No-Brainer
If cyclists were meant to wear helmets, would they have been born with thicker skulls?
IT WAS APRIL in Seattle—freezing, pouring—and my daughter and I idled in our car at a busy intersection. Up the hill to our right a dude came hurtling toward us on a bike. Flying.
And not wearing a helmet.
“Brainless,” I muttered. Partly I was appropriating this as a Teachable Moment. Mostly I was ranting, at a practice I see more of every day.
One day on my bus ride home I counted: 17 cyclists, eight helmeted. The next day: eight cyclists, five helmeted. Cascade Bicycle Club counts, too, regularly, and its statistics show the percentage of Seattle riders wearing helmets is steadily increasing. That’s great. But with the total number of cyclists also increasing—again, great: for the planet, for the community, for individual health—we might both be right.
It does not take a physicist to see that unprotected human flesh barreling along in heavy motorized traffic on sumptuously potholed city streets in a famously hilly and rain-slicked urban grid spells limited brain capacity—present and sure to come. Toss in Seattle’s drivers—unaccustomed to sharing the road and unsure they’re required to. (Uh, they are.) Add to that an environmental politics currently inflamed by viaduct wars and a two-wheeling mayor. Not the best time for cyclists to be reducing their safety protections.
But get this: Apparently the helmet question does require a physicist. Whole websites now argue that helmets make cycling more dangerous—by adding injurable surface area around the head, compromising vision, and creating a false sense of security.
One Danish cycling promoter belittles our country’s “almost pornographic obsession with safety equipment.” Languishing as a couch potato, he observes, poses far greater health risk than cycling without a helmet. The moment bike helmets are mandated, he says, cycling gets perceived as dangerous and inconvenient—and citizens stop cycling. Bad for planet. Bad for community. Bad for individual health.
This he declares from Copenhagen, a city of dedicated bike lanes, respect for two-wheeled transportation, and a complete absence of hills. I’m not sure I want safety advice from someone trying to make cycling seem safer. Biking perceived as dangerous? Biking is dangerous.
One Danish cycling promoter belittles our country’s “almost pornographic obsession with safety equipment.”
On his desk at Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center, Dr. Fred Rivara keeps a shattered bike helmet to remind him of that. In the ’90s Rivara led a study, which concluded that bike helmets decrease the risk of head injury by 85 percent. “The guy wearing that helmet escaped without injury,” he marvels. Rivara believes that the helmets-are-the-problem camp hasn’t provided credible data to back up its claims. His research, along with evidence documented in the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association, explains why the World Health Organization recommends that cities mandate bike helmets for all riders. In 2003 Seattle declared helmetless riding against the law.
Rivara wonders if the law itself might explain the numbers of bareheaded bikers he sees around the city, particularly in youth hot spots like the U District and Capitol Hill. My friend Ed, a daily bike commuter who has taken to wearing a helmet since he, well…grew up, calls these renegades “testosterone monkeys.” “They’re exactly like I was as a punk,” he says. “They don’t want to be told what to do.” Mention safety concerns and they’ll argue how in control they are—never mind that the drivers of heavy machinery alongside them may not be. They’ll moan about the Nanny State even as they swallow propaganda by ideologues who pronounce helmets the enemy of the environment.
In other words—they’re young.
The unhelmeted kid on that rainy April day stopped alongside us at a light. He rode a fixed-gear bike (aka no brakes) and earphone wires dangled down his neck. Geez. “I am going to tell him to put on a helmet,” I informed my daughter, whose stricken look told me she was prepared to chew her way out through the floorboards.
I didn’t—not because of my mortified child, now in a fetal curl, but because I figured he’d be even less safe when flipping me off. This idiot was someone’s kid, after all—not unlike my own. Perhaps my annoyance at him was rooted in distress that he stood as an example for future bike commuters like her.
Or maybe it was that there may be no future bike commuters if the roads are filled with cyclists like him. Never mind the increasing numbers who ride with respect for the risks. A certain breed of car driver looks at empty-headed cyclists like this guy and concludes that cyclists are stupid and dangerous.
Could promoting helmet use really be any worse for the future of cycling than that?
Published: June 2011
Even worse than biking without a helmet? Wearing one that is not actually buckled to your head! I see that all the time and it drives me nuts! Do you have that thing perched up there as a fashion statement or just proof you are an idiot?
A certain breed of cyclist looks at empty-headed motorists like you and concludes that motorists are stupid and dangerous.
Which many are.
This article is so full of ridiculous non-facts and nanny-state hyberbole it’s giving me a rash. I cannot believe how short sighted this writer is, but I guess that should be expected because they cannot see past their windshield.
Here’s a suggestion – mind your own frickin business and give cyclists the space they deserve – whether they are helmeted or not.
The helmet debate is valid, and it is not helpful to call people “empty-headed” when it’s clear they’re at least thinking about the issues. Hey, here’s a motorist who actually sees cyclists. (OK, admittedly I’m doing the same thing).
