Do you wear a helmet when bicycling? Why or why not?

Yes, it’s a long fall to the pavement. I conducted an impromptu helmet test once. At a low speed, I hit an overhanging branch. I remember watching the road rush up to my face. Without a helmet my nose would have been flattened and my glasses smashed into my eyeballs. The helmet cracked but I was OK.

I’ve been cycling for 50 years and have never worn a helmet. Nowadays I mostly cycle on very quiet roads or on canal towpaths so I feel I don’t need one. I like the sense of freedom cycling gives and wearing a helmet feels constraining to me.

Yes. You get fined if you don’t here. I think the fine is about AU$300.

‘ve had two seriopus bike accidents in my life. The first, when I was 13 or so. I hit a bump and flipped over my handlebars, landing atop my head. I’ve never forgotten that in the instant I landed, my entire range of sight seemed to flatten out. Doctor said I had a mild concussion.

Many years later, in my 40s, I hit a curb at too high a speed and again flipped over my handbars, badly breaking a knee (which i still suffer with today).

I no longer ride, but if I did, I’d surely wear a helmet.

It is easy to DIE from a seemingly small impact to the head.
I looked into it a few decades ago when I had a motorcycle for a few years. I always wore a helmet on the motorcycle.

That said I have had three serious bike accidents (not wearing helmet) that banged up my head (nose and face in particular) and only in the most recent would a helmet have done any good. I have been in denial about the risk because helmets are inconvenient.
There was recently a free helmet giveaway in town and I got one and I expect I’ll wear it now that I have it.

A friend’s mom died a few days ago having slipped on ice while walking and hitting her head on pavement.
The forces involved when bicycling can be quite a bit more than that.

I don’t wear one and I bike a lot. I use a bike for my main source of transportation. I don’t really want to deal with lugging a helmet around while I run errands. Maybe if I got on my bike and rode around for a while and went right back home I would.

I skateboarded for 20 years and wear glasses. Never wore a helmet. It is instinct to cover my face with my hands and arms when I fall. I am programmed to always cover my head when I am going towards the ground.

And If there is a sidewalk I ride my bike on it. Bikers that pretend to be cars are stupid. I pretend to be a pedestrian.

No, mostly because I didn’t have one. But then, since my neighbor’s son is determined to be a stereotype, I don’t have a bicycle anymore, either.

I wear a top hat, a loincloth, a pair of clogs & a gormless grin…I like a challenge.

As a kid no, as an adult yes. Mountain biking is one of my hobbies so it’s really mandatory. sometimes I wear a full face helmet, knee and elbow pads too.

Yes, because I like to keep my brains contained within my skull.

If there is a sidewalk I ride my bike on it. Bikers that pretend to be cars are stupid.

That is dependent on where you ride. I ride in the city and I’m just another 15 mile-per-hour vehicle.

There are designated streets where riding is safe, and main fast thoroughfares where bikes aren’t suitable. The difference becomes really obvious when you ride a few times.

I got a ticket for riding on the sidewalk recently, when I biked up to an ATM. I asked for a speeding ticket instead so I could frame it as a trophy, and the cop asked, “You want a $100 ticket instead of $15?” So I took the stupid sidewalk riding ticket.

@jaytkay :: I don’t go balls to the wall when there are crowded sidewalks. If I am downtown I will actually get off my bike and walk it. I would rather walk the bike instead of dealing with dipshits texting at a red light.

As a (formerly) avid cyclist, I have worn a helmet while cycling for twenty five years. And most of the people in my cycling club do also. We do for the same reason that @dappled_leaves explained.

@johnpowell Bicycles do not belong on sidewalks. To ride where people walk is to show the same level of arrogance that many motorists show to cyclists.

@ucme it is my understanding that your people ride like this:

Tweed ride

Correct?

I don’t bicycle, did as a kid, before helmets were the thing, but I have ridden horses my whole life and have not worn helmets. Never had a head injury but plenty of bumps and bruises and a dislocated shoulder. My friend took her new horse out on trail yesterday and did not wear her helmet and was thrown when a jogger with a flapping fanny pack spooked her young horse who is learning trail. She was fine, brusied her side but, another women was thrown on the same trail and was medi-vacced out with a broken hip.

Helmets are a good idea for bikers, and equestrians but they won’t protect you from broken bones, a broken neck, back, contusions or all the other various injuries one can encounter when falling from a horse, motorcycle or off a bike. I think helmet use should be a personal choice and not mandated by law. Now that I am getting older I would wear a helmet on trail with horses but even if my head was spared in an accident I am sure I’d end up with broken bones now that I am in my middle 50’s. The “bounce” factor is gone. haha

I do choose not to wear a helmet and my husband does wear one. My daughters will wear one because they have been told to but my older daughter will not wear hers if she is just riding round our village to the shop or friend’s house. I was looking at some websites which prompted my question. The evidence that the helmet helps prevent injury is weak and death is very weak.

