It's a trivalent or worse response based on complex belief and observations
1) yes. It has next to no concrete demonstrated downside if you don't want to die of severe head injury excluding all other outcomes
2) yes. It alters your risk from life ending to merely disfiguring, or potentially quadriplegic, but at a significantly reduced rate compared to total risks unprotected on a bike.
3) yes. But, it won't stop other complex non head non neck related injury which can of course also be terminal, and has no strict bearing on their risk.
There is a confounding theory that wearing a helmet may make you take more risk.
There is a confounding theory that wearing a helmet makes you a target of abuse, attack and increases risk.
There are confounding stats on injury and death rates presenting at EMT and hospital which demand good statistics around increase in bike riding, age, sex, alcohol, drugs.
My personal belief is the confounding theories are bad logic to ride helmetless because they mistake second and third order effects and confuse risk and frequency against total population changes.
I live in an economy with compulsory bike helmets and I know emergency doctors none of whom seriously want this ended despite increases in survivable but horrific accidents for cyclists: prior to helmet law most of these people died.
My personal opinion is yes: you're a bloody idiot, literally and figuratively.
For this opinion you have to wear a well designed standards conforming helmet properly, with chinstrap done up and fitting. Otherwise it's performative and may be worse than useless.
4) No. If you are not engaged in risky activity, that is to say:
If you are riding
a) a safe commuter bicycle [1]
b) at safe commuter speeds [2]
c) on a safe separated/protected bike lane [3]
d) That is kept maintained in a safe state for the current weather
You probably don't need a helmet.
5) Yes, In other situations, you might want to consider it. [4][5]
--
[ note: It turns out that implementing a)-d) are actually attainable in a fairly fiscally sustainable way (see eg.: Netherlands, Denmark), but it may need something of a turnaround in many a local government's safety culture ]
[4] eg. when doing more dangerous activities like mountain biking or racing [5] or -of course- cycling in many places outside the netherlands or denmark. :-(
That is total BS because you are not taking into account everyone else driving around..
you can be the safest rider in the world, ride only at the proper speed, only in the proper place, that place is always well maintained and everything else you can thing of.. All it takes is someone else doing something irresponsible and you are screwed..
i.e: a drunk driver loose control of their car, it invade the bike lane at high speed and hit you.. you are in for a bad accident that could be made a little less bad if you were wearing a helmet, even while doing everything you said..
now, if you are riding alone, in the middle of nowhere with zero change of someone else screwing it up.. then sure, you can skip the helmet, but if you are riding on road even if you do everything right you still at risk and helmet will improve your odds of surviving if something bad happen..
We are mostly in "violent agreement" as it is called.
If you are on a separate / protected bike path (not on a road intended for cars), then there are no cars there, nor can they easily get on that path.
In practice such protections/barriers might range from moderately difficult to surmount (raised curbs ~ 50 km/h) ; nearly impossible to penetrate (row of trees, solid concrete wall, drainage ditch full of water ~ 80km/h); to outright having the bicycle path follow a different right of way altogether( >80 km/h ).
In general, the routes for cars, bikes, and pedestrians should be separated wherever there are large differences in speed that can lead to danger.
Edit: See also one of the sources for the video, eg. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/5/11/e008052.full.pd... The conclusion is that wearing a helmet doesn't help as much as physically separating bicycles from other traffic. While it may be good to be protected in case of accident, it's much better to avoid having the accident altogether.
Here is another confounding theory: drivers give cyclists in helmets less space when they overtake them. Seems that they assume a cyclist wearing a helmet is more experienced so the driver gives less space.
I only wear a helmet on trails and long road rides. On trails, the false feeling of confidence I get from knowing I have a helmet gives results in faster times on my various trail circuits. Once I forgot my helmet and decided to ride anyhow and my times were bad because I was too chicken-shit to go balls out, always tapping the brakes. The psychologic effect is massive.
I'm a rock climber as well. Climbers will regale you with harrowing tales of all the times they thought they were gonna die, but when you look at the accident reports, more often than not it wasn't the "scary" parts of the climb where they got hurt. It's the things like rapelling where lapses in situational awareness lead to absent minded mistakes. When you fear for your life you are not absent minded.
And so Alex Honnold is still alive, even though by all "reasonable" statistical judgement he should be dead a hundred times over.
Yes, I've read that too. It's subtly different to targeted abuse because there's no malign intent, they just subconsciously don't give you as much space.
All your arguments also apply to wearing a helmet while walking. The rate of injury while walking or cycling are similar. Do you wear a helmet while walking ?
