Did you wear a......

[BBatesokc]

That's funny, because that's pretty much EXACTLY what you did to my post. And I never said that helmets were bad, I said that MANDATORY HELMET LAWS are curiously counterproductive. ....

Actually, that's not what I did at all. In fact I left the option to wear a helmet or not up to the rider or parent. I also said you're probably more likely to receive a head injury some other way beyond ring a bike, skateboard, etc.

I was simply pointing out links are fine - and often necessary to make a specific point. However, this topic is way too vague and open for debate. Each side of the debate could post endless links and still nobody prove their point.

What I was pointing out is that while I agree more riders on the road would be great, its doesn't negate the importance many people put on helmets. The ONLY time myself or our son ever when to the hospital with an injury was from bike riding or roller blading with no safety gear. That's just our experience - others may vary.

[BBatesokc]

Do biathlon competitors wear helmets? Not to point out that your wrong about how all pro skiers wear a helmet, but that's one that comes to mind....

So, by their example are you endorsing no helmet while skiing or endorsing skiing while carrying a rifle? -- because I'm thinking that could be the solution to long lift lines!

[MadMonk]

I've got a helmet that I use when I ride trails, etc., but when just tooling around the neighborhood, I don't wear it. My kids were the same way. Just hanging around riding the neighborhood and driveways, they didn't wear one, but when they go to friends in other neighborhoods, or to go on what they call "exploring adventures", they'd wear them. We never really wore any knee or elbow pads though, except when skating. I think most people realize the benefits of wearing a helmet and are encouraging their use, but not being fanatical about it.

[jerrywall]

These things are always cultural.

I can tell you that of the thousands of cyclists I came across during my time in California, almost zero were not wearing a helmet. As in way, way less than 1%. I honestly believe people don't even think about it.

It's just like seat belts.... It wasn't that long ago a big percentage of people didn't wear them. Now, most people won't even put the car in drive without all their passengers buckled up, let alone themselves.

After a while all these things become the norm and habit, and for good reason.

I was gonna make this same comparison. When I was a kid it was common for folks to not wear seat belts. I never saw a booster seat and car seats were only for babies. Although I remember folks carrying babies in their laps in cars. Does that mean we should go back to that behavior?

[SoonerDave]

Bike helmet, knee pads, and elbow pads when you were a kid? Why as parents today do the majority put their kids in bubble wrap to go outside and play? I have raised three kids the youngest is 10 and have never made them wear any of it and some of he comments I've gotten through the years just cracks me up....I don't care that others strap their kids up... To each their own, I just can't figure out went it all,changed and why....

While waiting on some other stuff to finish, let me take a stab at your question...re the "bubble wrap."

I think it's because we have, for the first time, raised a generation to react in fear rather than react in knowledge. It isn't just in safety equipment or acceptability of helmets; it extends for the first time I can recall to nearly every facet of life.

We have developed this notion that it is acceptable if not preferable to recoil in fear at the notion of the possibility of an adverse consequence. We are able, through social media and cellphones, to spread the adverse consequence of *one* ugly reality - a bike wreck, a dog bite, a football injury, doesn't really matter - to the entire world in a matter of seconds. We sometime hear them referred to as the "daily outrage." These compelling visual images become the norm even though, in the light of reality, there exists the fact that they're *not*. The visual images drive us to react emotionally, out of fear, not rationally, out of knowledge.

For every kid who has a bad bike spill, there are *thousands* who rode their bikes without incident. For every bad dog bite, there are *thousands* of folks who took their dogs out without incident. For every bad football injury, there are thousands who played without being hurt - and I say that as the father of a kid who endured about as ugly an injury as you're going to see (and is 100% just fine now). This idea extends even to the way we practice medicine - we sell screenings on the basis of fear because *one* out of 500 or 1000 or whatever will be found to have XYZ ailment, and imply "you are at risk" if you aren't screened. How many commercials for medical procedures these days are sold on the basis of having "peace of mind," even if the probability of having the ailment-du-jour is 1:100,000 or 1:1,000,000 or even 1:100?

This whole notion has engendered the idea that we want a substantial degree of absolute safety in everything we do, and such a guarantee doesn't exist. A generation ago, we understood that in ways we don't know. We had a kind of wisdom, of common sense, that we've willingly lost.

Does that make bike pads and helmets a bad idea? Of course not. Does it make helmets and better equipment in football a wasteful idea? Surely not. What they represent is the opposite end of two very serious extremes; the "plastic bubble" extreme on the one end, and the "devil-may-care", lassies-faire attitude of "hoping" everything goes alright on the other. Reality is, as it so often seems to be, in the middle somewhere.

