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Comment on Pros / cons of riding a bike?

A helmet is only needed if you intend to spend significant time in traffic.

The worst wreck I’ve ever had on a bike was without a single car in sight. Pinch flat while carrying speed through a steep downhill curve. I split an expensive MIPS helmet in two and still hit hard enough that I had a minor concussion, road rash up one side of my body, and cracked the face of a week old watch just to pour salt in the (metaphorical) wound. I mostly landed on my head at north of 30 MPH and that helmet is the reason I didn’t have drastically more severe head injuries.

Helmets aren’t just for traffic.

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MonkRome@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I don’t doubt anything you are saying, but it’s worth mentioning that (iirc) 80%+ of severe injury and death on a bicycle is caused by motor vehicles, or complications of motor vehicle involvement. People very rarely have severe injury or death on dedicated bike infrastructure. The primary risk on bicycles is motor vehicles. If you remove motor vehicles, there is still risks, but someone might decide that risk is low enough to forgo a helmet. I don’t feel those people should be called stupid for their choice.

There is considerable evidence that everyone wearing a helmet in a car would save vastly more lives, and yet pretty much no one even considers that as a normal thing to do.

I still use a helmet, and more importantly, visibility gear, on my bicycle in 100% of my rides.

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- AchtungDrempels@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  There is also this interesting dutch study, where somehow helmeted cyclists were 25 times more likely to end up in a hospital. Of course the reason for that never comes up as something problematic from the side of our solely safety concerned citizens, they will congratulate you for your new speed record down that hill.
  
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- commandar@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  80%+ of severe injury and death on a bicycle is caused by motor vehicles, or complications of motor vehicle involvement.
  
  Which would mean ~1 in 5 have absolutely nothing to do with a motor vehicle. That’s significant.
  
  There is considerable evidence that everyone wearing a helmet in a car would save vastly more lives and prevent severe head injury
  
  Then that should be an easy [citation needed] for you because my searches are coming up blank for actual studies. Lots of assertions of it, but I’m not finding anything in terms of actual data.
  
  It’s very easy, on the other hand, to find comprehensive meta analyses on the efficacy of helmet use.
  
  It’s also worth noting that the introduction makes a point of calling out another common online assertion that you repeated – that helmets make people engage in more risk-taking behavior – as false:
  
  There has already been an extensive peer-reviewed literature review conducted by Esmaeilikia et al.5, which found little to no support for increased risk-taking when cyclists use helmets and if anything, they cycled with more caution.
  
  I don’t feel those people should be called stupid for their choice.
  
  I don’t think they’re stupid. I think they’re bad at risk analysis. That’s a pretty inherent feature of humans. It’s the reason I want to see actual data.
  
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