Why it makes sense to bike without a helmet (opens in new tab)

One of the arguments is flawed:

> According to a 2006 French study, pedestrians are 1.4 times more likely to receive a traumatic brain injury than unhelmeted cyclists.

To fails to take into account that almost everyone walks, but very few cycle. The fact that it's only 1.4 times greater goes to show how common cycling head injuries actually are.

There appears to be strong - IMO, conclusive - evidence that compulsory bicycle helmet laws reduce the overall quality of life (with the main mechanism being reduction of physical activity, and resultant deterioration in health).

But repealing such laws seems hard, politically. Any ideas on how to support such a repeal?

Since we're passing around flawed statistics, I'd like to share some anecdotes:

1. Just 2 months ago, my little sister was riding on a bike with no helmet. She was struck by a car. She flew off the bike, puncturing a lung, breaking a clavicle, several bones in her face, ribs, road rash, etc. She stopped breathing at the scene. After 1 week on the ventilator, she began breathing on her own. We knew there would likely be brain damage. She woke up confused and showing most of the signs of traumatic brain injury. Fortunately just a couple months later she's done with physical therapy. Due to nerve damage she will always have a little trouble walking, but most people won't notice it. Her face didn't need surgery since the fractures healed within millimeters of their original positions. The brain is the last thing to heal, and she is a different person than she used to be, most people who didn't know her before won't notice. She can't yet hold a job or go to college. If she had been wearing a helmet it's almost certain that she "only" would have to deal with the punctured lung and a few broken bones. Her not wearing a helment not only derailed her life, but it caused major problems in the lives of everyone around her. She has 250k in medical bills and the legal minumum on liability insurance here is 25k.

2. I snowboard regularly, I've seen people without helmets die on the groomed trails. I've hit my head a few times on logs that I really wouldn't want to be running into w/o a helmet. I've never seen someone who was wearing a helmet permanently disabled by an accident.

I used to think that if you didn't want to wear a helmet it was nobody's business but your own. But when one of those cars hits you, somebody's going to pay for those hundreds of thousands in medical bills, so if you don't wear a helmet please file a DNR ahead of time.

On a "lighter" note, I tend to agree that as a society we should focus on the most dangerous things first. Right now I have a feeling that's the intersection of driving and cell phones. We can probably save the most lives by focusing on driving safety.

For fucks sake, no. This is a meme that will not die.

Howie's evidence (as nice a guy as he is) is based on a single study by a professor at the University of Bath. (And there's a PLOS One paper which disputes his conclusions too which is worth reading: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna... )

There is no compelling evidence to recommend that you shouldn't wear a bike helmet and PLENTY of very solid evidence why wearing helmets have very important and life altering effects on the outcome of serious head trauma.

If you are cycling, wear a bike helmet.

Among others, these two points scream of grasping at anything to throw at the argument:

> wearing a helmet may create a false sense of security and induce risk-taking that cyclists without head protection might not make.

> Bike helmets discourage cycling

We are not discussing if not wearing a helmet should be legal, A competent adult should be able to go base jumping, ride a motorcycle, or just bang their head against the pavement if they please, but that doesn't mean your not an idiot for doing it without any good reason.

But as he opens,

> Several of them asked me: Where is your bike helmet?

We're clearly discussing the validity of the choice as an individual to choose to not wear a helmet, and the argument that it induces risk-taking? Well consider that fact, and use your head and don't take extra-risk.

Or about discouraging cycling? Does the existence of helmets discourage cycling? Does me, or you wearing helmets discourage other people from cycling? The study at least says that mandatory helmet laws discourage cycling.

Now, if you choose to go base jumping for the adrenaline, to ride a motorcycle for the freedom, and thrill, fully aware and accepting of the risk, that's great, and better to you.

Similarly, if you want to ride without a helmet because it you think it makes you look cooler, you like the wind in your hair, prefer the convenience to the safety, or even if you are just trying to be different, a contrarian. Sure, do what you want. But stop fucking pretending it's because "It's safer".

This is like saying "If I drive a car without a seatbelt, I will drive safer!" When I ride I wear a helmet and I've broken (full failure mode absorption at impact) two in accidents; one was my fault, the other a slick spot at night that surprised me. I'll keep wearing my and put them on my kids too.

