One winter day in 2002, Carol Tyson had no idea how badly she’d need her bicycle helmet.
She had spent the day outside in the freezing cold at an antiwar vigil in front of the White House, then went to Asylum in Adams Morgan to warm up and share a beer with some friends. From there, they rode their bikes toward a supermarket on Georgia Avenue NW. They were going to get ingredients for Spanish rice to make at her home in Petworth and take over to a friend’s party that night.
As urban cyclists go, Tyson was geared up for safety. In addition to her helmet, she had a front light mounted to her handlebars and a rear light on her seat post, as well as reflectors. As she prepared to take a left off of New Hampshire Avenue and onto Quincy Street NW, she turned to look behind her and saw an empty 66 Metrobus. The bus had just turned off its route to return to the depot.
The driver of the Metrobus behind Tyson apparently didn’t catch sight of her lights or reflectors. And the driver didn’t even feel it when she ran Tyson over, bike and all. She also didn’t notice dragging Tyson 80 feet before Tyson’s friend finally caught her attention and got her to stop the bus.
Big vehicles swallowing up young women has a familiar ring to it. Last summer, 22-year-old Alice Swanson was killed by a garbage truck making a right turn along R Street NW, just shy of 20th Street. A white-painted ghost bike still commemorates Swanson at the corner.
Her death prompted debate on blogs and Web sites about bike safety, mostly by bikers and motorists trying to point fingers. No one wanted to blame Swanson for her own death, but many noted the myriad ways in which bikers put their lives in jeopardy, either by not riding in bike lanes, or by disobeying traffic lights, or by weaving between cars.
None of those scenarios appeared to apply to the case at hand: Swanson, by all accounts, was doing everything right, including wearing a helmet.
Just a few weeks after Swanson’s death, the Washington Post declared, “[t]his is the summer of women on bicycles riding around town free as anything, wearing long dresses or skirts, sandals or even high heels, hair flowing helmet-free, pedaling not-too-hard and sitting upright on their old-school bikes….They make you think you are in Paris or Rome.”
Whether it’s because the local daily is glorifying helmetless riding or because people don’t want to pay $40 to save their skulls, this most basic of safety precautions isn’t exactly catching on. A recent study by Hunter College students determined that in New York City, only 36 percent of cyclists wore helmets. More female riders (about half) wore helmets than male riders (about a third). They found lower rates of helmet use among messengers.
No such study has focused on usage in the District. Unscientific observations of D.C.’s riding patterns suggest that about half of riders wear helmets. Riders commuting downtown during rush hour, wearing loafers and nice pants, usually wear helmets. Cyclists wearing gear like clip-on bike shoes or Lycra jerseys or padded shorts generally do so as well. In low-income areas, among messengers, and during noncommuting hours, helmet use goes down.
In the last 10 years, there have been a reported 232 bicyclist deaths in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. Correctly worn, bike helmets are about 70 percent effective in preventing damage on impact. Mary Pat McKay, director of the Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Ronald Reagan Institute of Emergency Medicine, says that with those odds, she doesn’t understand why so many people continue to ride without a helmet. “If I had a magic pill to prevent 70 percent of heart attacks among people with heart disease, they’d want me to put it in the water.”
OK, but drinking water is easy. It doesn’t mess up your hair. It doesn’t make you look like a fool. It doesn’t cost $40. And it doesn’t prevent you from feeling the euphoric caress of the wind running through your locks.
Of course, those are just the most oft-cited reasons for exposing your bare skull to collisions with asphalt and concrete. There are other, more creative ones too.
An inventory of helmet excuses, in no particular order:
• Scrooge is a 58-year-old messenger. You’ve probably seen him riding his cargo bike around, a uniquely engineered contraption with a big round-bottomed rack in the front to carry packages.
Scrooge must be the only person ever to fall wearing a helmet and decide never to wear one again. “The helmet didn’t let me feel where I was in space as I was tumbling,” he says. “I didn’t know, when I landed, if I was OK because I didn’t know what had happened.” He says helmets keep you from fully experiencing the space you’re in, so they put you more at risk.
Besides, he says, he doesn’t need it. “I don’t get in accidents.”
Or at least not many. The accident that convinced him not to wear a helmet was what he calls a “normal” accident. City workers had torn up the street, and Scrooge’s bike tripped on a little “lip” of asphalt. “The corner of the street bounced off my head,” he says. He says he bled for a long time and he went to work the next day.
He says he wears helmets only in races—to reduce the drag created by his long dreadlocks.
• Kelly Johnson, 43, says he can’t wear a helmet because he wears headphones when he rides. Which means that not only does Johnson leave himself vulnerable in the case of an accident, but he’s also boosting the chance that such an accident will occur. He also admits that he thinks helmets look “corny.”
• Bob Twillger, 28, who has been known to hang out at Capitol Hill Bikes, blames good helmet technology for his failure to wear one. “The lighter the helmet,” he reasons, “the more you put it down, and the more you damage it. It gets kicked around and beat up.” This from a man who takes credit for totaling a Toyota Camry with his forehead. “Every time I get hit, I get wilder,” he says. “More bulletproof.”
• “Ninety-nine percent of the time I can control my environment, my workspace,” says Andy Zalan, who’s been working as a bike courier for 17 years and doesn’t wear a helmet. “I rode more crazy when I first started. But then I started thinking of it as my career.”
Zalan acknowledges that some accidents are beyond the biker’s control. Like the time he went over the hood of a U-turning taxi. He said there was “some blood.”
You’d think that people who spend eight hours a day gaming downtown traffic would want a little extra love padding their tender skulls, but messengers just don’t seem interested. In fact, the amount of time they spend in the saddle persuades them not to wear a helmet. Eight hours is just too long to feel uncomfortable. Or look corny.
Many of those who eschew helmets are faithful glove-wearers. Some wear pads on their knees and elbows. Scrooge says if there’s any protection he always wears, it’s gloves. “When you fall, your hands go out to protect the rest of you,” he says.
Kevin Keefe, another lifer still couriering at age 56, avoids helmets, which he says “suck.” But he does wear gloves to avoid road rash, a bigger concern, apparently, than head trauma. (Zalan won’t even wear gloves. “Road rash is temporary, but tan lines are for all summer!” he says.
Messengers are right about one thing: Helmets don’t prevent accidents. You still need to ride well. And, as any messenger will tell you, riding well isn’t all about following traffic laws. (Even D.C. bike cops admit this.)