For years I biked without a helmet. I biked across Iowa in the summer of ‘75 on an organized tour. Helmets were optional and I didn’t wear one. In the summer of 1976 I biked across the US with another group. Helmets were required equipment. It was the first time I ever wore one and it took a month to get used to. In the 80’s I took numerous solo biking-and-camping tours starting from Sweden and heading south. Once I made it to Sicily. I never wore a helmet on these trips. Not many distance bikers did in those days. I took some spills. All bikers take spills. Only one of them was serious, but none resulted in a head injury. I should have a worn helmet, but I was young and immortal and I didn’t like them. I was lucky.

But if I were biking anywhere today, I’d definitely wear a helmet. Things have changed. Thirty years ago all you really had to keep an eye out for was the rare drunk driver. But now the roads are thick with texters; a particularly dangerous kind of self-absorbed jackass, more dangerous and numerous than the odd drunk of yore. I’d definitely wear a helmet today.

@johnpowell “And If there is a sidewalk I ride my bike on it. Bikers that pretend to be cars are stupid. I pretend to be a pedestrian.”

Yeah, I’ve never lived in a place where that was legal. Bikes are too fast to compete with pedestrian traffic. Someone is getting hurt in that scenario. Drivers who don’t like bikes on the street can bite my ass.

Yes, I am such a menace

I am not talking about riding in Times Square.

No. When they passed a law requiring bike helmets where I live, I almost got a pike just so I could bike past the police station not wearing one, get a ticket and fight it. I hate insurance-mandated laws. I take safety precautions because they make sense, but I fiercely resent having companies buy my politicians to require I wear safety equipment, or to buy insurance policies.

@jaytkay Only the house staff.

@Zaku “I fiercely resent having companies buy my politicians to require I wear safety equipment, or to buy insurance policies.”

Yeah, watch out for that bike helmet manufacturing lobby. They’re a powerful menace.

I travel green 90% of the time. Here it is not feasible to ride on the sidewalks, and they have an ample supply of bike lanes. The cops will not ticket you per se, but they will warn you to keep to the road, unless the road is so narrow as to cause a hazard to drivers as well as yourself. I never have worn a helmet because I ride with my head; I think three moves ahead at least. If it is wet, there are leaves, wet leaves, loose gravel, I adjust my riding and anticipate if my tire might slip. If I do find something like that starting to occur, I don’t panic but maneuver so I can get stable again, same as in a vehicle, if you go making rash moves you are going to eat pavement.

@Hypocrisy_Central I’ve known a few hardcore cyclists who have had similar beliefs until they were in serious accidents. You can be the greatest cyclist in the world and still get banged up badly, still get spread across the pavement. You are extremely vulnerable on a bike, and no matter how many moves you think ahead, someone or something can always surprise you.

Always. I like my skull the way it is.

@dappled_leaves and @Hypocrisy_Central do either of you have evidence to back up your belief that a helmet/riding skills will protect you? I did ask in my question

@dappled_leaves and @Hypocrisy_Central do either of you have evidence to back up your belief that a helmet/riding skills will protect you?
Depending on how reckless one rides or risk hey take, it may. For me and how I ride, the benefits are negligible compared to common sense and preplanning. If I come to trees I am accessing before I get there if there are low branches or hazards I have to duck from or maneuver around. I am never going so fast that these things surprise me and catch me off guard. I think in the last three years I only spilled once and that was because I tried to take off with my wheels too cocked, the other time was another’s fault so I don’t count that on me but in both cases I landed on my hip and rolled to my back, that is the way I learned to fall (if I find myself doing so) to save my knees and elbows from any road rash. I have never landed on my head so a helmet, for me, is no real help.

@Stinley It’s impossible to present anecdotal evidence which shows that a helmet protects me. I’ve never been in a serious accident, so I can’t tell you it has “worked for me”. It’s not difficult to look up statistics about bike accidents and helmet wearers (though at 2am, I’m not tempted to do it for you).

@Hypocrisy_Central “I have never landed on my head so a helmet, for me, is no real help.”

Yes, this is my point. You can’t judge whether or not you should have worn a helmet until your skull is crushed. And then, you won’t be in much of a position to answer the question.

