I’ve never heard of a single person who has regretted wearing a helmet, yet people are still incredibly resistant to the idea.
I just don’t get it.
I spoke with a guy, strong cycling supporter with influence in our local government. He made it clear that he views helmets are unnecessary “with safe cycling infrastructure.”
While I get the logic, the reality is that a large number of crashes (reported as half) are single bike accidents with no involvement of another vehicle (i.e. car).
This is why, even when you look at the underreported stats from the Netherlands, cyclists have very high rates of head injuries. They don’t wear helmets, have the gold-standard cycling infrastructure, yet crack their head open.
The point is, don’t be stupid and just wear a damn helmet.
One of the most absurd things I’ve gotten heavily downvoted for on reddit is for saying people should wear helmets no matter how good the cycling infrastructure is. Not that it should be mandated by law, but that it’s simply the wise thing to do. Then people are like ‘wELL I gUeSs YoU ShOUld THeN wEaR a HElmEt whiLE walKinG tOo’
Fine, then don’t wear a helmet. It’s not my head.
I didn’t use to wear one when I was a kid either but nowdays it feels like driving without a seatbelt. Hell, I might even just take my bike for a test drive around the block after having done some adjustments on it and I still go grab my helmet first.
Not that it should be mandated by law, but that it’s simply the wise thing to do. Then people are like 'wELL I gUeSs YoU ShOUld THeN wEaR a HElmEt whiLE walKinG tOo
I don’t think people really understand just how devastating head injuries can be, and just how easy it is to get a tbi when on a surface as hard as concrete.
Even when doing something as simple as walking/running on wet concrete is deceptively dangerous. Every summer the trauma ward I work in has to deal with dozens of kids acquiring life altering tbi for doing something as mundane as running near a pool.
The ironic thing about bikers not wanting to wear helmets is that if you’re not lucky, you’ll end up being fit with a soft shell one at the hospital after you’ve bashed your head anyways. I’ve fit a bunch of people with orthopedic helmets for not wearing helmets over the years.
dozens of kids acquiring life altering tbi for doing something as mundane as running near a pool.
😬 yeesh, the mental image.
Yeah, pediatric care is both tremendously rewarding and horrendously soul crushing depending on what department you’re working in. You eventually build up some callouses over the years, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit summers haven’t lost some of its luster because of my job.
Engaging with families who went from having some of the best time of their lives to the worst moments of their existence over the course of the evening is still tough.
Yep. I was friends with someone both before and after they bashed their skull on concrete in a roller skating accident. They were never the same, and they weren’t different for the better.
TBI = traumatic brain injury.
At that point, just let them self-select out of the gene pool. In a few generations, maybe our descendants won’t be so adverse to basic self-preservation and common sense.
There’s no genetic pressure not to take chances with incredibly unlikely events with a high chance of death. That’s why we are at this point in the first place. If we want these things to stop happening, it will take using our brains and not trusting on nature to enforce it on us.
I don’t get their logic either. You can clip a rock and fall of your bicycle pretty easily at speed. TBI is no joke.
oh no never ask the dutch why they are not wearing helmets, the cyclists will send every excuse your way
They just think they’re all such good cyclists, and therefore never have an accident. Weird.
I had only fallen once with my bike as an adult. I live in Sweden and our cycling infrastructure in my town is g r e a t. The problem was that it was spring, so all the gravel/sand which had been spread during the winter was now on bare asphalt. I turned left and while the wheel turned, the bike did not.
There ain’t much good infrastructure can do about gravel on asphalt.
Thankfully I didn’t hit my head as it would’ve surely been a pretty bad accident. Instead I just hit every single boney part on my left side.
safe cycling infrastructure does nothing to prevent you from having a sudden equipment failure and finding yourself going over the bars face-first, or from just being an uncoordinated idiot who wipes out for no reason and gets a closed head injury. I had a crank fail on my bike once, snapped in half in full sprint and I wiped badly. helmet did its job and I was thankful to have it, because there’s no predicting stuff like that
Yup. I have two family members who were in serious cycling accidents. One was from a stone that he didn’t see. He didn’t have a helmet on and almost didn’t make it.
The second was city incompetence, which resulted in a crash on a bike path. They were wearing a helmet and probably only survived because of it.
I was on a group ride a few weeks back, and one guy’s bike slipped from under him (wet metal bridge) and his head slammed into metal. His helmet destroyed, but he carried on like nothing happened.
