Carlton Reid nails it here, in his new piece in Forbes called “I Don’t Wear A Bicycle Helmet.”
“Let me qualify that headline: I do wear a helmet when mountain biking. But I don’t wear one when the sidewalk is icy – yet I could slip when walking and split my skull.I do not don my bike helmet when I jump in the shower, despite the fact falling and hitting my head while covered in suds is far riskier than you might think.Scooping leaves out of high gutters requires a ladder climb, and is decidedly dicy, but before I ascend to the residential roof I do not strap on a lid.Why do I do all of these dangerous things without even giving a passing thought to protecting my brainbox with a helmet, yet I am said by some to be naked if I ride my bike without one? It’s illogical.”
I don’t care what you decide to do. Wear one – don’t wear one.
It’s YOUR job to be personally responsible for your own safety. It’s OK if you do… it’s OK if you don’t… I won’t shame you either way.
NOBODY should be shaming anyone for ANY thing they use or wear on their bikes… JUST RIDE THE DANG BIKE…
100s of millions of people ride bikes in the USA… EVERY DAY…, MANY do not wear helmets. 99.9+% of those rides do not result in death or maiming or head injury …
Personally, I usually, but not always, wear one.
G&S DUI Attorneys at Law homepage can provide with the examples of how helmets help. Helmets do a decent job at doing what they are designed to do. Keep your skull from cracking open in a relatively low speed fall from a bike.
I have a collection of smashed helmets from cases. In EACH crash the rider left the house and did not expect to whack their head on a car or the pavement. Each smashed helmet helped preserve a head intact.
Helmets are NOT magic – they do not imbue the user with super powers. A 40+ mph impact is likely to kill a helmeted rider.
I don’t like “helmet laws.” I don’t want the government telling me what kind of hat to wear.
When the government figures out that people walking around staring at phones, or driving cars, need to wear helmets and be wrapped in Kevlar and bubble wrap it can tackle the bike helmet issue.
As Carlton suggests, there are MANY “unsafe” things we do without helmets and we get along just fine. I mean… if we’re really being honest here… just about EVERYONE over the age of 65 should just be issued a helmet and be required to wear one for the rest of their lives, right? … because FALLS are a serious problem… more people, age 65 and up, fell down and DIED in Ohio alone in 2010 than were killed on bicycles throughout the USA…
OK… just kidding… a bit… but you get the drift…,
Tags: Helmet, Helmet Law
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