How many of you ride without a helmet?

oldskoolkool

"If you run throught a narrow door in wide shoulder pads and catch your shoulders,it doesnt mean the shoulder pads saved you"
My point being a helmet adds alot of extra unnatural dimension to the head which makes it more likely the you will catch your head should you fall,whereas an unhelmetted head is easier to tuck in and avoid collision with the road or whatever.
Helmets have also been shown to cause twist injuries to the neck because of there shape.
Safety culture breads a lack of responsibilty for ones safety,...as people feel safer they take more risks and so the possibilty of injury goes up.
Road fatalities have stayed constant over the past 10-15years, but cars now have multiple air bags,ABS,Euro ncap 5star ratings etc,etc,etc,so making cars safer hasnt really changed things as now people feel invicible in their cars thus making them drive worse.
So far as I know this is still a free country and the decision not to wear a helmet is personal choice,but alot of people have a self righteous attitude that its irresponsible not too.
Saying that by wearing a helmet saved you when you fell off presumes that had you not been wearing one you still would have come off.How can that be proved?????!!!!
By making an alternate decision you have changed the course of your future anyway.

MountainMonster

Scotxr wrote:

MountainMonster wrote:

Scotxr wrote:

MountainMonster wrote:

Man, some of you really are on your periods. Well funny to read!

Mountain Monster I have quoted you in this thread

I'm in this thread other than this post??

Yep!! Read the next quoted bit and see if any of it seems familiar from the MTB section....

Scotxr wrote:

CiB wrote:

Something very boring

I'm sorry but i'm not on here to give you an indepth analysis of ITU admissions.

I started a thread over on MTB to get an idea of what those guys thought, seems like I have more in common with them.

Here's a couple of quotes......

cooldad wrote:

Not this again.
@scotxr - just because lots of people respond on a forum saying they don't just means lots of people who responded don't, not that lots of people don't. Not even very subtle difference.
Look next time you are out - I would say just about every serious rider I see, roadie or MTBer does. People popping to the shops often don't.
Chavs don't, which is a GOOD thing.

MountainMonster wrote:

I don't know a single person who rides without a helmet if they are doing any form of serious riding. I see even most older people out for a 5km bike ride with helmets on, and the only times I see someone without a helmet is when I'm leaving the city, and people are just commuting to the shops or such

Like the guy above me posted, don't think just because a few have chimed in saying they don't wear helmets means the large portion of people don't wear them. I find with the helmet topic most who don't wear helmets are so proud to state it to be "cool and different", and the ones who do wear helmets feel it is too stupid to reply, myself included. .

The bit in bold I believe covers you..........

Yup that is me Good job, have a biscuit.

CiB

some bloke from NZ on yet another helmet debate wrote:

Coming from New Zealand, I can speak with first-hand experience of a 100% compliance regime of helmet wearing.

It makes no difference whatsoever to the KSI (Killed or Seriously Injured) rate. At all. What it did do is overnight drastically reduce the numbers of people riding, particularly among teenagers and for trips to the shops etc. Exactly the sort of trip the government needs to be promoting by bike. Weekend long rides are good for our overall health as a nation but do nothing to reduce traffic, carbon emissions or balance of payments to oil-producing nations.

But explaining 20 years of evidence with a 3M+ size statistical survey pales into nothing compared to anecdote. "My mate had a crash and his head would have been ripped clean orf if not for his £100 Giro" is much easier to sell down the pub than the evidence-based fact that KSI rates per million km cycled across 3m people did not change at all following 100% helmet uptake.

Risk transference, rotational brain injury, reduction of Safety In Numbers all have some part to play in making helmets a bad idea when viewed at a population level. Anecdote is a ***** to argue against because it's so personal.

