As an aside, just look at this example of the kind of scum we’re dealing with on NYC roads. Taxi driver photographed laughing after he struck and killed an 80 year old woman on the Upper East Side – making a turn, failure to yield. No charges according to the Daily News.
http://nypost.com/2017/07/28/elderly-woman-stuck-and-killed-by-taxi-on-ues/
We need to declare outright war on this filth.

I agree. Doctors unfortunately are typically the ones who constantly insist cyclists wear helmets. They usually base this on the number of cyclist TBIs they see. Of course, they never bother to collect data on what caused the TBI. I’ll bet 99% of cyclist TBIs are caused by motor vehicles and couldn’t have been prevented with helmets.

It’s nice for a change to see a doctor recommending going at the root cause of the problem, rather than engaging in victim blaming.

BTW, I’ve never worn a helmet while cycling and never intend to. The countries with high rates of cycling seem to agree with this philosophy.

I know the 99% is anecdotal but I just haven’t seen any cyclist only injuries where there’s TBI. I’m sure it happens sometimes but I just don’t recall it. That even includes the days back in my childhood where there was no such thing as cycling helmets. Lots of kids crashed on bikes, but the injuries were scrapes and cuts. I’d love to see research on this myself but I expect helmet manufacturers would suppress it. After all, the design of helmets means they’re generally only useful in cyclist-only injuries, and then only at speeds under about 10 mph. If data suggested such incidents were exceedingly rare, few people would see the sense in wearing a helmet.

The reason for both their high rates of cycling and their low rates of helmet use is probably the same, their high quality cycling infrastructure.

I didn’t wear one in Germany after day 2.

I don’t doubt that perception of safety strongly influences whether one decides to wear a helmet or not. That said, the usual reason why cyclists say they wear helmets here, but not in Europe, is because they share space with motor vehicles more often. To me this might make sense purely from a perceptional standpoint, but not from a logical one. Helmets offer just about zero protection in a collision with a motor vehicle, which is the number one thing most US cyclists are afraid of. Being that I’m an engineer, the logical part of my brain dominates my decision-making, not the emotional part. Hence my choice to not wear a helmet. There are comfort , hearing, and visibility reasons as well.

Here’s hoping better infrastructure in the US eventually consigns bike helmets to the dustbin of history.

A bike helnet cannot possibly impact one’s hearing or vision; frankly, such claims are bizarre. The only thing that a helmet is going to adversely affect is your hairdo.

No one asserts that bike helnets will protect riders in all situations.
Certainly there exist many catastrophic collisions in which a helmet will make no difference.

But, as you have correctly indicated, wearing a helmet protects a bicyclist from a head injury after a fall, which can be caused by a collision or by road defects, gravel, ice, or by any number of other conditions. What’s more, styrofoam is the perfect material for this, because it is lightweight and springy.

We should acknowledge that any person has the right to risk cracking his/her head in a fall that would otherwise have been harmless. But the danger is that the helmetless rider could potentially normalise bad behaviour. So, for the sake of younger bicyclists, sensible people have the responsibility to denounce helmetless riding and to encourage the use of this simple and effective safety device.

(Some wiseguy is bound to mention that head injuries can occur in cars, and ask why helmets shouldn’t be worn by auto passengers, as well. To which I can only reply: that’s probably a good idea.)

See my reply to Ferdinand below. It’s not that helmets offer no protection under any circumstances. Rather, it’s that cycling is inherently safe enough that universal helmet use at best would save a few tens of lives annually in the US (and even that number might be high). There are hundreds of other things which kill more people but we don’t advocate wearing personal protection devices against those things. Lightning strikes are a good example. You could wear a suit which is conductive on the outside but insulated on the inside to channel a lightning strike around your body. If everyone wore those suits when venturing out in thunderstorms then we might save tens of lives. And yet we don’t advocate this.

Remember any push to get cyclists to wear helmets must be balanced against those who stop cycling because they don’t want to wear helmets. Australia passed a mandatory helmet law. The numbers cycling decreased. Doubtless more people will die from heart disease than might have been saved by helmets. Also, those who still ride are denied the benefit of safety in numbers.