It’s about knowing what’s going on around you. Messengers ride fast and furious, taking outrageous risks as they weave in and out of traffic, street to sidewalk, wrong way on a one-way street, backward and airborne, it sometimes seems. But doing so much hard time in the saddle, they do develop a certain sense for what’s happening on the road. They are good—not perfect—at predicting cars’ and pedestrians’ behavior.
And it’s true that their well-honed intuition does a fairly good job at preventing accidents. But helmets aren’t meant to prevent accidents. They’re there to prevent head trauma in case of an accident.
The Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute says two-thirds of bicyclist deaths are from brain injuries. And while some riders worry that helmets will be useless in a high-speed collision, experts say that most brushes with the pavement do not happen at a very high speed. Helmets are designed to deal with the average impact exceptionally well.
Safety standards apply to all helmets, so you can actually get the cheapest model on the market and be just as safe as if you got the priciest. Good bike shop salespeople around the city will tell you the same thing: Buy a cheap helmet and save your money for a really good lock.
The foam inside bike helmets is designed to be softer than your skull, so it absorbs the impact of a crash. The surrounding plastic shell softens some of the impact as well, and the slick plastic slides over the pavement, keeping your neck from crunching when your head hits the ground. When a helmet works well, it’s in smithereens by the time you open your eyes.
Your brain floats in fluid within your skull, and a major blow will slam it up against your skull. Depending on where you hit it, you’ll mess yourself up in different ways. The frontal lobes control higher functioning activity like judgment and concentration. The temporal lobes control memory, speech, and mobility. The occipital lobes control physical movement. Given the forward momentum of a bike, you’re likely to end up with damage to your frontal lobes in a bike crash.
Thom Parks works for Bell Sports, the company that makes most of the bike helmets out there (the company bought up Giro, its primary competitor, more than a decade ago). He says that the reasons people give for not wearing a helmet might not really be what’s stopping them.
For example, he says kids complain that helmets are dorky. “But we think part of that isn’t how it looks,” he says. “It’s what it conveys: that Mom and Dad are calling the shots.” He says helmet makers need to focus less on the look of helmets and work to make the concept of helmets more hip.
Some helmet manufacturers license images of SpongeBob or Barbie or X Games to appeal to children, and Parks says Bell also reaches out to athletes kids look up to.
The game changes somewhat when you turn to adults, but it’s a similar concept. Parks says that adults talk less about looks and more about helmets being too hot, heavy, or expensive. Parks says it’s important to shop for a helmet that fits your head shape and to adjust it properly. He says the perception of heat is an illusion.
“With any modern helmet, the difference is so minimal you can’t detect a difference in athletes’ core temperature,” he says. “Racers going a hundred, two hundred miles, putting out an incredible amount of energy—they wear helmets.” It’s important to keep athletes cool to keep them efficient, says Parks, so there have been studies that confirm helmets don’t increase body temperature.
(That said, higher-end helmets provide better ventilation. So there’s one reason to spend more money for a fancy one.)
To appeal to adult cyclists, helmets sometimes need to be made less hip, according to Parks. “At the end of the ’80s,” he says, “helmets started to get aerodynamic-looking. They had a long tail; they looked racy. But some people saw themselves as ‘cul-de-sac’ riders. They don’t want to look racy. They don’t want to wear Lycra. They don’t even want to look fast because when they aren’t fast, it doesn’t suit the mental image.”
The image problem of bike helmets is something that obsesses Lauren Mardirosian, who moved to D.C. from Detroit four years ago. In Detroit, says Mardirosian, no one wore a helmet, but once she got her first look at D.C. traffic, she decided she’d better wear one.
As a recent transplant, she liked flirting with people on bikes, figuring they shared at least that one interest. But she “felt dorky with a helmet on.” Instead of just chucking the helmet, though, she set out to change the reason she felt dorky, launching a “Safety is Sexy” campaign. Her trademark sticker, “You’d Look Hotter in a Helmet,” fits perfectly between the vents on helmets. She says she wanted people to look at someone riding with a helmet and say, “Hey that guy’s hot, he’s wearing a helmet—that’s smart.”
She started a blog for the Safety is Sexy campaign to spread the word. The Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) gave her the first $50 to print the stickers, but she’s spent more than $1,000 of her own money on it. Part of her motivation comes from experience: Her friend’s brother died in a bike accident, she says, and everyone who knew him now vows to never ride without a helmet again.
Mardirosian wouldn’t have to campaign so hard if the city enacted a helmet requirement. Currently, only bicyclists 16 and younger are legally bound to wear a helmet—a law that’s almost never enforced. Police must follow kids home and write the ticket out to their parents.
Nobody seems to want to touch the idea of an adult law, including Eric Gilliland, WABA’s executive director. “Helmets are great at preventing head injuries from crashes,” he says. “We’re in the business of preventing those crashes from happening in the first place.” He says whenever they ask their members what they think of mandatory helmet use, they ignite such wild controversy that WABA’s decided to just stay out of it.
It’s no surprise that the bike couriers agree that there shouldn’t be a law against helmetlessness. “There are problems with how bikes, cars, and pedestrians interact downtown,” says Zalan. “The solution is not a helmet law.” He follows it up with your classic “America’s a free country” line for good measure.
In D.C., everyone’s favorite nightmarish bike story is Rico, a former messenger. Nobody quite knows what happened to him. But if you ask most bikers in the D.C. area about the worst crash they’ve heard of, they’ll all tell you about the same guy.
Rico, whose family did not want his last name printed, says that in 2005, he was riding his bike on the passenger side of a vehicle when the passenger reached out the car window and hit him hard on the back of the head with a blunt object.
Actually, he said he was on the “messenger” side of the car, because words like “messenger” and “passenger” get confused in his mind now. He also doesn’t remember most of his old friends by name, and he gets lost when he leaves his house. And it’s taken him two years to get as lucid as he is now.
Rico says that the injury that caused him lasting brain damage didn’t even make him fall off his bike, and he even finished his workday, delivering packages. Later in the evening he got together with friends; they were going to go play pool, but his headache was getting worse and worse. Finally he went home and laid down. His mom still feels guilty that she gave him an aspirin for his headache—the worst thing you can do for bleeding.
But she didn’t know he was bleeding. No one realized anything was wrong until the next evening when Rico’s mom came home from her job at the Capitol Hilton and his bike was still there—he hadn’t gone to work. By then he’d been hemorrhaging internally for more than a day. Asking to go to the hospital is the last thing he remembers. He entered a coma and didn’t come out for a month.