It’s the “don’t tell me what to do” mindset
I’ve met one; but that case was really stupid: they tried to put on their helmet while cycling and fell. Technically, that accident could have been prevented if they didn’t wear a helmet. It could also have been prevented if they put it on before they started cycling though.
One of my coworkers is a story of a single bike accident. He was riding uphill on a road when his front fork broke. He went over the handle bars and head/face first into the ground. He had his helmet on, and was still knocked out. He was found in the drainage ditch on the side of the road after he was reported missing.
He has no long term damage today, but that certainly wouldn’t be the case if he wasn’t wearing a helmet
WTH how long was he out if they got to the point of reporting him missing?
You don’t have to wait a certain amount of time to report someone missing. If your partner says “On my way home” then is 2 hours late and not responding to calls feel free to report them as missing. They could’ve easily been in a major accident.
yeah, that still means the guy was out for 2 hours tho
Where did that idea even come from?
The longer you take to report someone missing, the harder it is to find them.
I assume from crime dramas to heighten the tension
“Don’t you know, our hierarchy of safety controls is so good, we don’t even bother with PPE at our site” said no intelligent engineer ever.
Resistance to PPE (helmets) baffling. It’s such low effort to wear. I feel naked without it because I’m just used to it (Australia, helmets by law, but also by common sense to me…)
I always wear a helmet, except in bed.
different kind of helmet
it’s crazy how my brother doesn’t wear a helmet. Even my adrenaline junkie dad always wore a helmet (he did have some accidents when he was younger so that probably helped)
people are still incredibly resistant to the idea
in the us* (for some reason?)
helmets are pretty standard where i live, you will very rarely not see people using it.
helmets are pretty standard where i live, you will very rarely not see people using it.
Do you have laws that require them to be worn? Australia, for example, has mandatory helmet laws.
yup. ended up becoming something people wear for style even. somehow its simultaneously the lamest and coolest thing.
This is why, even when you look at the underreported stats from the Netherlands, cyclists have very high rates of head injuries. They don’t wear helmets, have the gold-standard cycling infrastructure, yet crack their head open.
This is just completely wrong. Netherlands overall has half the per-capita TBI deaths as compared to the US. Now, is a higher portion of their TBI deaths bike-realated – I mean sure, because lots and lots of cycling is done there – and not as much car-driving. But your chances of getting your head smashed is lower overall compared to the US, even with our stupid obsession with helmets.
This is just completely wrong.
Nope.
“While national infrastructure ministry figures report 14,000 seriously wounded cyclists in 2019, the most recently recorded year, VeiligheidNL estimates that there were actually some 80,000 injuries of which 50,000 were serious. The organisation reportedly came to its estimate on the basis of 14 accident and emergency wards’ figures.” (SOURCE)
And…
“A new report from the Dutch road safety research foundation predicts that if cyclists in the Netherlands always wore a helmet, there would be 85 fewer road deaths a year.” (SOURCE)
So yeah, while their per capita rates may be lower than some other countries (or higher when you factor in the extra 80,000 injuries they failed to include in their figures…), the fact remains that cycling infrastructure alone doesn’t prevent accidents, and helmets are one way to downgrade the severity of an injury, or avoid injury altogether.
Stupidity.
There isn’t much to get. These people are stupid and can’t make logical decisions.
Not everyone is cut out to live past 40.
- Dress for the slide, not for the ride
- ATGATT
- Gray-haired riders don’t get that way from luck
What others did I miss?
- If your helmet doesn’t have a chin bar (full or modular), you don’t care about your chin, teeth, or nose.
- wrt ATGATT, most of that gear will reduce or avoid injury. A helmet will prevent your death.
- If you don’t wear earplugs - even with a helmet on - enjoy your tinnitus and/or hearing loss. This is from wind noise, not engine noise.
A friend of mine crashed her motorbike a few years ago and her face bounced off the road. Her chin bar flexed inwards so much that it broke her nose and chipped a front tooth.
She was furious that the helmet didn’t protect her properly, until her husband who was riding behind her pointed out that she essentially landed face first at over 60mph, and that without the helmet, her face would have taken the full force of the landing.
Yeah, that was probably a “anything less than a chin bar and you’d be super dead” incident.
More motorcycle specific, but here’s a couple
- What’s a five letter word for road rash?
answer
jeans
- it doesn’t matter how good of a driver you are when there’s so many shitty ones out there.
