2 Piece

Soo well said, I guess you are saying you do not ride safely. Maybe if you rode safely you would not need a helmet? Maybe if you rode safely you would be sending a more positive image of cyclist to the rest of those around you instead of there goes another unsafe cyclist.

CarinusMalmari

The important question is not "how likely am I to be attacked by a T-rex?", it is "what are the implications of not having a anti-dinosaur gun when encountering one"?

It's not well said, it's exposing a lack of even the most basic understanding of how risk-assessment works.

martl

Which is true for 100% of the things you do. Every day of your life. So, what are the reasons for wearing one while cycling, again?

I-Like-To-Bike

The same reason why everyone leaving the safety of their home should wear safety glasses, steel toed shoes with a steel shank, mouth guard, groin protector, bullet proof vest, etc. Something could happen and maybe the extra safety equipment just might be helpful just in case. Of course the same rationale also applies to having a firearm and bear spray on hand at all times, just in case.

Why not, eh? After all, what are the implications of not wearing this safety equipment and needing it?"

bbbean 

I'm allergic to head injuries, and the probability of a head injury during cycling is both non-zero and greater the than having a head injury sitting at my desk.

Of course, there are other questions necessary for a full risk-benefit analysis, including the cost of a given measure in time, money, performance, convenience, etc. In my own case, I've determined the cost of helmet wearing to be both trivial and considerably smaller than the cost of head injury, therefore I wear one.

YMMV, have a great day.

I-Like-To-Bike

You apparently have answered those risk analysis questions for your situation to your satisfaction and act accordingly, makes good sense.

Other posters on this thread obviously feel that anyone asking relevant risk analysis questions, let alone answering them, is misguided and post their empty headed ideas about helmet use accordingly.

mr_bill

Actually, the most common "question" asked here is of the form why don't you carry an anti-dinosaur gun?

But do keep on keeping on. You not only are the arbitrator of the proper form of any questions, you also know all the "correct" answers.

-mr. bill

mconlonx

If I were in the rare situation where I crashed my bicycle, and the even rarer situation where such a crash caused a headstrike and resulting head injury, the implications are that I would probably suffer a minor head injury, might suffer a moderate head injury, and only rarely could possibly suffer a severe head injury.

In the rare event of such a crash, were I wearing a helmet, it could very well possibly mitigate most minor injury I could have suffered, would be less effective with moderate injury possibly sustained, and could offer some small amount of injury mitigation in the event of severe head injury. Maybe.

After considering both the likelihood of needing a helmet -- not very likely -- and the implications of possibly needing a helmet and not having one where it may help in some rare instances where head injury might be a result in the small chance of a crash -- some injury mitigation, maybe, and which effectiveness decreases with the severity of injury -- I make a decision about wearing a helmet.


What an excellent, big word! I learned something today. My experience is that single-track vehicles are remarkably more stable than I would ever have given them credit for if I did not ride them on a regular basis; impacts to the head at cycling speeds are exceedingly rare and can also cause zero injury or only minor head injury. And all levels of injury can also be suffered while wearing a cycling helmet, riding at cycling speeds, as well.

wphamilton

Why do you think that one's own limited experience is something better than analysis of data aggregated from a large number of samples?

Probability is not a mind game. It is one way of describing reality, probably a necessary element in any prediction of a contemplated course of action unless some conclusion is inevitable. Inevitability is hard to come by.

Maybe it's this part: "Useful for dealing with large populations, almost useless for individual events" which is inaccurate. The first part is right, no argument there but as for the latter, do you ever play cards?

martl

That's fine, then. I've never tried to talk someone out of wearing a helmet. That's up to each individual to decide. If a person wants to wear a helmet while climbing some stairs, or using a car, its also fine with me (those, in fact, are deeds with a *higher* risk for sustaining a head injury, btw)

I only object when it is said wearing a helmet while cycling is the sensible/bright/necessary thing to do for everone, because, see above, cycling is something very ordinary to do. Its by no means any kind oh "high-risk" thing usually associated with wearing special protective gear for the occasion.

CarinusMalmari

I just explored the implications of helmeteer lore & theory. In this case the suggestion that the chance of something happening is of no importance and that only the result of the occurrence is of importance. This implies one also should take precautions to mitigate the consequences of things that will never happen.

