Why I am amazed by people being put off by helmets

[Thehairs1970]

This is in answer to a comment I made on the touring forum to a post about Spain bringing in a helmet law. I said I was amazed that people are put off by wearing a helmet.

1) I didn’t say that I agreed with Spain’s position. I don’t think we should legislate for helmet use. And I don’t sympathise with those who do not wish to wear a helmet although I would argue it is better to wear one IMO.
2) Lots of things are inconvenient in life, yet they don’t stop the uptake. Going to the gym, going for a run, filling up the car with petrol or plugging it in. So it’s not just a convenience thing is it?
3) Someone mentioned that having to put on safety equipment would put people off an activity. Really? Unlock the car. Get in. Surround yourself with airbags and crumple zones. Put on the seat belt. Foot on the clutch so the car can’t jump forward when you start. These are all safety devices people accept. They don’t put them off. Or sport? People aren’t put off running by feeling safer with a hi viz something on. They are put off by he effort of running and feeling like you might cough up your lungs or vomit due to exertion. So I’m not convinced by the argument.

The simple fact, I think, is that if you want to do something enough, you won’t be put off by the minor inconveniences or the silly clothes, or the ten minutes to get ready.

Please don’t judge me as a helmet evangelist. I’m not. I think you should wear them but if you choose not to, that’s your lookout. Ride with the wind in your hair, like I do when I go to some foreign lands because I feel safe without one there.

[Nearholmer]

The simple fact, I think, is that if you want to do something enough, you won’t be put off by the minor inconveniences or the silly clothes, or the ten minutes to get ready.

If a person has already crossed the Rubicon, and become A Committed Cyclist, all of that applies, in fact nothing will put them off.

But, if they haven’t, and it’s a choice between all that palaver and using the car, they’ll use the car.

Added to which, the helmet can to some signify that cycling is dangerous, much more dangerous than it actually is, and that puts them off too.

Getting people out of cars and onto bikes or shanks’s pony for short trips is in all of our interests, so we ought to put no obstacles in the way unless there is a very good reason.

I usually wear a helmet when cycling, but I understand why compelling people to do so could very well be counterproductive, and why even advising wearing one needs to be handled carefully.

[rareposter]

The simple fact, I think, is that if you want to do something enough, you won’t be put off by the minor inconveniences or the silly clothes, or the ten minutes to get ready.

It's not entirely that though. Obligatory helmet use reinforces the notion that cycling isn’t an everyday way to get about, but a specialist pursuit needing safety equipment, which makes it less appealing.

And when it comes to genuine efforts to make cycling safer, they are a red herring, an irrelevance, a peripheral issue that has somehow come to dominate the argument. Everyone is looking at the effect (falling off / head injuries etc) rather than the cause (overwhelmingly, motor vehicles).

Going to the gym, going for a run, filling up the car with petrol or plugging it in. So it’s not just a convenience thing is it?

Going to the gym / going for a run is a hobby and fitness thing, much like going for a training ride. You wear the correct kit for your hobby, you want to look the part. Like going for a night out, you wear your proper night out clothes, not the stuff you'd wear for doing the decorating.

The problem is that (in this instance) we're not talking about a hobby. We're talking about a mode of transport.
Your analogy about the car falls down too because the car has all the safety kit. You wear a full-face helmet and a flameproof suit if you're doing motor racing but not for going to the shops because in the first instance it's a serious hobby (and you want to look the part plus the rules say you have to) but in the second case, it's a simple mode of transport.

Mandatory helmet use KILLS the "mode of transport" subdivision. It's inconvenient, it makes it seem more dangerous and it doesn't solve the issues that people claim they care about (rider safety).

[simonineaston]

I will remain eternally puzzled by the sizeable proportion of cyclists who go to the trouble of buying a helmet and then go everywhere with the dang thing swinging off their handlebars...

[roubaixtuesday]

"Peer pressure and social norms" is the answer you're looking for

[irc]

Going to the gym, going for a run, filling up the car with petrol or plugging it in. So it’s not just a convenience thing is it?

Done once at the start of a journey. A helmet is worn the entire journey.

Ride with the wind in your hair, like I do when I go to some foreign lands because I feel safe without one there.

I feel safe riding in the UK.

[mjr]

And I don’t sympathise with those who do not wish to wear a helmet

Then I have no sympathy for you either!

Put on the seat belt. Foot on the clutch so the car can’t jump forward when you start. These are all safety devices people accept.

There are plenty of people driving who don't accept those two!

The simple fact, I think, is that if you want to do something enough, you won’t be put off by the minor inconveniences or the silly clothes, or the ten minutes to get ready.

But we need more people to switch from cars to bikes than are undeterrable committed types.