Some of the bleeding may have been from old injuries, and this is where the story gets complicated. Did someone really smack Rico in the back of the head on his bike? Was it something else, like the rearview mirror of a passing truck, as one of his friends has guessed? Or was this some cumulative result of a lifetime of accidents?
Rico spent almost five months at Washington Hospital Center and about as long in a nursing home afterward. The nurses kept telling his mom he wasn’t going to make it. He didn’t recognize her when he woke up, which the doctors took as a bad sign. When his friend Lola visited him in the hospital he said, “I don’t know your name but I know your bike.” He told her it was a green track bike with yellow rims, and that it cost $600. He was right on all counts.
Bill Underwood, Rico’s dispatcher at Apple Courier, says he tries to “encourage my guys to make sure they have helmets.” He also thinks track bikes with no brakes “make no sense at all,” and lots of his couriers use those. “Any time we start enforcing any kind of rules, we’re negating the independent contractor clause,” Underwood says. “We can’t have it both ways.” He says the company could mandate safety standards only if they hired couriers as full employees and paid them an hourly wage.
Rico, who’s in his 40s, is still healing—and not just from this injury but from past accidents that have broken his bones, paralyzed his right arm (requiring surgery), left him limping, cost him three teeth, and seen him through more than his share of concussions. He still has trouble walking up stairs and hasn’t worked since the accident.
He was desperate to get back on his bike and even has a new one in his collection. It was a long time before he could even try. He stopped doing his physical therapy long ago because it was boring. His friends found him rollers so he could practice riding inside, but he loaned them to a neighbor and never got them back. His mom bought him a stationary bike to use while he watches TV but he never uses it. He gets tired when he walks more than a couple blocks and he falls down sometimes. He gets tired talking. He apologizes for talking slowly, for forgetting words, for getting tired and just stopping.
His family is very intentional about talking to him a lot. Every morning his mom reminds him about his old friends or the things they did the last time they went back to her native Nicaragua, gently jogging his memory if he can’t recall. Meanwhile, she’s looking to enroll him at a gym with a pool, wondering if he might take to swimming more than the other forms of exercise she’s tried to interest him in.
He finally did get back on his bike. One of his first times out, he fell when someone on the street called out to him. He wasn’t wearing a helmet.
“The problem with a head injury is that we can’t fix it,” says head injury specialist Mary Pat McKay. “If you come in here with a severe brain injury, you’ll never be the same again. You may not go back to the same job you had before. You may need round-the-clock care.”
McKay says the hardest thing about her job is giving families bad news. It hit close to home when her friend’s son crashed on his bike without a helmet. His head hit a pole. He was about to graduate from an Ivy League law school. Now he paints houses.
Dan Dutko didn’t wear a helmet on his last ride because it was such an easy ride. There were little kids and grandmothers on those trails. Besides, he didn’t like helmets anyway, and his friend Garry wasn’t wearing one.
Dutko was a Democratic party icon in the ’90s, rubbing elbows with the Clintons and the Gores, raising money for the DNC, and running his private lobbying firm. He was the quintessential Washington political celebrity, famous to the famous but too “insider” to be familiar to the rest of us.
In July 1999, he was in Aspen, Colo., for a party meeting, which President Clinton attended. He was supposed to get a ride home on a colleague’s private jet, but the plans changed, and he suddenly had an extra day to spend in Aspen. He called up his friend Garry Mauro, a Texas Democratic honcho. Mauro was into biking and suggested they go for a ride.
The ascent didn’t take more than an hour, but on the way back downhill, the weather turned cold and rainy. Dutko started to get nervous. He was afraid of heights and must have started to panic, going so fast on the slick mountain road.
“Everybody knows you’re not supposed to hit your front brake,” says Mauro. “When we rented the bikes, they made a point of telling us not to hit the front brake.”
“It was raining, it was cold, he was going downhill, which would have made him nervous,” says Dutko’s widow, Deb Jospin. “So he wasn’t at his best. But that’s why you wear a helmet, for when you’re not quite your best. Anyone can stay upright when everything’s going well.”
Dutko catapulted off the bike and hit his head on the road. Mauro says it didn’t look like a bad accident. “I thought he just fell and scratched himself up,” he says. “I expected to see Dan jump up and be OK.”
But Dutko was unconscious. He was taken to the Aspen Valley Hospital and then flown to the Grand Junction Trauma Center. The doctors told his wife to come quickly and pack for a long stay and that Dan would be in rehabilitation for at least a month. But they said they wouldn’t know anything for a couple of days until the swelling went down.
By the time she arrived the next morning, Dutko had taken a turn for the worse. They’d operated in an attempt to repair the damage on the right and left sides of his brain, but he then developed spontaneous blood clots, and the brain was irremediably swollen. They kept him alive long enough for his wife to arrive. Tuesday morning, they took him off the respirator. He died immediately. He had no ability to keep himself alive.
Anecdotes of helmetless carnage—like Dutko’s—tend to end with a common storyline of extensive, if sometimes brief, medical care. When uninsured bikers break their heads open, it’s often taxpayers who foot the bill. The public spent more than $1 million on Rico’s recovery. His family would never have been able to afford it.
According to the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute, the “direct costs of cyclists’ injuries due to not using helmets are estimated at $81 million each year” while the “indirect costs of cyclists’ injuries due to not using helmets are estimated at $2.3 billion each year.”
Chuck Harney co-owns the Bike Rack, a fancy bike shop off 14th Street. He’s had some personal experiences show him the value of a helmet. He cracked one open last year in a bad fall. But the worst story wasn’t his. It happened to a person he was counseling.
Before opening the Bike Rack, Harney was a social worker. His client came to him with substance abuse problems. But he also had lasting brain damage caused by a bike accident. He hadn’t been wearing a helmet when his bike tire got stuck in the small groove in the street where the asphalt meets the brick gutter. “He couldn’t really speak,” Harney says. “His thought process was slowed down.” The depression and helplessness that resulted from the bike wreck led to his substance abuse.
It took a hydraulic system to lift the bus off of Carol Tyson. Her right leg and arm were stuck under the wheels. Her left leg was “twisted in the guts of the bus.”
She says a passerby squeezed under the bus and talked to her nonstop to keep her conscious. He accomplished his goal, but he became more annoying to her than the bus on top of her. “There’s only so much pain the mind can process,” she says.
