[Waterluvian]

> The crash had fractured his skull. At the time, neither man wore head protection, as aviation helmets were not yet standard equipment.

It’s kinda wild to me how reliable we are at having to learn the hard way to wear a helmet for each new sport or endeavour.

[dgoldstein0]

So I looked up and discovered that bicycle helmets became a common thing in the 1970s. Perhaps motorcycles were earlier. But either way I have to ask - what did people wear helmets for in 1909? Im thinking that most helmet usage came later.

[defrost]

Helmet usage, as in protective headware for general melee war and one on one fighting, dates back to the bronze age.

Hard hats, of assorted kinds for general protection while working, date back to the 1890s and became more commonplace ~1920 (ish) onwards in construction, mining, and ship building industries.

* Helmets: https://www.battlemerchant.com/en/blog/the-evolution-of-hist...

* Hard Hats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_hat

I suspect there are more early European hard hat examples to be found than are cited in the wikipedia article.

[pgreenwood]

I think they were fairly common for things like gladiatorial games, jousting, etc.

[satiated_grue]

You'd be surprised to learn how many people fell out of airplanes because of lack of seat belts.

[ocdtrekkie]

In fairness, quite a few failure modes for aircraft do not matter much if you are wearing a helmet or not.

[lovecg]

You’d be surprised. Small aircraft crashes, if control is not lost before hitting the ground, are much more similar to car crashes than to large airliner crashes. For example, a recent “innovation” that saved a lot of lives was making shoulder belts (as opposed to lap only belts) standard.

[pepa65]

Next up: airbags..!