Helmet debate

I don't wear one because they're hot.

I actually don't *want* to feel safe from wearing one. That's because I know, from previous experience, just how much the *other* parts of your body get injured in a crash. A helmet will not protect my limbs, my torso, my face. To the extent a helmet makes me feel safer, it may make the *rest* of my body less safe by making me accept more risk. I don't want any sense of false security a helmet might give.

My approach to safety is to slow down when I see hazards (e.g. cars waiting to come out of, or turn into a side road). To avoid the risk in the first place. I've been with helmeted riders in group rides who've asked me how I can be so reckless with safety. Then I see the same riders speed into turns¹, with very little margin for error. I've seen helmeted riders take daft risks on descents, then seen them on the floor after a corner. With bad cuts on their body, they've praised their helmet for saving them - but to me it looked like they risked their life speeding into blind corners on a 1-vehicle-wide, narrow country lane. Did the helmet protect, or did it suck them into terrible risks through a false sense of security?

I don't want to *feel* safer, I want to *be* safer.

1. This doesn't even always get them any further than me, because it's speed on corner exit that's the important bit - faster speed on entry needn't mean faster speed on exit.

I asked this once before but can anyone who does not wear a helmet explain why without rambling on about it.

For instance i wear one because i feel safer at the speeds i travel and roads i travel upon.

So if you dont feel safer please tell us or is it just down to looks

Paul J & Felixcat, Guys, I was merely using anecdotes to show why "I" wear a helmet and how I believe it saved ME from more significant injury. I feel helmets should be purely optional and have no interest in making them compulsory, and yes dangerous roads probably do exacerbate the use of helmets. Helmets are not the answer to increasing cyclists safety, merely an added precaution I and others wish to take. Woulter Weylandt wasn't saved by his helmet! RIP182, but I'll still wear mine thanks.

Improving road layouts etc as they have in europe, and educating car drivers are far more effective ways of increasing safety. I've been lucky enough to ride lots of dutch streets and am constantly amazed at how safe it feels. Driver attitudes are far better in most of europe compared to the UK, I ride in france every summer and rarely experience the hostility I encounter on every ride back home. incidentally, I am a member of several campaigns to develop the 'Go dutch' systems to improve safety for me and others in London.

Cyclists are no blameless angels , we need to educate cyclists as well. Dangerous cyclists injure pedestrians by jumping lights etc. Would I ever tell a pedestrian to wear a helmet? Certainly advise them to look both ways before they step into the road! And remember, cars drivers have a big metal box and airbags around them, not fresh air and lycra, and most serious injuries to drivers are caused in high speed RTC's.

And guys, I'm the last person to ask about crash avoidance technique, my wife's getting a little fed up picking me up from hospital. Just can't resist those fast descents! the best thing about going uphill is coming down the other side. Does wearing a helmet make me take more risks, I doubt it, dude I'm dressed in Lycra, more concerned about tearing my skin off. BUT, I believe it may help me avoid a worse head injury if I wear one.

Hippy69, I DO NOT want to try to discount the pain you must feel seeing the hunan results of road accidents, I would find your job very difficult. As Paul J says, surely the victims who were in cars or on foot need consideration, or, if helmets are the answer, should wear helmets.
With all due respect for your compassion and skill, I would no more take the advice of a nurse or a doctor on how to avoid an accident than the advice of a mechanic or panel beater.

Again, I really hope the nurses and EMTs here who are so sure about the wisdom of cycle helmets also advocate just as strongly for car-occupant helmets and pedestrian helmets.

All anecdotes aside. Jump on to YouTube and compare cycling in any UK/US city to any European city and you will see a huge difference. Take note of the types of bike, style of cycling, motorists attitude towards cyclists. All this contributes to a safer environment for cyclists. And guess what, hardly a helmet!

Here's a clip http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=a_8dGodhGtI&api_format=3&vndel=watch

Rather than advocate helmet use we should be lobbying for better laws and infrastructure for cyclists.

The wearing of helmets always seems to provoke the same old arguments.

