Bicycle helmets
Recently I rediscovered cycling, I have been off my bike for too long but I am back in the saddle now and trying to do an hour a day on the streets of San Francisco.
The law here in California with regard to cycle helmets is similar to the law elsewhere, if you are a child then you have to wear a helmet but if you are an adult you can choose for yourself. In countries where compulsory helmet wearing for cyclists has been introduced (Australia for example) cycling reduced, people became less likely to use bikes at all.
I don’t wear a helmet because I hate them, I hate wearing them and I hate having this extra thing to worry about when I am not on the bike. The chances are if I had to worry about a helmet then quite often I’d probably not take my bike. It is my choice and, like everything else in life, it is a calculated (well, estimated) risk.
Here in the US it is other cyclists that tell me I should be wearing a helmet, in the UK it is almost always non-cycling car drivers.
There is no one way of looking at the figures, you can fudge them both ways by looking at injuries-per-hour-travelled or per-mile-travelled, or count hospitalisations or whatever, there is a statistic to suit your cause. However the truth is that car drivers and walkers suffer fatal head injuries too, one hell of a lot of them, certainly many more than cyclists, and no one says they should be wearing a helmet.
Hidden in all the cycling deaths and injuries is what I presume to be the majority of the data, the dangerous cyclist. This video shows one type in NYC and I see these guys in SF every day (and I am in truth kind of envious of them). This is my point basically, you can minimise your risk of being involved in an accident by being safe, learning to behave safely on the street will drastically reduce your chances of being hurt, wearing a helmet will also do this but to a much lesser extent.
I have never ridden a bike in place where drivers, with some exceptions, are more cautious than here in SF. I am a relatively cautious cyclist, but i am trying to get some exercise in too so I am not so slow either.
Which brings me to my final point, just how likely am I to die from NOT cycling?
Do the health benefits of cycling out weigh the risks? Obesity, heart disease and the like are far more likely to finish me off before my time than an hour a day on my bike; in fact an hour a day on my bike will, in all probability, cause me to live much longer.
Now I am off out for today’s hour, if I write no more you will know what killed me.
Great articles and more (better?) info here and here and here and here.
