I would suggest that you wear a helmet, please.

Daz555

I wear a helmet for all my "sports" cycling activity - road or mtb but not when just nipping out and about or on a nice towpath ride with the kids. Why? Because I find it more enjoyable. Nothing better than riding helmet free in a pair of shorts and some sandles with the sun on your back.

I do find it remarkable that some sports cyclists - happy to descend a mountain pass at 60mph or launch themselves down rock strewn 50 degree slopes - feel it is ok accuse someone of being irresponsible because they don't wear a helmet when all they are doing is maybe nipping down the shops or to the pub or for a nice gentle jaunt. Some people have a really screwed sense of risk.

I think cycling could learn a lot from the snow sports community - loads of skiers and boarders wear lids these days but you won't find any of them banging on about it.

The Helmet mafia (from both sides) are the problem here.

declan1

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

To the OP, that must have been a shock, I wouldnt worry about what a 23 year old child thinks. My cousin was in a terrible accident - will never cycle again - in a coma for over a week - the surgeon said without a helmet he would be dead - his head injuries mean he is now suffering memory loss and becoming agressive - if you have any of these symptoms, or peole tell you they see a change in you - do get checked out. Wish you well - keep safe.

Thanks Cleat - My head seems to be fine; nobody has noticed anything different about me (apart from the black eye) so I don't think I'm anymore crazy than normal!

Hope your cousin is ok - it must be quite worrying for you and the family

ben@31

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

There you go , never ride with a monkey on your back.

Thanks, I'll try to remember.

Can you get Team Sky kit for small monkeys?

nweststeyn

thegreatdivide wrote:

ben@31 wrote:

I've never understood why cyclists don't wear helmets? I don't even notice mine.

And these days the majority of them look cool as feck!

Unless you ride for BMC Racing, Dave... Their ones are just awful.

Glad to hear you got away without too much damage to you Declan... Hows the bike, was it the GoldenWings?

cornerblock

Daz555 wrote:

I wear a helmet for all my "sports" cycling activity - road or mtb but not when just nipping out and about or on a nice towpath ride with the kids. Why? Because I find it more enjoyable. Nothing better than riding helmet free in a pair of shorts and some sandles with the sun on your back.

I do find it remarkable that some sports cyclists - happy to descend a mountain pass at 60mph or launch themselves down rock strewn 50 degree slopes - feel it is ok accuse someone of being irresponsible because they don't wear a helmet when all they are doing is maybe nipping down the shops or to the pub or for a nice gentle jaunt of being irresponsible because they don't wear a helmet. Some people have a really screwed sense of risk.

I think cycling could learn a lot from the snow sports community - loads of skiers and boarders wear lids these days but you won't find any of them banging on about it.

The Helmet mafia (from both sides) are the problem here.

I agree with nearly all you say, but fark me, wearing sandals!! Think I'd rather crack my head!

declan1

nweststeyn wrote:

thegreatdivide wrote:

ben@31 wrote:

I've never understood why cyclists don't wear helmets? I don't even notice mine.

And these days the majority of them look cool as feck!

Unless you ride for BMC Racing, Dave... Their ones are just awful.

Glad to hear you got away without too much damage to you Declan... Hows the bike, was it the GoldenWings?

It was the Viking, and luckily only a rip on the bar tape and the hoods pushed inwards is the only 'damage'! Not even the chain came off (which was surprising considering the bike ended up the other side of the road)

Team4Luke

My club mate has just been knocked clean off by a driver who just did not stop at the give way, threw him over bonnet and smashed his head straight into the middle of the windsreen which is smashed to bits.
He has a broken femur and other minor cracks and bruises. Indeed helmet did it's job.

cornerblock

I'm too am glad that you are ok and came off relatively unscathed Declan. Had an off myself recently, aside from grazes and bruised ribs I was lucky. Flew across to the other side of the road, but thankfully the first car approaching had plenty of time to stop. We all love cycling and yet we all kind of know it's inevitable that we will have a spill at some point, does it deter us? Does it 'eck as like.

ben@31

nweststeyn wrote:

thegreatdivide wrote:

Unless you ride for BMC Racing, Dave... Their ones are just awful.

Every time I've seen them I've never thought about it . They don't look that bad at all

declan1

I think he means their new ones:

nweststeyn

Yup... The new ones. Eurgh.

declan1

nweststeyn wrote:

Yup... The new ones. Eurgh.

