John K

I took a spill on pavement for the first time today. The way my head impacted with the concrete, had I not been wearing a helmet, I would have been knocked unconscious or possibly worse. Sure glad I'm a pro helmet guy. Just food for thought.

Thor29

Yes, people who crash and land on their heads should wear helmets.
Your inability to spell "wear" indicates that you probably suffered a concussion even though you had a helmet on.

fuji86

Thor29, don't read too much into the spelling mistake, the "E" and the "R" keys are right next to one another on a QWERTY keyboard. Might've just been typing too fast ?

John, most bike helmets are designed for a one and done crash, might want to replace the one you used ?

John K

Wear, Wear, WEAR ! Got It !

cehowardGS

+10000000000000000000000000000000000 and then some!!

I took a hard spill about 3 or 4 weeks ago too. It had just stopped raining, and I crossed a metal bridge support, at about 20 mph.. Wham, I hit the ground, but still moving at the same speed. Wham, my head, nothing else hit the curb, and that stopped my movement. I hit the curb with such force, that it make a loud noise, and it stopped my movement. It was a cheap Wally Mart helmet too. However, it did its job. Wasn't for the helmet, I don't think I would have got up.

Even when I am home, and just going for a ride to the corner and back, I don a helmet. In addition, I try to tell peeps that are not wearing a helmet, in the nicest way I can, wear a dam helmet...

Great post, I hope peep adhere too...

cehowardGS

Whatt speelllling gottt too doooa whit itt anywway???

travelmama

You all are silly. OP- good on you for surviving your fall.

GeorgePaul

I agree. If you are sure that you won't crash and land on your head, you don't need a helmet.

XR2

Where a helmet?

chasm54

Oh Christ, another helmet thread. Were anybody to bother reading the numerous other helmet threads, they would already know that:

1. Where good figures exist (mainly from Australia and New Zealand) they indicate that increased helmet use has NOT correlated with fewer head injuries to cyclists;

2. The incidence of head injury to unhelmeted cyclists is very low - roughly the same per mile travelled as for pedestrians - so why don't we keep warning pedestrians to wear helmets?

...and many other facts that call into question whether helmets, for just riding around, are remotely necessary. As for the endless "I'd have been killed but for my helmet" stories, I'm sure they're sincere but the fact is you have no idea what would or would not have happened without the helmet. I have had the experience of crashing into a motor vehicle, and hitting it forehead-first, at about 15-20 mph. I wasn't wearing a helmet and I was unscathed. Had I been wearing a helmet, I can well imagine that I'd be attributing my survival to that helmet. But I wasn't. Was I lucky? Maybe. But skulls work pretty well, most of the time - and for much more of the time, they don't have to. Cycling is a very safe activity.

DX-MAN

You beat me to it.

100x100% correct.

Wear if you feel the need/want, don't if you don't. Allow me the same choice.

trx1

what kind of "helmet' r u typin about?? pics will b helpful

TurbineBlade

I always wear one and so does my wife.

I don't care if other people wear one or not.

I don't care about statistics supporting or failing to support their use.

This thread comes up almost daily.

This thread has about a 90% of turning into a shouting match among a lot of idiots in the next few posts.

GriddleCakes

Is it helmet story time again? The old dueling anecdote game? Check it:

There's this guy I used to work with, good hearted kid but not the brightest, I'll call him George (not his real name). We used to ski together from time to time (well, he snowboarded; like I said, not the brightest), and this kid really liked to get tricky. It was always fun to watch George ride, but kind of nerve-racking at the same time. I was hands down a better skier than George was a boarder, and still he would go two to three times bigger than me. But I'm getting old and cautious and would like to keep skiing until I qualify for senior rated lift tickets, it seems that I go smaller and smaller every year. George, on the other hand, is still in his early 20's. Like the kids say, Go Big or Go Home.

He was interested in parkour (used to practice on the bike rack out front of the restaurant where we worked), loved to skate, and brought all kinds of manic energy to everything that he did. The one time we rode bikes together, 10 miles along a sedate MUP out to play some disc golf, I asked him why he was wearing a full face DH helmet. He told me that it was the only bike helmet he owned. Knowing George as I did, I thought: better too much helmet than none at all.