Right now, for myself, at the ripe age of 51, I find myself a lot more cautious than I was at, say, 15 or 25. Maybe its just getting old, maybe its appreciating risks I didn't appreciate before, who knows. But I also believe that, in those 51 years, I've seen American culture change to one much more predisposed to the "don't take the risk" end. I don't think, for example, the current generation would *ever* have gone to the moon. I can't fathom members of this generation hopping the Mayflower and setting out for a new world.

My kids wore helmets and pads riding their bikes; when I as a kid, I fell down so often trying to learn that my legs were black and blue, and I'm sure at some point my pediatrician was convinced my folks were beating me. (I was a horrendously uncoordinated and physically untalented kid). And it took some convincing for me to let my son play football - but despite his injury that I would give nearly anything to go back and undo, giving him that broader joy of playing football - however briefly - is something of which I would have hated to deprive him precisely *because* of how much joy it *did* give him - in *spite* of that injury. And he'd gladly have played into college had he possessed the requisite physical talent to play at that level....but that's a different issue.

The solution? While I believe society's problems are spiritual at their core (and THAT's also an entirely different discussion), information is next in line. We should be demanding more information about the *reality* of risks we're being taught to fear. We all know that winning the lottery is a hundreds-of-millions-to-one shot; let's hear the same risks for all the *other* things we're being sold. Too much of our decision-making is based on *one* bad example extrapolated to an entire population - and the reality of that can be seen in the absurd safety equipment and warnings plastered on nearly every retail product all because *one* person did something stupid, and a manufacturer was the one held responsible.

I look at how we've changed, and lament the loss of boldness, of fortitude, of courage, but I also see that more information can, when coupled with the right amounts of common sense and critical thinking, can identify stupid risks we no longer need to take. Right now, we are simply at a pendulum point closer to fear-based reaction rather than fact-based, and my hope is that, eventually, it swings back.

Hope that makes some sense.

[Just the facts]

Every expert skier wears a helmet, so I'd suggest as an amateur you do too. Also, speed isn't always a factor. Packed snow is as hard as concrete but hospitals are far.

Well that's your choice, but if there's one area I'll make my kids protect, it's their head. They'll use a helmet to ride a bike, and if they play football they'll know signs of a concussion.

NASCAR drivers wear a helmet and have a HANS device in their car. I have yet to see anyone driving a car on a city street with a helmet on (but I'll bet it is coming soon).

I have been hit by cars 2X while riding my bike and neither time was I wearing a helmet and neither time did I receive a head injury - despite
sliding across both hoods. I don't make my kids wear a helmet either but the ex-wife would freak-out every time she saw them without one. Personally, I am with Urbanized in that being covered in protective gear causes people to take more chances that they ever would without them. As proof, just look at the NFL and the number of concussion since the introduction of the helmet. You would never see some linebacker leading with the top of their head if they didn't have a helmet on.

[Urbanized]

Once again, for the record, I am not discouraging helmet use, in fact I think it is a great idea. That said, MANDATING them is an outsized response to a problem that is tiny in the overall scheme of things. Mandating helmets in cars or bullet proof vests for all citizens would have far more impact on public health and traumatic injury, and those things will NEVER happen. You would also have a very similar impact on public health if you mandated helmets be worn by people walking down the street.

When you combine the tiny positive impact a bicycle helmet law would have, versus how many people would not ride bikes at all if they were forced to wear a helmet, you would have a very negative unintended effect on public health, as was shown in Australia. THIS is the position I am arguing, and it is backed up by cycling advocates and urban planners galore.

Simply put, statistically you are better off riding with no helmet than you are not riding at all.

To me this is not an anti-helmet question or a "freedom" question. For instance, I am a motorcyclist and have zero problem with motorcycle helmet laws. Due to travel speeds, you are much more likely to suffer traumatic head injury on a motorcycle than on a bicycle, and the public health benefit strongly tips in favor of requiring helmets. That law is MUCH more analogous to the automobile seatbelt law, which has saved hundreds of thousands of lives. The difference though, is that if a helmet law deters a motorcycle rider from participating, or if a seatbelt law deters someone from riding/driving a car, there is no unintended negative health consequence to the public's level of fitness, or to the environment. If you keep a bunch of people off of bicycles, there most certainly is.

By the way, for the record, the state of California has no bicycle helmet law for adults. An attempt last year to pass one has met strong resistance from bicycling advocates, for the exact reasons I have outlined previously: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/0...n_6716100.html

[Urbanized]

Here's another article from Pete's old stomping grounds: Legislator sees safety in adult helmet law; cyclists see mostly harm - LA Times

..."We don't want the law to say to people, 'You should really ride a bike because it's great for your health, but you have to wear a helmet because biking is super dangerous,'" said Eric Bruins, the policy director for the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition. "If you hear that, are you really going to go out and ride?"