Giro go on about their Air Attack helmet as if it's a brand new space-age technologically advanced design, where it's actually just a children's helmet from 5-10 years ago. It looks absolutely crap.

hipshot

Never really understood why some in the pro helmet community get so uptight about what other people wear. The vitriol thrown at people who disagree seems totally out of proportion. Did someone seriously bring up natural selection? :shock:

When they became compulsory for the pros everyone started wearing them. Before that noone gave a rats ass.

(I wear one BTW, not that it's anyones business)

Spender

"When they became compulsory for the pros everyone started wearing them. Before that noone gave a rats ass."


Nope, I wore one and my kids wore one long before the pros were forced to wear them for racing.

I used to ski without a helmet when my kids were small until my son asked why he wore one any daddy didn't. I didn't have a sensible answer so have worn one ever since.

I've never ever thought. "Wow, that ride/ski would have been so much better without my helmet."

But each to their own.

clickrumble

I wear one, landed hard head first on the grey stuff a year ago and I now know that helmets are cooler than drool.

andi1363

I accidently banged my head when working under the stairs. Please can all folk make sure they wear a helmet around the house as evidence suggests that domestic accidents are common. :roll:

andi1363

When I was a child, helmets were still a twinkle in the eye of corporate profit making gurus. Strangely enough, none of my friends died or even had serious head injuries!

Wear one if you want but don't preach! Helmets are not proven to be effective if you bother to research.

BelgianBeerGeek

Less than interesting debate/topic.

Those who want to wear one, will. Those who don't, won't. Some may wear one on one day, another time, they might skip it.

Can we move on?

declan1

Ok guys, I wasn't trying to start WW3 here. If I wasn't wearing a helmet my face would now be in a much bigger mess than it is, and I would probably have had a fractured skull (or worse).

Before you start going on about "There's no conclusive evidence that helmets work", nobody can test for every eventuality. Helmets WILL allow you to come away from an accident with less damage than if you weren't wearing one. Why do you think they made motorcycle helmets compulsory?

nweststeyn

Spender wrote:

I've never ever thought. "Wow, that ride would have been so much better without my helmet."

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ this ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

CiB

declan1 wrote:

Ok guys, I wasn't trying to start WW3 here. If I wasn't wearing a helmet my face would now be in a much bigger mess than it is, and I would probably have had a fractured skull (or worse).

Before you start going on about "There's no conclusive evidence that helmets work", nobody can test for every eventuality. Helmets WILL allow you to come away from an accident with less damage than if you weren't wearing one. Why do you think they made motorcycle helmets compulsory?

Yes you were. You barge in and in big caps write WEAR A HELMET. What did you expect - 100% compliance and many posts thanking for correcting the error of our ways?

And m/c helmets being made compulsory may well have had something to do with the rise in deaths in the early 70s as Japanese sports bike took over the UK market. It may also have something to do with how the kinetic energy involved in a human body on a m/bike weighing a few hundred pounds doing motorbike speeds i.e. 30mph easily, more likely 40+ bears no comparison to a bloke on a cycle doing a lot less. Simple fact is motorbikes were causing for too many head injuries; bicycles didn't then and still don't.

I'll continue to wear one when it suits me to and leave it at home when it doesn't thanks. My judgement based on 40+ years of getting by fine mainly without thanks won't be altered by someone preaching at me, or by snide comments about natural selection etc.

Bugger. I wasn't going to get involved in this. See what you've done?

declan1

There you go - fixed...

Daz555

declan1 wrote:

Why do you think they made motorcycle helmets compulsory?

Because of the inexhaustible supply of sound evidence that they massively reduce the occurrence of serious head injury in numbers sufficient enough to make the legislation worthwhile.

Of course motorcycle helmets are designed to protect your head as their prime function and manufacturers make great effort to convince riders that their helmets are the safest on the market. Not too convinced about cycle helmets sometimes - never noticed a manufacturer bang on about how safe their latest model is in comparison to the competition - nor do the cycle mags in their reviews. Instead its all about graphics, aero, cooling, and nice closure mechanisms on the straps. :?

Also, motorcycling is inherently dangerous - it is an activity which places your body way beyond its capability to survive if something goes wrong. Cycling typically does not. Still love biking though. They can take my BMW R1100S from my cold dead hands.......

essjaydee

Each to their own...

I've had a couple of offs now, and have bumped my head on the floor on both occasions. Would have been my head on the tarmac instead of the helmet, so I will not go out on the bike unless I wear my helmet.

Also as Team4Luke mentioned a recent incident

My club mate has just been knocked clean off by a driver who just did not stop at the give way, threw him over bonnet and smashed his head straight into the middle of the windsreen which is smashed to bits. He has a broken femur and other minor cracks and bruises. Indeed helmet did it's job.