Heh, good point actually. Made me wonder. I guess the rate of accidents for cyclists is still much higher than for pedestrians, as walkways are usually even more separated from roads. Also, let's imagine I ride my bike along a busy street with lots of small alleys to the right which are mostly obstructed by buildings or trees. I have right of way. Even if I travel at the safe but unrealistic 12.4kmh that came up as a safe speed of travel in another comment, I might not have enough time to brake for a drunk driver confusing their gas and brake pedal and shooting out the alley at 60kmh. As a pedestrian I approach the alley at maybe 6kmh and my chances at jumping backwards in time should be significantly higher. Admittedly, this is a random example I just pulled out of my butt with no data to back it up. I guess in the end it is up to everyone to draw the line somewhere between comfort and safety. This can be backed up by data, but is ultimately subjective. Even with a helmet, I can get run over fatally when walking somewhere. I could lower the risk further by just staying home as much a possible. Am I willing to?
For complete consistency, anyone who criticizes bicyclists for declining to wear a helmet ought not only to wear a helmet while walking, but also whenever they ride in a car.
I don't know anything about helmets in particular. About a year ago I did some reading into risk compensation, the general theory that safety interventions cause people to take greater risks leading to worse outcomes than there would be without the intervention.
There's plenty of theoretical speculation. It's attractive to a certain sort of contrarian who thinks they're smarter than domain experts. But any time anyone has actually collected real world data they haven't found the effect.
Given it's been decades since the invention of the theory, and there's no evidence for it, at this point I think it's on the proponents to do some actual research. Until they do, I think we should disregard the speculation.
cyclists live longer than the average non-cyclist. Even cyclists without helmets live longer than the average non-cyclist. Going off the stats, even a bloody idiot non-helmet wearing cyclist has a better survival strategy a typical non-cyclist.
Of course generalized safety data means almost nothing to you specifically, because the situations you get into are not general, they are very particular, and you may be particularly well suited to manage the trouble you're in, or not.
I'm a regular city cyclist. Most of the time, you won't need a helmet. But on the very low number of occasions you do need one, they will save your life. It's worth wearing one just for these occasions.
I've come off my bike unexpectedly twice. One at low speed, one at higher speed (~30mph). Both were due to diesel spills on a wet road surface which were not visible. In both cases the loss of traction on a corner or lane change meant an immediate slip and contact with the road surface, and due to the momentum carrying your body forward, that does mean your head smashing into the road just after your arm causing your body to rotate on impact. I walked away with a fractured finger and a grazed chin. Without the helmet I'd have either died or had a severe head injury.
I've unfortunately known several friends and acquaintances who either died immediately or who died after coming out of comas after having accidents while not wearing a helmet. It's these events which have caused me to always wear one, and they have saved my life on a few occasions. While cars have sometimes been involved, mostly these events occurred without the involvement of any other vehicle (other than people selfishly brimming their tanks while filling up, only to have it spill out on corners). People have even got brain damage falling sideways off their bikes while stationary. Wearing a helmet, for me, has been something I will always do after seeing the consequences of not wearing one.
It really depends on where and how you bike. In the US? Maybe. In Netherland? No.
The countries with the most cyclists don't have a lot of helmet wearers, without any problems. If you want to wear a helmet, you should. And if you go mountain biking or racing, you definitely should. But for normal every day traffic on safe bike paths, there's no need.
Of course you could argue that if you do wear a helmet, then you're safer in case you do get an accident, but the same is true when not biking. Are you an idiot for not wearing a helmet indoors (where most accidents happen)? Are you an idiot for not wearing a helmet as a pedestrian? Are you an idiot for not constantly wearing lots of protective gear? Ultimately everything is a trade-off, and there are many reasons you might not want to wear a helmet.
There is a difference if you fall off a bike moving at 30km/h or fall down while walking.
In the Netherlands the risk of using a bicycle is probably vastly lower than elsewhere. All cars are used to bicycles being everywhere. Most drivers probably use bicycles, too.
There are tons of bike lanes that are physically separate from car lanes. Etc. So one could argue that the risk of a severe injury from riding a bicycle is so low that you feel it's ok not to wear a helmet. Clearly most dutch people think this way.
Exactly. There's also a difference between falling off a bike at 30km/h or at 15 km/h (a common bike speed for most people). And there's a difference between falling off a bike and falling down the stairs.
There are always risks, different ways to mitigate those risks, and trade-offs around those risks and mitigations.
Not all bike accidents involve cars. Sometimes people hit rough pavement and wipe out all by themselves, and it's quite possible to hit your head on concrete or asphalt when this happens. Humans didn't evolve to handle hitting their heads on rock-hard surfaces at high speeds; we evolved to walk around at very low speeds, and not generally fall in a way to hit our heads on things (because primitive humans were walking, not riding mechanical wheeled contraptions that kept their legs trapped).
I don't think it's the reach itself, but the fact that we're trained to look in the side mirror before opening the door. And are generally aware of the fact that bikes exist. That last one is pretty fundamental in all aspects of traffic safety.
