>>1035122All the anti-helmet people, in an attempt to not sound like just petulant 12-year-olds, all talk about how:
>if you get hit by a car a helmet won't do SHIT to protect you..but that's not the typical scenario anyway. All you have to do is not see a crack in the pavement, your front tire slips into it, you get thrown off the bike onto the pavement, hit your head, and surprise! You've got a concussion, maybe a subdural hematoma -- which can KILL you. Riding a bike is not 100% safe, no one has ever claimed it is, and you can have Cat-1 Pro-level bike handling skills and ride 100,000 miles a year in all kinds of weather and still have something happen that throws you off the bike in such a way that you hit your head.
Is a bike helmet perfect protection for your skull and brain? No, it's not, and nobody says that it is. NOTHING is 'perfect protection'. If you expect your head to be protected 100% of the time, then you should stay indoors, and make sure you only move around slowly and as little as possible, just in case you slip and fall. Does that sound like living, or just existing? Living involves risk. Wearing a helmet when you ride mitigates the risk to your head. Other parts of your body can be repaired and will heal. You get ONE brain, and if you fuck it up then you're either dead, or as good as dead.
I'm not even talking theoretically, here. I crashed at race speeds near the finish of a road race a few years ago, because some jackass on my right decided to jump his line over on top of me. I was pretty banged up from it, had a cantaloupe-sized hematoma on my left hip, bent the handlebars.. and got huge dent in the left side of my helmet. If I hadn't been wearing one, I would have ended my day in an ambulance with head trauma (or dead), not driving myself home after the race dealing with swelling on my hip. You can't tell me that helmets do nothing to protect your head, and I'll advocate for the use of them every time.
Wear your helmets, guys.