Fascinating ideas... I was astounded to hear that drivers pass closer to bicyclers wearing a helmet. I'd be prone to do so myself, as they do induce a false sense of security for both parties. I also agree that perhaps drivers and pedestrians should wear helmets as well.

For the past couple months, I've thought about John Gruber's stance against helmets. After thinking it over, I'm inclined to believe it matters what type of biking you're doing. Your helmet usage should vary if you're riding in the Tour de France or taking a NiceRide bike (rent by hour deal) around town. Ditto for riding in an area that very bicycle conscious (bike lanes, many bikers) vs not (busy street, curbed, etc).

If you're just beginning cycling, please use roads that are bicycle friendly. Use a road with a wide shoulder or a bike lane and slow traffic. Don't use the busiest curbed downtown street.

I speak as a severe traumatic brain injury survivor. I don't take any unnecessary risk, explicitly to avoid the chance of re-injury. Growing up around helmets as the son of two ski patrollers, wearing a helmet is a part of life. It does not inhibit my riding and while drivers might be less careful around me, I won't take that risk.

> Children and toddlers on foot are far more likely to receive traumatic brain injuries than cyclists

A traumatic brain injury is, at best, a severe concussion[1] and worst case can result in death or a coma that lasts for months. I would just like to make that clear.

[1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_brain_injury#Severit...

I never understood why adults in the US wear a helmet when they bike (I'm from Holland, no one does that) but now that I've been cycling in LA for a while… I understand. The roads are not built for bicyclists (this "bike map" exemplifies the issue: http://cl.ly/image/1L3E2H063l1u) and drivers are simply not aware. I dutifully wear the helmet here, while my Dutch friends laugh at me.

The only good argument (in that article anyway) for not wearing a helmet seems to be the Bath university study, which everyone has been citing since the day it was released. But that's the only study I have seen on the topic. The fact that other modes of transportation (walking, driving) would theoretically be safer if you wore a helmet is irrelevant. And it's possible that helmets would turn someone off from cycling, but that seems like a poor reason to not use a bike.

Do you bike faster than you can run?

Would you run, as fast as you can, head-first into a concrete wall?

No, it does not make sense to bike without a helmet.

I choose to ignore this "advice".

I've hit my head a few times while getting into bike accidents.

The first time, I was wearing a helmet. Mostly landed on my face, but the helmet broke and I was fine. (An ambulance was driving by and took me to the hospital as a precautionary measure. Somewhat convenient.)

The second time, I was riding a CitiBike without a helmet. I hit a pothole and somehow ended up landing on my head. I don't really remember much, except laying in the middle of the road for a few minutes trying to figure out what happened. (I do remember being pretty sure that this was the end. But I decided I didn't want to get charged for the missing bike, so got up anyway.)

The third time I was wearing a helmet again, but I landed on my hands. It was winter so I was wearing gloves with leather palms, and just kind of slid for a while. It was great. I rode 40 more miles after that one. (And I'm definitely a fan of gloves!)

Wear a helmet. It's pretty easy to fall off your bike, and you don't really want to injure your head.

I think the real danger is that smart people will find very complicated and contrived reasons (twist statistics) to justify whatever they want to justify.

The real reasons are often personal, simple and embarrassing things like: "I don't want to wear a helmet cause it is not cool", "I want to be contrarian", "I will create controversy and get a lot of discussion focused around me". And then it is just a matter of finding some statistics or anecdotes to support the position.

This happens in every sphere of life.

It seems this is a case of that. The danger is now not only to himself to also others if anyone starts listening and stops wearing helmets.

But I think in this case they went to far and the message contains its own destruction so to speak. They tried to hard to justify it and they appear too irrational to hopefully anyone take their advice to heart.

The only times I've hit my head on the ground as an adult have been coming off my bike. (Not that often, but still, three times is more than the zero for all other causes combined.) In each of those three times, I've been profoundly grateful that I've been wearing a helmet.

Adults tend not to fall over, voluntarily or in-, while walking around. There are plenty of ways to fall over and hit one's head while cycling that aren't under one's own control at all.