I mean, Australian drivers are generally aware to check for kangaroos, but American drivers, not so much. The more of something there is, the more traffic awareness of it there will be.
FYI most people don't actually do that in the Netherlands. I know people on youtube claim all Dutch drivers are taught this but that's not true. I've never seen someone use that technique.
I live in a smaller city in the UK so my experience is likely much different from those living in larger cities.
I never wear a helmet when riding a bike and used to commute daily. I've never had an accident involving traffic and have come off my bike less than a handful of times commuting. It seems like the odds of me coming off my bike and hitting my head is very low.
I'm not averse to helmets I just don't think wearing one makes sense for my commute. I'd rather wear a woolen hat. I do wear a helmet when I go rock climbing and would probably wear one if I was commuting in London.
I mainly move by bike. I live in a city where it is common. I hadn't worn a bike helmet for the most part of my life. I happened to wear a helmet the few times I fell and it didn't help in those particular situations.
Still, I decided I should wear one. I've heard of accidents where it definitely helped, or (sadly) would probably have helped. Some friends of mine push people to wear one quite hard. At worst it is useless, at best it can save me. Better safe than sorry, blah blah blah.
Also, like lights, it might also contribute to your image of a responsible biker, and might help others on the road be nicer to you. It might inspire confidence. I do feel like this when seeing someone on a bike with lights and a helmet. Of course you need to be extra nice on the road if it is true.
Maybe wear one? You know, even if your country has a strong bike culture and good infrastructure. Enter a sport shop, buy one, tie it to your bike when not in use so you don't forget it. Done. Move on to the next problem in your life. What are you trying to achieve by not wearing one if it's not straight laziness like me?
You can still have accident with other bikers, you still have to cross roads with cars sometimes, you can still hit random stuff. Even if people are nice and behave and you are careful. Shit happens.
Do it for people who like you. You are not dumb by not wearing a helmet, but dying while a helmet could have prevented the catastrophe is dumb.
I always wear my helmet on my bike but when I take a Lyft bike, I'm almost always just trying to get home and don't wear one. Just a convenience thing. One day it'll catch up to me.
But in the counterfactual, would I die earlier from something else because I'd lack exercise from not biking enough. No.
Still, ultimately, I'm going to do it this way. I value my devil may care identity too much.
As amateur cyclist, I must say: yes!
In 2022 there is no acceptable reason to not wear helmets: they are light, cheap and very well aerated, I barely forgot to have it on after few minutes.
A car going down a roadway without a driver because he got flung away from the steering wheel in a sharp turn is a lot more dangerous than a bike rolling down without a driver. They are not the same thing.
On a race track, sure. But the default safety appliances when driving on normal roads are your seatbelt and airbags. They're analagous to bike helmets here.
You just have to anticipate the actions and reactions of the monkeys. Very rare cases, when this is not possible.
If you want to minimize your risk to get hurt in an accident, it is way way more efficient to minimize your participation in traffic.
So not at all? All helmets and seatbelts do is protect yourself, a little, so nether should be mandated by government force. "Wear this to save your life or we'll kill you!"
Seatbelts absolutely do not just protect you "a little". I've seen people flung from cars, having their limbs ripped off in the process, whilst the person sitting next to them (with a seatbelt on) was completely fine, save a few bruises.
How about people minding their own business and letting others live their lives ? Or are we gonna micro-manage every aspects of our lives through laws until freedom is just an illusion ?
1) yes. It has next to no concrete demonstrated downside if you don't want to die of severe head injury excluding all other outcomes
2) yes. It alters your risk from life ending to merely disfiguring, or potentially quadriplegic, but at a significantly reduced rate compared to total risks unprotected on a bike.
3) yes. But, it won't stop other complex non head non neck related injury which can of course also be terminal, and has no strict bearing on their risk.
There is a confounding theory that wearing a helmet may make you take more risk.
There is a confounding theory that wearing a helmet makes you a target of abuse, attack and increases risk.
There are confounding stats on injury and death rates presenting at EMT and hospital which demand good statistics around increase in bike riding, age, sex, alcohol, drugs.
My personal belief is the confounding theories are bad logic to ride helmetless because they mistake second and third order effects and confuse risk and frequency against total population changes.
I live in an economy with compulsory bike helmets and I know emergency doctors none of whom seriously want this ended despite increases in survivable but horrific accidents for cyclists: prior to helmet law most of these people died.
My personal opinion is yes: you're a bloody idiot, literally and figuratively.
For this opinion you have to wear a well designed standards conforming helmet properly, with chinstrap done up and fitting. Otherwise it's performative and may be worse than useless.
I wear a helmet. My helmet of choice is protec.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-07135-1 is well written.