012/10/15/cyclists_without_helmets_triple_their_chance_of_death_by_head_injury.html https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2012/10/15/cyclists_without...
- sandover 9y ago
  Look at it in terms of effect on life expectancty. The risk of death from 1 hour of cycling reduces life expectancy by about 24 minutes. Wearing a helmet probably changes this by a couple of minutes. - http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/06/13/bicycling-the-safest-form-of-transportation/ http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/06/13/bicycling-the-safe... - https://nwurban.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/cyclings-impact-on-life-expectancy/ https://nwurban.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/cyclings-impact-on-... 1 additional hour of sitting and watching TV in the evening, in an already sedentary life, probably has a similar effect on life expectancy. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/17/get-up-get-out-dont-sit http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/17/get-up-get-out-dont... The exercise you get from that same session of cycling for 1 hour INCREASES life expectancy from 3-9 hours. - http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2013/03/minutes-exercise-longer-life http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2013/03/minutes-exercise-longer... - WHO study, http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/exercise-lengthens-life-regardless-12-11-06/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/exercise-l...
  - abakker 9y ago
    I'm not sure it is appropriate to think about helmet use as having a bearing on life expectancy. The data on helmet accident avoidance is terrible. i.e. we have no idea what the severity of an accident "would have been" because that kind of data is never reported. Anecdotally, I've needed my helmet many times, but never reported its use to anyone. you could theoretically look at the injury rate for non-helmeted people, but, again, you don't know how representative that rate is of the population. You are assuming that the non-helmeted accident statistics sample is representative of the cycling population. I am not sure that is true.
    - 9y ago
sandover 9y ago
It sounds like you're not informed. https://www.vox.com/2014/5/16/5720762/stop-forcing-people-to-wear-bike-helmets https://www.vox.com/2014/5/16/5720762/stop-forcing-people-to...
- troncjb 9y ago
  > Helmet proponents are right about one thing: If you're in a serious accident, then wearing a helmet makes the odds of a head injury significantly lower — by somewhere between 15 and 40 percent. (This is why ER doctors and brain surgeons are so pro-helmet — they've seen firsthand what happens in helmet-less accidents.) So this is why most of us wear a helmet. The logic is not "so few people get in accidents that if I wear a helmet it is likely to be overkill!". The logic is "if I get in an accident I will be very glad I am wearing this." Generally, you prepare for the worst, not hope that you are on (typo) the right side of statistics.
  - sandover 9y ago
    For this reason, I wear a helmet. But the health benefits of cycling vastly swamp the risk of death, so the helmet gain is only a small marginal difference. The person who is truly taking a risk is the person who doesn't ride a bike because of the perception that it's dangerous, and continues to be sedentary and drive a car to work. This person is literally reducing their life expectancy by years. (See links I posted elsewhere in the thread.) You need to be able to think about conditional probability.
    - troncjb 9y ago
      > so the helmet gain is only a small marginal difference This is such, such flawed logic. If you are a cyclist getting hit by a car, the averages and statistics don't matter at all. If you are the cyclist getting hit by a car, the helmet is not a "marginal difference". Your protective gear matters. You need to consider the individual cyclist when you are making sweeping statements about the usage of protective gear.
      - 9y ago
froindt 9y ago
To throw an anecdote in, my brother was riding straight through an intersection on green when a driver turned into him. Witnesses said he flew up around 10 feet, up and over the car, and completely shattered his helmet when he landed. He got out of the hospital after 2 days with 3 broken vertebrae. He likely would have been in for over a week if he hadn't died. That helmet made all the difference. Yeah it's still probably a net increase on your life expectancy to ride without a helmet compared to driving, but most people wear seat belts even though almost every mile driven doesn't result in a crash.
- sandover 9y ago
  I wear a helmet too! But it doesn't change the truth of the sentence: "The exercise benefits of biking do way more to increase your life expectancy than skipping a helmet does to reduce it."
  - s73v3r_ 9y ago
    But that sentence doesn't make any sense! There is precisely ZERO reason to skip the helmet!
    - inopinatus 9y ago
      That assertion is incorrect. There are reasons. Reasons that you and I might find vain or foolhardy, but reasons nevertheless.
      - s73v3r_ 9y ago
        Maybe in the sense that there are reasons to shoot yourself in the dick, but I don't think anyone would take those as being a reasonable argument.
        inopinatus 9y ago
        If that comparison was apt, we wouldn't see so many people out riding sans protection. But we do, and it's because they have a share bike that didn't come with a helmet, or they were worried about messing up their hair, or they lost their helmet, or they left it at the destination, or they're a rebellious teenager who just doesn't care, or no-one educated them about the risks, or they just forgot to put it on. A better comparison would be to flossing your teeth, or wearing sunscreen: everyone should do it, but not everyone will do it.