I work as a nurse in a major trauma centre in London, and have been riding road bikes for most of my life. I never wore a helmet for years including 5 years as a cycle courier. I thought they looked s**t and doubted their ability to protect me.

So what made me change my mind? Frankly, seeing people die from preventable head injuries. People like me, out for a ride with friends or training alone. Pushing it too hard or just having the shit luck to be come across some idiot who isn't paying attention. I have also seen numerous men and women airlifted into my ER with serious isolated head injuries, whose lives are changed for ever due to their brain injury, maybe not 'dribbling' but functionally their lives have changed forever, and don't forget that of their families! Importantly, I've also seen many people walk out of hospital after having serious crashes with extensive damage to the helmets they have been wearing. The forces involved in crushing a cycle helmet are huge. NO helmet and those forces are applied directly to your skull.

I can also cite my own experiences of stacking the bike in a big way. My own helmet prevented a serious brain injury when I hit a parked truck (parked in a no parking zone) at full sprint. Mark Cavendish I am not, but fast enough, I hit the truck head first at 45-50km an hour. I broke my jaw and had multiple cuts and bruises, but nothing that was going to kill me, The helmet was screwed, there was a 2" dent in the frontal area, and extensive damage/spiderwebbing to the polystyrene over a much wider area. If I had not been wearing the helmet, who knows what I might be like now, the general view of neurosurgeons I work with is I'd probably be f***ed!

I'm not going to preach, or demand that laws should be changed, but personally, my lid goes on my head any time my bike hits the road.

Those that don't want to wear helmets carry on pulling out your evidence that they don't save lives, it's your choice.

Given you were a fire-fighter/EMT, you presumably also have seen lots of vehicle occupants with head injuries after crashes. Do you also recommend that people wear crash helmets when they drive their cars? If you do not, why not?

I believe that evidence shows cigarettes significantly increase the risk of a number of health problems including cancer, that the global climate is warming and is caused by man-made emissions (do you?), the earth is a spheroid, and that cyclist and pedestrian safety, along with public health overall is best served by engineering the roads - the helmet debate is at best a distraction from that.

Indeed, I know the evidence shows that cultures which invest their cyclist-safety faith in helmets have *worse* cyclist safety records than those which instead engineer the environment around the cyclist.

It's a *FACT* that the Netherlands has extremely low rates of helmet usage (near-0, other than amongst the youngest of children) compared to high-use countries like AU, UK and USA, while the Netherlands has much *better* safety.

The anglo-saxon helmet fetish has _provably_ *failed* to deliver safer cycling.

I'm sure that one of the reviewers would be more than happy to read and review your book. It does look interesting.

Drop the owners a line at info [at] road.cc and i'm sure they will help you out

Start with a story that will cause mixed opinions and open up discussions, then try to spark more debate by carrying on and making points about seatbelts.....

Then as the comments stop coming in, reveal that you have written a book all about your cycling travels and not just 1 but 5.

I like it, very clever and I am not trying to take anything away from the helmet debate either. I think its a very valid debate that needs scientists behind it.

You could have just sent one of the reviewers for the site a copy of your book and good a nice review out of it

But I doubt you need reviews having won a 2012 IPPY (Independent Publishers) Gold Medal Award

I'm really glad that you survived this awfull episode of your life and are well on the road to recovery. Helmet wearing or not; vunerable road users will never be safe until motorists are educated on how to drive in a manner which keeps those not surrounded by several tons of metal.

The nations that appear to be strongest on helmet compulsion the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, NZ and SA are also some of the most car-centric nations in the world. These same naations all appear to have the mentality of I have a car therefore I'm better than you and have nothing in place to protect vunerable road users. Compare that with some of the European countries where bicycles are a viable means of transport and legislation is in place to protect the cyclist and pedestrian. This extends to the non-urban roads where there is no infrastructure. Cycle in the mountains in Spain and a vehicle behind will wait till safe to pass and give you plenty of room. Here in Scotland I've had to pull in because of some idiot behind me gunning his engine impatient to overtake.

Helmets are a red herring, they fool motorists into thinking that you are 'protected' and do not change motorist behavior towards cyclists one iota.