Why wouldn't you wear a helmet

[srw]

Part of the reason I wear one less (or at least will when I leisure cycle more again) is because of reading views on here and the various stats bandied about. Although as a 'why wouldn't you' the arguments still sometimes feel a bit twisted. To be fair, largely because they are as it's mass statistics vs individual experience and the way the figures don't really mesh together on both sides could have been designed to screw with how our minds have evolved to think.

This. In spades. We're terrible at analysing risk as a species. We just can't do it.

 

[Drago]

We're even worse at defining it.

 

[MontyVeda]

...
So for the sake of a few quid you could avoid a nasty bang on the head. gravel rash, possible stitches, mild concussion, in the even of an accident,

why wouldn't you wear a helmet ?

you probably wear gloves to protect your hands

so whats it about helmets that you don't like?

I wear gloves in the winter to keep my fingers warm(ish). I don't wear gloves in the summer.
I wear a thick woolly hat in the winter to keep my head warm. I wear a thinner baseball cap in the summer to keep the sun out of my eyes.

For the sake of a few quid i could wear elbow and knee pads and save myself from a bit of gravel rash and possible stitches, but i choose not to.

I fell off this morning and still don't feel that i need to wear protective gear.

 

[recumbentpanda]

As a recumbent rider, I sometimes wear a helmet and sometimes don't. But I am absolutely fanatical about wearing elbow pads. If I drop my bike at any speed, those are the first things to hit the ground. Elbows hurt like hell and take a long time to heal if damaged. (Will there now have to be a locked Elbow Pad Thread? :-). When I do wear a helmet it is because of the following odd collection of reasons:

• Conspicuity - mine's white. (Yeah I know, no use in a snowstorm.)

• Somewhere convenient to mount an extra light - and no it doesn't create an extra injury hazard because 'knock-off mounting', a thing borrowed from my aeromodelling days using breakable rubber bands so that wings would fall off plane in the event of a severe prang instead of getting all smashed up. Not rocket science, aeroplane science.

• In winter I like a hat to keep my head warm, but most caps are too hot. Ventilated plastic hat = just right.

• In summer I like a hat to keep the sun off my pate and out of my eyes. Most cycling caps too hot. Ventilated plastic hat = just right. Just me.

I particularly like not wearing a helmet on cycle path trails on busy bank holiday weekends when everybody else is sweating in one for no apparent reason as we are all doing ZZZ miles an hour. Including unfortunate kids with necks like tulip-stems in heavy full-face BMX helmets because Mommy & Daddy Seh.

People are strange. Me included.

I keep a samurai helmet with gold 'deer horns' for special occasions. It has a face-mask with fierce grimace and huge fake moustaches. Makes small children cry and car drivers pull over, mail their keys to the nearest police station, shave their heads and take up a life of solitary meditation and good works.

 

[Drago]

For the sake of a few quid i could wear elbow and knee pads and save myself from a bit of gravel rash and possible stitches, but i choose not to.

For the sake of a few more quid we could all drive cars everywhere and not have to worry about it.

 

[MontyVeda]

For the sake of a few more quid we could all drive cars everywhere and not have to worry about it.

I don't drive and never have.. but i sometimes imagine what my driving might be like and think it'd probably be wise if i wore a helmet.

 

[Drago]

Then you have to save even more money for a chauffer.

 

[Hugh Manatee]

I have a rather nice collection of bandanas. Either one of those or a nice retro cotton cap.

 

[Dan B]

I wear gloves in the winter to keep my fingers warm(ish).

I wear gloves quite often because the gel pads in the palms help absorb road vibrations

 

[Saluki]

If you'd worn a helmet the increased head size could have avoided the broken bone as your head could have taken the impact. Am actually being (slightly) serious by the way - although the latter may not have been a better outcome.

It would have needed to have been a sizeable helmet to have taken the impact as my arm hit the floor first. I'd have been the cycling version of the Goodies in that sketch that they did about Ecky-thump.
Had it been a shoulder first impact, I think that my lid would have hit first but I think, on reflection, that I'd rather have a broken collar bone than another broken skull event. Last time I broke my skull, the hospital put a plate in it and then removed it 2 years later and my hair turned white. Not a good look when you are 16.

 

[BigAl68]

Who would see my massive collection of cycling caps if I wore a helmet. And it's the main reason I can never enter a sportive thank god.

 

[Tin Pot]

Why wouldn't you wear a helmet?

Here are a few reasons;

1. Just got a new hair do
2. Forgot to put one on
3. Using a Boris Bike
4. Doesn't match my new jersey
5. It's only a short ride
6. Would rather die than survive a bike crash with horrible injuries
7. Because someone told me I had to
8. And they look like shoot
9. There is an off chance of cycling past a CCer and really upsetting them
10. Because wasps keep getting stuck in them

 

[palinurus]

When it's warmish I'm too lazy to dry my hair properly so I let it dry on the commute. When it's cold I wear a wooly hat.

 

[Drago]

Human bone is about 3.5 time stronger than oak. It's easier to paint my bald pate to resemble a helmet than wear a real one that is several gazillion times weaker than oak.

 

[mjr]

If we acknowledge a helmet offers a bit more protection during low speed impact to your head than
A) Nothing
B) a cloth cap

Why do you think that?

and if you accept you CAN fall off your bike, however rarely - it can happen

In my experience, mainly if you ride on ice without spiked tyres... but I'd say fit spiked tyres to prevent the crash, rather than a helmet.

So for the sake of a few quid you could avoid a nasty bang on the head. gravel rash, possible stitches, mild concussion, in the even of an accident,

why wouldn't you wear a helmet ?

I don't because I don't have much confidence that it would reduce injuries in practice (see the real-world accident stats from places where helmet compulsion has been introduced and sometimes withdrawn - Ontario is a fascinating one IIRC) and so it's not worth the cost of buying, transporting when off the bike and periodically replacing helmets.

you probably wear gloves to protect your hands

Sometimes. Sometimes not. Same with overglasses to protect my eyes. Do you wear those? I'm much more worried about a stone thrown up by a motor vehicle blinding me than I am about a light bump on the head.

so whats it about helmets that you don't like?

The deciding factor was that the extra weight hurt my neck, so I stopped wearing it all the time. Then I noticed myself making more bad decisions when wearing one, although I'm at a loss to explain why. There's been some research about slow decision-making among cricketers when helmetted - maybe that's it, but maybe not. We've not got to the bottom of this by a long way.

Given that they seem more or less unproven, why would anyone who has seriously considered the evidence wear a helmet?