pboutros 9y ago
Such a bummer -- the rest of the post was so good. It's really easy to say "I've never had an accident" and "don't worry about not wearing a helmet".
outside1234 9y ago
this is like saying you can keep drinking whiskey after quiting smoking because your life expectancy is greatly increased. these things are additive, not either/ors.
imperialdrive 9y ago
I've biked heavily for 30 years... advising people to wear a helmet never works. What works 99% of the time is the first freak crash. Not a crash where they felt like they were speeding, or not paying attention, or drunk... then they think it was avoidable. It takes a crash where you hit a rare little crack in the road, or a bump hidden in the shadows, or a car doing a u-turn out of the blue... then it 'clicks' Or, in my case, you witness someone take a minor fall and tap their skull on a curb and seizure and not be quite the same from that point on. If you're reading this and don't wear a helmet, you should consider experimenting with mind altering drugs as well, may as well enjoy the moment.
- 3pt14159 9y ago
  Take everything you just said and apply it not to a bicycle helmet but to a full face motorcycle helmet. Now do you see how you sound? Bike helmets marginally help, but the same marginal difference is found going from bicycle helmets to full face motorcycle ones. I’ve broken my face in 4 places in a bike accident where the only thing that would have helped would have been a motorcycle helmet, but I don’t go around town wearing one or telling other people to. I like the air in my hair and I’m ok with the additional risk that not wearing any helmet carries. I’m careful in otherways but I’m an adult making an informed choice about the relative risk.
  - imperialdrive 9y ago
    Shoot, now I'm getting paranoid... I've talked to a handful of people in full helmet gear and it's a similar painful story... definitely thought about the face/chin-plant scenario. I prefer the full peripheral vision but I'd be singing a different tune if I lost teeth or broke a facial bone... sorry to hear about your accident.
  - darly 9y ago
    You don't actually need a full face motorcycle helmet, that's overkill for cycling speeds (and uncomfortable with exertion). I regularly commute to work by bike and after a bad fall where I almost landed on my face, I decided to upgrade from a normal helmet to a full face bicycle helmet. You can get a decent one for ~$150 and it'll give you some protection even if you fall flat on your face. Highly recommend as a normal helmet doesn't do much for your face and a lot of falls could result in facial damage.
vbernat 9y ago
Most people here seems to miss the point. If you tell people to wear an helmet to cycle, they won't cycle.
oppositelock 9y ago
The assumption is that wearing a helmet somehow reduces the odds of exercise. Just keep your helmet with your bike, and you'll never forget it. I've been cycling to work for years, which which has varied from 10 miles one way, to 1 mile. I always wear my helmet, and in all these years an many thousands of bike miles, it only been "useful" once. A drainage grate was covered over with leaves, I didn't see it, my front wheel fell in, fork snapped off, and I flew over the handlebars, headfirst into the curb. My helmet split in two and I had a massive head bruise, but had I not been wearing it, I'd be dead.
- sandover 9y ago
  > wearing a helmet somehow reduces the odds of exercise Helmet paranoia DOES reduce the odds of exercise. On a group level, at the level of public health, that's PRECISELY what it does. I encourage you to read about it, that's why they call it the helmet paradox. This piece is a nice summary. http://www.howiechong.com/journal/2014/2/bike-helmets http://www.howiechong.com/journal/2014/2/bike-helmets Bike helmets protect our heads, but they also do the following: 1. increase your chances of getting in an accident 2. discourage cycling Here's what to do: 1. If you want to be healthy, ride a bike instead of driving. 2. If you want to be even healthier, consider maybe putting on a helmet, but be mindful it doesn't increase your risk-taking behavior. I choose option 2, but option 1 is also great.
mcsb1 9y ago
Actually not wearing a helmet is very clever advice. In the Netherlands almost nobody wears a helmet and yet it is one of the safest places to cycle. In fact we all tend to overcompensate safety with more risky behaviour. A car is basically a 1.5t full body steel armor. And then we go and drive at speeds far beyond of what this armor can protect us from. If you'd remove the body work and make it a buggy, people would drive a lot slower. Personal anecdote: I bought a helmet a few years ago. While it was still in delivery I came into a situation where I was not sure what a car was doing and I caught myself thinking: "with a helmet I'd not braked" - but rather taken the risk. Thus I have never worn it and it is sitting there collecting dust. Another abstract example: no country is more obsessed with "low carb" and "low fat" than the US. Yet no other country produces more plus sized people than the US. Yet another example is Michael Schumacher. Without the helmet he may not have taken the risk to go into unknown terrain. I feel vulnerable without a helmet and that keeps me alive.
s0rce 9y ago
This is heavily disputed. I suggest you read both sides of the argument and say something constructive.
u801e 9y ago
I think it's better to concentrate on educating riders on bike handling skills and skills they need when riding in traffic rather than concentrate on helmet use to the exclusion of all else.

