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They are useless, until the angry cars start hitting us in the head. We're pretty good at it, most of us learned to ride as kids and have never fallen off.

falcolas 13y ago
Or until your tire fails and flings you off the bike. Or until your bike fails and flings you off the bike. Or until you miss a feature in the road that takes your bike out from under you. All three have happened to me. I was just lucky that I didn't hit my head in any of those incidents. I had a friend fall while ice skating and hit his head. He died after a month of being in a coma. Having this tragedy so close to me reminded me that I'm not always in control, and anything I can do to limit the price of failing to control the situation is worth it.
- drpgq 13y ago
  I have fallen and hit my head after slipping on some ice.
Jtsummers 13y ago
I, too, learned to ride as a kid. But a helmet saved my ass (well, my head) a couple times when I was younger. The first was when I had a nice spill on a gravel road (took a turn too fast). I was still injured, but when my head was slammed on the ground the helmet took the brunt of it and not my skull. Later on while doing some mountain biking (generally a riskier activity than street biking modulo cars) a patch of leaves resulted in a similar accident. In the first I'm confident the head injury would have been severe, based mostly on the cracked helmet. I'm less certain how much help the helmet was in the second accident, but I don't regret wearing it. Cars aren't the only things we have to worry about. EDIT: This is about motorcycles, not bicycles, but I find the anti-helmet attitude there similarly amusing/infuriating. A friend/colleague enjoys motorcycle racing. He still participates, but his accident is a demonstration of where protective gear comes in handy. Similar to my accidents, his bike went out from under him on a turn, and fortunately he was wearing the proper gear. Instead of being dead when he slid into a tree he just had some cracked ribs and a broken shoulder and a cracked open helmet instead of a cracked open skull. He had about 20 years of experience at the point of that accident, and no previous accidents (or none of note, I imagine he had some spills when he was learning but none with serious injuries). Sometimes shit happens or we get distracted, the gear is for those times.

falcolas 13y ago

Or until your tire fails and flings you off the bike. Or until your bike fails and flings you off the bike. Or until you miss a feature in the road that takes your bike out from under you. All three have happened to me. I was just lucky that I didn't hit my head in any of those incidents. I had a friend fall while ice skating and hit his head. He died after a month of being in a coma. Having this tragedy so close to me reminded me that I'm not always in control, and anything I can do to limit the price of failing to control the situation is worth it.

drpgq 13y ago
I have fallen and hit my head after slipping on some ice.

Jtsummers 13y ago

I, too, learned to ride as a kid. But a helmet saved my ass (well, my head) a couple times when I was younger. The first was when I had a nice spill on a gravel road (took a turn too fast). I was still injured, but when my head was slammed on the ground the helmet took the brunt of it and not my skull. Later on while doing some mountain biking (generally a riskier activity than street biking modulo cars) a patch of leaves resulted in a similar accident. In the first I'm confident the head injury would have been severe, based mostly on the cracked helmet. I'm less certain how much help the helmet was in the second accident, but I don't regret wearing it. Cars aren't the only things we have to worry about. EDIT: This is about motorcycles, not bicycles, but I find the anti-helmet attitude there similarly amusing/infuriating. A friend/colleague enjoys motorcycle racing. He still participates, but his accident is a demonstration of where protective gear comes in handy. Similar to my accidents, his bike went out from under him on a turn, and fortunately he was wearing the proper gear. Instead of being dead when he slid into a tree he just had some cracked ribs and a broken shoulder and a cracked open helmet instead of a cracked open skull. He had about 20 years of experience at the point of that accident, and no previous accidents (or none of note, I imagine he had some spills when he was learning but none with serious injuries). Sometimes shit happens or we get distracted, the gear is for those times.