I would suggest that you wear a helmet, please.

Sorry to hear that. Glad you are alright.

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

ben@31 wrote:

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

Actually feel exposed and slightly naked without mine. That's familiarity for you.
I can remember when seat belts in cars became compulsory (Feb 1983.) Sad, I know. Everyone soon got used to it and now it feels strange if you don't buckle up.

no :evil:

ben@31 wrote:

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

I notice mine unfortunately, it rubs on a little skin tag I have on my ear and after a few hours it's been known to bleed, which is a pain in the arse
That said, I do feel naked without a helmet. I would never ride my bike without one.

Glad your not in a worse state OP.

Frank the tank wrote:

Having said that,I believe the not wearing a helmet attitude wil die out as the older generation of cyclists "fade away".

I'm 23, so not exactly old, and I made a vow recently: every time I see patronising nonsense about helmets, I go for a ride without one. Two if it's in ALLCAPS. Four if someone claims it saved their life with no evidence to this effect other than a cracked helmet - when cracking is usually a pretty poor method of dissipating energy in a crash.

The objections people have to generalising 'I fell off with one and I'm not dead' to 'they save your life and you should wear one' are well known and have been retrodden, to no-one's benefit, thousands of times, so there isn't really an excuse for not being aware of them. Why not just leave your experiences at that, and actually trust people with making a competent decision with the evidence presented, rather than ramming an opinion down their throats? If you were really that desperate to show someone helmets worked, at least point them to some of the reasonable medical studies out there, which actually do illustrate the point rather than emotive bollocks.

Sorry that should read NATURAL SELECTION

Oh look.

A helmet thread.

Oh joy.

Cue unreasoned arguments and emotive language and possibly "natural selection" comments.

Wait, wait... Ah, I see... we've already started.

@ FranktheTank - I've got to apologise on this one, although I quoted you most of what I said was referring to the OP. My fault entirely for communicating badly, and I pretty much agree with you, including the 'natural selection' part.

@OP - I should probably apologise to you as well, at least in part - it's probably not on to be rude to someone in your situation. That said, my personal experience heavily correlates "falling off with a helmet on" with "suddenly presupposing you're sufficiently better informed than others to tell them what to do, despite any reasonably intelligent person being able to perceive that you aren't" (in fact, considering my friends, it also correlates "falling off with a helmet on" with "significantly worse head injuries"). It's probably best for everyone that I don't take that sort of evidence as a reliable guide for the future - especially when advising others.

Most people must surely know that if you fall off and hit your head, it'll hurt and if you're wearing a helmet it'll be damaged. If they're not wearing one, likelihood is they have some reason that isn't going to be torn down in shreds by telling them that. That doen't mean it's a good reason. Just one that isn't rendered void by your experience.

Essentially, whether a cycle helmet protects the head in an accident is inconclusive. There are just too many variables involved.

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1052.html The article is a summary but I'm inclined to accept what it says.

I wear one because it looks nice and in my mind I feel 'safer' wearing one.

Always obvious where this thread was going to go.

I have been in the unfortunate position to have a helmet wrecked for me. This is what the lid looked like afterwards:

I don't think that not wearing it would have killed me. All that I did suffer was a bit of headache and neckache. However, had I not been wearing it, my head would have been jarred more on the impact (as the helmet supported my head and kept it aligned to my neck) so I imagine that the neck ache at least would have been a lot worse and, of course, my head would have been badly scuffed - my hip was pretty nasty looking despite the protection of my shorts and tights so a bare head would have been a mess. I think the lid was worth it.

@thegreatdivide - been there too. Managed to get 10 miles into work on more than one occasion oblivious to the fact that I'd left the helmet at home!

ben@31 wrote:

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

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1182.html

Kieran_Burns wrote:

ben@31 wrote:

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

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1182.html

hehe

"One of the most interesting experiments, conducted by Gennarelli et al, 1982, subjected 12 squirrel monkeys to linear accelerations with peak levels 665-1230 g and 13 other monkeys primarily to rotational accelerations from 348 to 1025 g. "

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

This isnt a debate about helmets - a guy was injured to the degree that an ambulance was called - as bompington said - too much iq not enough eq.

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.