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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-f

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.
    - bhandziuk 9y ago
      If I were not wearing a helmet routinely I'd be so paranoid about getting hit/falling/some injury that there would be no health benefits at all. Wearing a helmet is comfortable, relatively in expensive and life saving. There is really no argument to be made to not have one on your head. I can't believe you are needing to even make a pro-helmet case at all here.
      - edejong 9y ago
        Arguments: 1. Wearing makes you less cautious 2. Car drivers think ‘you’re protected’ thus make larger risks 3. Helmets are inconvenient to carry around at your destination 4. It hampers the development of saver bicycle road situations, since ‘the cyclists are already protected’ I’m dutch, driving without a helmet since forever (started at 2 years old). Most serious accidents on the road that I know of are broken colar bones, broken hips and broken wrists. You really need a strange fall the land on your head. I guess with a head-on collision perhaps?
        JoeAltmaier 9y ago
        The classic bike/head injury is riding into a crack (or grating) that grabs the front tire and stops the bike, hurling the rider over the handlebars and hammering them headfirst into the ground.
        edejong 9y ago
        Been there, done that. Catch yourself on your hands/elbows. If you can’t, then perhaps you should go slower over such terrain. We dutchies coast on average around 20 km/h (12.5 mph). Anyone going above 30 is deemed “racing bicyclist” and they usually do wear helmets. They are a class on their own and are often hated by car drivers, since they think they have the road for themselves.
        JoeAltmaier 9y ago
        So that's the difference. Anybody commuting in America is going as fast as practicable, and owns a road bike. Cruising is more like 32km/h(20mph). Since the average distance from home to work can be many miles, speed is paramount. Also, any terrain in the US is 'such terrain'. There's little or no accommodation for bikes, and the roads (for cars) consider cracks of 1 inch or so as negligible. Also gratings by curbs (where bikes are expected to ride) often have slots of that size. There's a public-education effort to get gratings turned at right angles to traffic, but most traffic departments are disdainful of bikes.
  - colanderman 9y ago
    > The person who is truly taking a risk is the person who doesn't ride a bike No, that is not what "risk" means. Sedentary people can still be fairly certain that they will die when they are over 60, even if it's a few years earlier than they would if they were active. A cyclist without a helmet has a much greater chance of dying an an unpredictable time. That is what "risk" means.
- jdietrich 9y ago
  Lots of ordinary activities present a similar or greater risk of head injury than cycling. Do you wear a helmet to get into the bathtub? Do you wear a helmet to climb the stairs? The problem with the helmet debate isn't that it's wrong, but that it's irrelevant. Every minute spent arguing about helmets is a minute that isn't spent making the most important point - cyclists live longer than non-cyclists, regardless of whether they wear a helmet. Wear a helmet, don't wear a helmet, it doesn't really matter. TO AVOID A PREMATURE DEATH, MOVE YOUR BODY.
- dionidium 9y ago
  > 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." You could use the same logic to justify extreme defenses against all kinds of rare-but-deadly events. You should be wearing a helmet in your car to protect against accidents in which your head hits the side window. You should be carrying a rifle to fight off wildlife every time you go for a hike. You definitely shouldn't be crossing any streets in auto-heavy cities. (And we could go on and on and on like this. There's no reason to even leave your house! Better to get everything delivered and not risk contact with the world at all!) Everything is a tradeoff. There are no absolutes. Just tradeoffs.
- u801e 9y ago
  > (This is why ER doctors and brain surgeons are so pro-helmet — they've seen firsthand what happens in helmet-less accidents.) Except for the fact that the CPSC (Consumer Products Safety Commission) impact testing standards for bicycle helmets only test for impacts for a guided free fall drop from a height of 6.5 feet. That's the equivalent of someone falling over while doing a track-stand on the bicycle. If you're going 25 mph and hit the ground, the helmet won't protect from an impact it wasn't designed or tested for. The second problem is that helmets won't protect you from forces that lead to concussive type injuries. If you really want adequate head protection, then you need to wear a motorcycle helmet.

