Headcase
The other day I was relaxing at a cafe when I found myself eavesdropping.
Why did he feel the need to speak to the bicyclist and why did he assume the cyclist was somehow ignorant? Would this guy similarly attack other people doing things that he viewed as poor judgement? Or is it just bicyclists?
I’m sick of the helmet hype. It’s time to hype up infrastructure until “cycle track” is in everyone’s vocabulary. I dream of the day this guy will ask the city what’s up with the street design that makes cyclists feel like they need to wear helmets.
I wear a helmet on long road rides, because I don’t trust drivers not to hit me. Sure, the impact may kill me, it may maim the parts not protected by the helmet, but maybe I will at least survive with my mind intact. I wear a helmet when mountain biking because I could fall into a tree or on a rock. I wear a helmet during winter rides because I have fallen on the ice, and because it’s warmer to cover my noggin. I will often NOT wear a helmet on a bike path in the summer, because my chance of a fall is much lower and there are no cars. I prefer to assess the risks and make my own decisions about whether it’s appropriate to wear a helmet, and not be told by someone else that I MUST wear a helmet. But kids? Need to wear a helmet. They are more fragile and less experienced.
Way more people fall on multiple use trails…
Riding with a helmet is, to me, the same as wearing a hard hat on a construction site: it’s required personal protective gear. If anyone is seen without a hard hat on a job site such a person will be told about it.
Regarding – November 21, 2014 12:16 pm, “For those who say they can do what they want I ask who pays for your hospitalization and long term care …..?”
Perhaps you should ask that question of people who get no exercise. The health benefits of biking, far outweigh the risks of biking without a helmet. In the Netherlands, they oppose helmet promotion because they want no one to be detered from cycling. The benefits are just too great.
Rebecca, I did not wear a helmet for 2 weeks on a bike trip in the Netherlands. Infrastructure makes a huge difference; the risks during a daily commute in the Amsterdam are negligible. In contrast to the Netherlands, Denmark promotes helmets. Do you wear a seat belt? The risk of brain injury as opposed to death unbelted in a car is much higher. And guess who pays for the care – we do.
Yes, I always wear a seat belt. So do the Dutch.
I wear a helmet every time I ride not because helmets work in a wreck but because if you don’t wear one your family doesn’t get diddly if you get hit and die from massive blunt force trauma to the torso. And I also say that as a guy that survived getting hit by a truck doing 60 MPH, I survived because I have very dense bones and can crush the roof of a pickup truck with my head, not because I was wearing a helmet. A bicycle helmet is designed to prevent skull fracture in a 20 km/hr (12.5 MPH) impact with a curb, or about the speed your head would reach if you were unable to unclip at a stop sign and fell over and hit the curb. By 20 MPH the impact absorption is completely used up and all the helmet is good for is preventing cosmetic damage to the covered part of your head, which by the by does not include your face, which had to be sewn back together after my wreck.
Bingo!
The other week I headed off late to an apt. at work. No helmet. Co-workers, others commented that I needed to get my helmet. Had to head back to where my helmet was to make some other rounds. By then it had started to rain. So I got my helmet and rode 1 handed in the rain whilst holding my umbrella. Zero comments about the danger of that.
Just call me Mr. Poppins