[brooksby]

The Cult of Bike Helmets
The history—and danger—of a modern safety obsession.

you don’t have to read it, y’know…

https://slate.com/technology/2023/01/bike-helmets-cyclist-deaths-do-you-need-to-wear.html

Topic

[eburtthebike]

Brauchsel wrote:

I don’t think it should be a legal requirement, but I’m baffled by the mindset of those who see it as an impediment.

Because they have very little benefit and massive disbenefits?

Helmets were sold on the promise of saving thousands of lives, by using the worst of bad science, and yet the death rate of cyclists does not fall as helmet wearing rates increase, rather the opposite, as the article points out; so they don’t do what they are supposed to do.

The disbenefits are, relatively, huge.  They deter people from riding, they make cycling look much more dangerous than it is, cyclists who wear them have more collisions, and they are a distraction from what really works.  The people who don’t ride lose the overwhelming health benefits, get sicker quicker and cost health services billions.  The people who drive a car rather than ride a bike pollute the planet and cause danger to the rest of us.  The overall effects of helmet compulsion and propaganda campaigns are massive and negative, and they don’t even do what they are supposed to do.

It is no coincidence that in countries which have actually addressed the safety of cyclists e.g. Holland, no-one wears a helmet but cycling is much safer than in countries where helmets are compulsory.

By any rational measure, helmets are a failed policy, and like you, I’m baffled by the mindset of people who think they work, and even more baffled by people who think that they should be made compulsory.

[hawkinspeter]

JustTryingToGetFromAtoB wrote

JustTryingToGetFromAtoB wrote:

A guy on here was snippy with me once because my kids wear helmets when riding a bike… can’t remember who it was. I suspect he would have been less snippy if he’d met my kids… they are muppets. Funny, but still muppets.

I remember BehindTheBikeSheds/CyclingInBeastMode (or whatever he called himself) was very much an anti-helmet zealot and often referred to them as “noddy hats”. I bet it was him. (I think he was banned after getting into heated arguments and possibly some racist/conspiracy claptrap that he posted. Shame as he also posted some very insightful comments about bikes and equipment) 

[hawkinspeter]

Brauchsel wrote:

Having fallen off a (stationary) lorry and cracked my head resulting in a rather worrying spell of blindness, I would wear head protection if working at height. If I thought a sudden gust or passing car or icy patch was going to take me off an unstable stepladder, I wouldn’t go up it. If I regularly walked at 15mph in the same carriageway as 2-tonne pedestrians passing me at 40mph, I’d wear a helmet. If I thought that my personal risk, as opposed to a population-level statistic, of having a serious head injury in the shower was significant I’d do something to address that too. 

You might be braver, or a better cyclist, or just plain luckier than me. That’s fine, and you can do what you like. My experience is that hitting your head when falling off a bike a) happens regardless of how careful I am and b) hurts a lot less when wearing a helmet. That’s enough for me. 

I’m not trying to pass any judgement on personal decisions about wearing bike helmets, and I nearly always do wear a bike helmet when cycling (I may well be luckier as I’ve only ever hit my head/helmet on low hanging branches). It just bugs me that so many people think that bike helmets are anything to do with road safety when they are so very far down the list of what works.

[eburtthebike]

Brauchsel wrote:

“All the preaching is performed by police/medical professionals”

Yeah, what would they know about road collisions or head trauma?

Very little.  Just because someone is educated in one field, it doesn’t mean that they are an expert in everything.  Doctors and police are not experts in collision mechanics or the benefits/risks of cycling, and tend to be influenced by the collisions they see, thus hardly objective.

[eburtthebike]

Brauchsel wrote:

Jimmy Ray Will wrote:

However, the reason I generally don’t wear a helmet is down to my assessment of personal risk. Am I going to be doing anything that takes my risk of falling off higher than the base norm? If not, then the statistics strongly suggest that I’m not falling off, or if I do fall, it’ll be due to a freak occurence. Then, should I fall off in that freak occurence, how likely am I to actually hit my head? 

And that’s fine: it’s your head, and not my place to tell you what to do with it. 

My assessment is of risk vs cost of mitigation. It’s very unlikely that I will fall off and hit my head, true. But the consequences of my doing so could be very unpleasant. For me, sticking a helmet on to ameliorate those consequences is worthwhile: any expense or inconvenience is marginal. 

I only very rarely step in dogshit or on broken glass in normal daylight conditions. I always wear shoes though. 

Except that Jimmy Ray Will’s assessment is right and yours is wrong.  Do you wear a helmet when walking?  Because that has the same risk of death per mile as cycling, so if your risk assessment is valid, you should either start wearing a walking helmet or ditch the cycling helmet.

