Do you wear a helmet while driving a car? Head injuries are a top cause of death in vehicle accidents something that helmets would significantly reduce.

The truth is that you never even considered wearing a helmet while drivi g because driving is an ordinary activity that doesn't seem to require special equipment. In places where cycling is an ordinary activity people feel the same.

It's not about statistics or the actual effectiveness of safety equipment. If it were you would start wearing a driving helmet tomorrow.

Your comment seems to presuppose that I am advocating for helmet-wearing, when I have done no such thing.

Helmets are big unwieldy things. They're not easy to carry, and are shaped such that even if you had a bag big enough for one, it would probably crowd out a lot of things that might also go in the bag (e.g. very few bags might hold a 15-in laptop and also a helmet) It is inconvenient to take spontaneous or quick bike rides if you have to lug a helmet around everywhere.

Also, there is at least some debate about whether or not wearing a helmet actually makes drivers less careful around you, since it looks like you're better protected. https://qz.com/1474671/scientists-are-still-debating-whether...

Personal anecdote, probably irrelevant. When we were kids in the 80s, we bicycled to school. My parents heard about bike helmets (which were pretty new at that time) and bought them for us. I kept mine on the back rack, because I thought they were utterly uncool.

Then one day, a guy wasn't paying attention, ran a stop-sign at high speed when we were still in the intersection, and hit my sister's bike's front wheel. There was no way she could have gotten out of his way.

I can still hear the THWACK of her helmet hitting the pavement. The helmet did its job, and absorbed the impact by cracking. She got out of the experience with a few days of pain.

I've always worn a helmet after that.

I don't think anyone argues that in specific incidents helmets are safer.

The question is whether or not the second order effects of compulsory helmets outweigh the benefits for the individual, namely;

- helmets make biking more inconvenient and compulsory usage of helmets suppresses cycling rates. In addition to the argument that is is a net negative because people get less exercise, there is also a second argument; because cyclists are less common, drivers are less familiar with how to interact with them, which leads to poorer judgement and more accidents per capita for the people still cycling. (In some cases, unfamiliarity also breeds anger and resentment; many a cyclist has a story of getting run off the road, drivers rolling coal at them, etc.)

- drivers are generally overestimating confidence and safety when it comes to cycling. They may generally act more dangerously around people who look like they know what they're doing (e.g. the stereotype of the Lycra-clad road biker), which leads to more and deadlier accidents.

As far as your sister's accident goes, there are two modes of thinking about it. One is to create more regulation, which generally tends to encumber the more vulnerable user (e.g. mandatory helmets), and depends on pretty much constant, vigilant enforcment; the other is to physically engineer a road environment where a high-speed intersection collision is less likely, if at all possible. (This may involve things like a tight roundabout to force slow speeds and paying attention; raising the crosswalks or even the entire intersection; narrowing the road and installing chicanes so that one cannot speed in a straight line down a road; or creating a shared space by removing all curbs and road markings so that one must pay attention because the environment is so uncertain and confusing.)

I live in Australia, and I’ve always been taught to wear a helmet. It’s just a thing everybody knows now. Every bike you buy even has a sticker saying “use your head, wear a helmet.”

I think many of the side effects you mention arise from systemic biases when people aren’t used to helmet wear. Drivers wouldn’t overestimate safety when all cyclists wear helmets; this would take time to set in, but with compulsory helmet wear it would certainly occur.

As for inconvenience, and comfort, it’s hard to know the long-term effects of this. Once compulsory, future generations or cyclists may not mind as much because they don’t know an alternative. Anecdotally, nobody I know has ever complained about helmets being bulky or uncomfortable, because... it’s just how it is.

Here's an article showing the literature covering Western Australia's helmet law, which pretty much universally shows a total decrease in cycling rates, and a general increase in hospital admissions rate for the cyclists left on the road.

http://www.cycle-helmets.com/results.html

People may not outwardly complain about it, but they may not even think of it as a viable trip alternative anymore.

All very good points.

The university of Bath study was barely scientific. The researcher was his own subject, and it has never been replicated. Yet it is now accepted as the Truth.

A vastly better way to study the issue would be to analyze video footage from roadways where there are both cars and bikes.

I suspect the greatest danger to cyclists is when the driver isn't paying attention at all, or is not controlling their vehicle, in which case I doubt there's a special mental circuit that triggers an unconscious behavioral response when it detects a helmet.

> e.g. very few bags might hold a 15-in laptop and also a helmet

I clip the helmet to the backpack straps.

I have a hard time imagining this. To the front or under the bag? Also, wouldn't it just bang into you as you walked?

If you are wearing the backpack with both straps, then I attach at the bottom of the strap, near the waist.

Yes it bumps in to me but not in a way that bothers me (it’s more ‘resting’ than ‘bumping’).

Yes (you can do either or even some bags have a strap on top for hanging on a hook and you can clip the helmet to that) and yes it bangs into you when you walk.

Put the helmet on the bike?

Not particularly secure (unless you go to the expense of getting a second lock for the bike helmet) and depending on the configuration of the bike parking where you are, may not fit with other bikes parked.