She has undergone about 30 surgeries, mostly trying to fix her leg, which will never be back to what it was. When listing Tyson’s injuries, it helps to start at one end of the body and work your way up or down, so as not to get lost or forget anything. She fractured her knee, leg, and pelvis. She lost the skin on her right forearm, hand, and leg (an “awesome” tattoo was a casualty as well). They couldn’t save her crushed hand, and after several surgical attempts, they amputated it and grafted skin from her legs and stomach onto the stump. A “good chunk” of her leg has grafted skin as well.
Tyson’s skull was fractured, along with both eye sockets, but she credits her helmet (which was pulverized after smashing for 80 feet between the surface of the asphalt and the undercarriage of the bus) with saving her life. She just moved back to D.C. after living a few years in Australia and is doing the same kind of work as a union researcher that she was doing before her accident.
Our Readers Say
Still unless a bicycle helmet can protect up to 40 MPH impact, not cook my brain, and not look like a mushroom just replaced my head, Government has no business forcing me to wear a helmet. Oh yes, add free healthcare to that list as well, when I was hit it cost me a freaking fortune in hospital bills and I got next to no rehab because of the cost and the fact that I was in a hit-and-run.
"Bike safety" does not begin and ends with helmets as some would suggest. The notion that those with helmets are inherently safer than those with out, is simplistic and intellectually lazy and fails to consider the full gamut of factors that effect a rider's safety. To classify is human, and it is easy to spot and classify some one with out a helmet as unsafe. Problem solved? Nope, but it sure makes us feel nice being able to break things down in to good "biker" and bad "biker" categories.
Riding a bike comes with inherent risks (as do all things), such as death and or permanent injury. It simply isn't practical to hedge against all risk. Could I be safer if I always wore a helmet, possibly. But I could be safer still if my helmet had a face guard and if I wore knee and elbow pads and if I only rode in low traffic areas and only during daylight hours and only at speeds under 25 mph. It is up the individual to protect them best as they see fit.
If I am hit by a bus/car/truck etc. the only thing that will save my life is luck. Thinking that a 4 oz piece of Styrofoam will save your life vs a 2 ton vehicle traveling twice your speed is irrational at best superstitious at worst. Take the cases of Alice and Carol, both did "every thing right", both wore helmets, one lived one died. Different cases, Carol was luckier in her accident (if you can call being maimed for life lucky) than Alice, nothing more nothing less.
Any time I get on my bike, on some level I consider the fact that it could be my last time. I am OK with that. People who aren't ok with taking those risks should stick to other forms of transportation which by they way, carry their own risks. If you really want to protect cyclists, invest in better driver education, enforcement of auto speed laws, more bike lanes, reducing traffic in urban centers and increasing the number of cyclists on the roads (helmets or not).
i'm surprised you didn't mention amsterdam and the netherlands in your article. nearly everyone in the country bikes daily. i spent five months there and saw two bike helmets. as impossible as it sounds, people just don't get in collisions there. i think this has mostly to do with sane laws that physically separate pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists, as well as a cultural familiarity with cycling (kids get their first bikes around age 5 and never stop riding them).
It seems a little odd to imply that your comment is the rational alternative to superstition when all it does is cite two anecdotes -- one of which, if you read the final sentence, is an argument FOR helmets -- and state without any proof that helmets are useless.
I hate wearing a helmet, but I do it every time I get on my bike. If you don't, well, good luck. You're right: my helmet may not save me if I get into an accident. But if you spend even a little time reading about traumatic brain injury it becomes impossible to claim that the chance of a helmet preserving your mind isn't worth the small cost of inconvenience.
I sustained two serious concusions, cerebral bleeding, loss of memory and a week in the hospital. I woke up in the hospital 8 hours after the incident, disoriented, sore and unable to walk. To this day I have no memory of the incident. In fact the last thing I remember was passing mile 20 of the C&O.
It took a full two week to fully regain use of my hands and legs. While I am happy to say the my recovery appears to be complete, the pain, loss of time and cost to me and my family will be long remembered. Mostly I just felt stupid.
Helmets significantly decrease the probabilty of serious head injury (some say by as much as 75%), but some helmets can increase the risk of neck and spine injury. The right helmet can reduce the risk of both head and neck injury. Pick a helmet that is shaped like your head, as round in shape as possible and without protrusions, fins or flat spots that can prevent your head from rolling with your body in the event of a fall or collision. Aerodynamics is insignificant in all but professional riders. Other significant factors in chosing your helmet are fit, ventilation and peripheral vision.
I no longer have any excuses for wearing my helmet.
Nice try on the gotchas. Worthyness of wearing a helmet is subjective not objective. Wearing a helmet 100% of the time is worth it to you, it isn't to me. Among my fears in life death and ending up a veggie as a result of riding a bike are pretty low on my list. That is just me, you perhapse are different, and that's great for you.
You sound more concerned with branding people as illinformed if they haven't arrived at the same conculsion you have, than making an effort at listening to other opinions. I know I am better off falling on my head wearing a helmet than not, never said otherwise. I don't fall often, and the times I am most likley to fall (racing and training) I am wearing a helmet.
People can't see past helmets to the bigger picture of making communities safer for cycling.
I understand that you can't armor yourself into safety or styrofoam yourself away from death, but you can increase your odds of a healthy recovery with a helmet, right? So why not spend half as much as most cyclists spend on protecting their crotch with chamois shiny shorts and buy one? I really want to know why you think helmet free is the best way to protect yourself. Again that's not a rhetorical question.
To the author of this story, thank you, thank you, thank you for noticing the terrible timing of the "carefree, hair blowing in the breeze' bike rider portrayed in the Post piece. She sounded like she belonged not in France, or on any road, but on a sound stage for a feminine deodorant commercial.
When I was told in the ER that my femur was broken -- after it and and my noggin hit the trunk of a Nissan, I looked at the doctor and said: I wish I would have been wearing a helmet on my leg. And he said, good thing your brain isn't in your leg.
Broken bones heal (with the help of a titanium); broken minds not so much.
On a side note:
Many bikers act as if the roads were built for them--rather than for cars. When there isn't a bike lane, get the F out of the way. You might think you're Lance Armstrong, but you just can't pedal that fast. That's why you're riding your bike to work, instead of in the Tour de France.
But count me in as vehemently opposed to the government trying to use laws to force adults to wear bike helmets at any time. And No, I will not give you an excuse for not wearing one when I choose not to wear a helmet. If I don't feel like wearing one, I won't wear one. Any government role in protecting individuals should be in protection from other dangerous people. For example, you tell cars not to run stop signs not because it protects the driver, but because it protects people who that driver might hit. Certainly, at times the costs of caring for the injuries caused by those who take unnecessary risks is a concern and we might won't to protect our tax dollars from an unnecessary burden. Still I don't think the number brain injuries from bike accidents rises to a level that requires a helmet law.
