Get a good helmet, and wear it.

[Westlafadeaway]

I'm all for personal freedom, but life is all about playing the odds, and odds are if you're wearing a helmet you're going to fare better in an accident.

You really think that a little piece of styrofoam is improving odds? The safety test for a bicycle helmet is to drop it and see what happens. So a helmet only protects yourself from when you fall down.

The number of drivers who sustain brain injuries are higher in proportion than cyclists who sustain brain injuries. So are you saying that drivers are playing the odds when they don't wear a helmet? Do you wear a helmet when you drive, where you are more likely to have a brain injury?

 

[tomjasz]

Who on this planet thinks that helmets are supposed to prevent accidents? They are meant to help prevent injuries from accidents and no one expects any guarantees of that.

TT

One report I read indicated helmet wearers take more risks. Helmet discussions are banned in many MC forums. And with good reason.

 

[Gmanx]

agree, helmets are good in chance you fall while riding and their protection against automobiles and other larger vehicles is limited. I think the point being made that its the infrastructure favoring completely automobiles and not considering a safe place for pedestrians and personal mobility. If that was part of the design all along, we wouldn't see the statistics we see here in america, which is why i suspect some heavy biking countries that prioritize personal mobility over automobiles don't have the same levels of conflict.

America is the richest country in the world, no way the government shouldn't be able to find the tax revenues to fund national biking infrastructure.

 

[tomjasz]

IMO bike helmets are inadequate.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

@Westlafadeaway: You seem to focus on the traffic accidents. Learn I have crashed with my e-bikes more often than (probably) most of the EBR Forums members and am still in good shape. The high speed crash occurred with me wearing no helmet (I was just lucky). Other crashes happened at low speed or with stationary e-bike. I have always hit the ground with my head. Always helmeted.

 

[TForan]

I don't get all the crashes on this forum. Older guys with balance problems ? I have never fallen off my bike except for one time when I thought winter riding was a good idea. Some people need helmets. And maybe, body armor.

 

[Tars Tarkas]

One report I read indicated helmet wearers take more risks. Helmet discussions are banned in many MC forums. And with good reason.

Did you read that on the internet? I don't think you can take that to mean some people think helmets prevent accidents anyway. I choose to think that helmets reduce likelihood of serious injury and/or reduce the severity of the injury. To be clear, reducing the likelihood of injury is not the same as eliminating the risk. I'm perfectly okay with lowering risk. Humanity would grind to an instant halt if all risk had to be eliminated before anyone took any action.

TT

 

[opimax]

I am 1 of them who should have armor. Most of my falls were my fault, not paying enough attention and run into something, adjusting the bike ,radio , a loud sound and turned my attention away. i broke my leg falling after rear tire slid along the rail instead of hopping up since my angle to get on the trail was off.

I was hauling butt on a trail and a young deer came across the trail and basically butted my front tire at over 30 mph (down hill) ,worst crash.

I remember once turning slightly on damp trail on a mild incline I think the panniers with batteries caused me to loose my balance during the turn and remember thinking as I was falling “why I am I falling” still not sure on that one.

2 or 3 times on wet wood on a bridge , like black ice , slipped on my feet getting up even.

Went over a few inch curb that I thought was a ramp lost balance 1-2mph.

all of the I have hit my helmet 1st!

there are unfortunately more

 

[tomdutchie]

Did you read that on the internet? I don't think you can take that to mean some people think helmets prevent accidents anyway. I choose to think that helmets reduce likelihood of serious injury and/or reduce the severity of the injury. To be clear, reducing the likelihood of injury is not the same as eliminating the risk. I'm perfectly okay with lowering risk. Humanity would grind to an instant halt if all risk had to be eliminated before anyone took any action.

TT

From a blogpost by an insurance company [Aliance], written in Dutch [and our perspective], so gonna translate/put highlights:

- bike-helmets are made for <20kmh [13mph], so in collisions with cars useless/pretty overrated
- bikers with helmets tend to have more accidents, not really sure why but possible reason:
false safety; because bikers feel safer with helmets, they take more risk and/or drivers also adjust their cautiousness
So, they advise only using helmets when learning [kids] how to ride, if you are insecure about balance or going through unknown/rough terrain

Of course here the infra and laws to protect biking are pretty good, the number of crossing between bike and car is limited so can imagine that may be influencing the willingness to wear a helmet.
A law making us wear helmets would for 60% be a reason to take bike less (and in countries where they made it into law, seems to be in line with that number).
One of the possible reasons often stated why we don't wear is because every driver is a biker, that number would by enforcing helmets also go down so that possible reason would decrease.

Here only tourists and race-bikes use helmets: I think first because of insecurity about abilities, second because they are sometimes on the (car) road/tend to have less overview because of their riding-position/speed.

 

[Dallant]

Bikers with helmets have more accidents because more bikers wear helmets.

