[analog31]

The University of Bath study was barely scientific. The researcher was his own test subject, and there has been no attempt at replication that I'm aware of.

Yet this study is cited in every discussion of bike helmet use.

I've been interested in this topic for some time, as a year round bike commuter with my entire family on bikes. It's become a prickly topic because of the intensity of advocacy from both sides of the debate.

[Fricken]

The debate around whether to wear a piece of styrofoam on your head eclipses many other far more salient aspects of cycling safely.

Good maintenance, situational awareness, and defensive/evasive riding skills are all under emphasized.

A critical one is knowing how to wipe out correctly, a martial art unto itself.

As much as a boxer will instinctively react to a fist flying at his face, a cyclist should know how to respond to a sudden altercation with the pavement. Many of them don't.

I mean, if you step into the ring against a professional Boxer having no training but think a shiny new bike helmet will keep you safe, well, good luck with that.

We're slaves to measurable outcomes, and it's easy measure and gather statistics on helmets. It's harder to measure how effective a rough and tumble childhood is for avoiding concussions and other accident related injuries later in life.