I have already looked at the research. Not many people have before making up their minds that a helmet will or won’t help them in the event of an accident

For the record I think, weighing up research from a few different sources, that cycling skills will help me more if I have an accident than a helmet would. Which seems counterintuitive but helmets don’t offer much protection for accidents that give you a minor head bump and nothing against the accidents that kill you since these usually involve torso internal injuries

^^ Yes, this is my point. You can’t judge whether or not you should have worn a helmet until your skull is crushed. And then, you won’t be in much of a position to answer the question.
One could put that in the same league as ”I do not know if seatbelts really help me avoid injury until I have an accident”. One doesn’t go have an accident to see if the seatbelt will do what they are supposed to do. By making sure I am not in any position to hit my head or have something strike it while riding (which I obviously have been pretty successful at) having a helmet for that chance so slim you can hardly put a playing card through.

I’m pretty sure seat belts have saved my life at least once and likely saved me from injury more than twice. I wear safety gear when riding motorcycles and bicycles ATGATT. There really is no valid excuse not to.

@Hypocrisy_Central “Yes, this is my point. You can’t judge whether or not you should have worn a helmet until your skull is crushed. And then, you won’t be in much of a position to answer the question. One could put that in the same league as ”I do not know if seatbelts really help me avoid injury until I have an accident”. One doesn’t go have an accident to see if the seatbelt will do what they are supposed to do. By making sure I am not in any position to hit my head or have something strike it while riding (which I obviously have been pretty successful at) having a helmet for that chance so slim you can hardly put a playing card through.”

But you are actually making my point here. By this logic, you don’t need a seatbelt because you personally have never had your life saved by one – and you could as easily claim that it must be your superior driving skills that are keeping you safe.

This is not the sort of thing one can answer with personal anecdotes – it takes statistics.

I never thought I needed to wear a seat belt until I had permanent injuries from an auto accident when I was a passenger without a seat belt. Now, I learned my lesson.

That’s why looking at the research is good. Anecdotes are all very well when used to illustrate a point but in my book are useless at making the point. Research does that. Seatbelt research is a lot clearer and more equivocal than bike helmet research. Seatbelts help.

I dated a guy in med school years back. When he did a stint in the ER, he told me about the patients the staff called “tomatoes.” They were people on bikes or motorcycles who didn’t wear helmets and when they crashed, their heads split open like tomatoes. Many of these people would likely have had far less injury with a helmet and proper gear.

I once was in an accident with a motorcycle. The cyclist flipped over my car and landed on his head. He then skidded across the street a bit before he stopped. Because he was wearing a helmet and leather gear, the only injury he had was a broken leg from his bike (that flipped over and skidded with him) landed on his leg and broke it. I was friends with my old doctor boyfriend at the time, and he told me that if the guy wasn’t wearing his helmet, he would have been a tomato. If he wasn’t wearing his leather gear, he would have likely needed several skin grafts and transfusions from the scrapes on the street when he skidded.

I thought it was just a motorcycle thing, but I have been told about similar accidents in cycling circles. It’s not about speed. You don’t have to go very fast to get injuries like that.

You can probably guess my answer to the helmet thing now.

I don’t ride bikes or motorcycles because they seem dangerous to me. I always wear a seat belt. But I resent the heck out of people passing laws to require safety equipment that only protects the wearer, and to detain and fine people who don’t. I feel I should have the right to be responsible for my own safety or lack thereof. It’s not like anyone can prevent me from risking my life as much as I want to in all sorts of other ways that laws haven’t been written for, and although I’m usually very careful and risk-averse, these kind of laws give me impulses to be reckless just out of sheer resentment.

@Zaku: I am guessing that one of the purposes of those laws is that it reduces liability for the person that may be involved in an accident with you, and reduces the liability on the part of the health insurance company that pays for your treatment.

If helmets are proven to reduce head injury, and you’re not wearing one, your insurance company may be spending a lot more for your hospital stay and rehabilitation. If I hit you with my car, and you’re not wearing a helmet, my car insurance company is probably going to pay a significant amount more for your care and rehab bills then if you wear a helmet and have less injury.

@Zaku, when a bike rider hits the tarmac and smashes their head into the ground, any resulting brain damage affects more than the bike rider. As @jca suggests, they may need hospitalisation and perhaps long-term and permanent care. In the US, these costs might be covered by insurance. However, the riders family would also have increased care duties and costs. In my country, taxpayers will fund the bike riders care. This could include refitting their home if they end up in a wheelchair. So not wearing a helmet doesn’t just affect the individual who chooses to take a risk.

Seat belt laws, same thing. Everyone pays indirectly.

In the US, at least in the state I live in (not sure what the law is in other states), NY, if you are wearing a seat belt, you can sue for damages if you are injured but you cannot if you are not wearing a belt. Your insurance will always pay for your medical costs to repair you, but if you want additional money, you can’t if you were not wearing a belt.