Helmets are not important. If you can't take a little more risk, then drive a car. If you want to be completely safe, you could wear a big padded suit and ride with that, what do you think of that suggestion?
This logic is like people who drive without their seat belts saying "if you can't take a little more risk, then drive an armored Humvee."
http://www.bhsi.org/walkerstudy.htm
"We know helmets are useful in low-speed falls, and so definitely good for children, but whether they offer any real protection to somebody struck by a car is very controversial.
"Either way, this study suggests wearing a helmet might make a collision more likely in the first place," he added.
Maybe someone should design a helmet that looks like it's not a helmet somehow. Maybe it's disguised as a beehive hairdo.
Properly designed it'd keep you somewhat dry in light rain, which would be a boon for urban bikers.
- It helps in low-speed falls and accidents. - It may or may not help in high-speed accidents, but doesn't hurt.
Remind me again why I wouldn't wear one? I've seen/heard of plenty of cyclists who get into trouble, and few have been hit by a car going full-speed. Most bike accidents that I've seen are relatively low-speed.
700 bicyclists died on US roads in 2007. Over 90 percent died in crashes with motor vehicles.
In the former your survivability is suspect even with protective gear, in the second I can see a helmet come into real use.
- I've got big hair. If I wear a helment, I have to fix my hair when I arrive wherever I want to be. This implies that if I had to wear a helmet I just would not use my bike
The risk is not relevant to me. It's risky to travel to egypt, I'd still do it. It's risky to walk alone in a dark street in a dangerous part of town - I'd still do it. Why do I do it? Because staying safe is great when it does not directly affect my lifestyle or my fun at life - and wearing a helmet has a very direct consequence - it makes it almost impossible for me to ride a bike anywhere important. I can't always arrive and go look for a mirror to fix my hair.
Wearing a seat belt of a car on the other hand does not have that consequence. A seat belt has no cost, but a helmet has a heavy price.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=shCEAYBC52Q
Basti.
By design, bicycle helmets are only effective only at very low speeds (< 14mph). Any deviation from this and a bicycle helmet can actually increase the severity of injury [ref]. For example, an off-center impact on the oblong surface of a helmet or having the air vents catch on something can violently twist the head and neck, leading to a potentially fatal neck injury (pp. 173-174, The Art of Urban Cycling by Robert Hurst). Recent research on brain injury adds further confusion, suggesting that the major causes of permanent intellectual disablement and death may well be torsional forces leading to diffuse axonal injury, a form of injury which helmets cannot mitigate (The efficacy of bicycle helmets against brain injury, Curnow, WJ. 2003. Accident Analysis and Prevention: 2003,35:287-292).
- http://www.lobv.org/15reasons.html
This isn't the first place I've seen that claim, the site I was looking for had brain scan images and such as well, I think.
Your head will get sweatier even if the helmet has vents, so your hair will end up less presentable at the other end of any journey of length.
You need to carry a helmet around with you wherever you are going since you can't lock it up outside and trust that it will not be damaged.
You need to be careful with it, since they are fairly delicate and prone to damage that isn't obvious - no stuffing it in a bag and throwing the bag around carelessly.
You need to own one - shop for one, find a fitting one, have somewhere to keep it which isn't annoying to get while getting your bike out or annoying to put away, change it every few years.
(Some people) take care while moving around with it on - it makes your head unusually bigger so you're more likely to bash it on doorways/cupboards/other furniture, and if bashed they usually recommend replacing them.
So everyone who chooses a job they need to drive to instead of a local lower-paying job is aberrant? Everyone who chooses a car for looks instead of safety rating? Everyone who goes out without a first aid kit? Everyone who eats barbecued food known to be higher in carcinogens? Everyone who works with power tools? Everyone who walks by a main road when there's a 10-mile longer route away from traffic instead?
(These are the sorts of decisions along the intensity of wearing or not wearing a bike helmet).
Guy-risks-self-saves-life-becomes-hero-wins-girl is a very common story line. Guy-is-coward-wins-girl less so.
Hmm.
But again, it's all perception. Driving without a seat belt is considered similarly stupid. The reason is that the cost of wearing a seat belt (like the cost of wearing a helmet) is trivial and the benefits are (or at least would seem to be) significant.
The last thing you mentioned is something entirely different, called altruism. That's shown in many animals, and is a case of choosing replication of a gene over survival. It's entirely unrelated, and it also occurs a hell of a lot more in movies than it does in real life.
On April 8, 2003, at age 72, Dr. Atkins slipped on the ice while walking to work, hitting his head and causing bleeding around his brain. He lost consciousness on the way to the hospital, where he spent two weeks in intensive care. His death certificate states that the cause of death was "blunt impact injury of head with epidural hematoma"