The day of George's accident he was out biking with another co-worker of ours, Fred (not his real name), equally young and equally dumb. Fred described the incident to me the day after it all went down, his voice cracking and his eyes blinking back tears. George had told Fred what he was going to do, and had asked Fred if he thought whether or not George could land it. I doubt that Fred gave it much more thought than George did before he, undoubtably enthusiastically, told George to go for it. I think Fred still feels guilty about that. I, and many others, have told Fred that George would've done it whether or not he was there; and if Fred hadn't been with George, there wouldn't have been anyone to call the paramedics or to give George CPR until they got on scene to resuscitate him. Fred saved George's life, as much of it as could be saved.

George wasn't going fast, and he wasn't going big. He hadn't been biking long, I think that he'd bought that bike (his first as an adult) during the previous summer. Like many of us, George rode bikes as a kid but stopped when he got a car. He was wearing that ridiculous full-face, and I've often wondered how his perception of the protection it provided affected the level of trickiness that he would attempt (George wore a helmet when boarding as well, and regularly rode outside of his ability level). George had planned to ride backwards up a concrete embankment, pop a little air and spin a 180, then ride away forwards. He'd timed the jump so he would leave the concrete at its edge and land in grass just beyond, in case he screwed the trick up. That part went according to plan. Unfortunately, George flipped over 180 degrees on the vertical, instead of spinning laterally, and he landed square on the top of his head. No cranial damage, but George shattered his C2 and C3 vertebrae. His heart stopped, and was later restarted by the medics. At 22 years old, George became a quadriplegic.

In the year since, I've thought about George's accident often. I think about it every time the subjects of reckless youth, risk mitigation, or helmet usage comes up. I've wondered if his helmet hurt, helped, or did nothing at all. The ground that George impacted was soft and grass-covered, and his skull would've easily absorbed/deflected the force from the landing (maybe). Did the helmet help provide the leverage to break his neck? Would he not have attempted a trick that he was unsure of landing without his safety helmet? Would it have mattered if he'd been bare-headed, or would he just have done it anyway and still ended up in the same way? Nobody can know. Outside of a controlled environment, speculation as to causes and effects is just that: speculation.

I've gone over cars and I've been hit by cars. I've wrecked due to mechanical failure, poor judgement, bad weather, and worse luck. I've hit pavement, gravel, wood, and dirt. Sometimes I was wearing a helmet, mostly I wasn't. When I was young and invincible, I regularly rode like George. When I was a little kid, we used to construct plywood jumps in the middle of the road, onto flat, gravel landings. None of us had ever seen a bicycle helmet, but I don't think any of us ever suffered head injury. As I've aged, my riding style has changed. Lessons have been learned, some hard and painful, some second-hand. I've survived all, with only minor scarring, bruising, breaking, and bleeding. I can't look back and say for sure why I've survived and thrived where others have failed or perished. I can only speculate. Maybe if you can reconstruct and repeat an accident, over and over again, you could demonstrate that your helmet/disc brakes/lucky rabbit's foot is what saved you. Without repeatable results, all you have is an anecdote. And anecdotes are plagued by the unknown and unknowable, and heavily tinged by perspective. As such, they needs be taken with a large grain of salt.

Like I said, I've aged and learned. My lessons have been, at times, hard won. As such, I'll be damned if I allow some nanny-state pro-helmet anti-choice safety brigade to tell me that I don't know what's best for me, rattling off suspect statistics and crying "but think of the children!". Other nations have told their citizens that they must wear helmets, so look to them to see if it has made cyclists safer. I don't think that it has, but there seems to be little scientific consensus on the matter. Perhaps there is a benefit, but is that a worthy exchange for living in a State where politicians and statisticians can legally supersede your decisions regarding your own well being? Mandatory bike helmets, mandatory walking helmets, outlawed red meat, mandatory maximum distances from the TV screen, etc...

I've learned that cycling is as dangerous as you make it. I've learned that if you're going to push your luck, luck might fail you. I know that you're going to be dumb, you better be tough, and no amount of padding will mitigate that. I know that awareness and experience do go a long way to prevent situations where a helmet might prevent injury. I know that sometimes all you do make yourself safe will come to naught, and the universe will smack you down regardless of all of your best intentions.

Mostly, I believe that I have the right to make my own decisions about how I live my life, as long as I do not adversely affect the lives of others. This includes the right to make decisions that others think are risky. If I decide incorrectly, then yes, the State must sometimes clean up the mess. This is the price the State must occasionally pay for allowing it citizenry to remain free in mind, body, and spirit.

XR2

Well said.