I mean, it’s just a helmet. Sure, I lock it so you’d have to cut the strap to get it (thus rendering it largely useless without repair), but in general the theft rate of helmets is low enough that I can just eat the cost of buying a new one.

Not everyone lives in an area where that is true, nor can everyone just afford to replace $20 helmets on a regular basis.

Compulsory helmets just for cyclists is a bit arbitrary too, since pedestrians and car occupants would also benefit from helmets, and at least pedestrians are likely to encounter the same exact crash scenarios which cyclists encounter where helmets are necessary (e.g. pedestrians can also get hit by cars and flung a distance)

I realize I'm privileged in that I live in a low-crime city, but seriously, who is going to steal a $20 helmet which will have a broken strap?

It looks like new straps cost ~$8 on Amazon, so the helmet is worth at most $12. Which isn't nothing, but... unless you happen to need a helmet and the helmet just so happens to be the right size for your body, you'd need to sell it, and no one is going to pay full price for a used helmet. I'd be amazed if you got more than a couple dollars when all was said and done.

I suppose you could buy straps in bulk for much less money, but then you're basically setting up a helmet-stealing operation... it all just seems like so much work, for very little gain! If you're that desperate, wouldn't it make more sense to invest in wire cutters so you can steal the bikes themselves?

In the summer every morning I would see a bike locked up outside that had been they over night. One morning I saw the bike and all that was left of it was the frame. The saddle, handlebars, and wheels were all gone.

I agree that it's odd that people would steal these individual pieces, but it does happen. It reminds me of people only stealing 2 rims from a car.

That would imply that the people doing the stealing are thinking rationally and trying to maximize outcomes.

I've been in areas with large drug problems, and people steal weird things (and avoid stealing less weird things) all the time.

Also, generally speaking the more valuable things are the riskier they are. It's a lot easier to pawn some random bike helmet, but bikes have registration numbers, and you may need to enlist the help of a chop shop that's in on what you're doing.

I'd be afraid that people bash the helmet for fun or by accident, rendering it unsafe.

If you are using a U lock, You could thread a simple, short steel cable through the large foam helmet holes and the lock. It would be nearly no extra weight and a trivial amount of time and effort. I locked my helmet to my bike all the time when I lived in the city. I think it is worth the tiny inconvenience to bring the helmet unless you are doing some very mellow biking on well protected trails.

Philosophically, I believe that personal responsibility cannot exist without without the freedom to make bad decisions; and that freedom cannot exist without at least sometimes being exercised.

I think a person should have the right to cycle without a helmet regardless of the fact it may be inadvisable - just like they should have the right to take up skateboarding or skiing or boxing or cheerleading, even if that's even less advisable.

And because I think it's an important right I'm going to exercise it, because a right that exists in theory but not in practice is a right that does not exist.

If one leaves it up to the law, it's easy. If not, it's basically an expression of personal weights assigned to a whole lot of fuzzy things.

Can you draw a clear line between when you wear a helmet and when you don't? Is it perfectly obvious or more up to habit? Would it be influenced by a change in laws? Or if there were helmets available marketed for the specific activity?

Is it obvious where riding a bike fits in between riding a car a car, climbing a tree, playing soccer with the kids, having a shower, walking up a staircase, cooking in your kitchen, walking near a pool, hiking in the hills... Your head can be hurt in so many ways. Wearing a helmet might save you. So why don't you do it more often?

At least among certain demographics in the US, a very clear orthodoxy has emerged between uses where you must wear helmets vs. where helmet use would seem pretty silly for the most part. There's some logic in the categorization but almost certainly not the clear line that some people would like to think exists.

That sounds like a strawman argument. If you don't wear a helment while doing activity A, why wear it while doing activity B.

To answer your question, perhaps because the common factor in all of these activities is that I am moving relatively slowly and my surroundings are basically stationary. These factors are void if I am riding a bike (or a motorcycle), where I might be moving at a few mph and there could be vehicles around me that might be moving even faster.

Because they do not improve outcomes when a driver runs you over, the speeds involved are simply too high. When you do mountainbiking, a helmet protects you, speeds are lower, but not on the public roads.

I cycle in a city and a know several people who have been hit by cars. None of them went under the car’s wheels. Half of them believe their helmet saved their life. It’s not as though you automatically die upon contact with a car, and of course it helps to have your head protected.

But it protects you if you fall off your bike.

That happens almost never.

Just like getting hit by a car happens almost never? Anecdotally, I have never been hit by a car, but have fallen off my bike multiple times for a variety of reasons: bike entered the lane without warning while I was going downhill, I hit a rock on the road, front tire got caught in a groove in the road, …

Falling off because of gravel on the road, grooved surface or other road hazards sounds too much like inattentive riding or speed unsuited to road conditions. A helmet would help in those cases, but better attention to the road would also be a good idea.

In cities many accidents actually happen at relatively low speeds, e.g. the right hook, or dooring, or slipping on oil or wet leaves.

In my case, it's because the store is a few blocks away along a carefully chosen route. Otherwise, I wear one. It's saved me a couple times.

Because I have a narrow head and they make me look like a dork.