As Counsel to Professor Clyde Crashcup, I wear a helmet pretty much all the time while riding, except once in a while on a very nice day, while going a short distance at low speed. On such days, I like to let the wind whistle through my short hair. But I feel terribly conflicted about it, and I have a couple broken helmets that sit in the corner of my cycling closet at home, and when I open the door to put my bike away they chastise me in sullen silence for my nerve and stupidity. A guy who has busted four helmets in 2.5 years, two helmets in 5 months, all by running into the trees or hitting the pavement at parkway speeds, doesn't need to be riding around with an unprotected bonce. Yes, riding without a helmet is fun sometimes, but I only do it rarely because I like being able to think more than I like to enjoy the marginal bit of pleasure that cycling helmet-less adds to riding. Still, it's a nice feeling, one I wish I could enjoy more often, but one which I can't. In the end, I almost always make the choice to wear a helmet because I know it's the smart thing to do, but in the end, I want the freedom to not wear the helmet, to put on my Columbus hat and tool around. I want you to have that same freedom too - it's a personal choice, not one that should be dictated by anybody else.
Ultimately, this might leave you thinking I'm against helmets. I'm not. You should wear a helmet all the time, or almost all the time - really, it'd be a shame to die in a low speed tipover. There's better ways to go. But if you don't want to wear one, that's your business. I may call you stupid but I'll defend your right to be As Stoopid As You Wanna Be. It's a free country, mostly. What a mess of an opinion, eh?
I'm not the only one who feels conflicted about the whole matter. Here's my favorite foreign politician, British Tory Boris Johnson, on wearing a helmet whilst cycling:
Here, then, is the political position. In my efforts to do the right thing, I have ended up giving offence to both opposing factions. As soon as I started to wear a helmet, I was denounced as a wimp, a milquetoast, a sell-out to the elf and safety lobby, a man so cravenly attached to his own survival that he was willing to wear this undignified plastic hat.
As soon as I was pictured not wearing a helmet, I was attacked for "sending out the wrong signal" and generally poisoning the minds of the young with my own reckless behaviour.
The situation, my friends, is a mess. I have been convicted beyond all reasonable doubt of complete incoherence on the question of cycle helmets - and complete incoherence, therefore, is what I propose to defend.
You can see why I think highly of Boris - he's disarmingly honest.
He uses the helmet discussion to riff on a couple other issues currently tearing their way through British politics, including a particular issue that would have a lot of people in the U.S. marching in the street with pitchforks.
13 comments:
I find myself really conflicted about the whole helmet thing. I REALLY think that you should always wear a helmet. I do, even just spinning around the block to make sure shifting is ok after a tune up. The reason I do is so my daughter will never think twice about wearing a helmet. Like a seatbelt, it's just what you do.
I find myself conflicted on compelling helmet wearing. I tend to buy the argument about insurance, medicaid and all that if you get a really nasty head injury. Why should my rates (and taces if you run out of insurance) pay for your ICU time? I bet that the number of head injuries due to bike accidents are actually infrequent enough that it isn't significant. I think at he end of the day I'm prolly just a screaming leftist that thinks everyone should be protected from themselves. That includes wrap-around mortgages, pyramid schemes, helmets, cigarettes, and any number of other evils.
Too bad about the truth. I really hoped he would pull it together, adn write something interesting. I think he wrote two angry screeds, then realized 1)There's (Theirs!) nothing wrong with a good race report and 2) You actually write about all kinds of interesting stuff, so you were really the worst target to go after. Rayman or somebody would have made much more sense.
Funny you mention helmets today Jim. On last night's group ride, in my haste I forget my helmet at home. Some guy asked where my helmet was, I said oops, no helmet tonight. No big deal. BIG DEAL for them it seems. They wouldn't let me ride with them without one.
I guess I was riding solo I thought, until they went and found me a spare helmet.
I only mention this because I found it interesting how different people feel about the issue. I generally wear a helmet on the bike and on my Harley, but it's fun not to sometimes too.
One of the funniest things I ever saw at Haines Point was when a guy was riding in the group with no helmet. Guys were giving him a hard time, and he said something about not sprinting, he'd be fine etc. Just then a golf ball came bouncing from the course, right through the pack. That made me believe in God, and that he is a finny mother effer.