Others fear such a law could complicate bike-sharing systems in San Francisco and San Diego, which rent to tourists and commuters on an hourly basis. Helmets are not provided. CitiBike in New York City has recorded more than 15 million trips without any deaths, according to New York Department of Transportation data...

One study from Britain suggests that cyclists who wear helmets are more likely to be hit by a car. A University of Bath psychology researcher outfitted a bicycle with a sensor that recorded the passing distance of more than 2,500 cars, buses and trucks. On average, researcher Ian Walker said, vehicles gave 3.3 additional inches of passing room when the cyclist wasn't wearing a helmet.

One possible explanation? Drivers see cyclists with helmets as "more serious" and "less likely to make unexpected moves," he wrote.

[jerrywall]

Simply put, statistically you are better off riding with no helmet than you are not riding at all.

To me this is not an anti-helmet question or a "freedom" question. For instance, I am a motorcyclist and have zero problem with motorcycle helmet laws. Due to travel speeds, you are much more likely to suffer traumatic head injury on a motorcycle than on a bicycle, and the public health benefit strongly tips in favor of requiring helmets. That law is MUCH more analogous to the automobile seatbelt law, which has saved hundreds of thousands of lives. The difference though, is that if a helmet law deters a motorcycle rider from participating, or if a seatbelt law deters someone from riding/driving a car, there is no unintended negative health consequence to the public's level of fitness, or to the environment. If you keep a bunch of people off of bicycles, there most certainly is.

You had me until here. There's either a net benefit to requiring helmets or not, and how it affects participation, IMO, isn't one of the factors that should be included. I think adults should be able to make their own decisions regardless (it's more reasonable to have laws in place for children who don't have the maturity to make informed decisions). The line I would draw would be if a behavior could put others at risk. Requiring life jacks for example, on boats, make sense, since the search and rescue operations can put others at direct risk.

[Urbanized]

From the HuffPost piece I quoted above, regarding the proposed Cali law:

Melissa Balmer, the [California Bicycle Coalition's] media director, told The Huffington Post that the group is not anti-helmet. But mandating them gives people the idea that biking is more dangerous than it is, she said.

“Then it’s a sport -- it’s not just a pleasurable pastime,” Balmer said of the feeling that helmet laws give people, especially women.

Balmer said cycling in Australia sharply declined after an all-ages helmet law took effect. According to a World Transport Policy and Practice study, the rate of cycling participation in Australia from 1985 to 2011 was 22.3 percent less than the rate of population growth.

The real solutions to bicycling dangers, Balmer said, are fewer cars on the road, more bike lanes and protected bike lanes. Focusing on helmets over those infrastructure improvements is only turning biking converts away, she said.

“We really want to encourage people to replace those short trips that we take by car and ride a bike as a way to incorporate your daily exercise into getting your errands done,” Balmer explained. “When we mandate helmet laws, we find that the people who are the safest bicyclists -- the people that are taking the short trip down a couple of blocks to get some milk or to ride for a short trip with their family to the park -- those are the people who go, ‘You know what, I just don’t want to,'" wear a helmet, usually because it’s inconvenient to carry around or keep stored.

Balmer pointed to famously bike-friendly cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen, where helmets are neither required nor common. One study found that The Netherlands experienced a 45 percent increase in bicycling from 1980 to 2005, and a 58 percent decrease in bike-related fatalities.

[dankrutka]

Why is it that every sucky thing in life come from this generation?

Have you kicked those damn kids off your lawn?!?

[SoonerDave]

From the HuffPost piece I quoted above, regarding the proposed Cali law:

Lots of really frustrating correlation/causation statistics issues in that piece. Not nearly enough information in that one snippet IMHO to draw a completely informed picture either way.

For myself, I tend toward a no-helmet-law person. Each individual needs to assess their own risks and act accordingly, and not be criminalized for failing to do what someone else thinks is in their own best interest.

I *do* think, however, the idea that creating a perception of risk that is larger than the actual risk is at the very core of my earlier post. We see the grisly consequences of one or two realities; we *never* hear the real-world probabilities such a grisly event will be visited on any one person. And then we legislate that way. I'm probably naive, but that's not in my book a very sound way to construct public policy.

[MadMonk]

Appropriate comic from today:

[tfvc.org]

[Tundra]

While waiting on some other stuff to finish, let me take a stab at your question...re the "bubble wrap."

