50sbiker wrote:For anyone unsure about helmet wearing...Stott your head off a wall a few times,with and without a helmet....Then come on and convince me it makes no difference...(with pictures of the impact)
The risk compensation thing has already been pointed out.
Next issue with the above is that it conflates the question "am I better off wearing this thing if I hit part of my head it protects?" with "am I usefully less likely to end up suffering in a head-striking crash at the end of this bicycle journey?", but they're not the same. If they were, then let's repeat the experiment in a motoring context (the country's biggest source of traumatic brain injury)...
Stott your head off a car's door pillar a few times, with and without a helmet....Then come on and convince me it makes no difference...(with pictures of the impact)If the first one was of itself a good enough reason to wear a helmet on a bike, then the second is in itself a good enough reason to wear a helmet in a car. But making a difference in the event of a crash isn't all there is to it (or why not fit your car with a roll-cage?)
Next, let's look at the next biggest cause of serious head injury in the UK, trips and falls. Here's the experiment...
Stott your head off a pavement a few times, with and without a helmet....Then come on and convince me it makes no difference...(with pictures of the impact)If the first one was of itself a good enough reason to wear a helmet on a bike, then the third is in itself a good enough reason to wear a helmet on foot .But making a difference in the event of a crash isn't all there is to it (or why not always wear gloves and wrist guards to walk to help break a fall?)
But we don't drive or walk in helmets because, despite the injuries that undoubtedly occur, we know it's safe
enough not to bother because to a first approximation trips on foot and in motors don't involve crashes. They don't on a bike either. The main difference is the culture around the modes, rather than the actual risk. With so many people on at us the whole time about how dangerous cycling is and how important helmets are our culture has ended up pushing helmets for cycling, people do what others do around them and that propagates the perceived importance, and makes many people psychologically uncomfortable flying in the face of "what everyone knows". People tend to do what they feel happiest with, and will often rationalise that gut-feeling in to "reasoning" like the above that turns out not to have much consistency.
In short, helmets are considered important because everyone goes on about them.
Everyone goes on about helmets because they're considered important.
It's a loop, evidence has largely been superseded by ritual.
That's not to say you shouldn't wear one if you want to wear one. However, for most of the people most of the time in contexts where they don't expect to regularly engage in "unplanned dismounts" the state of the evidence is very much "not proven", and it's probably better to say "I prefer wearing this to not" than cherry picking evidence or dubious thought experiments to justify it. That way it's your decision and doesn't imply anything about anyone else's.
Pete.
Often seen riding a bike around Dundee...
. I prefer to enjoy my cycling/exercise, and if I get arthritic so be it 
.