There are a many people who would like to treat other adults as children and play the role or mommy, daddy or nanny. That's fine. If you get off on scolding other adults about helmets, go ahead and jack off your mouth to your heart's content. But keep the government out of it.
I suppose Kevin was unlucky, and I think I understand you implication. But not wearing a helmet did not cause his fall.
I average 200 to 300 miles a week riding my bike. 90% of those miles I wear a helmet for reasons previously stated. I am fully aware of the risks of cycling in general, probably more so than most because if the amount of time I spend on a bike.
For me, short trips, eg. my commute and going to the market simply don't meet MY threshold of risk for what I feel requires a helmet. Just like crossing a busy street at a crosswalk probably doesn’t meet your threshold of risk to require use of a helmet. In both cases we would be better protected from blunt force trauma (to the head) with a helmet than without. But in each case we opt to use or not use a helmet based on our perceived risk of that situation. We can quibble over the probabilities of how likely we are to be bonked on the noggin, but that isn't really my point.
When an why I wear a helmet but one of probably hundreds of differences in the way we live our lives. There are probably risks you choose to take that I avoid and think you are nuts not to. There is no absolute correct way to live a life (despite what social conservatives say). It irks me when others impose their opinions and moralize what is really a matter of personal choice. It is after all my head, as well intentioned as you may be, I don't need you to worry over it.
Check your local vehicle code. Bikes are permitted on all roads in the DC area, with the same entitlements as cars, except where expressly prohibited by posted signs. I am sure you have super important places to be in your car, but others have super important places to be on there bikes. Best remember it because this isn't a conversation you want to have at a stop light after driving aggressively around some riders I know.
I average about that many miles a month -- and have had at least one more serious accident than you, so it looks as if my helmet isn't helping me out much in that regard.
I'm just glad we're all using our noggins to engage one another like adults.
Happy riding all -- and safe landings.
I don't think we need to have a law, but there really isn't any other way to say it: bicyclists who don't wear helmets when they ride are total idiots, immature morons, and perhaps, even, oh, I don't know, could it be....SATAN!?!?!?
the vehicle code does give bikes the same rights as cars, but bikers must "Ride with the flow of traffic as closely as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of roadway"...I was referring to the ones that do not follow this rule and take up the whole lane or ride with a the passion of Kevin Costner in "American Flyers". Or worse yet, the ones that shouldn't be on a bike 'cause they have no sense of balance and are wobbling all over the road (these folks, btw, ought to wear body armor from head to toe).
I would hate to step on anyone with my car...it would bruise my conscience--to say the least.
Cheers
I ride and collect classic 1970-80s racing bicycles, wear wool, black leather cycling shoes and cotton cycling caps. Worked well then. Suits me fine now. Unlike 99.9 per cent of my fellow cyclists in their dorky helmets, I also obey ALL of the traffic code as applies to cycles. If they're so into "safety" why can't they stop a red light or stop sign and yield to pedestrians?
So mind your own damn business.
Briefly ...
There is very little evidence that mandatory helmet laws reduce mortality or injuries. Long story short, it appears that cycling is reduced with helmet use such that the aggregate statistics fail to identify the effect of helmet use. It would be interested to read whether the author feels that the benefits of helmet use outweigh the cost of less cycling -- i.e., more motorized traffic and worse health.
Helmets are designed to protect a rider from a standing two-meter fall onto a hard surface; i.e., the type of falls little kids have on their bikes. That is great for protecting you from boo-boos; but it will have a negligible effect on serious injuries.
Helmets may also cause injuries since the oblong shape creates a twisting force on the neck. Moreover, there is evidence that wearing a helmet makes it more likely for one to hit your head given a collision.
Oh ... I don't even no where to stop. I'm jumping off this carpet ride now. If you are interested in a better understanding of the empirical and theoretical pros and cons of helmets, the link below is an excellent resource.
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/
Now to the separate issue justifying the personal decision wear or not to wear to your average helmet Nazi, here's my response:
Go Fuck Yourself.
There is a *huge* amount of self-righteousness coming from the "always wear your helmet" crowd, and it's quite puzzling. I can't think of another topic that generates quite as much righteous indignation as whether some stranger wears a helmet or not. It's so bizarrely irrational, it's funny.
I mean, car accidents are *far* more common than cycling accidents, and are far more common per vehicle mile traveled. More people die in car accidents than on bicycles, and wearing a helmet might well prevent a lot of those deaths. So why no deranged harping about drivers wearing helmets?
The answer is that driving a car is assumed normative behavior. Everybody drives. It's just part of life. And when 40,000 people a year are killed, that's just life. If you were to yell at every driver stopped at a red light, "Where's your helmet, sport!" people would rightly think you were off your fucking rocker. But it's completely acceptable to harangue total strangers, so long as they're engaged in risky fringe behavior, right?
Most folks assume cycling is daredevil behavior, even many (perhaps most) cyclists. So anyone who doesn't wear their special safety gear clearly has a death wish. After all, that woman who was crushed under a metro bus credits that 3oz piece of styrofoam on her head with her survival. Who would know better than her, right?
Totally ridiculous.
"bikers must "Ride with the flow of traffic as closely as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of roadway""
Right, but the catch here is that it's the cyclist who gets to determine what "close as practicable" means. If we're talking traffic lanes that are narrow enough that a car cannot pass a cyclist safely, then the cyclist is entirely justified in taking the full lane. The majority of urban streets fit this profile.
"the vehicle code does give bikes the same rights as cars, but bikers must "Ride with the flow of traffic as closely as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of roadway""
That section only applies when the lane is wide enough for a bike and a car to ride side by side within the lane. DC code specifies that a lane has to be a minimum of 12' to be sharable, and cars must allow at least 3' clearance when passing bikes. Most lanes in DC are 8-10'.
"He was about to graduate from an Ivy League law school. Now he paints houses."
wear yr helmets, kiddies, or you won't have that white collar job you should have!
what's wrong with painting houses?
you're clearly well versed in the codes of the roads and i'm willing to trust you. thanks for shedding light on what i though was my right of way...though i'm not too keen on this code, i'll respect it and try to be less "get the F out of my way" next time i'm confronted with the situation. serenity now, serenity now!