What is absolutely not an argument is comparison with M/C helmets. MC helmets are rock-hard, so they deflect and slide on the road. Modern bike helmets are full of holes for cooling, are very soft (you can dent them with your thumb) and don't slide at all. When you hit tarmac they grip the surface and twist. Hello rotational brain / neck injury. BMX lids are hard-shell, because they don't need the cooling and thus are acceptable to riders, and therefore do a good job in a very risky sport. 20 years ago all bike helmets were like BMX lids, but consumers didn't buy them. So Bell / Giro et al lobbied to have the standards lowered to the point where 200gm of Swiss cheese foam gets an ANSI/CE mark as being 'safe'. But 'safe' means adequately decelerating a 5KG mass dropped from 2m onto a flat smooth surface. The idea that a 6' cyclist weighing 80kg going over the bars at 30MPH equates to 5kg dropped from 2m is so laughable as to be, er, laughable. THAT is why so many helmets break in very minor crashes - because the standard is a joke tailored by manufacturers to fit what consumers will spend £80 on.

I'll wear a helmet for a trip to the shops or the ride to work when I start wearing one in the shower or at the swimming pool, or in the car. That should be the rebuttal to anyone who thinks helmets on bikes are A Good Thing: straight back atcha – Do you wear one in the bath too? In a taxi? When it's a bit snowy outside? Why not eh?

People advocating helmet use based on the fact that some aspects of cycling are risky don't extend the analogy to other pursuits. Why not wear one in your car - after all, F1 racers do. Or wear a helmet while walking up Ben Nevis - after all, mountain climbers wear helmets.

Cycling encompasses a hugely varying spectrum of pursuits and participants. From world-cup DH racing to my Nan coasting to church on Sunday at 8am.

Riddle me this, helmet champions:

a) The likelihood of being in an accident in the first place
b) That accident being likely to cause death or SHI
c) Likelihood that a helmet would have made a jot of difference

All 3 must align to justify wearing a lid. Thankfully you'd have to ride 8hrs a day, 365 days a year for around 3,000 years before statistically being likely to suffer a KSI cropper, and almost all of the time a helmet would not have stopped that HGV or TV celeb chef doing you in.

This is why in the 60's / 70's / 80's there was no epidemic of cycling deaths. Why our mums were fine with us disappearing for a day with our BMX mates. This is why when helmets became compulsory or prevalent, there was no noticeable decline in KSI.

Because CYCLING IS SAFE. Safer than being in a car. Just as if not safer than walking.

<nails colours to mast> I actually do take issue with people wearing helmets for everyday cycling. It is not harmless. It sends out a highly visible message to everyone that cycling IS dangerous - why else do you need a flipping huge, expensive helmet? That alone discourages people from cycling, or letting their children cycle. It tells motorists that they need take less care around you, because, y'know, you are wearing a helmet. You're safe. You'll be OK if something goes wrong. Because of herd mentality it means the parents who don't insist their children wear them are seen as not caring about their kids. When in fact forcing children to wear helmets is teaching them to take silly risks - they think they will be OK because mum says I need to wear my helmet to be safe.

Nothing has done cycling more harm than helmets. Governments love them because they can then abdicate responsibility to the cyclist. The media almost always report that the dead cyclist "was not wearing a helmet" - cue tut-tutting and 'he brought it on himself' from the uninformed public. The fact that he suffered other massive injuries and would have died regardless is just too hard to convey and doesn't invoke any sense of moral judgment on the reader's behalf.

The helmet manufacturers should be heartily ashamed of themselves, as should bike shops profiting from the fear-mongering used to sell them. How screwed-up is the logic of a sales person saying "Here, buy this health-benefit inducing bike, but wear this or you will die".

Gaa. Nothing annoys me more than basic science and evidence being ignored. And anyone advocating helmets as A Good Thing for day-to-day cycling ignores all the evidence to the contrary.

I've got nothing more to add. No-one else has really; it's all been said by now.

Wear a hat, always. Unless you don't want to.

ooermissus

CiB - That's a v interesting post. Thanks.

alwaystoohot

I wear a helmet because I got fed up of my nagging wife telling me to set a good example to the kids. I know, I'm weak and pathetic but christ she went on and on, and on, and on, and in the end I cracked and gave in. Forgive me.

springtide9

As my wife says...