We often blame the lack of good infrastructure for the small numbers cycling in the US. And yet there are other places with equally bad infrastructure which have higher ridership. Certainly infrastructure is very important but at the same time the constant barrage from all sources advocating helmet use gives people the impression cycling is a dangerous activity like playing football. Doubtless this stops a lot of people before they even start.

I wear a comfortable helmet, so it doesn’t bother me. I’m not sure how a modern bike helmet could possibly inhibit one’s hearing or vision.

Everyone is different. Whether or not a helmet causes discomfort depends upon a lot of factors. Your riding position, riding intensity, how much you depend upon subtle changes in sound, and so forth all come into play. I’m personally allergic to aromatic hydrocarbons. “New car smell” makes me nauseous. Any continuous contact with plastics eventually causes a negative reaction. The styrofoam and plastics used in helmets are both aromatic hydrocarbons. They’re also potent carcinogens (I wonder if increased cancer risk from wearing helmets balances out any positive effects).

Hell, i’ve hit the pavement more than a couple times and exactly zero of those involved me also hitting (or being hit by) a motor vehicle. I’m glad I was wearing one in each of those instances.

This seems to be a common theme from people extolling the virtues of wearing a helmet. They seem to regularly have falls, and therefore are glad they were wearing a helmet. I’m curious as to why it seems (anecdotally anyway) that helmeted cyclists seem to fall so frequently. Maybe helmets really do block enough vision and hearing such that things which might have been easily avoided aren’t. I’m saying this because I had fewer than a dozen falls, mostly in my first few years cycling. They became less common as I gained experience. I haven’t fallen off my bike for any reason for 21 years and counting. It isn’t for lack of not riding fast or even aggressively. I’m just keenly aware of every sight, sound, and smell around me. Not sure that would be the case if I was wearing a helmet. A helmet creates a lesser version of the “cocoon” we often say exists for motorists.

I’m not looking for any fights. I stated my piece, and any further argument on my part would just be reiterating the points I’ve already made. I don’t have time for any further back and forth on this. As I stated earlier, I’m just glad a doctor came out for the right things for a change instead the usual worthless suggestions.

Agree with all your points.

Regarding helmets in cars; there already exists something soft and squishy for your head in a car; the front and side airbags! Modern cars are remarkably safe for the occupants as long as you’re buckled in. Many crashes that would have been fatal in older cars now result in nothing but bruises for the occupants.

In cases where no airbags are available (like cars on a track), full face helmets are the norm.

I’m calling BS on that because the one time I tried a bike helmet all those things were factors. Add to that the annoying chin strap which was distracting me from controlling the bike. The fact is all bike helmets use styrofoam which is a great insulator. Hard to see how that won’t cause you to overheat if you ride vigorously. And as I mentioned, the plastics in helmets are potent carcinogens which I would rather not have in contact with my head. I don’t use plastic food containers or cups for the same reasons.

Whether or not helmets are uncomfortable is moot. I don’t care if someone chooses to wear one but I hate the preachiness from people like Ferdinand who insist not wearing one constitute bad behavior. You want to wear a helmet, fine. But it’s none of your business if other people choose not to wear one. I don’t tell people who wear helmets not to. I expect the same courtesy in return.

Some things worth reading:

http://www.sarahwilson.com/2010/12/if-you-dont-like-wearing-a-bike-helmet-you-might-like-to-read-this/

http://www.bikinginmpls.com/im-done-wearing-helmet/

http://www.howiechong.com/journal/2014/2/bike-helmets

http://www.freerangekids.com/enough-with-the-smashed-watermelons-helmet-mania-is-scaring-kids-away-from-biking/

https://www.cnet.com/news/brain-surgeon-theres-no-point-wearing-cycle-helmets/

Here’s a modern bike helmet being worn:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eb563af2c6f8e411e97a8268365d342886c0df73f2f821615e33584f0d240a0c.jpg
Notice how it’s far above the eyeline (no peripheral vision issues), Note how it does not cover the ears (no hearing issues). Notice how it’s full of holes to let your hair breathe (these work quite well).

Here’s a photo of the 5 boro bike tour where thousands of everyday people wear helmets with no issues:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/42882f8e3b0eb7baf1e4f953ad749f8f89f80dc90393744a1dc65243f7ab4875.jpg

As for riding vigorously? Every single professional cyclist who rides far more vigorously than you or me wears a helmet during races.

