Some part of the US obsession over helmets is about submission and power
@bikepedantic Hi. Another awkward person whose life was saved by a helmet here. It depends.
My accident was an abrupt fall traveling downhill with a load. My head hit the pavement first, and hard. Courage & bravado wouldn't have been much help.
I recently met a member of a Japanese Olympic team. She took a fall at 60km per hour on a downhill segment during training and woke up in hospital with no memory of the accident.
Like they say in driver ed, speed kills. But with a helmet it kills less.
I don’t think that helmets should be mandated — safety in numbers etc.
But, I, too, had a bike crash ~4 years ago where the bolt holding the front fork of my seatless bike sheared. I lost steering and crashed at moderate speed on a greenway so, didn’t get run over! The ‘kind’ of crash where the helmet works.
No illusions that the helmet will do anything in a bike v car crash. But why not wear it and encourage folks to wear them. (+Make them easy to get and store and ‘normal’.)
@atthenius I wear a helmet too. That wasn’t the point.
@bikepedantic
Misdirection and deflection would be my preferred words to describe obsession with helmets. Hamstrung by bureaucracy is how I would describe helmet mandates.
Worded that way to reinforce the idea Wearers give nothing away by wearing them.