No fear of head injuries. No need to fear head injuries.

Slimbods

Scotxr wrote:

I've not even read all the replies on this thread - dont really want to read all the idiotic replies.

Your reply is the most idiotic.

I am a nurse in an Intensive Care Unit, we see lots of cyclists/climbers/bikers who have done an extreme amount of damage to themselves. One re-occuring theme is that the helmet they were wearing saved their life - anyone who says otherwise is a fool but to be honest the world will be better off without those fools so carry on.

It's as black and white as that? What if they didn't like wearing a helmet, and the helmet put them off riding a bike, and they died of a heart attack 10 years early, did the helmet still save their lives?

I have 2 sons that I make sure always ride with their helmets, me and my wife always wear helmets (the one time she didnt she ended up with a depressed skull fracture). If you have kids and you dont make them wear a helmet you should be jailed.

My god, I can't imagine the flapping you'd do if your kids tried to climb a tree!

Do you ever have to deal with pedestrians with head injuries? Should they wear helmets? How about drivers, you must get drivers with head injuries, should they wear them?

richard36

Out of interest would those people who wear a helmet still wear one if they lived in the country, did all their cycling in the country and rarely encountered a vehicle on the road?

That is my situation and 2 of my fellow cyclists wear a helmet but I don't. We often travel on country roads and on the occasion we do come across a car it's going so fast that if we were hit I very much doubt a helmet would be of any use.

Also, the roads where I live on the whole are in good condition and are rarely slippy.

The only time I think about wearing a helmet is when I'm going fairly fast and I think about one of the tyres blowing out. I'm not sure how often that kind of thing happens but for me I think that would be the only time a helmet would be useful though again I'm going so fast I wonder whether a helmet would really help.

My problem is that if I do buy a helmet I would feel compelled to wear it all the time and I just wonder whether I'm ready for that!

The Real Radioactiveman

Richard 36

I have come off more times because of wet leaves,white lines and ice. Only once due to being hit by a car. On all occasions I have had damage to the helmet. So yes I would wear one when as I see a greater benefit from general falling off than cars. If a car gives me a proper shunt the helmet isnt going to save me from a terrible injury but it will help with the small injuries that I think are more likely on country roads. Thinking country roads full of potholes,cowpoo and thorns.

I also wear one climbing outdoors but not indoors as I feel the risk is much less indoor. Its a personal choice at the end of the day but I would like to see statistics of the lower end injuries helmets have protected against.

richard36

Thanks for your reply

Cheers

alwaystoohot

The point most have overlooked is that your skull 'is' a natural helmet.
Soon we'll have to put air bags over our helmets which then go over our natural helmets.
But then we wont be able to see so we'll need kinda telescope things, but we then wont be able to see our feet.

Lets all curl up into the foetal position and sh!t ourselves.

Fat-Boy-Roubaix

Have I logged in to Cycle Chat by accident? Did my helmet save me in said accident?

alwaystoohot

No, you died and you're in heaven. I'll have a pint whilst you're at the bar.

MattC59

Hey, dizzyblonde82............. told you this was a can of worms, didn't I

What I love though, is some of the comments from some of the posters (more often that not from the non helmet wearers, but not always) where they seem to leave all common sense looking for something in the fridge, before they start to type.

It's hilarious !! Maybe a good smack on the head would help ?

That's not a comment about their choice on wearing a helmet, it's a comment on their lack of common sense or ability to apply it when they read other people's posts.
Neither is that a comment aimed at all of those who post, but those who it is aimed at, you know who you are............... actually, probably not !

If you do realise that this comment is aimed at you, you're an idiot; and by realising it's aimed at you, you deserve to be congratulated on at least acknowledging that you're an idiot.
If you don't realise it's aimed at you, and it is; you're an idiot.

springtide9

MattC59 wrote:

Hey, dizzyblonde82............. told you this was a can of worms, didn't I

What I love though, is some of the comments from some of the posters (more often that not from the non helmet wearers, but not always) where they seem to leave all common sense looking for something in the fridge, before they start to type.

