[threetonesun]

Ask any mountain biker and they'll give you this conclusion from experience, almost all of us have had some low-speed awkward crash where a helmet was the difference between getting up and walking away or laying in the woods with an open head wound.

If I'm riding on the road do I expect a helmet to help if I'm run over or hit at high speed? Not really. But if someone clips me and I hit the pavement I'd rather something than nothing.

[kashunstva]

Road cyclist here. Once I went down on a training ride careening off into the unpaved shoulder. After dusting myself off my friend I was with looked aghast. A pyramidal sharp rock was wedged between the ribs of the helmet. Lacking a helmet a skull fx would have been a real possibility. Lots of ways to ways to die road cycling but if I can eliminate one; I’m there.

[im_down_w_otp]

I am definitely alive today due directly to my wearing a helmet skateboarding, mountain biking, and skiing.

Skateboard helmet saved me from taking a piece of rebar to the temple. Mountain bike helmet saved me from taking a jagged rock to the back of my head. Ski helmet saved me from taking the corner of a park rail to my forehead.

There's there more than one kind of crash and more than one kind of serious/fatal head injury.

[propter_hoc]

The kind of extreme sports you list having participated in have absolutely nothing in common with low speed urban bicycle commuting.

It certainly makes sense to wear a helmet while doing mountain biking, BMX tricks or road racing.

[jamal-kumar]

People opening doors onto bike lanes without checking, impaired drivers, trucks with blind spots, all of these things are definitely stuff I'd rather have a helmet upon encountering the worst side of than not while riding on a modern road on a vehicle which doesn't have a huge case around it already.

I think if you're maybe in one of those exceptionally bike-friendly places like Amsterdam that these hazards may be mitigated enough, but at least in the Americas people are actively hostile towards bike riders on the road and I think it's just a matter of civil infrastructure planning more than anything in terms of that sentiment.

[im_down_w_otp]

I've been "doored" four times. On the same stretch of road. In front of the same hotel. Fortunately, in every case I managed to hang into their door well enough as I was endo'ing to keep my head from hitting the pavement, and I also thankfully wasn't swiped by traffic in the lane next to me either.

Had I gone fully over the door head first, I suspect a helmet would have been a welcome companion for both the impact and the road rash. In all those above cases I was wearing one precisely because of that suspicion.

[WkndTriathlete]

> I think if you're maybe in one of those exceptionally bike-friendly places like Amsterdam that these hazards may be mitigated enough

As a lifelong cyclist, I can assure you there is no way to mitigate hazards enough on a bike, even in as cyclist-friendly place as Amsterdam, to justify not wearing a helmet. Even something as simple as an awkward fall can result in a head bouncing off the pavement.

[Kim_Bruning]

That's pretty cool that you are a lifelong cyclist! Amsterdammers tend to be lifelong cyclists too, they start very young [1]. However, they don't tend to wear helmets.[2]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVhYcJH_m5o 100s of Kids & Parents Bicycle to one Amsterdam School

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8h_DalTjV0 Amsterdam Bicycle Rush Hour.

[pdx6]

I'm still around from wearing a helmet biking in San Francisco. I got my wheel stuck in the old street car tracks on Castro and Market while going 15 mph and went over the handles. My helmet cracked when my head hit the pavement, I was skinned up and shaken, but no serious injuries.

I think there are plenty of low speed urban bicycle accidents a helmet is good for based on this.

[2muchcoffeeman]

Are you just ignoring the speed of the vehicles that hit you?

[jamal-kumar]

Honestly I'm completely amazed I'm not a brain damage case from my own years of boarding without one. Like, after getting hit by cars a couple of times, hitting speed wobbles going too fast bombing a hill, and falling into a crevice on a mountain... I've been through a lot of insane stuff but near-misses with almost dying on a skateboard or snowboard have definitely put the fear of death in me. Now that I'm older I don't think I would mess around without one.

I've known a few people who have become brain damage cases riding around without a helmet and life isn't great for them. One of them followed me when I went camping at one point and lost his only pants in the forest on the first night kind of level.

[aksss]

Not to jinx myself but I’ve been in more mountain bike wrecks than I can count - stitches to the face and elsewhere, scars a plenty, and have never once hit the brainy portion of my head (small target, I know ;). I think it’s mostly owing to technique.

That said, a childhood friend of mine who became a sponsored snowboarder suffered a severe head injury while shooting an ad, and is still mentally and physically disabled from it (wheelchair bound to this day).

All to say, I’m well aware of the risks and have a list of anecdotes to support any direction you want to take them, but none of it has made me a fan of helmet laws for adults.