The “anti helmet crowd” wouldn’t have any issue reading be this. Wearing helmets when you’re on a sports bike is very common in the Netherlands. It’s just not common on Dutch commuters cycles, but then again, these do not have this failure mode. Sports bikes in general have much less margin for failure, and thus fail more often and catastrophic than a solid steel bike.

Right, all commuter bikes are made of solid steel and steel bikes never break. Got it.

Typical Dutch commuter bikes are made of steel. And yes, steel breaks, but the failure mode of a solid steel fork is much much different from a titanium, aluminum or carbon fork. They bend, crack and at some point break, but they’ll typically not snap like this because steel is much less brittle than any of those materials.

Also, speed matters. Going 15 or 50 when the thing breaks makes a difference.

> Also, speed matters. Going 15 or 50 when the thing breaks makes a difference.

Isnt this an argument that helmets are more important for passenger vehicles? After all, car accidents cause about 10x more head trauma in the usa.

Passenger vehicles from this century come with airbags that significantly reduce head trauma. Three point seatbelts have been mandatory in all seating positions for longer, IIRC, and significantly reduce the likelyhood of head vs pavement collisions.

But, if absolute safety is paramount, you do want a five point harness, flameresistant coveralls, neck support, and a helmet, sure.

You are very unlikely to crash at 15-20kph and even less likely to hit your head at such speed in a very upright position.

In fact the odds aren't bigger than when running. Do you think runners should wear helmets?

I chose to wear or not my helmet depending on the conditions. Running errands nearby on my girlfriend's lady bike? I don't use it. Riding on mostly separated bicycle paths at my girlfriend's slow pace, same. Riding 3h on the roads or trails on my road and mountain bikes, I wear it.

* * *

I don't think any "anti helmet crowd" would claim that helmets never ever help. Just that it's rare enough that it may not be worth the inconvenience.

After all, are you strapping on a helmet while you're out walking, or driving a car? Sometimes, very rarely, that could be what saves your life.

I don't know about you, but I can't walk at 15kph+, so the amount of crash energy my head would experience while walking is quite low.

15-20 km/h is a fairly common pace in running races (2:05 to 2:50 marathon pace), no helmets are worn there.

When you fall while running, you don't have a mechanical contraption limiting your movement. The nature of riding a bicycle (or motorcycle) makes it much more likely you'll hit your head. People also don't fall as much while running as they do when riding: it's easy to hit a crack in the pavement and lose control on a bike.

> People also don't fall as much while running as they do when riding

Says who?

Just a couple of days ago I had a runner get past me while I was walking on the street, 2 seconds later she hit a bump on the pavement with her foot and fell down hard (she even made a loud splash sound as she hit the ground). No, she didn't have a helmet. Should she have?

At the end of the day, people should be walking around in full steel plate armour, for protection and safety. Or even better, not walking around at all. Bicycles should be banned!

> it's easy to hit a crack in the pavement and lose control on a bike.

No, its not. The person who says this probably hadn't ridden a bicycle in their life, or if they have, not often and not recently.

Bicycle wheels are EXCELLENT at getting over cracks, bumps, ditches, holes, whatever - as long as the attack angle is as close to 90 degrees as possible. It is the riders responsibility to make sure that is the case. Wider tires also help, lower pressures too... and high speeds, counterintuitively.

Of course, if you are afraid of falling or uncertain of your skills on the bike, wear a helmet by all means. Just don't think that it is "normal" and all riders are like that.

>2 seconds later she hit a bump on the pavement with her foot and fell down hard (she even made a loud splash sound as she hit the ground). No, she didn't have a helmet. Should she have?

Did she hit her head? Humans are hardwired by millions of years of evolution to protect themselves in falls using their arms and hands; they generally handle falls very well. Humans have not evolved to handle riding bikes, and using your hands to protect your head in falls isn't instinctive there like it is while running or walking.

>No, its not. The person who says this probably hadn't ridden a bicycle in their life, or if they have, not often and not recently.

This is just stupid and argumentative. Road surfaces are frequently bad and people make mistakes.

>Of course, if you are afraid of falling or uncertain of your skills on the bike, wear a helmet by all means.

Yes, because I'm sure you're such a perfect rider who never makes a mistake.

The helmet protects you from other things moving at you, not just you moving at other things.

They may help but they aren't really designed for that.

Helmets are designed to limit head injuries when you bang your head on the ground mostly. If you get mauled by a truck or a suv it is unlikely to help much although it will still help if you bang and rebound on it.

> After all, are you strapping on a helmet while you're out walking, or driving a car?

you are much more likely to fall from a bicycle than while walking or getting in or out of a car. For people who are at risk from falling while walking, yes, precautions are taken that they not fall or hit their heads (or hips), it's quite dangerous.

Your argument is that the additional protection of a helmet is not worth the additional inconvenience for you when you are walking or driving.

That's the exact same argument the anti-helmet crowd is making of cycling.

In order for your argument to work, you have to either provide a quantitative basis for why your tradeoff totally is worth it and the other is not, or you have to come up with a qualitatively different argument.

I'm not making an argument, neither about helmets for pedestrians nor cyclists. I'm pointing out that others are not focusing on the right metrics to make their arguments, or are providing spurious commentary.

> the additional protection of a helmet is not worth the additional inconvenience

I actually pointed out that protection of a helmet for pedestrians is called for as standard practice (by others, not by me)

Oh, bike helmets. I missed that thread, and I don't want to start yet another endless internet discussion about helmets, but let me point out one thing: the helmet I did wear likely wouldn't have saved my life, had the fork breakage happened one minute later.

I’m 100% Dutch. I ride road bikes and commuter bikes. I’ve never in my life seen a steel commuter bike break like that. They rust, they bent and they scratch, but they won’t break. Or maybe if you buy a very iffy brand?

As a road cyclist I go 30-50 km/h with a helmet. And as a commuter I’ll keep a moderate 20 km/h without a helmet. Big difference in terms of kinetic energy.

I'm pretty sure the primary kinetic energy you need to worry about in a fall is the vertical drop.

In the worst case the speed your head would hit the ground at would be about 15 km/h.

it's not really a theoretical problem, people actually die or experience brain damage from falling over while standing still; we know a fall of that distance is dangerous. Helmets reduce the impact and save lives and brains. The only real question is the frequency of the falls taking place from bicycles.

You are much more likely to catch your fall with your hands when you have an accident with your city bike vs a road bike.

Biking at less than 25km/h just isn't that dangerous (unless a car hits you)

being more likely to catch your fall needs to be computed against how likely the falling is, and how likely injury is. This just confuses things, much easier to look at how many injuries occur.