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.
  - bhandziuk 9y ago
    If I were not wearing a helmet routinely I'd be so paranoid about getting hit/falling/some injury that there would be no health benefits at all. Wearing a helmet is comfortable, relatively in expensive and life saving. There is really no argument to be made to not have one on your head. I can't believe you are needing to even make a pro-helmet case at all here.
    - edejong 9y ago
      Arguments: 1. Wearing makes you less cautious 2. Car drivers think ‘you’re protected’ thus make larger risks 3. Helmets are inconvenient to carry around at your destination 4. It hampers the development of saver bicycle road situations, since ‘the cyclists are already protected’ I’m dutch, driving without a helmet since forever (started at 2 years old). Most serious accidents on the road that I know of are broken colar bones, broken hips and broken wrists. You really need a strange fall the land on your head. I guess with a head-on collision perhaps?
      - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
        The classic bike/head injury is riding into a crack (or grating) that grabs the front tire and stops the bike, hurling the rider over the handlebars and hammering them headfirst into the ground.
        edejong 9y ago
        Been there, done that. Catch yourself on your hands/elbows. If you can’t, then perhaps you should go slower over such terrain. We dutchies coast on average around 20 km/h (12.5 mph). Anyone going above 30 is deemed “racing bicyclist” and they usually do wear helmets. They are a class on their own and are often hated by car drivers, since they think they have the road for themselves.
        JoeAltmaier 9y ago
        So that's the difference. Anybody commuting in America is going as fast as practicable, and owns a road bike. Cruising is more like 32km/h(20mph). Since the average distance from home to work can be many miles, speed is paramount. Also, any terrain in the US is 'such terrain'. There's little or no accommodation for bikes, and the roads (for cars) consider cracks of 1 inch or so as negligible. Also gratings by curbs (where bikes are expected to ride) often have slots of that size. There's a public-education effort to get gratings turned at right angles to traffic, but most traffic departments are disdainful of bikes.
- colanderman 9y ago
  > The person who is truly taking a risk is the person who doesn't ride a bike No, that is not what "risk" means. Sedentary people can still be fairly certain that they will die when they are over 60, even if it's a few years earlier than they would if they were active. A cyclist without a helmet has a much greater chance of dying an an unpredictable time. That is what "risk" means.
jdietrich 9y ago
Lots of ordinary activities present a similar or greater risk of head injury than cycling. Do you wear a helmet to get into the bathtub? Do you wear a helmet to climb the stairs? The problem with the helmet debate isn't that it's wrong, but that it's irrelevant. Every minute spent arguing about helmets is a minute that isn't spent making the most important point - cyclists live longer than non-cyclists, regardless of whether they wear a helmet. Wear a helmet, don't wear a helmet, it doesn't really matter. TO AVOID A PREMATURE DEATH, MOVE YOUR BODY.
dionidium 9y ago
> 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." You could use the same logic to justify extreme defenses against all kinds of rare-but-deadly events. You should be wearing a helmet in your car to protect against accidents in which your head hits the side window. You should be carrying a rifle to fight off wildlife every time you go for a hike. You definitely shouldn't be crossing any streets in auto-heavy cities. (And we could go on and on and on like this. There's no reason to even leave your house! Better to get everything delivered and not risk contact with the world at all!) Everything is a tradeoff. There are no absolutes. Just tradeoffs.
u801e 9y ago
> (This is why ER doctors and brain surgeons are so pro-helmet — they've seen firsthand what happens in helmet-less accidents.) Except for the fact that the CPSC (Consumer Products Safety Commission) impact testing standards for bicycle helmets only test for impacts for a guided free fall drop from a height of 6.5 feet. That's the equivalent of someone falling over while doing a track-stand on the bicycle. If you're going 25 mph and hit the ground, the helmet won't protect from an impact it wasn't designed or tested for. The second problem is that helmets won't protect you from forces that lead to concussive type injuries. If you really want adequate head protection, then you need to wear a motorcycle helmet.