Comments on: He Should Have Been Wearing a Helmet

By: a daughter's mother

a daughter's mother — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 15:38:53 +0000

My cycling days go back to the days when bikes only had one speed, and pedaling backwards constituted braking. I have never understood the appeal of hand brakes. When you need to stop, why not put your best muscles into the effort? Helmets? Those were for motorcyclists – oops, “bikers”. I have been corrected numerous times on that. Including by the biker I married, who seemed to make a career out of crashing, until he could no longer afford the repairs to his bike. That was always somebody else’s fault, even when he rear-ended a semi with clear brake lights and turn signal showing. (He insisted that the trucker really meant he was turning into the next driveway, not the one he did.)

No doubt those combined experiences have skewed my viewpoint regarding wearing helmets, but I came to believe that they should be worn by all riders, motorized or self-propelled. Listening to the arguments against mandating helmet usage, I find my self willing to agree, with one proviso. Let’s not have helmet laws, with the understanding that anyone receiving a serious head injury while refusing to wear one has NO CLAIM on any kind of health coverage or rehabilitation or nursing home services paid for by any of the rest of us or our insurance companies. (Same thing, actually.) If you’re independently wealthy, and are lucky/smart enough to have made previous provisions to have your fortune maintained and wisely spent on your personal care, then you may receive all the TLC that’s out there. But if you’re too stupid, stubborn, reckless and foolish to wear a helmet and you crash and receive a head injury, the rest of us shouldn’t have to pay for it. Nor should your family.

Now, go ahead, make your choice. Helmet? Or are you feeling really lucky today?

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:49:54 +0000

Tacticus: I included the link so people could follow up. Your logic regarding who should wear helmets is impenetrable.

Kelly: You’re doing it rong!!! Do not put the seat belts on your head!!!

By: KT

KT — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:39:30 +0000

I’ve dissected animal tissues before, and two are very delicate and hard to get out in one piece: the liver and the brain. These organs are easily squishified. You can live without chunks of your liver. Your brain? Not so much. Wear a helmet!

By: Kelly McCullough

Kelly McCullough — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:26:03 +0000

Tacticus, @ 18 yep, they’re called seat belts. I wear them for the same reason that I wear a helmet while biking–I’m a big fan of reducing my odds of ending up dead or damaged.

By: Tacticus

Tacticus — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 04:32:13 +0000

Greg I would guess that those details don’t include places where helmets are uncommon?

Though helmets do assist I think if cyclists need them for day to day riding so should car passengers\drivers

By: george.w

george.w — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 03:12:20 +0000

Hope I was clear that I sure as frack wear a helmet now…

(And it doesn’t say anything good about my common sense that I only started wearing one after a severe head injury. )

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 02:26:40 +0000

Non helmeted riders are 14 times more likely to be inolved in a fatal bike crash than helmeted riders. According to helmet.org

http://www.helmets.org/stats.htm

By: george.w

george.w — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 02:17:40 +0000

Horrifying description. I’ll second what Spiv said about braking; get your weight away from the front wheel. My bike has really serious disc brakes so it has to become a trained reaction.

A bike is my main transportation and has been since before Gerry Ford took the oath of office. I never wore a helmet before five years ago. Also didn’t know that concussions are cumulative.

I’ve always been physically active, and got my bell rung lots of times; off a horse, when a drunk guy punched me once, a shot-put ball, fell out of a dune buggy, walked into an overhanging pipe, others. Always felt fine after a few hours, thought little of it. Never had a serious accident on my bike.

Then I was riding to lunch on a beautiful summer day, and woke up in a strange place that I soon recognized as an emergency room. I don’t remember the accident, but based on the injuries we think a car probably turned right in front of me, forcing me to try to make the turn with them. There were no witnesses so that is conjecture. It was a quiet area, and based on the timeline I was there for about twenty minutes before someone found me and called 911.

The result was problems with memory, concentration, and balance. At times even walking was problematic; I staggered like a drunk. It was more than a year before I could balance well enough to think about riding again. The neurologist explained that it wasn’t the severity of that particular injury, so much as its position following all the other ones.

By: prn

prn — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 01:23:27 +0000

I’m not what those who care would likely call a “real” cyclist, but when I can, I like to ride my bike to work, to the dentist, etc., that is, around town, not for hundreds of miles on the road or up and down rough terrain. I’ve been riding for more than 50 years, so you might correctly guess that helmets were not something I got used to as a kid.

About a year ago, I was coming home from work (without a helmet), turned a gentle corner and the next thing I knew I was trying to untangle myself from the bike, which was more or less on top of me. I still don’t know what went wrong and I doubt that I ever will. Before I managed to get up or even untangled, several people had appeared as if by magic. One of them was a doctor, who took one look at me and told me I would definitely need sutures. She actually drove me to my doctor’s office, where one of the docs cleaned me up and stitched up my face, etc. A CAT scan showed no brain damage. I did, however, resemble Frankenstein’s monster for a while. (By now I’m not noticeably uglier than I was before.)

I was lucky. I now wear a helmet all the time.

Paul

By: Jeremy O'Wheel

Jeremy O'Wheel — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:35:56 +0000

There was a really good analysis of the benefits of wearing helmets in the comments to this article;

http://scienceblogs.com/whitecoatunderground/2009/03/a_simple_bump_on_the_head_can.php

Essentially helmets play a big role in reducing minor head injuries but don’t have any effect on reducing major head injuries.

The fact that they reduce injuries is a good reason to wear them, but it’s unlikely that doing so will save your life.