I think it's because we have, for the first time, raised a generation to react in fear rather than react in knowledge. It isn't just in safety equipment or acceptability of helmets; it extends for the first time I can recall to nearly every facet of life.

We have developed this notion that it is acceptable if not preferable to recoil in fear at the notion of the possibility of an adverse consequence. We are able, through social media and cellphones, to spread the adverse consequence of *one* ugly reality - a bike wreck, a dog bite, a football injury, doesn't really matter - to the entire world in a matter of seconds. We sometime hear them referred to as the "daily outrage." These compelling visual images become the norm even though, in the light of reality, there exists the fact that they're *not*. The visual images drive us to react emotionally, out of fear, not rationally, out of knowledge.

For every kid who has a bad bike spill, there are *thousands* who rode their bikes without incident. For every bad dog bite, there are *thousands* of folks who took their dogs out without incident. For every bad football injury, there are thousands who played without being hurt - and I say that as the father of a kid who endured about as ugly an injury as you're going to see (and is 100% just fine now). This idea extends even to the way we practice medicine - we sell screenings on the basis of fear because *one* out of 500 or 1000 or whatever will be found to have XYZ ailment, and imply "you are at risk" if you aren't screened. How many commercials for medical procedures these days are sold on the basis of having "peace of mind," even if the probability of having the ailment-du-jour is 1:100,000 or 1:1,000,000 or even 1:100?

This whole notion has engendered the idea that we want a substantial degree of absolute safety in everything we do, and such a guarantee doesn't exist. A generation ago, we understood that in ways we don't know. We had a kind of wisdom, of common sense, that we've willingly lost.

Does that make bike pads and helmets a bad idea? Of course not. Does it make helmets and better equipment in football a wasteful idea? Surely not. What they represent is the opposite end of two very serious extremes; the "plastic bubble" extreme on the one end, and the "devil-may-care", lassies-faire attitude of "hoping" everything goes alright on the other. Reality is, as it so often seems to be, in the middle somewhere.

Right now, for myself, at the ripe age of 51, I find myself a lot more cautious than I was at, say, 15 or 25. Maybe its just getting old, maybe its appreciating risks I didn't appreciate before, who knows. But I also believe that, in those 51 years, I've seen American culture change to one much more predisposed to the "don't take the risk" end. I don't think, for example, the current generation would *ever* have gone to the moon. I can't fathom members of this generation hopping the Mayflower and setting out for a new world.

My kids wore helmets and pads riding their bikes; when I as a kid, I fell down so often trying to learn that my legs were black and blue, and I'm sure at some point my pediatrician was convinced my folks were beating me. (I was a horrendously uncoordinated and physically untalented kid). And it took some convincing for me to let my son play football - but despite his injury that I would give nearly anything to go back and undo, giving him that broader joy of playing football - however briefly - is something of which I would have hated to deprive him precisely *because* of how much joy it *did* give him - in *spite* of that injury. And he'd gladly have played into college had he possessed the requisite physical talent to play at that level....but that's a different issue.

The solution? While I believe society's problems are spiritual at their core (and THAT's also an entirely different discussion), information is next in line. We should be demanding more information about the *reality* of risks we're being taught to fear. We all know that winning the lottery is a hundreds-of-millions-to-one shot; let's hear the same risks for all the *other* things we're being sold. Too much of our decision-making is based on *one* bad example extrapolated to an entire population - and the reality of that can be seen in the absurd safety equipment and warnings plastered on nearly every retail product all because *one* person did something stupid, and a manufacturer was the one held responsible.

I look at how we've changed, and lament the loss of boldness, of fortitude, of courage, but I also see that more information can, when coupled with the right amounts of common sense and critical thinking, can identify stupid risks we no longer need to take. Right now, we are simply at a pendulum point closer to fear-based reaction rather than fact-based, and my hope is that, eventually, it swings back.

Hope that makes some sense.

You put my exact thoughts, into the perfect explanation.

[Tundra]

Have you kicked those damn kids off your lawn?!?

My wife tells me all the time, I'm going to be that guy... I already water and mow the yard in my black socks and sandals

[Laramie]

Growing up, we were encouraged to wear helmets. We never did. One day, I went to visit my friend; heard he was in the hospital--hit something in the street which tossed him into a tree. After seeing his condition (scars, disfigured face); boy looked like a frog anyway--it made his appearance look more frightening & horrible. I went out & got me a helmet.

The problem with helmets (for those who have gone without), it takes an initial adjustment--the gear can be a bit uncomfortable when you start out. Value safety first, there are so many drivers & bikers on the road who really take safety for granted.

