Holy cow, that’s a lot of crashes.

I’ve been a ‘full-time-commuting-cyclist’ for most of my adult life. Twice I have been in bike accidents not wearing a helmet in which I had significant concussions (one of which kept me from taking my final exams and graduating from college for a summer.) I have had several bike accidents/falls while wearing helmets, perhaps one every 18-24 months, and have never had a concussion while wearing a helmet. This isn’t anything like a scientific sample, of course. And, the idea that wearing a helmet increases ones’ tendency to push the edges of safety feels right; I know when I’m not wearing a helmet I’m very aware of my vulnerability.
So, for me, I will continue riding a helmet. My brain is too important to me.

At what age would you suggest that people stop being children, from a helmet -wearning point of view, and start being adults?

I consider recommending helmets for children to be a Bad Idea for several reasons:

1) Children’s helmets rarely fit properly, as their heads are growing all the time. They are also rarely worn properly, so would normally just slide off in a crash.

2) Children need to learn to protect their heads, not to let them hit the ground: wearing gloves is a much better idea, so they learn that the best action when falling off a bike is to protect your head by putting your hands out.

3) A helmet makes a child’s head heavier and significantly larger, to a greater extent than it does to an adult.

4) Children have died from being strangled by helmet straps: read the label inside a helmet to see the many instructions and disclaimers.

5) Having to wear a helmet can put children off cycling as much as adults. We need our children to be as active as possible!

6) You continue to send out a message that cycling is significantly more dangerous than other normal daily activities, such as walking, climbing stairs, and being a passenger in a car. This also reduces the number of people willing to use cycling as a mode of transport.

Please don’t pick on children when recommending people to wear polystyrene hats: they need the exposure to risk much more than adults do, and cycling gives them freedom to travel distances that they can’t otherwise do without assistance from a car-driving adult.

I can imagine that helmets aren’t going to make much difference if you find yourself under a tram or lorry, or a motorist ‘doesn’t see’ you (whether or not they looked). Death by bicycle is usually an extreme outcome, much like being attacked by a shark, or bitten by a venomous snake (unless you live in Australia, where these are everyday occurrences?) I’m more interested in the effects of a helmet when knocked off a bike (or falling off, or having a blow-out on a fast descent) and not getting squashed or pulverised. Are helmets effective in reducing the likelihood of head injury in what might be seen as low-impact incidents?

The Australian case cited above is one of many that show a strong correlation between helmet promotion and severe drops in cycling - 1/3 is a certainly a huge drop and you see that sort of thing again and again.

I say that as someone who cycles in Seattle and wears a helmet. In this way I’m like JanetM - it now just feels too weird not to wear one. Last fall on a visit to Holland for a week, however, I biked without one while I was there. In the Dutch context it felt fine. (Largely, I think, because no one else was wearing one - and the drivers there are competent and courteous, and the infrastructure excellent.)

However we *feel* about helmets, the facts such as they are make it increasingly easy to imagine the following being true:

* helmet promotion lead to substantial drops in cycling
* helmet use does not seem correlated with a drop in the death rate per mile cycled
* substantial drops in cycling are strongly correlated with a greater threat of death from heart disease and diabetes

In which case helmet promotion will have been a great public policy mistake.

As has been pointed out numerous times, just because there was in indent in the helmet does not mean you would have suffered any injury.

Bicycle helmets are designed and tested to lower standards than hockey, football, and baseball helmets. Have you ever noticed that BMX riders wear full head helmets? It’s because standard helmets don’t provide sufficient protection, and BMX bikers are not dealing with the type of impact you get from a car crash.

Finally, and most importantly, biking is not dangerous. Your chance of death or serious injury is no greater than driving or walking. If you don’t wear a helmet when driving or walking then there’s no legitimate reason you should wear a helmet. If you want to wear a helmet, that is your choice, but don’t go around scaring people away from cycling, you are doing them a dis-service and endangering all the cyclists out there.