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Comment by rheide | Hacker News Reader

The same benefit as not wearing a seatbelt in the car. You feel more free, less restrained. I've cycled across half of Japan without a helmet and I did not feel in danger even for a single moment. Then I did one trip in Central London and vowed never to cycle without a helmet again.

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Oh, okay, I can buy that. Guess I'm thinking like a city rider. I used to read a lot of bike blogs in SF and in almost every case where the biker was seriously injured, they were not wearing a helmet.

I have problems with the general tendency of always minimizing risk. When did risk become something to avoid at all cost? Follow that path and you end up avoiding everything that makes life worth living. It's not about whether you should wear a helmet on a bike. It's about accepting the fact that you are going to die and stop worrying about it and start living.

I don't want to die but I'm not going to let the risk of dying get in the way of living. BTW I wear helmets when skydiving and riding my motorcycle :)

I think it's one thing to overly minimize risk, it's another entirely to take stupid risks where the payoff doesn't match the risk. I play sports and get injured from time to time (I am still healing from an ankle injury sustained months ago), but it's worth it given how much fun I have - but I still bought shin guards because getting taken out for a week because of a bad kick just isn't worth it (that's more time I could be playing soccer, for instance). It's the same thinking with bike helmets. I want to be around to bike more.

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