All your arguments against mandatory helmet laws are the same as the arguments against mandatory seat belt laws. So my question to you all is: why bother wearing seat belts? I mean, they wrinkle your clothes and make you sweat in the summer. Yeech. I hate doing things for my own good.
Wrong. Even cyclisits who don't wear helmets wear seatbelts on bikes, but instead of "seatbelts" they're called "LED FLASHERS". You may think your seatbelt protects you, but you *still* need to wear a helmet if you're going to be galavanting around town driving your car, Mr. Reckless. I don't understand why anyone would jeopardize their health over such a trivial and inexpensive thing such as wearing a crash helmet.
I have friend who was in a auto accident--so I know first-hand what happens when you're driving around carefree, and decide to leave your crash helmet at home. HEAD INJURIES!!!
If you don't give a damn about your own health, how about setting an example for the children? Enough with your recklessness! Wear a full-faced helmet while driving. Ever watch a NASCAR race? If it's good enough for the professionals, it's good enough for amateur drivers. Or do you think you're a better driver than Dale Earnhardt???
I have a special peeve for people who moralise from the peanut gallery.
Until you are out here taking to the streets on your bicycle on a daily basis, you really have no place preaching safety practices to those of us who are. This sort of ignorant arrogance is a constant source of agitation and I would implore those who indulge in this sort of high handed blather to shut up.
The dynamics of how you ride makes a big difference. Helmets work fine if you’re careening along on a straight path at speed. If something goes wrong you’re likely to get pitched forward and a helmet will be there between your skull and the pavement. That doesn’t mean you won’t get a concussion and be hospitalized for months either, let’s not overstate the amount of protection helmets provide.
In traffic, a helmet doesn’t provide much protection from a bus, garbage truck or the typical hyper-aggressive multi-tasking Maryland driver practicing the state mandated incompetence at the wheel. What I really need is to be as unfettered and attentive as possible rather than wearing a Styrofoam crate on my head to appease a bunch of dictatorial whiners who don’t actually ride. If I get hit in traffic, I’d really rather die than have my mangled carcass kept alive-per-se by having worn a limited function safety apparatus.
I accept my mortality and owe nothing to padded cell safety device junkies who want everyone else to imbibe in their culture of fear and fear mongering. There will never be enough devices to protect us from self-absorbed incompetence. If you can’t share the road with a bicycle then you really shouldn’t be driving. It would help if the DC “police” actually enforced the cell phone laws.
I hope the city paper’s helmet law article serves to silence the wail of self-righteous, non-participant hypocrites once and for all.
- Mandatory helmet laws do not increase safety. Google "Australia helmet law" and you will find that their 1990 helmet law decreased bicycle use (by 36%), increased the rate of non-head injuries (the number of injuries decreased by 21%, which is less than 36%, so the rate went up), and decreased the rate of head injures (the number went down by 51%). Bottom line: while the rate of serious head injuries went down by 24%, the rate of serious non-head injures went *up* by 23%. In the meantime, less bikes and more cars were on the road, resulting in extra pollution and traffic stress. There was no clear benefit to anyone other than the helmet industry.
- This article reads like a health study written by a tobacco company.
- On Wednesday this week I attended a lecture in which the bike coordinator for the city of Copenhagen said that, if they were to start their bike-use campaign all over again, they would de-emphasize public discussion of "bike safety." Why? Because increasing the number of cyclists on the road has been proven to decrease accident rates and because "bike safety" campaigns scare people away from cycling. Articles like this make biking in DC *less* safe.
- What's my excuse? I don't wear a helmet for short, low-speed, utility rides because I'd like to live in a city where utility biking is common and, as a result, low-speed biking without a helmet is considered safe. I am being the change that I want to see in the world. The author of this article, on the other hand, is... well... Let's just say that she isn't being helpful.
- Mandatory helmet laws do not increase safety. Google "Australia helmet law" and you will find that their 1990 helmet law decreased bicycle use (by 36%), increased the rate of non-head injuries (the number of injuries decreased by 21%, which is less than 36%, so the rate went up), and decreased the rate of head injures (the number went down by 51%). Bottom line: while the rate of serious head injuries went down by 24%, the rate of serious non-head injures went *up* by 23%. In the meantime, less bikes and more cars were on the road, resulting in extra pollution and traffic stress. There was no clear benefit to anyone other than the helmet industry.
- On Wednesday this week I attended a lecture in which the bike coordinator for the city of Copenhagen said that, if they were to start their bike-use campaign all over again, they would de-emphasize public discussion of "bike safety." Why? Because increasing the number of cyclists on the road has been proven to decrease accident rates and because "bike safety" campaigns scare people away from cycling. Articles like this make biking in DC *less* safe.
- What's my excuse? I don't wear a helmet for short, low-speed, utility rides because I'd like to live in a city where utility biking is common and, as a result, low-speed biking without a helmet is considered safe. I am being the change that I want to see in the world. The author of this article, on the other hand, is... well... Let's just say that she isn't being helpful.
Why did Snyder not check the records to see if helmets have really helped? They've been heavily promoted for years. The data's out there.
The New York Times did an article on this a few years ago. What they found? Helmet use has gone up wildly because of scare articles like Snyder's. The amount of biking dropped - probably because of scare articles like Snyder's. But biking head injuries did NOT drop, despite all the helmets! In fact, the Times computed that head injuries per cyclist had risen significantly.
Bike helmets simply don't work. Oh, I'm sure you can find people that broke their delicate plastic hat and CLAIM it worked. But these things are fragile by design. Every slight bump - even bumps that would miss a bare head - cause them to crack and cause you to spend another $40 to $100. If the number of head injuries don't drop when lots more people wear helmets, all you've done is sell helmets, not prevent head injuries.
A final thought: According to this site
http://www.bicyclinglife.com/SafetySkills/SafetyQuiz.htm
fewer than 1% of the head injury deaths in America are bikers. But about 50% of them happen inside cars. That's despite air bags.
Does Snyder wear her helmet inside her car?
What's HER excuse?
I'm not a fan of helmetless riding either -- and nothing irks me more when I see riders wearing no helmets with headphones -- but you should have delved deeper into the issues of cycling safety. Not just an easy target, that readily sparks controversy.
I ride my bike all over DC and I have done so for 3 years - mostly without a helmet.
Most of the time I flow very well with the traffic, yet I still pull some bonehead moves sometimes. I would say that I ride on the aggressive side. I have also had my share of altercations with cars.
I bought a Bern helmet recently that - I think - looks pretty cool. It does mess up my hair a bit. Yes, I do feel a tad dorky with it when I am not riding hard. But after reading this article, I truly feel that all that keeps me from wearing my helmet is laziness.