Here is the picture;



Helmet / No Helmet...it's your choice

airbag

ben@31 wrote:

I still haven't seen one reason not wear a helmet.

That slightly worries me. The example that's often wheeled out (and already has been) is - do you wear a helmet when walking round your house? No? Why not? Does it take that much imagination to infer people might use those exact same reasons when cycling?

That doesn't mean that they're good reasons when applied to cycling, but they are reasons. At a guess, those reasons were "I'd be uncomfortable, feel like an idiot, and wouldn't feel any safer" - and who knows, maybe to them the slightly elevated risk of drooling is worth being more comfortable or whatever. Who am I to judge?

I'm confident enough in helmets being worth their while to wear one, and I'm very confident that not smoking is good for me - but I don't go around yelling at smokers "STOP SMOKING I smoked once and coughed a bit afterwards". They've got the information required to make a responsible decision, they can decide from there.

rolf_f

airbag wrote:

ben@31 wrote:

I still haven't seen one reason not wear a helmet.

That slightly worries me. The example that's often wheeled out (and already has been) is - do you wear a helmet when walking round your house? No? Why not? Does it take that much imagination to infer people might use those exact same reasons when cycling?

I think part of the problem is that quite a few cyclists insist on believing that cycling isn't any more dangerous than walking whereas common sense says that it quite clearly is. 30 mph on the roads is more dangerous than 4mph on the pavement (as long as you aren't in an iPod induced semi coma oblivious to your surroundings). I'm only too well aware of this having been particularly unlucky over the last 6 months - knocked off twice by cars, once in a club ride coming together and once on ice. Of course, if you only ride at weekends in nice weather, the odds change somewhat.

In contrast, in 45 years I've never hurt myself as a pedestrian. So there is, IMO, a very obvious distinction between the two. Whether that difference warrants the wearing of a helmet is another matter but since I am never really consciously aware of the helmet when wearing it, I wear it. But I respect the choice of others not to.

CiB

cyd190468 wrote:

http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/roads/safety/publications/2006/pdf/death_cyclists_road.pdf
Please observe the graph on page 2. I wonder what happened in 1989?

TLDR but I bet it shows a sudden reduction.

So what happened in 1989? I know the answer to that one. It was the period when the Oz govt made a concerted effort to improve road safety and introduced lots of things, like helmet laws, random breath testing of drivers, more stringent implementation of speed limits etc. Clearly only the helmet law had any effect though.

HTH.

Wheelspinner

CiB wrote:

cyd190468 wrote:

http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/roads/safety/publications/2006/pdf/death_cyclists_road.pdf
Please observe the graph on page 2. I wonder what happened in 1989?

TLDR but I bet it shows a sudden reduction.

So what happened in 1989? I know the answer to that one. It was the period when the Oz govt made a concerted effort to improve road safety and introduced lots of things, like helmet laws, random breath testing of drivers, more stringent implementation of speed limits etc. Clearly only the helmet law had any effect though.

HTH.

Erm, bollox you do!

Sorry, but I live here, and I can assure you that random breath testing was introduced in Australia a lot earlier than 1989. Initial legislation in 1980, and widespread implementation from 1982 onwards IIRC. I know this because all through University I lived in a city where the police had sod all else to do most nights and loved their breath testing stations. It was not uncommon to get RBT'd three times in one evening on a short drive across a small city.

I'd suggest that the speed limits comment is aimed at the fact that Australia introduced speed cameras around 1989 as well. If that really does have much- or any - impact on the cyclist accident death rate then why has it not continued to plummet as we now have 50 times more speed cameras and other monitoring devices in use than 1989/90? But the statistics say that the cyclist death rate has stayed relatively stable now for years it seems. So do the cameras have any impact? Besides, much of the early speed camera implementation was out on freeways and "rural" roads, where the official limit was (and still is) 100 km/h anyway. Now the damned things are everywhere. A camera causing someone to slow down from 120 to 100 to avoid a speeding ticket is not going to appreciably improve the survival chances of a bike rider hit at the lower speed.

I'm sure there were other factors besides introducing mandatory helmet use on bikes, but the apparently unpalatable truth is that it was probably the most significant contributing factor to the reduction in deaths in those few years.

You still don't have to wear one - your choice.

CiB

:?

Well done.

Ben6899

CiB wrote:

:?

Well done.

:?

Well I thought it was a well-written post and totally in line with how the discussion was going.