Helmets are not important. If you can't take a little more risk, then drive a car. If you want to be completely safe, you could wear a big padded suit and ride with that, what do you think of that suggestion?
I'd say they are pretty important when it comes to protecting one's own noggin'. I was knocked off my bike twice last year (once by a careless pedestrian and the other by a careless cyclist) and both times my helmet prevented me from suffering potentially bad blows to the head.
"We know helmets are useful in low-speed falls, and so definitely good for children, but whether they offer any real protection to somebody struck by a car is very controversial.
"Either way, this study suggests wearing a helmet might make a collision more likely in the first place," he added.
Hmm... Okay... So your logic for not wearing a helmet is as such:
- It helps in low-speed falls and accidents.
- It may or may not help in high-speed accidents, but doesn't hurt.
Remind me again why I wouldn't wear one? I've seen/heard of plenty of cyclists who get into trouble, and few have been hit by a car going full-speed. Most bike accidents that I've seen are relatively low-speed.
- I've got big hair. If I wear a helment, I have to fix my hair when I arrive wherever I want to be. This implies that if I had to wear a helmet I just would not use my bike
The risk is not relevant to me. It's risky to travel to egypt, I'd still do it. It's risky to walk alone in a dark street in a dangerous part of town - I'd still do it. Why do I do it? Because staying safe is great when it does not directly affect my lifestyle or my fun at life - and wearing a helmet has a very direct consequence - it makes it almost impossible for me to ride a bike anywhere important. I can't always arrive and go look for a mirror to fix my hair.
Wearing a seat belt of a car on the other hand does not have that consequence. A seat belt has no cost, but a helmet has a heavy price.
No, the logic is that it helps in low-speed falls and accidents, but it makes drivers more likely to hit you and doesn't really help much if do. So maybe it's better to wear a helmet--I'm have to look at the data more. But it doesn't seem obvious what the answer is. Here's a statistic:
700 bicyclists died on US roads in 2007. Over 90 percent died in crashes with motor vehicles.
What sorts of crashes though? There's getting hit by a car going at 50mph (goodbye world) versus, say, clipping a car door as it opens and going over your handlebars.
In the former your survivability is suspect even with protective gear, in the second I can see a helmet come into real use.
No, I'd say it's still pretty obvious. Without knowing what percentage of accidents are from car strikes, the latter may not matter. From what I've read, in most city conditions, you're far more likely to get hit by someone opening their door, or bump into something when avoiding people or slow moving cars. In both cases a helmet is pretty helpful.
Maybe someone should design a helmet that looks like it's not a helmet somehow. Maybe it's disguised as a beehive hairdo.
Well, I bet you're right that the former type of accident is more common, but the latter is almost certainly more dangerous when it happens. I do agree that helmets that don't look like helmets would be ideal.
Also, why should one be looked down upon for not always choosing the safety option? There are costs to wearing a helmet as well. You can argue that they aren't worth it, but you can't dismiss them as non-existant and pretend it's merely about "how hard it is to put on a helmet".
Your head will get sweatier even if the helmet has vents, so your hair will end up less presentable at the other end of any journey of length.
You need to carry a helmet around with you wherever you are going since you can't lock it up outside and trust that it will not be damaged.
You need to be careful with it, since they are fairly delicate and prone to damage that isn't obvious - no stuffing it in a bag and throwing the bag around carelessly.
You need to own one - shop for one, find a fitting one, have somewhere to keep it which isn't annoying to get while getting your bike out or annoying to put away, change it every few years.
(Some people) take care while moving around with it on - it makes your head unusually bigger so you're more likely to bash it on doorways/cupboards/other furniture, and if bashed they usually recommend replacing them.
The arguement against compulsory helmets is that they discourage people from cycling, so instead they take the car. The fewer cyclists on the road - the more dangerous it is for those that do cycle.
They're looked down upon naturally. Evolution ensures that the "goal" (and I use that word loosely, but you get what I mean) of a species is to replicate, and in order to replicate, one must survive, thus survival is generally thought of as one's primary ambition. Consciously deciding not to ensure your own survival is aberrant behavior.
Consciously deciding not to ensure your own survival is aberrant behavior.
So everyone who chooses a job they need to drive to instead of a local lower-paying job is aberrant? Everyone who chooses a car for looks instead of safety rating? Everyone who goes out without a first aid kit? Everyone who eats barbecued food known to be higher in carcinogens? Everyone who works with power tools? Everyone who walks by a main road when there's a 10-mile longer route away from traffic instead?
(These are the sorts of decisions along the intensity of wearing or not wearing a bike helmet).
Guy-risks-self-saves-life-becomes-hero-wins-girl is a very common story line. Guy-is-coward-wins-girl less so.
Those activities aren't perceived as risky. They are to some extent, though probably not as much as riding a bike on high-traffic roads (with or without a helmet). Most people drive their car every day and will never get in a serious accident. Every frequent bike rider will hit their head on pavement a few times.
But again, it's all perception. Driving without a seat belt is considered similarly stupid. The reason is that the cost of wearing a seat belt (like the cost of wearing a helmet) is trivial and the benefits are (or at least would seem to be) significant.
The last thing you mentioned is something entirely different, called altruism. That's shown in many animals, and is a case of choosing replication of a gene over survival. It's entirely unrelated, and it also occurs a hell of a lot more in movies than it does in real life.
I don't walk in roads where cars drive. Also, I've never hit a pothole when walking, or been sent flying by someone opening a car door at an inopportune time.
On April 8, 2003, at age 72, Dr. Atkins slipped on the ice while walking to work, hitting his head and causing bleeding around his brain. He lost consciousness on the way to the hospital, where he spent two weeks in intensive care. His death certificate states that the cause of death was "blunt impact injury of head with epidural hematoma"
It's also not obvious that helmets are a universal help in another way:
By design, bicycle helmets are only effective only at very low speeds (< 14mph). Any deviation from this and a bicycle helmet can actually increase the severity of injury [ref]. For example, an off-center impact on the oblong surface of a helmet or having the air vents catch on something can violently twist the head and neck, leading to a potentially fatal neck injury (pp. 173-174, The Art of Urban Cycling by Robert Hurst). Recent research on brain injury adds further confusion, suggesting that the major causes of permanent intellectual disablement and death may well be torsional forces leading to diffuse axonal injury, a form of injury which helmets cannot mitigate (The efficacy of bicycle helmets against brain injury, Curnow, WJ. 2003. Accident Analysis and Prevention: 2003,35:287-292).