As for the chin strap being uncomfortable? Seatbelts are uncomfortable too. Suck it up.

I would never support a law requiring helmets for adults, because how you live your life is your problem. Doesn’t mean I won’t think you’re being an idiot if you choose not to wear one. Same way you might judge a motorcyclist riding in nothing but a helmet, t-shirt, and flip flops; legal, but dumb.

If you’re riding in an aerodynamic tuck then the helmet interferes with both seeing and hearing. The wind passes over the helmet before hitting your ears, changing the sound.

The helmet I tried had vents. I still overheated.

As for professional cyclists, they’re allowed to remove their helmets during ascent stages when they’re likely to be exerting the most effort and have the least amount of wind speed for cooling. The rest of the time they wear helmets because they have to, not because they want to. There has been a movement to repeal the UCI mandatory helmet rules both because of the comfort issues, and also the fact that annual deaths during racing have gone up since helmets started being worn.

As for the chin strap being uncomfortable? Seatbelts are uncomfortable too. Suck it up.

Suck it up? First off, seat belts are far less uncomfortable. Second, anything which causes discomfort distracts me from my primary goal of safely piloting the bike. That actually makes me more likely to crash. So what exactly is gained here? A very minor improvement in safety only under a limited set of circumstances which don’t apply to me (i.e. speeds under 10 mph and solo crashes) combined with an increased likelihood of crashing. Sounds to me like this makes me less safe, not more safe.

Doesn’t mean I won’t think you’re being an idiot if you choose not to wear one.

I can’t control how others think. I happen to think anyone who owns or drives a car in NYC is an idiot but that’s just my opinion.

Apparently judging by your and Ferdinand’s quick responses neither of you bothered to read all those links.

The difference between a 5 point harness and a regular 3 point seatbelt is somewhat like the difference between a partial face motorcycle helmet and a full face helmet; it’s a thing, but effectively meaningless if compared to no helmet at all.

The 3-point seatbelt does it’s job very very well. It keeps you inside the car and lets the other lifesaving tech do it’s job. You can walk away from a vast majority of previously fatal accidents if you wear your seatbelt and have functioning (non-Takata) airbags. See this video, called ‘room to live’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73D8kMbWn6E

And you do have an option to install a 5-point harness if you like; some of my friends that take their cars to the track have them installed.

The chin strap thing is especially weird to me, much like a seatbelt, I forget about it as soon as I put it on, and I’d wager so do most people.

A seatbelt isn’t pressing right against your skin. Also, a secondary issue for me besides the annoyance is my allergies to aromatic hydrocarbons. Prolonged contact with a chin strap will eventually mean a rash in that area from both the allergy and sweating. The styrofoam will eventually cause a rash on my scalp. Styrofoam is known to be a very potent carcinogen. I’d rather not have it in contact with my scalp while doing an activity which tends to open up my pores.

As a child I immediately lost interest in any sports which required protective gear. I always found such gear physically annoying, to the point it cancels any potential joy from the activity. I even hate wearing gloves when riding in the winter as it deadens my feel of the controls but the alternative is frozen fingers. Not getting frostbite is an immediate benefit of dealing with the discomfort from gloves.

The visibility thing is a stretch: you often go into “an aerodynamic tuck” when biking among traffic? A bike helmet sits well above your eye line on the sides, so you can’t be losing any vision there, so you must be talking about the area above your brow?

Yep, in a tuck you can’t see above your brow, and that happens to be the area right in front of you. I go into a tuck a lot when I’m trying to keep up with traffic. Hard to go 20 or 25 riding upright.

Eh, what? Your argument is the wind will sound different? Sure, but the things you need to hear when biking, like cars, people, etc. are not the wind…so that’s good?

It changes ALL the sound. When you ride the wind is part of what you hear but other sounds are mixed in. I key on very subtle changes in sound sometimes. I don’t want anything which deadens certain frequencies.

You know as well as I do that presenting raw numbers without accounting for say, the number of walkers vs bikers, age, etc. means very little.

