Six jours

Seems to me that what generally happens (other than the endless headbanging) is that folks come in sure that they're going to easily show us simpletons why it's so important to wear a helmet, and then either rage-quit (thanks to Mconlonx for that one) after a couple of futile pages, or else come to the understanding that the whole issue much more complex than they had believed.

So the end result is either a bit of learned tolerance for other people's choices, or a really pissed-off helmeteer. Win-win, way I see it.

rydabent

daihard

You ask why I dont wear a helmet when I walk. Answer----------I dont walk 15 to 20 mph.

RomansFiveEight

Your head also isn't as high away from the ground as it is when you're on a bicycle; and when walking you can much more easily roll or catch yourself; instead of falling in an awkward steep angle. You're also not balancing on two skinny wheels when you're walking, and there's not a lot of legitimate concern for falling over.

My uncle suffered a severe brain injury due to a car accident and has trouble walking. He uses a power wheelchair. He also does a lot of lower-body workouts at the gym daily to give him some semblance of control; and forces himself to walk. And; you guessed it, he wears a helmet when he walks. Takes him a long time to get anywhere and he falls frequently. Wears a leather harness to make it easier for caretakers to pick him back up (he lives in a nursing home).

Six jours

Are you claiming there is zero chance of you suffering a head injury while walking?

daihard 

Why does the velocity matter?

RomansFiveEight

Velocity changes the force of impact immensely. And as I understand it, it's exponential. Meaning 15mph vs 5mph is actually significantly more than 3x the impact. I don't know the formula for figuring that; but I've been led to believe that it is exponential (A friend and I were discussing the effect speed has on car accidents and he happens to come armed with an undergrad in Physics from MIT). So there is a LOT of difference in the potential for a serious injury between 5 and 15mph.

Six jours

Except that one of the standard helmeteer arguments is that you can be killed even in a low speed fall because it's the distance from the ground that matters.

daihard 

You could be walking at 3 MPH and get hit by a car going 30 MPH. I'd also suggest that you read @rydabent's past posts to see what his arguments for wearing a helmet are like.

RomansFiveEight

Quick disclaimer before I go further; I don't care if you wear a helmet or not. I do; if you don't want to, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. I'm just here for the potential to learn. I believe that it's well demonstrated that a helmet is an effective way to mitigate risks on the bicycle and that alternative studies that suggest riskier behavior, etc., are sort of solutions seeking problems. But I support individual riders making up their own minds.

It's not speed or distance, but impact that matters. The NHTSA standard model is that 75g's on a 50th percentile (middle of the road) male will kill you. Obviously that's a ballpark, and there are all sorts of variables. But let's use that for what it is; a ballpark to help us understand the danger of impact. At 30mph, a 160lb person who stops in a space of 0.2ft (sudden impact) experiences double the fatal amount of g forces as expressed by the NHTSA. At 5mph, they don't exceed the 75 g's. Fall distance factors in here. The higher you fall, the more you accelerate before you suddenly decelerate. And that sudden deceleration applies force.

Ultimately it's not the fall that kills you. Nobody has ever died from falling out of a plane. They either suffocated in the thin high altitude atmosphere; or were killed when they impacted the ground! Rapid acceleration puts a lot of force on our bodies; and our bodies can only handle so much force. There is a point, an amount of force, that will kill you if your head withstands it. We know that helmets increase that number by decreasing the amount of force that actually translates to your head. Thus increasing the survivability of a given accident. So take with that what you will. If you say "I don't care!", cool! If you say "Helmets will make me irresponsible and aggressive", I'd say that's weird; but whatever floats your boat. If you say "They'll make bigfoot come eat me", sure, whatever. I really have never lost an ounce of sleep over someone elses helmet decision. But if it benefits someone else; that's why I wear mine. It's all about the sudden stop at the end. And a helmet increases the amount of 'sudden stop' that I can survive.

