[BikeMag]

It is shocking to me that anyone would ride without a helmet; death is one thing, but becoming a drooling burden on your family when you could have taken a step to prevent it is deplorable.

The Bakery: Wear a F*cking Helmet, You F*cktard!

 

[pedalhound]

Yes! This times 100, YES.

I too would be dead if it were not for wearing a helmet. It blows me away when I see someone riding along with their helmet hanging from their bars...WTF, are you afraid to have helmet hair or just really stupid? Then there are the people who ride at night, with no lights, in black with just a toque on...I guess we have to control our population somehow...ugh...

 

[RichBRAT]

After 40 years of enduring this drivel as a motorcyclist I get to be subjected to it all over again. Yippee! It's not the subject that's offensive. It's the ceaseless grandstanding.

 

[Squinned]

+1000

Been riding since the age of five and in my teens I had two experiences where due to a mechanical failure on my bike I smashed my head on to pavement. What some peopel fail to understand is that its often not up to you, **** happens. Two cracked helmets is quite a bit cheaper than hospital bills.

 

[Da Peach]

Maybe she meant to say bunny.

 

[jonKranked]

if you don't wanna wear a helmet on a motorcycle, that's your choice. but it should be the legal medical equivalent of wearing a DNR tag.

 

[Pesqueeb]

if you don't wanna wear a helmet on a motorcycle, that's your choice. but it should be the legal medical equivalent of wearing a DNR tag.

A helmet has saved my life on both a motorcycle and a bicycle. If you don't want to wear one, fine, but if you don't, you get left in the ditch with the rest of the roadkill so that others don't wind up paying for your end-of-life care.

 

[trailblzer]

I thinks she needs to get laid more than anything....we live in america, is called "freedom of Choice. Wearing a helmet is just like smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol or eating crappy food...we know the consequences.....I wished I knew where you lived so I can ride my bike without a helmet. smoking a cigar, drinking Double Jack IPA and eating GMO food.....I love America!!!!

 

[eric strt6]

Wear the damn helmet so that I don't have to ride in the back of the ambulance at code 3 trying to keep you alive long enough to get to the air ambulance or trauma center.

 

[Kevin]

16 million people in Holland ride a lot of bikes and dont wear a helmet... Maybe it has something to do with infrastructure? Or maybe we are 16million retards?? Denmark seems to be doing well in these numbers. Maybe bikepaths are the way to go in the future?

Anyways, Why are 4 people with a postcount below 3 commenting on this "news"?

 

[johnbryanpeters]

Kevin, what you fail to provide are the head injury statistics for bicycle riders in Holland. I have learned from personal experience that a mechanical can lead to severe head injury. Helmets make sense.

 

[Toshi]

16 million people in Holland ride a lot of bikes and dont wear a helmet... Maybe it has something to do with infrastructure?

This. Infrastructure is key. Being on a separated bike path is worlds different from mixing it up with bicycle-unfriendly traffic on a road not designed for anything but cars, if that.

 

[DeronDilger]

God Bless America! "Home of the free and land of the brave." As much as I agree that riding without a helmet is STOOOOPID, I resent the idea that we have to make people wear helmets, or that we are responsible for their bad choices.

E.g. "eric strt6"'s comment "Wear the damn helmet so that I don't have to ride in the back of the ambulance at code 3 trying to keep you alive....."

...you don't "have" to keep any injured person alive. Assuming you are a first responder, eric strt6: (a) thank you, and (b) you choose that as your employment. Seems to me that dealing with the consequences of idiots is a LARGE part of the duties of a first-responder that isn't going away no matter how many laws we pass.

Obviously the question is a bit stickier when we are talking about children. I used to skip the helmet for a quick test run after tuning the bike or short jaunt to a friend's house. Then I had a kid. Very hypocritical to tell him he had to wear a helmet when he saw me without one at times. Now I always have a lid (as does everyone in the family).

The other problem with the move from training/awareness-raising to legislation is that it amplifies unintended consequences, it would seem. For example, several studies have shown that when there is increased pressure to wear a biking helmet, less bike riding may occur. Maybe not for the "real" riders that frequent this type of site, but the occasional or 'possible' rider. When that occurs, it means more cars and less exercise, both of which can cause bad things such as automobile accidents, pollution and health issues.

E.g. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17032-bicycle-helmet-laws-could-do-more-harm-than-good.html

Yes, wear your F*cking helmet and train your kids to know that going sans helmet doesn't make you cool, it makes you a proven idiot. But hold off on using government to force your beliefs on others except when absolutely necessary. It may save civil society and it may not be as costly as you claim.

 

[DeronDilger]

"TrailBlzer," you're trolling, right? I'll bite. Amen on the freedom of choice, but the sexist lead-in did wonders for completely destroying any consideration of validity for that part. "We (lovers of freedom) have met the enemy and it is us." - (to paraphrase) Pogo.

 

[CAPT Mitch]

Loved the article. One of my pet peeves, ESPECIALLY spandexed roadies (I r one) with no helmet, not gonna happen to them. Main points have been made. Almost before consumer bike helmets were invented I got my shoe laces tangled in the chainring of my Schwin and rung my bell. I could not remember where I was going, got home on autopilot. Most recent nasty spill was in 2005 when we had that Oregon winter and I was speeding across a familiar concrete drainage (Monrovia Canyon Fire Road) which was totally slimed that year and of course both wheels washed out. I hit hard on my thigh and heard this nasty crack, like dropping a melon off the roof. I thought, what was that? and finished catching up to my buddies. When I took the Bell helmet off, then I saw it was cracked though (bought another just like it). I did not feel a thing when my head hit.
On "choice", we are living in an increasingly socialist nanny State. I don't get a choice to not pay for people 100 lbs overweight with diabetes, crack babies, avoidable chronic diseases, and drooling no helmet head injury people with motorized wheelchairs, etc.. That's a lot of what is behind ninnys like Bloomberg wanting to regulate every facet of our lives.

 

[CAPT Mitch]

Context - Monrovia, California. 2005, what a winter. Slides took out Mt. Wilson Toll road, I don't know how many houses tumbling down hills, people's yards had 1-2 foot high grass and weeds because it was too wet to cut all the time.
I would clean up the language if I was going to reprint for a school newspaper, ya think? But ok in the context of intended audience.

 

[kidwoo]

Does Danielle Baker every write anything, you know, 'good?'

 

[Da Peach]

Not really willing to invest the time to find out.

But... So... EDGY!

Her style is the "north shore skinny" of bike related journalism.

Perhaps you need to learn to love it.