I’ve heard that one phrased a lot of ways.
EDIT: took me five tries to get the spoiler right : D
Please don’t forgot to wear a helmet when riding on 4 wheelers or ATVs. I’ve seen far too many life changing injuries on those damn things. I forced my own brother to get a good helmet when he had one and it saved his life. He flipped the damn thing on top of him and only came out with a shattered wrist. His helmet cracked like an egg but his head was fine.
Please don’t forgot to wear a helmet when riding on 4 wheelers or ATVs.
Also, just because it claims to be an all terrain vehicle doesn’t make it true. I would avoid riding these in any wooded areas or on sloped or rough terrain while riding solo.
I work in a trauma ward that has an ATV season. I feel like the stigma of wearing helmets has reduced over the years, as I’m having to put less people in orthopedic helmets every year. However, there are just as many people getting crushed by their vehicles.
4 wheelers have a nasty habit of rolling and pinning their riders. If this happens and you’re alone it can easily cripple or kill you. One of the more common severe injuries is having your leg pinned against the motor or exhaust and having your leg or arm slowly cooked to the point where they need to be amputated.
I met a guy in middle school that got pinned under his dad’s 4-Wheeler. If he’d not been alone, he could have easily been pulled out, but he was suffocated by the 4-wheeler. No traumatic injuries at all. Just slowly ran out of air.
Unfortunately, that’s not an uncommon experience. For some reason a lot of parents who normally wouldn’t leave their kids unsupervised with a 700 pound piece of industrial machinery, are completely okay with letting them operate and drive a 700 pound piece of equipment with virtually no safety features.
Eat crayons, don’t become crayons
Found the marine.
Fuck anyone who advocates against wearing a full-faced helmet. Fuck modular too, the kind moto cops wear that pop open… Cuz guess when they’ll unfortunately pop open?
There’s a fortnine video advocating against wearing armor, that kevlar alone would take care of abrasion injuries etc. You know what I like when I crash? Not getting pebbles embedded into my elbow or knee flesh.
Have fun, get there, and get old.
Former Motorcyclist here.
The guy I used to ride with died! Collided with a car. He flew off his bike and face first into a pole.
I was never friendly with him. He called me a pussy for wearing a full-faced helmet when we rode, while he was wearing a half-helmet that was like a WW2 replica on his harley. I was the youngest on the ride and he was lecturing me trying to teach me “his ways”.
Well, he’s a meat crayon now.
The people who are telling you to wear protection are still alive.
My friend had a minor head injury and his doctor advised him to wear a full face helmet whilst riding his bicycle. The cops pulled him over and he had to show them the note the doctor had written about it. I guess the concern is that if your face is obscured they can’t track you down if you commit a crime? Still seems pretty dumb to me.
Cops are just nosy. No justification. They don’t like people who look weird. That’s how they’re trained to think.
I don’t know… think seems like the wrong word. Maybe trained to react?
i know a couple and i think bullied is a better word
over here they are sometimes bullied into being a certain way
that has to be UK, it just has to be. the CCTV surveillance state is crazy there. (saying this as a Canadian whose face is recorded probably 200 times a day in my city)
Bingo, it is indeed the UK
Nice misinformation.
I’m assuming you’re referring to the Fortnine video discussing the pads for impact protection and how they don’t protect you from impact. If you’re wearing gear you won’t get pebbles embedded into you. The pebbles will not go through your abrasion gear.
With the important sidenote that the protective gear has an abrasion rafting that’s only valid with the default protectors installed. If you remove them, the abrasion protection of the garment will likely be a bit lower.
I unsubbed from fortnine after that, he sucks now
But, the modular helmets are fine if ECE22.06 rated. They have steel latches
I like my modular helmet that pops up. It’s pretty secure and I haven’t seen one pop open during an event. They also say they’re rated to be protective with the face up or closed.
ATGATT
When I started riding I had a BMW modular helmet, Made by Schuberth, those things do not give up. I know some of the Harley-Davidson helmets are Made in China though Scorpion. No thanks.
He’s now advocate for airbag so there’s that.
We have laws which force people to wear helmets, and wear seat belts. These are common sense laws to prevent people from killing themselves. Nobody bats an eye.
This is the example I’d use during covid when people were complaining about masks being against their rights, even when it would protect them from being sick.