And ten minutes to get ready makes cycling uncompetitive as a transport choice. Is this where all the nonsense about needing extra time to cycle comes from? Most regular riders can beat drivers across all but the smallest towns. The late great Councillor Loveless must have been over 65 when I saw him but he was routinely the first to arrive at site visits in town because he used a bike not the limos (thereby enabling one fewer limo to be used for the 13 councillors).

[Thehairs1970]

And I don’t sympathise with those who do not wish to wear a helmet

Then I have no sympathy for you either!

Sorry mjr. That was a typo. I meant to type I DO sympathise! As I put later, I don’t always wear one.

[mattheus]

... like I do when I go to some foreign lands because I feel safe without one there.

Surely you could fall off at any time? Why not make yourself safer - especially if you already own a helmet.

[Thehairs1970]

... like I do when I go to some foreign lands because I feel safe without one there.

Surely you could fall off at any time? Why not make yourself safer - especially if you already own a helmet.

It’s a good question. I don’t know. I feel safer some places I guess.

[drossall]

That's fine, but you're recognising that you're acting on feelings rather than facts. Feeling safe can be quite different from being safe; indeed, arguably, accidents happen precisely when people feel safer than they actually are. Part of the problem with cycling take-up seems to be the reverse; that people feel far less safe than the facts would justify.

To achieve safety and high levels of cycling, we need to recognise the difference.

[cycle tramp]

This is in answer to a comment I made on the touring forum to a post about Spain bringing in a helmet law. I said I was amazed that people are put off by wearing a helmet.

The simple fact, I think, is that if you want to do something enough, you won’t be put off by the minor inconveniences or the silly clothes, or the ten minutes to get ready.

Except to be a really useful tool, you shouldn't need ten minutes to struggle into silly clothes or to knock the spiders out of your helmet...
..in those ten minutes, I could have ridden to my local shop, or the post box. The reason why people ride bikes less as form of transport is because bike helmets squash hairstyles and in the cases of bikes with cross bars, limit clothing choice... unlike cars. You've only got to see people cycling in the Netherlands, to see cycling integrated into life and the benefits it brings.

[deliquium]

That's fine, but you're recognising that you're acting on feelings rather than facts. Feeling safe can be quite different from being safe; indeed, arguably, accidents happen precisely when people feel safer than they actually are. Part of the problem with cycling take-up seems to be the reverse; that people feel far less safe than the facts would justify.

To achieve safety and high levels of cycling, we need to recognise the difference.

+1 and extremely well put

[cyclist]

I was once cycling with my road bike down a steep downhill, a metal fence fell, the bike light went off with the vibration, I landed head first and for a split second a had a blackout, the bike helmet crashed and I had headache and nausea throughout the day. If it were not for the helmet on that day, I might not have been here to tell this story.

On other occasions, it saved me from low hanging tree branches as they could scrap my head, or bumping into a garage door. I wear a bike helmet with mips, I also install lights on it as it saves me from using the backlight of my Garmin, and it adds an extra security level with the rear light, in case my rear light went off and I did not notice.

[drossall]

We're going to go round the same loop again aren't we?

You may well be correct, but we don't actually know what would have happened without a helmet, even though most people who knew that they were going to crash like that would probably rather be wearing one. Although not necessarily in every type of crash - cue debates on the consequences of making your head bigger when you're sliding off and bouncing down the road. (Actually, most sane people who knew that was going to happen on a ride would go for a nice walk instead...)

The problem that some of us have is not that such cases are rare, but that they are too common. If you add up all the reports and extrapolate across all cyclists, you can (at least notionally) estimate how many people were getting injured or killed before helmets were invented. The results make pre-helmet cycling one of the most dangerous activities ever invented by humankind. Which it plainly wasn't because, in the real world, it's hard to demonstrate a population-level effect at all. So it's unavoidable to conclude that many people making such reports are mistaken, however understandably, about the role of their helmets vs their skulls in the good outcomes. We can't say which of those many people, but remember that helmets are designed to be damaged in crashes, and skulls are designed to be more robust than you'd think.

And some of the analyses have even come out negative, i.e. things getting worse. Which, in my recollection, is where the helmet debate first started - not people objecting to helmets, but people trying to explain the negative early results. As far as I know, the first doubts were published in the Journal of Product Liability in 1986/7, although I admit to not having ever got hold of a copy of that one. Not obviously a hot-bed of scepticism though.

Of course there are a lot of published papers with positive results too. Some to the point of comedy; when you're getting results of 60-90% effectiveness, you really are setting yourself a challenge of explaining why casualties are still happening, apparently at similar levels to before. I still think the best summary is by Goldacre (again, not even a known cyclist, so no known skin in the game - pun intended).

Please see up the page about the distinction between feeling safe and being safe.