I usually don’t wear a helmet. I know I’m increasing my personal risk by a small percentage. However, I do believe that cycling is a safe activity — I certainly believe it is safer than being in a car, which is why we sold our car when we had children.
I also believe that mandatory helmet use makes cycling appear more dangerous than it is and reduces the number of people cycling, and statistically, as the number of cyclists go down, the accident rate goes up.
But it ultimately comes down to a personal decision: do you make things safer for all cyclists and a little more dangerous for yourself, or do you make things safer for yourself, and possibly impact the safety of the greater whole by signaling that cycling is dangerous and possibly discouraging cyclists.
I would note that there are more head injuries form car accidents than bike accidents, and I bet most fo the drivers of automobiles who are carping about cyclists not wearing helmets are not, themselves, wearing helmets when they get behind the wheel. It all boils down to perceived risk, and motorists usually have a severe misperception when it comes to feeling safe in an automobile.
The safest countries in the world for cycling happen to have the lowest (i.e. nearly non-existent) helmet wearing rates. Helmets are NOT useful in protecting against other traffic, they’re specifically designed to protect against a head height fall…at zero km/h. That’s all they do.
You don’t have to go to studies that rest on difficult premises like risk compensation when there’s actual real-world population data that shows that helmets apparently don’t work – in country after country after country, large rises in helmet usage have not produced any measurable benefit in head injury rates compared to control groups (i.e. pedestrians).
Bicycle helmets might do some good if they were motorcycle helmets – but then even the most credulous people wouldn’t wear them because they’d be far too hot and heavy. The things you see today are being sold not because they produce any measurable safety benefit, but rather because they are the most manufacturers figure they can convince people to put on their heads.
It’s all about how good of a bicyclist you are. If you smack into a car going 20 mph down a steep hill, you’re gonna suffer serious damage whether or not you are wearing a helmet. Besides, if you suffer a shattered ribcage and serious internal bleeding, the helmet isn’t gonna protect against that, now is it?
Tell me something: how is a flimsy molded piece of plastic and foam going to prevent head trauma when riding a bicycle? The damn thing weighs about a half a pound, with sturdier bike helmets weighing not much more than that, but are a little harder. Look at football, for instance. Have you read all the scientific reports that conclude that concussions still occur in very serious numbers even with a thick, padded helmet that far outperforms a standard bicycle helmet you see all these well-meaning people wear?
I never wore a helmet growing up riding my bicycle. I rode for nearly 20 years before going off to college and walking everywhere. I was even in a few accidents, only one of which involved my head striking a car. Did I die? Well if I did then it would be difficult for me to type this message, now wouldn’t it? Did I become a slobbering vegetable or develop Football Player’s Brain? No!
Now, kneepads and elbowpads are very useful. If I had worn those my knees wouldn’t be shot all to heck today, but dammit I had fun without them! 8^)
Listen. If you’re worried about your kids getting brained on their bikes (like I’m gonna be with my kids when they get old enough), make sure they learn road and sidewalk safety inside and out before they ride their bikes unsupervised. I started out in a parking lot at 4 and didn’t go out on the streets until I was 6. Of course, that was back in the early 80s, when there wasn’t so many damn idiot drivers on the road. Nowadays, it’s probably best to avoid bikes altogether unless you’re out on the trails in the woods… hmmm…
Wear ‘em or not, it’s your choice and should not be against the law to go without.
Just like seatbelt aren’t guaranteed to save your life, neither is a helmet. They may reduce your chances by a few points, but in the end you pretty much have the same probability of serious injury or death when you tangle with idiot drivers or airheaded bicyclists. Mind your manners and be courteous to other denizens of the road and sidewalks, and everything will work out well. Trust me!
Folks like the author spend too much time worrying about someone else’s well being. The other poster here affirmed the “idiot” statement in the article. So let me put it out there. I’m over 50. I have an IQ of over 150. I am considered wealthy. So let’s just start by assuming that anyone that doesn’t wear a helmet might not fit your description. Perhaps you should ask folks like me why we prefer not to wear a helmet before disparaging them.
We all take risks. Statistically, it’s more dangerous for the author to ride in an automobile than to ride a bicycle. I’m not likely to pull up alongside her and call her an idiot for not taking the bus. I’m a private pilot. You might argue that every time I go up, I’m an idiot. It’s not necessary that I fly and if I lose an engine around here, it will be hard to find a flat piece of property to land on. But it’s my life and my choice and I really don’t see why it should concern the governement or for that matter Katheryn Robinson.
I’ve gotten this far now haven’t I? Every day is a bonus from here on. I don’t look at that fat person and call them an idiot for not losing weight. It’s their choice. If they want to die that way, it’s their call. I’m not going to judge their motives or intelligence. So to Katheryn and the other posters….. it’s my call not yours and I’m no idiot.