We're all missing the most important point here:

>> Bike helmets discourage cycling.

Yes! We should require all CAR drivers to wear helmets. Imagine how less likely drivers are to engage in road rage when they're wearing dorky helmets, not to mention safety on the road.

One can pour over all the meta analysis and rationalization to support a view, but until one has experienced the reality of head trauma, talk is cheap.

Here's more cheap talk: http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD001855/INJ_wearing-a-helmet-...

http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD005401/INJ_bicycle-helmet-le...

Over 20 years ago, i rarely wore a helmet commuting, mountain biking. When you're young, life seems forever. Luckily, I had some sense to listen to my colleagues one day and wear my helmet while doing my usual run across some headlands. I was volunteering at a clinic at the time and frankly I was weary of the MD and NPs digging me for NOT wearing my helmet (they have seen it all). My styrofoam plastic encased ANSI helmet literally saved my life sustaining a rt temporal crushing cavitation that left me only with the standard clavicular fracture and embedded asphalt abrasions to my nasal bridge, upper and lower limbs that still reminds me today. Moreover, the logistics of the Nat. Park Service, the nearby public hospital emergency room, the public university insurance and my saviors at that free medical clinic further eased my burdens from this unfortunate accident.

Believe me, I applaud changes in public policy encouraging mass transportation with biking right up there in the fore, however, when it comes to health behavior/policy look at more data.

and maybe consider a seat belt and stop smoking, too.

> Let’s first get one thing out of the way: if you get into a serious accident, wearing a helmet will probably save your life.

Well thanks for wrapping up the debate in the first sentence after your intro! If a helmet will save your life then why would you not wear it? It seems like your argument for wearing a helmet in the car is a lot better than your argument against wearing a bike helmet.

I'm extremely skeptical of this viewpoint, if only due to the fact that the energies involved in car crashes are an order of magnitude larger than those involved in bike accidents.

Intuition says that a car might be traveling (on average) double the speed of a bike--which puts us at 4x the amount of stored energy in your head which can dissipate. Unfortunately, bicycle helmets are almost definitely useless at this speed.[1]

It's also unclear if the same mechanisms for brain injury apply, though I don't have any statistics on this matter. My impression is that strict blunt force trauma is no longer the prevalent mechanism for injury in cars---you're more likely to get whiplash or some sort of quick rotation that puts you in a coma due to the brain sloshing around. Helmet or no helmet, it's difficult to protect against rotational modes.

So even if we went with this article's suggestion of wearing helmets in cars, there's a large possibility the numbers wouldn't look any better. I wear a helmet on a bike because it maximises my protection given the amount of inconvenience it gives me. Nothing about car statistics invalidates this trade.

[1] http://www.helmets.org/limits.htm

Seems like there are lots of huge implicit qualifiers for this advice (I disagree with it pretty much completely, but this stuck out to me): The writer is in a country with one of the best road systems around, in a college town, in a town with lots of people that bike.

This is terrible terrible advice for any place that doesn't fit that criteria, and might as well be bad advice in the town that DOES fit this criteria.

As ridership in a given community increases, everyone's quality of life goes up. In such cases, increased driver awareness and reduced biker isolation increases safety for everyone -- drivers and pedestrians included.

Slowing cars down on streets where bikers and pedestrians are present will save many lives, mostly those in cars, additionally some who are not.

I think the title is wrong - it should be:

"Why it makes sense to drive wearing a helmet"

Based on:

We can also approach it from the perspective of injuries per million hours from a 1996 Australian study looking at head injury risk before the beginning of any helmet laws:

Risk of head injury per million hours travelled

Cyclist - 0.41 Pedestrian - 0.80 Motor vehicle occupant - 0.46 Motorcyclist - 7.66

I hope this doesn't circulate, I was out with my kid (4 yo) today who fell and tapped his head on the road, the helmet didn't save his life but probably stopped a minor concussion.

I'm sure if I dug hard enough I could find evidence that cocaine can help the human body in some type of way, that doesn't mean its right.

Per million hours travelled is a terrible normalization method for comparing travel risks. The problem is that risk is usually not uniform throughout a trip.