RomansFiveEight

I could also have an undiagnosed birth defect that causes my heart to explode tonight. But it is what it is. The chances of me getting hit by a car while walking are low and easily mitigable. The chances of me hitting my head in a bicycle crash are still low but high enough to be on my "radar" as something I should do something about. Risk management is all about taking what is real in our lives and figuring out the best ways to deal with that. There's a point in each of our lives where the risk level of an activity exceeds our comfort zone. So when a risk exceeds our comfort zones we mitigate, ignore, or abstain. Meaning in this context we wear a helmet (mitigate); feel the risk of cycling is outside our comfort zone but do it anyway. (ignore); or just don't ride (abstain). You see the same thing with motorcycles. "That looks fun but it's too dangerous" (abstain). "This is fun and I always wear X" (where X is anything from a simple helmet to a high-end full face with armored gear.) (mitigate); or "I could get hit by a bus so I'm just gonna enjoy myself and the wind in my hair" (ignore). Obviously; there are also those for whom cycling helmet-less and it's inherent risks are within their comfort zone. There's nothing inherently wrong with any of those approaches to risk management; because depending on the 'risk', we treat all of them differently. From overtly risky activities like driving to simple stuff like watching TV (I know people who position their couch so that they could spot an intruder and not get snuck up on. Hey; it's a risk out of their comfort zone, however insignificant, so they are mitigating it!). Our comfort zone is different for everyone. Every activity carries a level of risk. And risk is fascinating. Obesity is as dangerous as smoking and yet smoking is on a sharp decline where obesity is going the other direction. We humans are fascinating in how we evaluate, assign, and mitigate (or ignore, or abstain) risks. Like not flying (abstaining) because the news scared us; even though it's significantly safer than many other forms of travel. Or parents pulling their kids out of public schools because of shootings; when their kid is an order of magnitude more likely to die in a car accident in the family car than they are to be a victim of deadly violence in schools.

It's a funny world we live in. Which is why I do what makes the most sense to me and encourage others to do the same.

daihard 

Glad we are in agreement.

rydabent

daihard

And I dont care if you do not wear a helmet or not. All I have ever posted is the fact that intelligent cyclist wear helmets. And--------as I have posted I am against MHLs.

BTW I notice you have one on in your avatar.

mconlonx

So cyclists who don't wear helmets are not intelligent? Not as intelligent as those who do wear helmets?

Sad...

Six jours

I believe the helmeteer argument is that horizontal speed is usually not a factor when a bicyclist falls to the ground, but rather the vertical speed attained during the fall. I think it's the same idea behind the old "falling bodies" experiments we did in grade school.

wphamilton

You guys had it wrong - the force of impact is proportional to the change in velocity. (f=ma).

Secondly, you need to look at the force as vectors, not a scalar quantity.

njkayaker

I'll just leave this here.

What It's Like To Drive A Car Made Of Styrofoam

wphamilton

driving inside a giant bike helmet, seems somehow appropriate to these discussions.

rydabent

mcon

Yes it is sad that people are not intelligent enough to wear a helmet while cycling, since all of their excuses are shallow and not well thought out. Once a helmet is on, it is forgotten. And it may save a cyclist from injury. So the question is why not?

njkayaker

A standard anti-helmeteer argument is that pedestrians die "all the time" from falls. Which is the same argument. Actually more so because it doesn't appear that any "helmeteer" suggests that pedestrians should wear helmets. Oddly, it's anti-helmeteers that keep suggesting that pedestrians should wear helmets!

badger1

Hi!
What's this thread about?

350htrr

It's about doing this without a helmet, or with a helmet, ... Which one is better?

RomansFiveEight

It's about two camps of people who have already made up their minds and absolutely will not change their minds trying to change the minds of the other camp that has already made up it's mind and won't change it's mind.

But it's fun, nonetheless And I think there is some learning going on.

badger1

True; it is fun following it, though my brain hurts!
I have had and have nothing to contribute; my reasons for wearing and for (occasionally) not wearing a helmet are equally without rational foundation. The former: because Ms. Badger prefers that I do. The latter: because I don't like wearing the bl**dy things.

Six jours

Hell, that hasn't stopped anyone else.

Six jours

Some of us prefer not to do it at all. Sad that to some people, that makes us seem like superheroes.