It's hilarious !! Maybe a good smack on the head would help ?

That's not a comment about their choice on wearing a helmet, it's a comment on their lack of common sense or ability to apply it when they read other people's posts.
Neither is that a comment aimed at all of those who post, but those who it is aimed at, you know who you are............... actually, probably not !

If you do realise that this comment is aimed at you, you're an idiot; and by realising it's aimed at you, you deserve to be congratulated on at least acknowledging that you're an idiot.
If you don't realise it's aimed at you, and it is; you're an idiot.

Is this what my wife means by...

No fear of head injuries? No need to fear head injuries.

???

MikeM22

I think this is all about risk and the environment... and setting an example...

If I'm going down the cycle path to the swimming pool... I don't often bother wearing one. Doing the same route with the kids.. I always do!

Going out on the road... I always do and find it odd when I see riders without one.

Two years ago I had a run in with a bus on a commute. It was my fault, I switched off on what I thought was a 'safe' bit of road during my daily commute across Edinburgh (which was always fairly intense, especially through Dalry and Gorgie). However, my helmet was cracked on the left hand side where it hit the bus and on the right hand side where it hit the road. But for the helmet, that would have been my skull with the cracks.

MikeM22

No fear of head injuries? No need to fear head injuries.

Love This!!

*tigs*

Generally. No, I don't wear one.

I have been riding road bikes and mtbs for over 20 years as an adult. Fallen off both many times and only hit my head a couple of times as a kid - which I survived with at least half my brains intact and learned not to land on my head again. I wear a lid only for decent mtbing and even then I'm not sure it does any good. It's not about being cool. I don't wear body armour either. Testing skill and judgement and being on the edge is what makes life fun. Not cotton wool.

I was knocked off my road bike earlier this year when rear ended by a nissan micra driven by an 80 year old granny and landed on my butt. Whilst lying on the floor worrying about my pelvis I was tutted at by the policeman and paramedic and then, at hospital, the nurse and doctor for not wearing a helmet. FFS I landed on my ass!

If you are the sort of person who always lands on their head then go for it. Please don't lecture me fo making an informed choice and judging the risk for myself.

I find it makes little difference to me country or town.

I wear earphones too....

cookdn

The Real Radioactiveman wrote:

I also wear one climbing outdoors but not indoors as I feel the risk is much less indoor.

Climbing/mountaineering helmets protect you more from things that drop on you rather than you dropping on other things. I still have vivid memories of a large moraine in NZ we kept having to go up and down; the problem was as the sun melted the ice the rocks came loose and bounced down the moraine at an increasingly high-speed. Completely impassable after about 1100 in the morning and a rather 'fun' experience from 1000. I wore a helmet for that :-).

Best regards

mikebikemike

I'm a mostly wear a lid as a cyclist - it provides a bit of shade from the sun, bit of insulation on cold days and maybe it'll offer some protection if I slide into the pavement/land on a rock. It also saves me swearing back at "should be wearing a helmet" drivers
I am quite cautious about my young kids wearing them unsupervised though. Two reasons

1 neck injuries from having a significant weight on their heads and more significantly
2 risks from putting an unbreakable ligature around their neck

tarquin_foxglove

MikeM22 wrote:

my helmet was cracked on the left hand side where it hit the bus and on the right hand side where it hit the road. But for the helmet, that would have been my skull with the cracks.

My god, if your skull is as weak as polystyrene with a thin plastic cover then it is probably for the best that you wear a helmet all the time.

ihazon303

Never considered riding seriously without.

I also think, for my two pence (the fund must be up to something staggering by now) that it's irresponsible to ride on the road without a helmet. If a cyclist causes an accident with a car and suffers a serious but preventable head injury, that would be all sorts of hell for the driver.

tarquin_foxglove

ihazon303 wrote:

I also think ... that it's irresponsible to ride on the road without a helmet. If a cyclist causes an accident with a car and suffers a serious but preventable head injury, that would be all sorts of hell for the driver.

