Originally Posted by Leisesturm

I knew my earlier posts would rankle some. Good. Because it is evident, even in this small community of riders who should mostly know better, that there remains superstition and fear with regard to bike safety on the road. On the road. I have never knowingly ridden even a short distance off road. Rather than approach street riding with a "sigh, there isn't anything you can do about road safety except spend huge amounts of money on safety gear and electronic gadgets like lookback radar, even so, accidents happen" attitude, I prefer to "shoot for the stars, land on the Moon". I'll take the Moon. I take the line that any 'incident' however small, was mostly my fault. No, OF COURSE, no one can prevent all crashes, it doesn't need to be said! You can pretend that you can, the power of suggestion is amazing. There is no harm in this, trust me on that. There is also ZERO harm in doing without entertainment when riding in urban environments. First, you don't need the distraction, and 2. If your hearing is normal, you can HEAR things you can't see and this is very valuable. I am not surprised when I get to a corner to find a car just around it. I heard them coming. One third (33.3%) of accidents at an intersection involve a turning car. You NEED to expect them. That is easier to do if you hear them too. It isn't (all) dumb luck that I've had the same helmet for over 10 years and it doesn't have an obvious scratch on it. And I ride every day, multiple times a day, rain or shine and in a big city urban grid. You may not be ABLE to find a non-MIPS or other advanced tech helmet anymore. That's fine. My wife's helmet is MIPS because it was. She didn't know (or care) what MIPS was when she bought it. The price was right and it got good reviews on Amazon. She knew that her previous helmet and my current one was/is a Giro. If you are in a crash serious enough that the higher technology of a more expensive or more advanced helmet can make a difference ... ... well I am not going to link the picture here, but on the Internet is a picture of a very dead (obviously so) helmeted rider. That's all I've got. Hope its enough. Be careful out there.