 

[rawlus]

From a blogpost by an insurance company [Aliance], written in Dutch [and our perspective], so gonna translate/put highlights:

- bike-helmets are made for <20kmh [13mph], so in collisions with cars useless/pretty overrated
- bikers with helmets tend to have more accidents, not really sure why but possible reason:
false safety; because bikers feel safer with helmets, they take more risk and/or drivers also adjust their cautiousness
So, they advise only using helmets when learning [kids] how to ride, if you are insecure about balance or going through unknown/rough terrain

Of course here the infra and laws to protect biking are pretty good, the number of crossing between bike and car is limited so can imagine that may be influencing the willingness to wear a helmet.
A law making us wear helmets would for 60% be a reason to take bike less (and in countries where they made it into law, seems to be in line with that number).
One of the possible reasons often stated why we don't wear is because every driver is a biker, that number would by enforcing helmets also go down so that possible reason would decrease.

Here only tourists and race-bikes use helmets: I think first because of insecurity about abilities, second because they are sometimes on the (car) road/tend to have less overview because of their riding-position/speed.

another difference i’m told by dutch colleagues is that children begin learning “rules of the road” at a very young age so are then able to begin biking to school at the earliest. When an entire generation goes through the same experience the community standards of behavior rise accordingly.

that being said, bikers in NL still hate pedestrians.

 

[Taylor57]

I will say I do wear a helmet whenever I ride my bikes. I will say however, a a yute, we motocrossed often fast and without helmets. Somehow, none of us hurt our noggins that I am aware of but boy times have changed. I am for sure an advocate of wearing a helmet if you are riding a bike. My only exception would be if you were at the beach on an analog beach cruiser going slow...

 

[BlackHand]

I don't get all the crashes on this forum. Older guys with balance problems ? I have never fallen off my bike except for one time when I thought winter riding was a good idea. Some people need helmets. And maybe, body armor.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

From a blogpost by an insurance company [Aliance], written in Dutch [and our perspective], so gonna translate/put highlights:

It is the same like saying the car passengers/drivers who wear safety belts (or whose cars are equipped with air-bags) tend to have more accidents than ones who don't.

Here only tourists and race-bikes use helmets: I think first because of insecurity about abilities, second because they are sometimes on the (car) road/tend to have less overview because of their riding-position/speed.

From what I could see in the Netherlands myself was people there ride the Dutch bike paths on their omafiets at snail pace. Go abroad. Germany is not that far.
(I will be really nasty: Now I know what nation forced the whole EU to limit their e-bikes to 25 km/h)...

Why does that silly German family all wear helmets?!

 

[Westlafadeaway]

Bikers with helmets have more accidents because more bikers wear helmets.

But there are more cyclists in Amsterdam and they have lower collisions.

 

[Westlafadeaway]

It is the same like saying the car passengers/drivers who wear safety belts (or whose cars are equipped with air-bags) tend to have more accidents than ones who don't.

From what I could see in the Netherlands myself was people there ride the Dutch bike paths on their omafiets at snail pace. Go abroad. Germany is not that far.
(I will be really nasty: Now I know what nation forced the whole EU to limit their e-bikes to 25 km/h)...

Why does that silly German family all wear helmets?!

Because it's a commercial.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

But there are more cyclists in Amsterdam and they have lower collisions.

If you (and all cyclists around) agree to ride at 11 mph -- and you'll never leave a bike path -- then well, wear no helmet.
Dutch are very specific and should not be taken as the example, as most of us are not Dutch and we don't all live in Amsterdam.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Because it's a commercial.

A commercial for helmets?
No. Because all German cyclists wear helmets, even if the law there doesn't require wearing helmets.

 

[Westlafadeaway]

A commercial for helmets?
No. Because all German cyclists wear helmets, even if the law there doesn't require wearing helmets.

Oh, so this article that states "Helmets are not compulsory in Germany and only 15 percent of cyclists wear them." is simply wrong- the author must not know that "all German cyclists wear helmets." https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...lists-from-injury-blame-idUSKBN0ES28120140617

Or "In a 2015 YouGov survey, 58 percent of those who rode a bike said they did not wear a helmet." https://www.thelocal.de/20161207/sh...-wear-bike-helmets-cycling-germany-australia/
That article also makes the common mistake made with bicycle safety- you can't go and measure the number of people that visited a hospital and then claim that that figure represents all cyclists because that is not what they measured. But a lot of the research does just that or the media reports on it skew the information because of windshield bias. The specific statement is "the researchers found that among this group of patients—those who sustained traumatic brain injury after a bicycle related accident—the ones wearing helmets had a 58 percent reduced odds of severe traumatic brain injury and a 59 percent reduced odds of death. Further, the use of helmets reduced by 61 percent the odds of craniotomy (an operation to remove part of the bone from the skull to expose the brain) and facial fractures by 26 percent." But the title of the media article is "Helmeted Bicycle Riders Have Significantly Reduced Severity of Injury and Lower Death Rates After an Accident" which is not what the authors concluded. The author in the interview are very careful to say that those who end up with a bad brain injury do better with a helmet.

 

[Westlafadeaway]

If you (and all cyclists around) agree to ride at 11 mph -- and you'll never leave a bike path -- then well, wear no helmet.
Dutch are very specific and should not be taken as the example, as most of us are not Dutch and we don't all live in Amsterdam.

I was responding to "Bikers with helmets have more accidents because more bikers wear helmets." But if that was true, Amsterdam would have more accidents. They don't. Why? Because they see cycling as a norm, and we don't. So it's not the helmet that reduces accidents, it is infrastructure.