[JustTryingToGetFromAtoB]

eburtthebike wrote:

eburtthebike wrote:

Adam Sutton wrote:

It amuses me this eye rolling attitude “cult of bike helmets” jog on FFS. If you don’t want to wear a helmet fine, but Christ on a bike (with a helmet? who cares) people can be way more preachy about not wearing helmets.

The other way around surely?   I’ve never heard anyone be criticised for wearing a helmet, but the helmet proponents are not shy in expressing their opinion of someone not wearing one, and I’ve been on the receiving end many times of their religious zealotry.

A guy on here was snippy with me once because my kids wear helmets when riding a bike… can’t remember who it was. I suspect he would have been less snippy if he’d met my kids… they are muppets. Funny, but still muppets.

[eburtthebike]

Adam Sutton wrote:

It amuses me this eye rolling attitude “cult of bike helmets” jog on FFS. If you don’t want to wear a helmet fine, but Christ on a bike (with a helmet? who cares) people can be way more preachy about not wearing helmets.

The other way around surely?   I’ve never heard anyone be criticised for wearing a helmet, but the helmet proponents are not shy in expressing their opinion of someone not wearing one, and I’ve been on the receiving end many times of their religious zealotry.

[Brauchsel]

Having fallen off a

Having fallen off a (stationary) lorry and cracked my head resulting in a rather worrying spell of blindness, I would wear head protection if working at height. If I thought a sudden gust or passing car or icy patch was going to take me off an unstable stepladder, I wouldn’t go up it. If I regularly walked at 15mph in the same carriageway as 2-tonne pedestrians passing me at 40mph, I’d wear a helmet. If I thought that my personal risk, as opposed to a population-level statistic, of having a serious head injury in the shower was significant I’d do something to address that too. 

You might be braver, or a better cyclist, or just plain luckier than me. That’s fine, and you can do what you like. My experience is that hitting your head when falling off a bike a) happens regardless of how careful I am and b) hurts a lot less when wearing a helmet. That’s enough for me. 

[hawkinspeter]

Brauchsel wrote:

“All the preaching is performed by police/medical professionals”

Yeah, what would they know about road collisions or head trauma? It’s been well established that we’ve had enough of experts. 

They may well have a lot of experience in their own domains, but that’s hardly going to be applicable to engineering issues of head protection and dynamics of how cyclists are likely to contact cars/objects etc. It’s like asking a computer engineer to wire your house.

What really bugs me is the police asking nonsense questions about whether cyclists were wearing a helmet when the circumstances of the collision make it utterly meaningless.

[brooksby]

I think the problem there is

I think the problem there is where someone goes into A&E with a broken leg and the doctor says it was a good job they were wearing a helmet…  And there are plenty of similar anecdotes out there.

[Hirsute]

A lot of police that comment

A lot of police that comment are just ordinary coppers, no specific knowledge. RTC investigators deal with the cause of a collision not the efficacy of helmets. Surgeons deal with the trauma outcome not sure they have any knowledge of the helmet design or limitations of them.

[Brauchsel]

“All the preaching is

“All the preaching is performed by police/medical professionals”

Yeah, what would they know about road collisions or head trauma? It’s been well established that we’ve had enough of experts. 

[mattw]

That’s interesting, given

That’s interesting, given that writers for slate.com are not exactly the sharpest group of minds on the internet:

In the past 50 years, as helmet designs have become more sophisticated, adult cycling deaths in the United States have not declined—they’ve quadrupled. As I dug into the history of these humble foam-and-plastic shells, I learned that helmets have a far more complicated relationship to bike safety than many seem ready to admit.

[hawkinspeter]

Adam Sutton wrote:

Same. Since starting cycling again a few years ago I have had two accidents, both at low speed and not involving a car. One where a bee flew into my face and I fell off, the other on a greasy road where the bikd slipped out on a corner and I hit my head on a kerb. Both instances I was glad I was wearing a helmet.

It amuses me this eye rolling attitude “cult of bike helmets” jog on FFS. If you don’t want to wear a helmet fine, but Christ on a bike (with a helmet? who cares) people can be way more preachy about not wearing helmets.

All the preaching is performed by police/medical professionals and general public that consider it to be a sign of mental deficiency to cycle without a helmet despite the evidence of far more dangerous activities that they don’t consider a helmet to be appropriate for. As Saint Boardsman puts it, helmets aren’t even in the top ten of things that would keep cyclists safe.

[hawkinspeter]

HoarseMann wrote:

Brauchsel wrote:

only very rarely step in dogshit or on broken glass in normal daylight conditions. I always wear shoes though. 

I always wear shoes when cycling, even though there’s less risk of stepping on glass or in poo.

But do you wear a helmet when walking? If not, then why not? People fall over and hit their heads when walking. Surely it’s no less onerous putting on a helmet for a walk to the shops, than it is for riding there on a bike?

Far more important is the shower helmet, the stairs helmet and the lightbulb changing/ladder helmet

[Author]

Replies