My guy, you’re someone who wouldn’t wear a helmet if the laws had only just changed to enforce them. You’re a hazard to yourself.
There are people who try to bypass those also, or cheat em. Usually for some personal comfort. One of my sisters was like this. She wasn’t that tall, and complained the seat belt shoulder part was uncomfortable, so she’d either not wear it or put that part behind her.
Then someone swung into her lane causing her to rear end em (she was in a moving normal speed lane and they were backed up in an exit lane). Without the seat belt there, what instead slowed her movement forward was the steering wheel shattering her jaw. She’s fine now, but a painful lesson that included reconstructive surgery.
And does she wear a seat belt now?
Yep, I just meant there are too many people who don’t use something until they get hurt, or something similar. I have a seatbelts on or I stop driving rule, and I do sometimes have to tell people. Including different siblings from the one who got hurt.
My ex wife was in one of those 1 in 1 million accidents where wearing a seatbelt would have done more damage than not wearing it. Now she never wears her seatbelt because “a doctor” once said in her particular one off experience he was glad she wasn’t wearing one. SMH. I tried to explain how wearing a seatbelt is safer in almost every other account, but she doesn’t listen. It’s just a matter of time till my son doesn’t have a mother anymore.
I also have a seatbelts on or I stop driving rule. A lot of people don’t want rides from me after I enforce that rule. Like, I’m responsible for their lives as the driver. If they die because they aren’t wearing their seatbelts while I was driving, it’s my fault for not making them buckle up. I even have seatbelts for my dogs because I want them to be as safe as I am. Passengers lives’ are in your hands when you drive. It’s really scary if you actually think about it in depth.
You’re a hazard to
yourselfothers.Only psychologically, it may not be pretty but the direct physical harm of not wearing a helmet is largely restricted to the rider.
My guy, you’re someone who wouldn’t wear a helmet if the laws had only just changed to enforce them. You’re a hazard to yourself.
Also, in countries with socialized cost of healthcare, you have a duty to do your best to avoid becoming a weight for your society.
Buh muh rightzz!!
There are still plenty of idiots who make a stink about helmets and seat belts unfortunately.
I’m confident the overlap between seatbelt and mask wearing is >99%
I know this. I used to ride. Got hit by a car swiping three lanes across traffic. They didn’t care to look. My head whacked the pavement hard. Got road rash and a concussion. The helmet saved my life though.
Weirdly had PTSD after trying to ride again and dropped it like a bad habit. Helmets save lives, on bicycles too y’all. Just shocking to see how many folks on both motorcycles and bicycles that don’t wear a helmet.
You kidding me? Not weird to have PTSD at all. Your conscious brain might have shrugged it off but your body remembers the whole “I could have died” feeling.
Yeah, that’s a common experience after bad motorcycle crashes. Glad you’re still with us!
Thank you! very appreciative to be alive!
Jesus, looks like a wolverine/Sandslash/moderately miffed cat took a serious dislike to you.
Glad you’re still around.
This one is not mine, but I have been saved by a helmet before. Glad I’m still here too, thanks!
Same. The side of the helmet looked like this. I’ll never forget the sound or images of sliding half a block down the road on my helmet.
I would wear a full face one on my e-bike, but I’m worried about looking like a dork.
I guess an alive dork is better than a dead dork, huh?
Or a faceless dork.
If you’re riding a european pedelec (pedal assist) up to 25km/h, bike helmet should be fine, if you’re riding electric motorcycle (25km/h+, accelerator) then maybe motorcycle helmet is more appropriate.
You won’t look like a dork when road rash makes your face look like Voldemort made out with a cheese grater.
Maybe you can get a mountain bike helmet instead of a motorbike one, I guess the protection is also more adapted to the speed of a bicycle.
A while back I had a friend take a dive on an electric scooter. Black eye, broken collar bone, broken lower leg. If you’re on two wheel, definitely wear a helmet.
100%
Pls be safe
Depends on your infrastructure, yank.
Yeah, got one just like that.
Helmet means full face, fuck everything else.
Cat owner?
It wouldn’t have gotten so scratched up if you’d have left it home. Jeez.
(J/K)
Always wear an approved brain bucket and gear or become a road pizza.
This breaks the rider’s collarbone. (Still better than not having a face though)
Don’t forget leathers or some other full body protection, too. Dress for the slide, not the ride.
