My Shifting Sentiment Toward Helmets
by anita • August 18, 2009 • News • 9 Comments
A few years back you couldn’t get me to wear a helmet. I thought they looked stupid and didn’t really believe they’d do much good in the event of an accident. Then I had this friend who kept nagging me, like really nagged me every time we saw each other. I respected this friend and thought fine, I’ll wear one and I’ve been wearing one ever since. I guess you could say I’m easily swayed by my peers.
Now days I’ve been rethinking my stance on helmets. Now this isn’t to say I’m about to stop wearing one. I ride on heavily trafficked NYC streets and figure if I hit something I’d rather it be helmet before my head but I don’t think helmets should be mandated. Rather I think they should be a matter of personal choice and this is coming from someone who has a sticker that reads “You’d look hotter in a helmet” or her helmet. If folks are educated on the issue and choose not to wear a helmet, who cares. Sometimes I ride my bike really slow in the park without a helmet. It might be time to take my sticker off.
Oh yeah and then there is this graph that’s been making the internet rounds about how as more people ride bikes, the less dead cyclists we have on the road.
Ah, the old helmet debate. If you read Copenhagenize you know they are all anti-helmet law and I’m going to agree with them here – though we still don’t agree on that wear your work clothes to commute thing 
Your two cents?
Agree that they shouldn’t be “required”, but I feel that anyone riding in traffic, in a race situation, or mountain biking without one is acting irresponsibly. Rides away from traffic, away from a situation where a severe accident could occur, I am more understanding of lack of helmets. I almost always wear one, except for very brief rides away from major traffic.
i think they should be required. if they’re required for children they can certainly be required for adults. by not having a helmet law, people don’t realize their importance. i see tons of people riding around without them in dangerous situations. i had a friend who got hurt in a bike accident and had to go to the hospital and blamed everyone else in the situation but herself – she didn’t realize she should take responsibility for the level of damage to herself because she chose not to wear a helmet! i just don’t want to budge on this one. because i like people to go on living instead of dying in accidents. my two cents. even if this was a law, i doubt police would bother to enforce it so it’s not like you’d need to worry that if you forgot your helmet you’d get a ticket.
helmets should be choice. the reason accidents are down in nyc is likely because of an increase in riders and even more so – the bike lanes, both of which are a constant reminder to drivers to look out for and respect bikes. i have 4 years of messenger experience and 4 just commuting. i had one helmet destroyed in a collision, and i went straight to a bike shop and bought another. still, helmets should be choice and riders should choose wisely.
I don’t ride with a helmet. I’ve been commuting by bike for 23 years, 11 of them in Manhattan, and I probably have 25,000 miles in NYC alone. I worked in a bike shop for years, and have sold hundreds of helmets personally. I know people who’ve been injured or killed in crashes, with and without helmets. So why don’t I wear a helmet?
I guess I’ve weighed the risks, and for my style of riding, riding a bicycle doesn’t feel like a danger. My approach has been to ride EXTREMELY defensively. I give the bike my full attention when I’m on it– no iPod, no texting, no talking to anyone else. I assume that every pedestrian will stop and jump out in front of me. I assume that every car will run every red light, every taxi door will open into me, and every bus will swerve in front of me without signaling. I expect these things to happen, and they do. When I have a close call (rarely– I can think of about three in 11 years), I mentally berate myself for not paying attention. I still find my commute the most relaxing part of my day. You could call it a “modified Copenhagen” approach: a commute in street clothes, where the bicycle isn’t something you need to gear up for, just with a lighter bike than the Dutch.
As a side note, there’s an epidemic of people who wear helmets completely wrong (usually too far back on the head). Helmets are optimized for frontal impact, and if they don’t fit properly, they’re pretty useless.
I’m fine with anyone making the decision to not wear a helmet… just as long as I can make the decision not to subsidize their healthcare should they get into an accident. What do you think the average medical bill is for someone who wears a helmet who gets in an accident vs someone who doesn’t? Why should I, someone who rides with a helmet, have to pay the bills of someone who chooses not to through my ridiculously high premiums?
NYC isn’t Copenhagen. The drivers here aren’t as educated or aware of bikers. Further, the driver licensing process is much more rigourous than it is here.
PLEASE STOP MAKING THE COPENHAGEN ARGUMENT.
+1 for Michaels comments.
Though you should still wear a helmet.
You miss the point of “the Copenhagen argument”, chris. Not too long ago, Copenhagen wasn’t Copenhagen. But the city decided to think big, to invest in bicycle infrastructure and promote cycling as a public good. It has been great success by any standard. Meanwhile, in the US we’ve tried some other things involving consumer products (big surprise), and sorry, but we just don’t have much to show for it. We’ve got a lot of war stories interpreted to reward or punish the soldier’s prudence, but our death and injury rates have not improved in keeping with the adoption of the product the way they were expected to. Now we’re holding up the rear of the pack, among developed nations, in cycling participation and safety rates. Obesity is a nationwide crisis, raising poor charlie’s insurance rates more than cycling crashes could ever hope to. So, you know, it’s time to look elsewhere if we want good results. It doesn’t have to be a big emotional todo.
None of which is supposed to help anyone decide what headgear to strap on, or not, tomorrow morning. I don’t presume to say what other adults should do for their own safety, or their children’s. (I do recommend the Wikipedia article “Bicycle helmet” if you want to make an informed decision.) It’s about where we should focus our advocacy if we want measurable results. And as the chart at the top of this post shows, we’re already well on our way.
I wear a helmet most of the time – not so much because I think it’s important to ALWAYS wear one, but because I want to have it on me just in case I need it. And it seems pointless to carry a helmet in my bag when I could just store it efficiently on my head.
The main time I like to have my helmet on for safety purposes is at night. If I’m going anywhere and think I might be riding in the dark at all before I get back home, I’ll usually wear my helmet both out and back.