kyoung18 9y ago

I once crashed head-first at 20 mph into hard asphalt. Point of impact was at my right frontal lobe. My helmet cracked. If I wasn't wearing one I'm sure it would have been my skull instead.

matte_black 9y ago
Having seen a cyclist without a helmet killed in a similar accident, I can guarantee you would have been dead.

steve_adams_86 9y ago

Oof, I'll chime in here. My helmet has saved me from two head injuries I'm so glad and grateful I didn't have to endure with my skull alone. I suspect I'd have some terrible scars and possibly some concussion damage if I took your advice.

AceyMan 9y ago

>>>If you don't wear a helmet, don't worry about it, it doesn't mitigate that much risk. The exercise benefits of biking do way more to increase your life expectancy than skipping a helmet does to reduce it. I'd read somewhere that up until some fairly high speed (40 kph?) that a helmet doesn't measurably lower the risk of injury. (Citations, pro or con, welcome!) And as the Vox piece points out, merely wearing a helmet induces drivers to reduce their caution, making the need for a helmet something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. I still wear my helmet when I commute or do longer rides but I'm beginning to put my toe in the water by going helmetless for short trips to lunch, the nearby park, etc. It may be my self-awareness about going sans helmet talking, but I'd almost swear that when I ride 'au naturel' drivers make more eye contact and generally seem to acknowledge my presence more than when I'm fully kitted out. Also: Schwalbe Marathons are the shiznitz. I have 42-622 Marathon Supremes on my new urban bike, and they grip like ... something really sticky ... and are like pillows, to boot (esp. coming off 25-622 road tires). More dough, but worth it for me. Zero flats in over two years, btw. (me: occasional bike commuter here in West LA for about eight years)

pilom 9y ago
Second vote for the Schwalbe Marathons. I got fed up with fixing a flat once a month when I lived in Pittsburgh and biked everywhere. Replaced my tires with Marathons and had to replace the tires for wear after a couple thousand miles before I patched another flat.

losvedir 9y ago

> If you don't wear a helmet, don't worry about it, it doesn't mitigate that much risk. The exercise benefits of biking do way more to increase your life expectancy than skipping a helmet does to reduce it. What a bizarre contrast. If I'm inferring your point correctly, you're addressing those who would otherwise ride a bike to work but don't because of a helmet requirement? Is literally anyone in that position? I get that biking + no helmet > no biking, but why is that relevant? Anyone commuting to work should have a plan to deal with a helmet, it's such a trivial thing to plan for and deal with compared to maintaining your bike, having parking for it, arranging showers, etc. For the one off scenario where you don't have your helmet on hand, then it's more of an interesting question: "should I chance it and ride the bike without a helmet this one time?" But in that case, your statistics about life expectancy aren't going to be relevant in the health case; one bike ride is not going to make you more fit or not, but it's very relevant in the chances of getting hit by a car case.