Quite correct. It's a little known fact but nearly all drivers involved in hit & runs have only left the scene for emergency counselling.

LeicesterLad

For what it is worth, i DO wear a helmet.

However i think helmet wearing is more for ''feeling safe'' rather than keeping safe. Cycling helmets are virtually ineffective at a combined impact of more than 12mph. Not many people are going to die at an impact speed of 12mph unless there are other circumstances involved. Basically a helmet will make it hurt less if you can't clip in and tumble to the floor and bang your head at a standstill. It won't make it hurt less if you get hit by a car whilst riding at an average speed of 15mph, the car travelling at 40mph.

Anyways, i quite like my helmet, its probably even more fasionable to wear a helmet now, especially a swanky one. But i don't believe wearing a helmet saved james cracknels life, as he states in the advert, he got smacked in the head at 70mph. he just had a strong head.

chriscdesign

Having been the windscreen of a car, 40kph+ off aerobars, I can say un-reservedly YES. I would rather ride naked than not wear a helmet.

I haven't had time to read this thread but I would challenge anybody as to why they don't wear a helmet. It's nothing to do with speed, it's all about impact. You could topple over and smack your head on the curb and do serious damage.

Why should you not wear a helmet? Please give a logical, well thought out argument to this please?

LeicesterLad

chriscdesign wrote:

Having been the windscreen of a car, 40kph+ off aerobars, I can say un-reservedly YES. I would rather ride naked than not wear a helmet.

I haven't had time to read this thread but I would challenge anybody as to why they don't wear a helmet. It's nothing to do with speed, it's all about impact. You could topple over and smack your head on the curb and do serious damage.

Why should you not wear a helmet? Please give a logical, well thought out argument to this please?

You could topple over and smack your head on the curb and do serious damage whilst out walking to the shop, but you don't tend to wear a helmet.

Anonymous

you dont run through traffic at 40kph when popping to the shops

meanredspider

LeicesterLad wrote:

You could topple over and smack your head on the curb and do serious damage whilst out walking to the shop, but you don't tend to wear a helmet.

Let's do a poll of how many people have fallen off their bike (and how often) versus how many people have fallen over (to pre-empt the usual points)
- Walking to the shops
- Walking downstairs
- Some other fatuous suggestion

Since Risk = Severity x Likelihood and neither the severity nor the likelihood is the same, therefore neither is the risk. Wearing a lid is a risk mitigation. It's entirely up to you what level of risk you accept

Mark Bom

I never used to wear a helmet, even though I had one, I always wore caps, but on this years TdF I saw Jens Voigt come off on a bend, shortly after going off into the bushes, and land on his bonce.

That made me wear my helmet! It wasn't a major crash but he did scrape his head along the tarmac and got up to tell the cameraman to F*** off and get back on to finish the stage!

tiny_pens

chriscdesign wrote:

Having been the windscreen of a car, 40kph+ off aerobars, I can say un-reservedly YES. I would rather ride naked than not wear a helmet.

I haven't had time to read this thread but I would challenge anybody as to why they don't wear a helmet. It's nothing to do with speed, it's all about impact. You could topple over and smack your head on the curb and do serious damage.

Why should you not wear a helmet? Please give a logical, well thought out argument to this please?

Whats logical and well thought out got to do with this? You only have to look at advertising to see that logical and well thought out are not the strategies of choice.

It has / hasn't happened to me is probably as much a reason as anything. Interesting to see a correlation between 'I wear a helmet' and 'I know someone (including myself) who has banged their head in a sports related injury'

Every time I have crashed I have tucked and rolled so my head hasn't been in contact and none of my friends ride because its too dangerous. But I'm probably an anomaly as I don't feel odd not wearing a seatbelt with my gas guzzling vehicle of choice.