Forgot my helmet today

[lbz5mc12]

I hate when I forget my helmet. It usually happens when I have to work on my bike cause it normally hangs on the handle bars. I'm usually a block or so from my house when I start to wonder why the top of my head feels so breezy.

 

[dogman dan]

It may just be illegal for the kids to ride without a helmet. But that's another discussion.

I like helmets, and have learned the hard way that I do crash. So to remember mine, I practice hanging the helmet on the handlebars. Since I have multiple bikes, multiple helmets.

I do like my winter helmet better, which is a warm snowboard helmet. No wind noise like the summer hats. I don't have any illusions that the helmet will help if I tangle with a car. So I do use what's inside the hat a lot to ride safe from cars.

It's dumbshit stuff like dropping a water bottle into my forks that I need protection from. Off road, I have a tendency to go over the bars from time to time, so I wear the hat off road for that.

 

[alsmith]

Clip your bike key to the helmet when taking it off. I like the Nite Ize S Biners in the 4th pic
(all off ebay)

 

[serisman]

In general, I don't worry too much about the helmet for myself (it is an absolute requirement for my daughters).

Yet somehow, all of us here over the age of 40 made it through our childhoods without helmets (unless we were spastics). What callous, uncaring people our parents must have been!

Yeah, I have mixed feelings about that. I am in my 30s and must have grown up in the transition years? I don't remember wearing a helmet early on, but did wear one later on in my teens.

But, when I was about 12 years old (or so), my best friend's brother died due to a bicycle/car accident. Specifically, he wasn't wearing a helmet, darted across the road and was hit by a car. He was probably about 8 years old or so, and less than a block from his house. He ended up with head trauma that took his life within a few hours. Most likely he would still be with us today if he was wearing a helmet.

That said... I fully agree that what is inside the helmet is more important than the helmet itself (at least for adults). For kids, they are still developing and may not have the same awareness of their surroundings as an adult. Granted a helmet will only help in certain types of accidents, but better safe than sorry.

Also, I think it is law for children under a certain age to wear a helmet around here.

For myself, I am succumbing to peer pressure. For the last 4 months that I have been bike commuting to work, I don't think I have passed anyone that wasn't wearing a helmet. And, pretty much everyone at work wondered why I wasn't wearing a helmet. I felt ok without one because I thought I was being extra cautious, but I also don't want to stick out as a bad example, and every bit of protection can help.

 

[serisman]

In general, I don't worry too much about the helmet for myself (it is an absolute requirement for my daughters).

Yet somehow, all of us here over the age of 40 made it through our childhoods without helmets (unless we were spastics). What callous, uncaring people our parents must have been!

Let's see, we also didn't have seat belts back then, allowed smoking around children, and didn't make a big deal about giving children spankings (which I am still all for).

But, that doesn't mean our parents were bad or careless or didn't love us... just that society has learned more (or at least changed) since we grew up.

If a parent today didn't buckle up their kids, or smoked in their faces, and openly beat their children, I think we would all agree they would be looked at pretty poorly by society (and maybe even taken to jail).

I feel the same with helmets for children. Until they are old enough to fully understand the implications of not wearing a helmet, it is the parent's responsibility to do what they can to protect them according to what society deems appropriate. Obviously one needs to be careful and not go overboard and be too protective, but I would think there is enough evidence out there that requiring children to wear helmets is a good idea.

 

[Chalo]

In general, I don't worry too much about the helmet for myself (it is an absolute requirement for my daughters).

Yet somehow, all of us here over the age of 40 made it through our childhoods without helmets (unless we were spastics). What callous, uncaring people our parents must have been!

Let's see, we also didn't have seat belts back then, allowed smoking around children,

The difference is that we have conclusive results about the efficacy of seat belts, and highly suggestive results about secondhand smoke, but bicycle helmets seem to have done nothing to improve things in the big picture. The numbers are available at places like cyclehelmets.org.

Clearly a helmet can improve the outcome of some head impacts. But the fact that widespread bicycle helmet use has had no significant effect on cyclist injury and mortality rates suggests that using a helmet, and the risk compensation of using a helmet, actually increases the likelihood of suffering an accident by about the same amount as it is able to prevent the damage resulting from such accident.

The cost of wearing a helmet is not high. But the cost-to-net-benefit ratio seems to be very high indeed.

But if you need one, don't bother to have a look at the data. Just do it.

 

[serisman]

I don't dispute what you say as it relates to mature adults who have the ability to properly weigh the risks involved and are much more conscious of their surroundings. I didn't stay on that site you linked too long enough to find out (it kinda looks like a conspiracy website), but I would be curious if their 'research' took into account different age groups.

To think that my 7 year old daughter is going to purposely act more dangerously because she has a helmet on and feels more protected is ridiculous. This is especially true because she has been made to wear a helmet since learning to ride a bike, and it is just part of the experience for her. All she cares about is getting to her friend's house or the park down the block (dead-end street). She has only been riding for a couple of years now, and is still a little unstable at times. I feel much more comfortable knowing that she has some extra protection for if/when she falls off her bike or runs into something. I can't even comprehend how someone at her age would get into a situation where she was better off without a helmet.

Also, I don't really know what you are trying to imply with the picture in your post. Are you trying to make a joke about physically/mentally handicapped people, and trying to imply that any adult that chooses to wear a helmet is physically or mentally handicapped? If so, that seems really insensitive and judgmental. If you meant something else, please explain.

If you don't want to wear a helmet, then don't. But certainly there are valid reasons (at least to them) that many riders (if not most) choose to wear a helmet.

 

[dogman dan]

Wear a helmet or not, your choice. You decide.

My choice is not based on some idea that I will survive a bad crash better with one, unless I went all the way to dot full face motorcycle types. I do wear that kind of hat for 40mph + along with other body armor.

The thing I have personally proved, is that with a helmet, flying over the bars and rubbing your head on the pavement is definitely more comfortable. I crushed a helmet once, along with some bones. That was the dumb water bottle mistake. But the crushed bones were not in my head, which stuck the corner of the curb. Most of the crashes, you just see mild abrasions on the hat that would have been a patch of skin on your head. More like more comfy, that life saving.

I just know that when, not if I crash, even a minimal helmet helps some, just like rubbing holes in gloves means a smaller hole in your hands. Some don't crash, but I know that personally, I do.

But a helmet doesn't guarantee survivability. A friend of mine went over the bars at about 40 mph and was killed descending a big hill. He crushed the bike type helmet, and his skull. He got a front tire flat at 40 mph. Shit happens. It was just his day to die. The day I fumbled my bottle, it just wasn't my day to die. The helmet didn't make that crash that broke both my collarbones much more comfy, but at least I was conscious so I could call 911.