Some unspoken marriages are seemingly inexorable. The baseball and the bat. The typewriter and the ink ribbon. The bike and the helmet? All my cycling life I have been told that the two must and will co-exist. I took it as being part and parcel with the activity and never gave it much attention. Going to mount up the bike today? Going to wear my helmet: and thats that. Its rather tough to think or argue the contrary when there is no outward force giving momentum to such contemplation. But here I am today as a cyclist, mechanic, student/teacher and blogger of many-things-cycling who does not wear a helmet. Touchy a subject it will always be; constantly having to defend the stance of cycling without the seemingly common sense "aid" of a helmet, but I am here to touch on why it is that I find myself comfortable engaging in such a taboo act.
Fear sells
I
was always told that you can more often than not find answers in life
by following the paper trail of which money leads. Asking questions
regarding who has the most to gain will almost always yield truth in the
face of such uncertainty. When it comes to the best selling kit in the
cycling apparatus world, helmets stand unchallenged as an easy #1. A
no-brainer it is that the "riding without a helmet as suicide" rhetoric
is purported most by the interests that be. The helmet manufacturing
corporations have one very specific job, and that is to produce,
stylize, distribute, lobby and most importantly sell us the idea that
the helmet is to cycling what peanut butter is to jelly.
I
am not as interested in talking about all of the contradicting, highly
refutable, and usually inaccurate metrics by which the helmet is
measured "successful" in testing as I am in contemplating the often desperate, fear based approach by which helmet companies and the cycling industry as a whole have
used to scared us into buying their usually ultra expensive, highly stylized and
frighteningly light-weight/thin helmets. We seldom do research
ourselves these days as the same can not be more true for the
at-face-value approach we so often see with regards to the helmet. We
swear by its efficacy, seldom question the surrounding facts and history
all while spitting spiteful venom at those who quietly oppose the use
of them. I have seen no other aspect of cycling that has drawn as much
desperate extremism as the religious like sacrament that is bicycle helmet usage.
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| not a fear tactic... |
Would you..
Walk in a helmet? Wear a helmet in the work place? Play outdoors on the playground with your kids wearing helmets? Call me crazy, but I strongly feel that the likelihood of injury is just as high during these activities as during a bicycle ride. The type of bicycle riding we are talking about of course makes all the difference as I am speaking of people who are out in public, riding their bikes safely while achieving non-racer speed or high level risk taking. I am talking about people who are using bikes to get around, cruz and recreate as opposed to those doing tricks, attempting to break strava records down mountain trails or dodging in and out of traffic in an unsafe fashion.
Reflecting back I recall far more incidents of potential injury occurring during walking, working and driving than I ever did riding my bike. Slipping and falling have happened more than once in both the street and the work place within the not to distant past for me. Though I am completely aware that hitting my head could have happened during either instance it never crossed my mind to take it upon myself to wear a helmet during these otherwise safe activities. Walking, working and general outdoor/indoor play and of course driving have without question an inherent risk of injury. The real question is whether or not it is personally acceptable to subscribe to the notion that bicycle riding yields a higher danger that requires supposedly "life saving" safety net equipment. Would we would still be as inclined to pedal in the first place if mandatory helmet laws were put in place? By looking at the huge decline in active cyclists within nearly every county/city/country where the previous has been implemented we can see that the answer is almost always a "no".
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| definitely not using fear tactics in this public announcement from AZ |
But isn't it safer?
From everything that I have discovered during my research of places where bicycle helmet laws have been enacted and implemented, the results yielded seem to be overwhelmingly contrary to the goal. One of the most known, meticulously documented and openly criticized instances was when Australia passed a still in use compulsory helmet law in 1991. The law was straightforward; cycle with a helmet or pay fines. Over the years the evidence that helmets may actually achieve opposite effects started trickling in: helmet use was discovered to perpetuate diffuse axial brain injury (occurring from the head turning quickly due to the increased diameter of helmets), the duration of time spent in hospitals for cycling related injury increased, helmeted cyclists were more likely to be hit by overconfident and negligent drivers in cars, risk compensation in cyclists increased greatly thus increasing injury, and Australia's cycling related serious injury rate rose 22% greater than in the Netherlands (the bicycling mecca with one of the highest densities of bicycle commuter per capita that observes and enforces no helmet laws). This data and census can be found all over with a quick internet search; abundant data and studies from actual neurologists, surgeons and various third party investigators. Of course none of these studies are publicly advertised as it would directly undermine the excruciatingly hard work that helmet companies and their contracted lobbying agents have worked so hard for: getting a helmet (and preferably those expensive aero ones) on the head of every cyclist and other supposedly "high risk" activities as well.
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| A sea of young and old cyclists miraculously managing to keep their brains inside their shells |
I feel that my cessation of using a bicycle helmet is in a large way a quiet form of activism. Instead of going around with a t-shirt that says in bold print "helmets can actually increase your chance of brain and spinal injury", I choose to ride carefully wherever I can without the use of one. I personally prefer to take the risk of a good cut or abrasion to the head (which will very much heal) as opposed to risking permanent spinal and nerve injury that bicycle helmets can cause.
Sometimes people ask about my rational behind not using one and I simply state the fact that I no longer blindly swallow the pill that is the common bicycle helmet/safety/fear rhetoric. I state some basic but bold findings and suggest doing some research while making attempts at being as cordial about it as possible. I fully realize that many will write me off entirely based on the deep seeded nature of our "helmet or risk death" conditioning, but i refuse to stop being honest with not only others but mostly with myself regarding these illusions of safety and their pervasive byproducts. Please, think a bit for yourself: do some homework, weigh out the options and come to a logical conclusion of your own without the propagandizing of said corporations and conjoining lobbyists.