JonathanGennick 

I don't usually jump into these threads, but Marti has hit on something here. In the States at least, we've culturally turned cycling into something "not ordinary". I wonder whether we haven't lost something as a result.

Tickstart

Tiglath

The anti-helmet crowd does never stop at loading the dice to tilt their horrible odds that they actually make sense.

This poster is eager to equate "the way I ride" to "I ride unsafely," when in fact he has zero data to do so. No surprise.

The only accident I have ever had on a bike was when I was hit from the rear by a hit-and-run drunk driver, ON A BIKE PATH. So, there you go.

I don't even cycle on normal roads, other than one mile from my home to the bike trail around the back roads.

Tiglath

If you need to resort to dinosaurs to buttress your argument against helmets. you are past scraping the bottom.

When you find yourself in a deep, dark, dank hole of your own making, the first rule is, stop digging.

Tiglath

If it makes good sense for one person, how is a different person on a bike so different that it makes no sense? A bike is a bike is a bike.

Tiglath

Well spotted, I stand corrected. I actually meant to write, "an individual's events," so it corresponds to the heart example given.

Statistic significance requires samples of a certain size before their attributes can be argued to the general. Equally, statistical significance decreases as it is applied to smaller groups, or individuals. So whatever bike helmet statistics can tell you, they give no practical information on when you are going to fall next and hit your head and how badly.

Tiglath

It is incredible for ANYONE to judge that riding a bicycle surrounded by cars with a terrifying speed differential, is not a risky activity. It defies belief.

Add to that the often blatant disrespect drivers have for cyclists, and the increasing number of devices people use that distract from their driving as they text, phone, or take selfies, and you are into Russian roulette territory.

Some countries have struck a good social contract between cyclists and cars, like Holland and Austria, but otherwise in most cities cyclists remain mice in an elephant stampede.

And some still have the gall to call that an "ordinary" activity, as is "no big deal - safe"?

2 Piece

Well I actually got the data from you back in post 1349

"I disregard probability and statistics because I have something better, the real McCoy. And if I were to use the past to know what to expect in the future, no past is my relevant than my own. I need not probabilistic estimate to tell me what I know for sure, that cycling the way I do, where I do, I can hurt my head."
Is a person suppose to read that and say gee that guy must be riding safely? Why would you or anybody deliberately cycle in such away as to hurt your head?
I hope you were not hurt to badly from the hit and run driver or at least you are all healed now.

CarinusMalmari

Since this is coming from a person who isn't even able to stay logically consistent in subsequent sentences

I'm not too worried.

Besides, I was just making fun of the inability of helmeteers to understand conventional reality.

Tiglath

"The way I do" implies neither safety nor unsafety. It turns out that it means that, EVEN riding the way I do, which is avoiding motorized traffic I STILL got hurt, and my helmet was cracked almost in half. Imagine then how much worse is for those who dare be in traffic.

prathmann

I've been riding in traffic on an almost daily basis for the last 50 years without any damage to either helmets or head. Seems preferable to your experience.

I-Like-To-Bike

Some people are different in that they have no sense and seem incapable or unwilling to make rational decisions

Tiglath

Congratulations. Before 2013 I could make a statement similar to yours. I've had bikes since age 3. Now I no longer can.

The good thing about the past is that we can state with all certainty how things have been. The bad thing is that, in the matter at hand, in no way determines what will happen in the future.

Tiglath

If the love of mockery is what keeps you here, I hope you don't mind if others play too.

I don't expect the pro-death faction to don a helmet any time soon no matter what anyone in the pro-life group writes. Conversely, we are are not quitting helmets even if you threaten to continue to write bad comedy.

Many people who hold mistaken and bewilderingly silly beliefs can at least claim some utilitarian effect. The difference between the rabbit who flees because mistakenly believes that the wind shaking the tall grass is a fox nearby, and the rabbit who refuses to budge until better data is available is that the analytical rabbit leaves fewer offspring. People who believe that the world is only six thousand years old and other bold claims from preachers and priests, draw at least the soothing benefits of ardent believers.

But it's hard to fathom out the utilitarian effect of believing that cycling is a low risk activity that does not warrant wearing head protection.

For a moment, it looks that there is some utility in using the pro-death faction as a bad example. Unfortunately, that may lead some folks with poor habits of thought to take it as an example to follow, so in the end it's a belief with no benefit at all anyway you look at it.