Buried my cousin several years ago who was killed in a auto-bike accident--he wore a helmet. My son rides a motorcycle daily (dread the day I bought him a moped), he stays alert--I just pray that I never receive a call about a dreaded accident.

A parent shouldn't have to bury a child; some protection is better than none--encourage helmets on every level....

[jerrywall]

Growing up, we were encouraged to wear helmets. We never did. One day, I went to visit my friend; heard he was in the hospital--hit something in the street which tossed him into a tree. After seeing his condition (scars, disfigured face); boy looked like a frog anyway--it made his appearance look more frightening & horrible. I went out & got me a helmet.

The problem with helmets (for those who have gone without), it takes an initial adjustment--the gear can be a bit uncomfortable when you start out. Value safety first, there are so many drivers & bikers on the road who really take safety for granted.

Buried my cousin several years ago who was killed in a auto-bike accident--he wore a helmet. My son rides a motorcycle daily (dread the day I bought him a moped), he stays alert--I just pray that I never receive a call about a dreaded accident.

A parent shouldn't have to bury a child; some protection is better than none--encourage helmets on every level....

Helmets are good, and encouraging safety is good. I just wish the same effort was put into encouraging education. I've been through 3 motorcycle courses (one was advanced techniques and one was a refresher) and am likely going to do another one in the next year. Edmond offers some great courses - Edmond, OK - Official Website - Civilian Motorcycle School

I'm amazed the number of people who ride who don't have knowledge of what I consider to be basic riding skills, such as how to stop quickly and safely, how to avoid impact, even such stuff as the double dip for tight low speed turns and more. So many accidents are preventable by the rider (both motorcycle and bicycle). As I tell my kids, right of way means nothing when it's between you and a cage driver.

[jerrywall]

My wife tells me all the time, I'm going to be that guy... I already water and mow the yard in my black socks and sandals

My wife caught me set up in a lawn chair near the main stop sign in our neighborhood yelling at people who were using our neighborhood as a short cut and running through the stop sign. She made me go inside... *sigh*

[Just the facts]

My wife tells me all the time, I'm going to be that guy... I already water and mow the yard in my black socks and sandals

When did you move to Florida?

[Jim Kyle]

There's either a net benefit to requiring helmets or not, and how it affects participation, IMO, isn't one of the factors that should be included.

Gotta disagree with you on this. The net benefit of USING a helmet is to each individual apart from the group; the net benefit of REQUIRING it is to the entire society as a whole. To be meaningful, that second benefit MUST include the effect on participation in its determination. If that second benefit is much less than the first -- which seems to be the consensus of the studies cited upthread -- then making use mandatory is counter-indicated.

However in a culture ruled primarily by fear, which it appears to be what we have at present, logic has no place at all. Ever see the graphic of what OSHA would require of a cowboy that used to circulate around insurance claims offices back in the last century?

[trousers]

Let me get this straight...having your kid wear a helmet while biking equals living in fear, but watching TV with a loaded pistol in your lap because of intruders doesn't?

[OKCretro]

Learning to ski in the mid-late 80's as a kid, we would make fun of the other kids at ski school who wore helmets, now I make fun of the adults who do not wear helmets. Hopefully the slopes make it a law that anyone under 13 has to wear a helmet while skiing.

[Roger S]

When I was a kid I wore boots and a cowboy hat because a cowboy hat was all the protection a little buckaroo needed.

I only fell off a horse and on my head one time.... Well I fell off a horse more than once but only on my head one time.... Anyway..... I've often wondered how much more I could have achieved in life had I been wearing a helmet instead of a cowboy hat that day.

On a more serious note.... The protection gear available to us today is more abundant and more available than anything available to me as a kid... So why not wear it? I mean I'm all for natural selection weeding the idiots out of the gene pool, so I don't think it should be mandatory, but if I had kids. I'd at least be giving them a fighting chance to beat natural selection so they could grow up and pollute the gene pool themselves.

[jerrywall]

Gotta disagree with you on this. The net benefit of USING a helmet is to each individual apart from the group; the net benefit of REQUIRING it is to the entire society as a whole. To be meaningful, that second benefit MUST include the effect on participation in its determination. If that second benefit is much less than the first -- which seems to be the consensus of the studies cited upthread -- then making use mandatory is counter-indicated.

That would then imply that there is not a net benefit to requiring helmets.. as in a significant saving of lives. Cause surely there's not a level of "participation" which outweighs a serious health/life issue. If so, there's lots of stuff we can look back on and make changes to.

There are multiple alternatives to bicycling which could replace any so called participation benefit, that I think even looking at that is silly.