Among the several sad stories in this article, a few really hit home. The Quincy/New Hampshire accident first and foremost. I live a block away and every time I ride I navigate this hairy intersection - one of DC's worst imo. The other is the law grad - which I am also.
From now on I am resolved to wear a helmet. This decision is based on emotion in - reaction to the horror stories I have heard, and reason - knowing full well that I am not infallible.
Holy hell. WHAT’S THIS GUY THINKING???? It may as well have said, “Hey! Look at this idiot!!” So blunt; it cut right to the bone. Slowly the calls came in from friends having seen the cover, everyone wanting to get a good laugh in while they could. You forget how many friends you have until the City Paper puts a picture of you on the cover and calls you a moron. Having no clue how to react, I read the caption one more time and I thought, “You know what, I’ll tell you exactly WHAT I was thinking.”
Late in the night before that photo was taken, I was on my front porch employing my Tobacco-Use-Only glass pipe. Possibly due to how tired I was, it slipped from my hands, and with a beer in my other hand I was unable to grab it before it fell to the ground and shattered. It was a fitting end to my evening, and I laughed it off as I fell asleep (in my bed, not on the porch). The next morning I woke up knowing that it was going to be a warm Saturday and that I wanted to spend it on my bike; remembering that I had broken my pipe the night before, I decided it pressing to replace it by that afternoon. Deciding to kill two birds with one stone, I biked the bike path from Old Town Alexandria into Adams Morgan and visited Capitol Hemp for a new Tobacco-Use-Only glass pipe. I'm not one to usually visit such establishments, but when you need a Tobacco-Use-Only glass pipe, where else are you going to go?
I consider myself a fairly established bike rider, nothing special, but I know what I'm doing. Like many people in the article, I was a bike messenger in Richmond for years. The day that photo was taken, I spent most of my day on the bike path, and only did a small amount of riding in traffic. Trust me - I wore that helmet when dealing with traffic, but found it pointless on the bike path and sidewalks. I know for a fact that cars eat bikes, and I’m not about to let some Maryland driver put me six feet into the ground. OUTRAGEOUSLY, when that photo was taken I WAS ON THE SIDEWALK. And then you ask “What’s this guy thinking?” Tell you what I wasn’t thinking: I wasn’t thinking that before I jumped onto the bike path to head home with my new Tobacco-Use-Only glass pipe in my pocket that some ass clown would take a photo of me and publish it on the cover of the City Paper. That’s the last thing I was thinking.
I went to college at University of California, Davis... now that... is a bicycle friendly place, and I rode to school everyday.. helmetless.
My ex used to call me 'helmet boy' with the retarded 'welcome to MacDonalds' accentuation. That soon got to me, and even asking her not to call me that, it still crossed my mind when chooseing to wear or not wear a helmet.
Is it risky, hell yes, but another part of this is drivers education... pedestrians were on this planet before bicycles and bicycles were on the planet before cars.
There are drivers that take their weapon for granted and terrorize anyone without one. If I see them comming up on me fast I toss two or three pennies in their lane. or comming up to a stop light I'll kick their car as I pass.
So I'm not exactly the posterboy for passive bicyclist.
Cell phones and driving piss me off and the majority of time that I've almost been hit is the driver is talking on their cell phone and does not check their blind spot before swerving into the next lane.
So helmet, I'll take it or leave it, as long as I live my life such that everyday is a great day to die, I am the only one responsible for taking my last breath.
"The public spent more than $1 million on Rico’s recovery."
When cyclists (and the dickwad motorists who hurt 'em) pay all their own medical bills, they can crush their skulls all they want. Until then I wear a helmet always - just like I wear my seat belt always - to avoid draining the system. It's called Responsible Citizenship.
If you have ever had a serious head injury, it is like nothing you can imgaine. You have no idea. You will wish, badly, you had worn a helmet. If you're still around/able to process cognitive reasoning, that is.
But, still, ya gotta look cool, so keep rocking that edgy, helmetless look! It's so authentic and real! -- you're not a "sell out" like all those conformists in helmets!
But if your'e kind of cool and interesting and enlightened... your own guy, living by his wits in this tough city (and, btw, Dad, if you're reading this, any chance of an advance on April's "living expenses"?), then you know that bike seats are a JOKE -- a total joke.
So, when I'm out and about doing a short, low-speed, utility ride, I will tell you this: I'm going seatless. It's all part of a little a dream I have that goes something like this: Living in a city where utility biking is common and, as a result, low-speed biking without a seat is considered safe.
It's called Being The Change, but you khakis wearers probably can't understand that.
Let's all keep it real -- Without a seat *or* a helmet!
>>> "- What's my excuse? I don't wear a helmet for short, low-speed, utility rides because I'd like to live in a city where utility biking is common and, as a result, low-speed biking without a helmet is considered safe. I am being the change that I want to see in the world. The author of this article, on the other hand, is... well... Let's just say that she isn't being helpful. "
The only way to be truly safe out there in your car is to ride a helmet. So if I see you trapped in a burning overturned car and you're not wearing a seatbelt, I'ma gonna piss on you. I'll be damned if I'll lend a helping hand to someone who won't even take the most basic precautions for their own safety. And don't expect the rest of us to pay for your recovery, you leeches.
the available evidence on helmets is ambivalent - everybody agrees that it's really strange that when helmets are made mandatory, traumatic brain injuries go up as an absolute risk. no one's suggesting that we stop encouraging helmet use, but no one's suggesting it's the cure for cancer either. more than increased helmet use, what we really need is pretty girls, and lots of them. to the degree that helmets discourage pretty girls from integrating cycling not only into fitness/recreation but also into their work and lives, helmets and gory articles about safety are doing the cycling community a disservice. especially if they mock the very thing we desperately need: girls on bikes, with spandex-free outfits and big purses, riding to the next party.
If you don't know how to ride, no helmet in the world will save you.
If you take risks often enough, they'll eventually catch up with you.
If you lack focus and awareness while biking, you won't last long.
Gee, your life must be so exciting!