I don't believe that people would march in the streets if Habeus was suspended. It HAS been suspended. At least for brown people. I also new a Polish dude who got picked up in an illegal round up that spent a week without access to counsel. We have been told so often that we, the USA, the baddest mfers around, with the best military equipment, the best legal system, and best effing freedoms in the world need to be scared of some suicidal cowards that we are willing to give up freedom of speech, illegal search, and right to a fair trial.
I'm willing to die for those freedoms, even if it is on US soil. If we give them up, then they really have won.
Just give'm a few years. Mandatory helmet and shoulder pad use in cars will be upon us. Especially after nationalized healthcare kicks in.
The night of my accident, I had to double back into the house when I realized that I was about to leave without a helmet. Of course, had I gotten on my way down to the Point before realizing my bareheadedness, I would have broken left and done something else and not been at the Point. So in this convoluted case, wearing a helmet cause me to break my leg!! Not really - I am the dork who always wears a helmet.
I was very surprised to get as many accolades as I did from hospital staff for wearing a helmet. Everyone there asked me if I was wearing a helmet, and they were all somewhat surprised and lauditory when I said I had been.
It took me like 7 years to learn to use a fork the first time, I don't want to go through that again.
Wearing a helmet doesn't interfere too much with my riding experience. But I never want to say about someone, "If only they had worn a helmet, they wouldn't be dead/a vegetable/in a coma/whatever right now". And I don't want to be in a state like that because I didn't wear a helmet. It's likely helmets lower the odds of getting a head injury, even a minor one, during a wreck. Not sure how much, maybe not much at all. But I'll take whatever it is.
Also, it's rare, but during football games, sometimes a player's helmet comes off during a play. They can be right in the middle of the action. When I see it happen, I'm sure the guy is going to be knocked silly. But every time I've seen it happen, the guy gets up unscathed. And the replays show nothing ever touched his head. Amazing.
Eric
Thanks for the link, British politicians and British comedies, better in so many different ways...
have a great day.
I send you hither for a motivational talk on wearing a helmet. My best friend and the greatest bike handler I've ever known succumbed to a stationary topple, dead at 21. Then there's me, snapped a pedal last month and the 2 heaviest parts of me took the brunt of it... arse and head, or rather helmet. At 20km/h my helmet has over 20 visible cracks. The arse still only has 1.
Here are a couple of studies/articles about the issue that I am sure you have seen or heard of. The one I found most interesting was about how motorists would drive more carefully around cyclists WITHOUT helmets on or rather they would drive closer to cyclist with helmets on!
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/12/to_helmet_or_no.php
http://www.helmets.org/henderso.htm
http://www.kvue.com/news/local/stories/010308kvuehelmet-bkm.8c8a30f.html
Yesterday evening, I had a strange sighting on my ride. A fully aero clad cyclist hammering a good tempo followed closely by a guy on what appeared to be a MTB with clip-on aero bars, no helmet or jersey. What a contrast. No helmet in an aero tuck is not just dangerous, it's wrong.
Jim, Ok, you know I get it. I know everyone wants everyone to wear a helmet. Why is it though that they think they should dictate to everyone else that they should wear a helmet. I hate it when people tell me what to do. Keep telling me what to do and eventually I do the opposite.
Mike - thanks. I was hoping you'd share that.
Bella - yeah, that's weird. Human nature is odd. For instance, head and neck injuries have gone up since the NHL mandated helmets. Why is that? A lot of old time hockey people think it's because young guys (post '77) run into each other and the walls with their heads down, and the helmet gives a sense of invincibility. Why is that? I don't know. We're perverse, I guess.
Boz - no argument here.
Judi - love ya, but that's your problem, not mine. Hey, if everybody told you not to jump off a cliff, would you? The reason I bring it up is I have a thing about death. I don't mind the idea of it, I just hate it being senseless. Seen enough of it that I'd just as soon it means something, either for a cause, or just 'cuz you're too damn old to live any more, or maybe you're doing something spectacular. I see people hammering along the road, or especially mountain biking without a helmet, it bugs me. Knowing how Mike's best friend bit it makes me sad as hell, because it's meaningless. Humans shouldn't be meaningless, shouldn't go out in a meaningless way.
No, I don't support a law mandating helmets. Yep, I am going to tell you in this here forum that you *should* wear one. Sorry, it's just who I am and I would hope you'd ride my ass if I was doing something equally stupid. That's what friends do, sometimes anyhow. If their good friends.
what are you taking grammar lessons from the truth now? it was you all along. admit it.
"if their good friends." indeed.
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