A good example of this is air travel. Most of the risk in air travel is concentrated at the end points. The high risk parts of flight are getting on or off the ground, and flying through the high traffic area around the airport. When flying at cruising altitude between the endpoints, the risk is lowest.

Overall, a very long flight is more risky than a short flight, but if you went by risk per million hours travelled the long flight might actually appear to be less risky.

> wearing a helmet may create a false sense of security and induce risk-taking that cyclists without head protection might not make.

This is the argument that bugs me the most. Isn't this the same as saying "If you're going hiking, taking a medical aid kit may create a false sense of security and induce risk-taking that hikers without a medic kit might not make.". No it's a dang medical kit, just take the damn thing!

I fell with my bike a couple of years ago. On a cycle path. No cars around. Nobody around. I just lost balance for whatever reason.

I will always remind vividly is how hard the side of my head hit the pavement. No doubt it would have been really bad without the helmet. I ended up with badly scorched fingers, a big mark on the helmet where it hit the pavement, but no head injury. Please, use a helmet.

This article seems to use total injury without reference the % of population that participates in (being a pedestrian, driving in a car, riding a bike etc.. )

Very well written - but a particularly poor content and irresponsible use of statistics.

An interesting case. If wearing a helmet when walking becomes half as socially acceptable as wearing one while biking, I'll seriously consider it.

No, it only explains why professional racing drivers wear helmets, and other drivers should too.

I would wear a helmet all day if it had an oculus rift integrated.

I have sold thousands of helmets in my time, they are an easy $$$ upsell with a new bicycle. The sale is simple, people even know the FUD and have heard all of the anecdotes. However, I don't wear a helmet myself and, when I sell someone a helmet, there are a few things I do for them:

Sell them a hi-viz tabard or coat. These are cheap (tabard) or slightly more than an average helmet (coat). The thinking is prevention better than cure. If you can avoid the impact in the first place then that is a better place to be. Hi-viz works, there are studies from 3M and plenty of others to prove it (if you think 3M are biased). In real life I have been ticked off for not wearing a helmet by riders in black - you know the ones - male, black clothing, helmet, smart-arse attitude.

Make sure the helmet fits. There isn't a lot of point being strangled by a blob of polystyrene foam. The straps have to be done up tight for the helmet to do what it is supposed to do. Generally I point customers away from the American brands - Giro, Bell - and towards the European brands because the straps are much better on the proper European brand helmets. They lie flat with the face and don't have buckles that catch the skin. Again, the no-viz riders in black protected by their magic helmets rarely do the straps up and you can flip the helmet up off their heads with a single finger.

Sell trouser clips and sensible footwear. In the UK leisure cyclists need to be aware that a denim trouser caught in the chain (or a shoelace) will throw you straight over the bars head first onto the road. Trouser clips (and stiff-soled cycle-specific shoes) prevent that from happening.

Sell lights that work. The front light is probably more important than the back. Just a basic flasher will do. Drivers are used to seeing idiot cyclists on the road in front of them riding without lights, they are easy enough to pick up with headlights. However, overtaking drivers do not expect some cyclist coming the other way. So lights are vital particularly during the spring/autumn/winter months.

For me, with interactions with customers, the helmet is also part of a use scenario. Mountain biking? Doing back-flips on a BMX? Road-racing? Small child on trailer? We actually have specialist and different helmets for those scenarios. Same for people returning to cycling from having not been on a bike for a while, we have affordable and easy to adjust helmets for those folk too.

My message is that cycle safety isn't just about wearing a helmet. Wearing a helmet does not make you safe any more than an airbag makes a motorist safe. True safety is to be found elsewhere, by being properly visible to all other road users and in riding a bike that isn't going to self destruct due to some unanticipated interaction with clothing. It is also in having the skills to ride a bike in a way that is neither cowardly or cocky.

If you ride the same route every day and know every pot hole, recognise the plates on the cars that pass you every day and have never had the slightest chance of a mishap you do have to think 'why am I carrying this block of polystyrene with me every day? Am I doing this just to please my car-driving mother?'

Finally if made-in-China polystyrene was that great they would make the fronts of trucks from the stuff.

3D PIE CHART!!!!

Aw, this is cute.