Meanwhile, back here on planet Earth, riding a bicycle is safer than most recreational activities per vehicle mile traveled.
http://neptune.spacebears.com/opine/helmets.html
http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/health/risks.htm
Be sure and leave the proper documents so we can pull the plug on your resperator
For more, see http://www.onestreet.org/pdf/Bicyclist-&-Driver-Ed-helmet-efficacy.pdf
"Abstract
An examination is made of a meta-analysis by Attewell, Glase and McFadden which concludes that bicycle helmets prevent serious
injury, to the brain in particular, and that there is mounting scientific evidence of this. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB)
initiated and directed the meta-analysis of 16 observational studies dated 1987–1998. This examination concentrates on injury to the brain
and shows that the meta-analysis and its included studies take no account of scientific knowledge of its mechanisms. Consequently, the
choice of studies for the meta-analysis and the collection, treatment and interpretation of their data lack the guidance needed to distinguish
injuries caused through fracture of the skull and by angular acceleration. It is shown that the design of helmets reflects a discredited theory
of brain injury. The conclusions are that the meta-analysis does not provide scientific evidence that such helmets reduce serious injury to
the brain, and the Australian policy of compulsory wearing lacks a basis of verified efficacy against brain injury."
1. If you don't wear a helmet, and aren't able to pay for your FULL medical bills from an accident out of your own pocket (not the co-pay on your insurance, the FULL bill), then you're a strain on the system. SOMEONE is picking up the tab for your irresponsible behavior, whether that is the taxpayers if you don't have insurance and can't pay your bill, or your fellow insurance plan members if you do have insurance. I don't really care if people wear helmets or not, but I'm not up for paying anyone's medical bills.
2. There are problems with some motorists and some bicyclists. Take the idgit who almost got hit while running a red light on a bike in front of my house. Thankfully, the police were there to write him a ticket. Or the cyclists who don't stop for pedestrians lawfully crossing on a walk signal. Or the moron who I almost creamed in college because he felt the need to ride up the MIDDLE of a one-way, curvy road, THE WRONG WAY! Or the one who almost flipped over my car because he came screaming around a blind turn at about twice the speed limit at the moment I was pulling out of a driveway. There are just as many bad motorists out there, passing bicycles when it's not safe, opening car doors without looking, cutting off cyclists to make left turns, etc. Bicycles and cars can peacefully co-exist, especially in a city where traffic laws, red lights, and congestion keep cars to slower speeds and bike lanes and wide-enough streets are plentiful. Bicyclists would do well to remember that, in most cases, cars can go faster than them, and they should keep aside to let the motorized bunch pass when possible. Motorists would do well to patiently wait for the cyclist to move aside when there's an obvious obstruction to the cyclist's moving over immediately. ALL would do well to remember that we ALL have to follow ALL the same rules. And ALL would do well to remember to respect the pedestrians. As was said, people have important places to be in cars and on bikes, but also ON FOOT!
The only courteous bicyclists I have ever encountered belonged to the racing club at my college. They wore helmets, signaled turns, yielded to pedestrians, and kept out of the way of faster-moving traffic, if possible. I always felt bad when someone would cut them off or otherwise disrespect their status as a vehicle. As for the kid I almost ended because he chose to cut across 3 lanes of traffic without warning, well, I wouldn't have felt that bad hitting him, except if I had to foot the bill for his recovery.
She was drinking while driving, even one beer can effect your ability to ride a bike safely! Don't drink and drive!
Another person I know was hit (wearing a helmet fortunately) in broad daylight by a drunk driver who suddenly swerved into him. His helmet cracked but protected his head--he had only mild brain injury. He could so easily have died. So sometimes helmets do provide protection from a vehicle crashing into you! I know I'd rather have one than not!
When we take risks like not wearing a helmet, we take those risks for ourselves and for our families. My own son's brain injury is one of the worst things I have gone through. My own life was on hold while I helped him through rehab (though I was glad he survived--he so nearly didn't). The anxiety and sleepless nights in the early days when we didn't know if he would live or have a mind left--I don't ever want to go through something like that again. I'm sure no one's family does. It's one thing to risk something only you will suffer through. It's another to put your loved ones through the ringer. (not personal "you" but general to all who don't wear helmets)
After getting up and calling an ambulance my friend told me he couldn't believe how hard ?i smacked my head into the pavement! Luckily I had my helmet of 3 years on. I cracked it across the left side and broke a chunk off.
I did not black out/get dizzy or have any blood, but I do fully remember hearing my helmet slam into the pavement. I assure you I would probably be DEAD right now if it hadn't ben for my helmet.
I ride about 150 miles a week with my road club and a family fun ride on Sunday. Yesterday was the FUN RIDE!
I know it's a free country and all, but those of you that say you are experienced and competent and whatever...all I want to say is accidents happen....even to us EXPERIENCED riders. Trust me, I didn't think my ride yesterday would be any different than the 50 mile 20mph ride I did the day before!
You are naive and foolish to proclaim that it could never happen to you, and I when I see somone not wearing a helmet and riding a bike, I think 'I hope he is an organ donor'!
2. Cycling is a healthy activity, and the likelihood of serious head injury is widely exaggerated.
3. Cycling becomes safer the more people do it. Encouraging cycling is by far the most effective way of reducing risk of injury.
4. Helmet promotion deters cycling and leads to poorer health.
5. The benefits of helmets are greatly over-stated.
6. Many other everyday activities could benefit more from helmet-wearing than cycling.
7. A helmet law would make it a crime for children to take part in a health giving activity.
BUT - the fact is, it can't hurt and it will only help. it's common sense people.
this city is nuts. before i lived here, chances are you'd never catch me wearing my helmet. no more. dc has learned me somethin. i ride my bike every single day to work (in a bike lane mind you) and still almost every single day there is at least one 'close call' - people opening their doors, pulling out of parking spots, turning right in front of you, parking in the BIKE LANE (assholes), talking (or TEXTING!) on their phone (hello, talk about illegal and DUMB) not paying attention, people grazing you with their side mirrors, CAB DRIVERS, and OTHER GENERAL STUPIDITY. you get the picture.
stop being vain, making excuses and wear your damn helmet or accept the fact that no matter how cautious you are (without a helmet?) one day someone might door your ass and you could be paralyzed, brain dead or just real dead. then no more bikie for you! cool, i could use a new one.
REJECT FEAR BASED MANIPULATION, ADVERTISING and DECISION MAKING.
Educate yourself regarding the objective facts, and make a rational judgement. And make other decisions consistent with that judgment.
Actually, most car accident deaths are due to not wearing a seat belt. Wearing a seat belt prevents trauma because you are held in place. Bicycle helmets prevent or reduce trauma to your head when you fall on a bike. Something tells me that the people who are against bike helmets are the same people who don't wear seat belts because they think they can prevent accidents.
Emotion over fact. Anecdote over reason. Utter lack of balance.
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