inopinatus 9y ago
This’ll sound vain - because it mostly is - but some folks really care about their hair and may have it in an aesthetic construct that helmet-wearing will obliterate. For those folks, wearing a helmet is anathema. Personally I recommend simply not riding in this situation, because helmets save lives. But I’m not everybody.
secabeen 9y ago
> For the one off scenario where you don't have your helmet on hand, then it's more of an interesting question: "should I chance it and ride the bike without a helmet this one time?" This is the issue right here. Habits matter, and getting out of a habit can destroy the habit entirely. If the argument is "always wear a helmet" and you cancel rides because of that requirement, I would think you are much more likely to fall out of the habit of riding. If you can continue to ride when you don't have a helmet, you keep that habit going, and next time, you're likely to have the helmet again, and keep accruing the benefits.
xweb 9y ago
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/04/how-effective-are-bike-helmet-laws/521997/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/04/how-effective... Key point for this discussion: "In 1993, New South Wales, Australia, commissioned a study to see if a new helmet law for children was increasing helmet uptake. It did—but the researchers also found 30 percent fewer children were riding to school. In New Zealand, where helmet compulsion was introduced in 1994, the number of overall bike trips fell 51 percent between 1989–90 and 2003–6, according to one research paper." https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/do-bike-helmet-laws-really-save-people/2013/06/03/6a6532b4-c6df-11e2-9245-773c0123c027_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/do-bi... "Meanwhile, it seems that bicyclists wearing helmets may encourage riskier driving by motorists." Just to be clear, I'm not advocating against wearing a helmet if you DO commute on a bike. As someone who fifteen years ago cracked a helmet instead of his head after falling on some jagged pavement, I appreciate what a helmet can do for you. And there may be statistical support for wearing a bike helmet as well: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/sep/22/bicycle-helmets-reduce-risk-of-serious-head-injury-by-nearly-70-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/sep/22/bicycle... However, I think the OP's basic point holds. Being sedentary is a greater health risk than riding without a helmet.

skylark 9y ago

Good advice all around until that last point. While any individual might personally engage in risky behavior, it's not correct to make a blanket recommendation. As the number of people who follow risky advice increases, the chance of someone being negatively impacted approaches 100%. This is why we have public policy to force seatbelts in cars, and why everybody should vote in elections - behaviors adopted on a wide scale can have significant societal impact even though the benefit to the individual is insignificant.

marme 9y ago

do not turn on your light to flashing at night. It distracts oncoming traffic and makes it more difficult for them to judge you speed and distance. Flashing lights should only be used during the day time https://www.bikelightdatabase.com/faq/ https://www.bikelightdatabase.com/faq/ https://averagejoecyclist.com/use-flashing-bike-lights/ https://averagejoecyclist.com/use-flashing-bike-lights/

jac_no_k 9y ago

Reasonable except for the helmet part. Anecdotal: I've gone through two smashed helmets. One due to taxi vs. cyclist and another when bicycle lowsided on wet leaves at a walking pace. Both times the helmet absorbed significant damage. Helmets are a layer in defense. It's not a perfect shield and will not help in catastrophic situations. However in the more likely situation, the helmet does help. Current cycling helmets are well ventilated and lightweight. We should be providing information about the risks and rewards. It's up to the cyclist to decide how they want to proceed. Me: 32km (20mi) each way, slicing through the Tokyo metro area.

josiahpeters 9y ago

I treat helmet safety like I do gun safety. ALWAYS TREAT A GUN AS IF ITS LOADED. If you don't, you behave differently around it always. And that's how people accidentally shoot their friends or themselves (even cleaning their gun). If you choose to not compromise on fundamentals like that, you are positioning yourself and others for less risk from the get go. Thankfully I applied the same ALWAYS mentality to wearing a helmet for my biking commute. I was obeying traffic laws when a pickup truck turned into me while I was traveling through a green light. I had right of way and he wasn't paying attention and clipped me fairly hard. I tried to break and skid about 10 feet as he turned into me. I ended up in the hospital with a severe concussion and a terrifying 6 hours for my wife as she sat next to me. Praying that my lost memory would recover as the concussion wore off. I was initially forgetful of us having been married for less than a year. Eventually I started remembering things again, quite a scary moment for us. Funny thing was I was riding to visit a friend who was just a few blocks away. He had recently criticised me for wearing a helmet to go less than a mile to visit him. Fast forward a year and finally getting the nerve to ride again. My first trip out and a teenager blows through a stop sign without looking and almost hits me. In broad daylight, flashing lights on my bike and all. There is an inherit risk in riding my bike to work. And a helmet may not provide a meaningful mitigation of risk. (I've never bothered to look up statistics, maybe you have?) However, I can control just a few variables to ride or not, ride defensively or not, and wear protective gear or not. I certainly have no control of the motor vehicles drivers or their distractions. So I choose the variables that I can control without losing the joy of commuting as a cyclist.