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Just wear a helmet. It protects you from brain damage.
by andrewstuart 4y ago
Just wear a helmet.
It protects you from brain damage.
- barry-cotter 4y agoIndeed, you should wear a helmet in cars and trains too.
- Dobbs 4y agoHaving proper cycling infrastructure protects you far more.
- malfist 4y agoOkay? Mandating helmets don't prevent cities from building better cycling infrastructure.
- zip1234 4y agoIf they reduce cycling, they do in fact prevent that. The old 'nobody cycles so why should we build that' argument is highly persuasive.
- Dobbs 4y agoWith proper infrastructure and cycling culture a helmet adds little benefit. Meanwhile it has several negatives including making cycling a more burdensome activity. Such as having to have your helmet, have to carry it with you in the store or leave it on the bike in the rain or to be stolen, etc. Mandatory helmet laws do more to reduce cycling then they do to protect cyclists.
- charonn0 4y agoIt's not either/or.
- usrusr 4y agoE.g. while driving. All the professional racers do it, I guess they know a thing or two about dangers while driving.
- diarmuidc 4y agoSo all drivers should be required to wear a helmet? If not, why not ?
- Philip-J-Fry 4y agoThey wear them because: Their cars are custom built (e.g. F1) and don't have air bags or crumple zones and are open top. Their cars are modified to be lighter weight, so air bags and other safety equipment is removed. Instead they are fitted with roll cages and wear a helmet. They're also racing around at high speeds where rolling a car is a real possibility. Yes, let's equate that to a road car with a proven safety record (NCAP) tests. Let's see how many tests of a cyclist smashing their head into the ground shows that it's harmless...
- usrusr 4y ago> Let's see how many tests of a cyclist smashing their head into the ground shows that it's harmless... I'm sure that you can provide evidence of helmet-wearers doing the same to show that it's harmless one you put on a foam hat? On a related note, thousands of drivers dying from head trauma each year demonstrate that NCAP is no immortality cheat either.
- cies 4y agoDemand bicycle safe cities! Helmets should be optional. Taking risks should be legal. > Just wear a helmet. You do you. Next up we gonna enforce pedestrians to wear air-bag suits "for their own safety", forbid roller skating, etc. Disclaimer: living in the Netherlands.
- alkonaut 4y ago> Taking risks should be legal What's the difference from a seat belt law? As long as I'm paying for everyone elses' healthcare (which is the norm in developed countries), their personal risk taking is my concern. Even in places without publically funded healthcare, everyone pays for others' risks through premiums so the difference isn't as big as it would seem.
- bigDinosaur 4y agoBicycling makes you fitter and healthier, reducing overall disease burden, as well as providing mental health benefits, reduced traffic, consequently reduced air pollution which also is a major win for public health. Cars literally don't do any of those things. They're convenient (at least when your city isn't subject to awful traffic) and that's it.
- cies 4y ago> What's the difference from a seat belt law? You found a risk reducing law that probably does make sense. Very small investment (Volvo relinquished the patent, thanks Volvo) and very large benefit. But this "their personal risk taking is my concern" argument of yours makes me shiver. I'd never want someone else's risk taking to be my concern: I've got more important stuff to attend to, thank God.
- tsukikage 4y agoAll right, let's suppose for a minute that self-interest is literally the only thing to be considered. Your personal risk preferences impact me in a variety of ways: * my cost of living goes up, because damage control is much more expensive than prevention; someone has to pay for it, and dead people can't. * my personal risk goes up, because resources I might need such as emergency doctors' time are occupied dealing with the consequences of your decisions instead. * my quality of life goes down, e.g. I have to spend more time waiting in traffic jams while the bodies are scraped off the roads. If you take your risks in a space I am forced to share with you, whether physical, societal or economical, your choices affect me.
- diarmuidc 4y agoThat's a fallacious argument. There is no activity that could not be made more safe by wearing a helmet. Yet we don't because the arguments like yours are simple and wrong.
- fleischhauf 4y agohow is this wrong? A helmet protects your head and thus your brain. It makes sense wear helmets in situations where your head is more prone to be damaged (e.g. construction work, or in this case biking).
- Swenrekcah 4y agoIt absolutely makes sense to wear a helmet while cycling but it just shouldn’t be compulsory.
- usrusr 4y agoMultiple cases have been documented of children strangulating themselves wearing a bike helmet while mucking about on playgrounds and the like. Entire education campaigns have set out to prevent the wearing of helmet in activities that turned out to be made less safe by them. But I agree with your general point, if the marginal safety gain during cycling was enough to make them mandatory, few activities would remain without mandatory protective headwear (my last bike-related head injury happened while walking through the kitchen during maintenance).
- fjfaase 4y agoAre you implying to always wear a helmet? When you are in a car, in public transportation, walking down the street, going down the stairs or just always? The last time, I hit my head was in a house. The closest I came to a concussion was when I slipped while walking on ice. It is quite likely, I spend at least 10,000 of biking so far without a helmet. I had some small accident, but non where I got any brain damage. In most cases the accidents was the result of my own stupidity: being too hurried, not watching the traffic, or doing putting on a rain coat while biking.
- chrisbaker98 4y agoWhat possible reason is there to not wear a helmet when riding a bike?
- kypro 4y agoSame reason for not wearing one in a car, bus or when crossing the road, I guess. Some people just like to take risks.
- fjfaase 4y agoI do not like taking risks and I think i am a risk avoiding person. Here in the Netherlands, I guess that my risk for getting involved in an accident, is not any higher than walking and other forms of transportation. I am not using an e-bike and I usually bike at a speed of about 15km/h. I do not use a racing bike, but a bike where you sit in an upright position allowing you to look around easily. I also take care of using routes that are safe. Here in the Netherlands, where are more bikes than cars, and biking is an important means of transportation for daily commutes and doing shoppings. We have good infrastructures for bikes.
- 0_____0 4y agoI wear a helmet 99.9% of the time on a bike. They are not zero hassle. If you live somewhere where stuff gets nicked in public and you’ve got a nicer helmet, you bring it inside your destination with you. They mess up hair too. They’re not GOOD reasons but let’s not pretend there aren’t any at all.
- rmvt 4y agojust don't leave your house. it protects you from getting run over, being robbed at gunpoint, heartbreak, etc. do you see where your logic fails? this is not news. wearing helmets has been associated with a range of negative issues for years now. (https://road.cc/content/news/268605-wearing-cycle-helmet-may-increase-risk-injury-says-new-research https://road.cc/content/news/268605-wearing-cycle-helmet-may..., https://www.bicycling.com/culture/a29802208/helmet-laws-safety/ https://www.bicycling.com/culture/a29802208/helmet-laws-safe..., https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060911102200.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060911102200.h...)
- rmvt 4y agocorrection: i pasted the wrong bicyling.com link, this is the one i meant https://www.bicycling.com/news/a20009468/people-take-more-risks-when-wearing-helmets-study-finds/ https://www.bicycling.com/news/a20009468/people-take-more-ri...