Raw numbers are very relevant here because you should weigh every safety campaign on how many potential lives it will save. Numbers of deaths can be low for two reasons. One, lots of people do an activity which is very safe. Two, only a few people do an activity which is very dangerous. In the latter case you might have the groups doing this activity recommending safety equipment to those who engage in it but it makes no sense to have a widespread public safety campaign. You could use mountain climbing as an example. There are tons of safety equipment for climbers but there are no laws requiring it, nor are there public safety campaigns to use safety equipment, because few people engage in mountain climbing. In this case it’s left up to the individuals to train and use appropriate safety equipment.

It’s pretty obvious cycling isn’t a niche activity like mountain climbing. Lots of people do it occasionally. At least 10% do it fairly regularly. So basically it falls into the first category-it’s a safe activity which lots of people do but which causes relatively few deaths. Therefore, it makes no sense to have the ongoing campaigns to get people to wear helmets once you dissect the numbers.

Let’s start with the raw number of 325 deaths. About 90% of cyclist deaths involve a motor vehicle, so it’s reasonable to say a helmet wouldn’t have changed the outcome of 90% of those 325 deaths. That leaves about 30 deaths. If we assume none of those 30 cyclists were wearing helmets, and helmets could have prevented their deaths with 100% certainty, then at best your helmet campaigns will save 30 lives per year. In reality helmets aren’t 100% effective, and some number of those cyclists in solo incidents probably were wearing helmets, so you might be looking at saving less than 10 lives per year. It seems to me maybe we should focus on bigger causes of death.

It would probably be equally ridiculous to start a campaign to get pedestrians to wear helmets given the relatively low numbers killed compared to other causes of death. I just mentioned it for the simple reason that walking has more deaths from TBI per hour of exposure than cycling, so if we think cyclists should wear helmets, then it follows pedestrians should also.

This is almost like the inverse of survivor bias; do you know any people that fell off a bike and hit their head?

Only one, and the guy is a complete clutz who hardly ever rides. I don’t know any regular cyclists who hit their heads. I don’t remember any of playmates from my childhood hitting their heads while riding other.

That’s where you’re wrong friendo: Here’s an actual study (not from a blog or advocacy organization ,but from the NIH)

Why are you linking to a ten year old study? More recent studies show a neutral to slightly negative effect. Here’s something more recent: http://www.cycle-helmets.com/elvik.pdf

Incidentally, me and several other people wrote letters a few years ago which convinced the CDC to remove from its website the statement that says helmet use reduces head injuries by 80 percent.

I can tell that for some strange reason you really can’t stand bike helmets, and that’s fine, you do you.

As an engineer I hate anything which is either redundant or unnecessary. For most types of cycling a helmet just isn’t necessary. Cycling solo is an exceedingly low risk activity. Cycling in motor traffic is slightly more risky but here a helmet generally won’t help you if something occurs. The only type of cycling where I would personally wear a helmet if I absolutely had a reason to do it would be mountain biking on trials. Here speeds are usually within the range for which helmets are effective AND it’s somewhat likely even a very experienced rider will fall and hit their head. In other words, in this case the risk is somewhat higher and the protection is usually somewhat effective. For regular road cycling the risk is exceedingly low and the protective is mostly ineffective against things which might actually kill you.

Now just for full disclosure, I have fallen but not for over 21 years. I only fell about a dozen times, mostly while I was gaining experience, but never hit my head or had any serious injury. Ditto for others I know. Even people with plenty of spills rarely suffered anything worse than road rash. Cycling has a very low potential for serious injury, and even less for serious head injury. As for the types of falls, they were all at high speeds (well above the effective range of helmets). About half involved dooring but I quickly learned to keep a buffer to avoid that. The other half involved pavement defects combined with excessive speed. I never fall, even on really bad pavement, if I’m doing about 15 mph or less. My mistake in these case (again before I gained experience) was to go fast on a road whose condition I wasn’t aware of. Nowadays I only go fast if I’ve been on a road recently.

My worst injury didn’t even involve a fall or high speeds. There was some slick stuff on the street from workers dumping liquid from a restaurant. I was going maybe 20 mph and the front wheel starting to break loose. I put out my left leg to counter and prevent a fall. I was successful, but I pulled a ligament doing it. It took a good 6 months for that leg to feel normal. In retrospect I should have just let myself fall and did my usual putting my arms forward to cushion my head. Given my fairly low speed, at worst I would have gotten minor road rash. I may well have even just slide along on whatever was on the street without injury.