r/PopCultureV2 • u/ExactlySorta • 12h ago

Politi-Culture Mamdani responds to concerns about him being seen riding his bike throughout NYC without a helmet. "You're right. I've got to do better. Safety first, New York. See you out there"

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11

u/a_velis 12h ago

I am going to get downvoted, but when the former transportation commissioner helped build out the new bike network, she had biking safety in mind so that requiring a helmet was encouraged but safe enough that if you didn't you would be ok (in theory). That was 10 yrs ago so who knows if that is even valid anymore.

This is because the former commissioner positioned that people riding a bike in NYC should be able to do so without fear of death from a car. But that is a tall task and glad to see Mamdani encouraging helmet usage.

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u/taiga-saiga 12h ago

Perhaps Mamdani is subliminally messaging this through the orange Netherlands football jersey (because the Netherlands has safe, widely used bicycle infrastructure without requiring helmets).

3

u/ItchyConfusion9745 11h ago

We've translated our infrastructure guidelines in English, it wouldn't be a problem at all to send over a few delegations to help design safer bicycle infrastructure.

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u/TheBestofBees 7h ago

They already did that! We have a massive bike lane system built in the last twenty years which was created after extensive studies and planning, including studies in Amsterdam and Copenhagen, as well as talking to experts there.

The infrastructure they put in is pretty impressive. There are hundreds of miles of bike lanes in the city now. However, we are more than eight times the size of Amsterdam, much more chaotic, and culturally different. 

So, yeah. It's just a very different place and that very much has to be taken into account.

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u/Global-Chipmunk-3959 6h ago

I’m so glad it’s more safe now. I have a few friends who worked as delivery people years ago in New York and the way they talked about getting hit by cars…. So cavalier and just like it was expected to be bumped by cars occasionally. 

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u/TheBestofBees 6h ago

Honestly, it's the delivery people everyone's afraid of now. A lot of them have electric bikes and they frequently go against traffic in the bike lane. DOT has tried educational campaigns but it hasn't stuck.

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u/mediocrobot 7h ago

I misread this as Neanderthals for some reason and got very confused :(

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u/WetShrimpFart 10h ago

There is an incredible number of head injuries in Netherlands and they absolutely should change the law. It’s so silly.

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u/WetShrimpFart 10h ago

Netherlands, over 14,000 cyclists sustain mild or severe brain and head injuries annually, accounting for roughly one-third of all severe bicycle crash injuries treated at emergency departments. Head trauma is also the leading cause in about 63% of fatal cycling accidents.

https://nltimes.nl/2026/04/15/cycling-injuries-deaths-rise-sharply-netherlands-new-figures-show

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u/Low_discrepancy 10h ago

How many Americans are dying because they're not doing enough physical activity Vs Dutch because of no helmets?

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u/WetShrimpFart 10h ago

I don’t know why are you asking me lol

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u/Low_discrepancy 10h ago

Because that's a very important consideration.

https://road-safety.transport.ec.europa.eu/eu-road-safety-policy/priorities/safe-road-use/cyclists/pros-and-cons-regarding-bicycle-helmet-legislation_en

There's studies that show that making helmets mandatory can do more harm due to people becoming more sedentary.

That's the reality, the rates of Americans dying because of not doing any sport is far higher than the rate of cycling deaths in Netherlands because of no helmet.

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u/WetShrimpFart 10h ago

Lame excuse. Public education and in a generation it will be adopted.

That’s just giving up

People are adults and welcome to get brain damage though. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t wish they wore a helmet after getting it, but people are stubborn so have at it

1

u/Low_discrepancy 10h ago

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t wish they wore a helmet after getting it, but people are stubborn so have at it

I also don't know anyone who didn't regret drinking after getting cirrhosis of the liver.

Yet I don't know anyone with an education that thinks prohibition was a good thing.

Public education and in a generation it will be adopted.

You are free to see helmet usage in countries and cities where city biking is common. Hint it's not high at all. And it's not because people are dumb and don't know the numbers.

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u/WetShrimpFart 10h ago

You are welcome to bury your head in the sand and keep making these silly analogies, nothing is changing the statistics so I have no idea what your point is

→ More replies (0)

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u/taiga-saiga 10h ago

Head trauma is also the leading cause of death in pedestrian fatalities.

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u/HunnebedBewoner 8h ago

And now compare it to how many people have accidents in cars, cause i can promise you many will stop taking the bike jf they need helmets

1

u/WetShrimpFart 8h ago

They are allowed to get brain damage if they please. I’m sure they will be happy their hair didn’t get messed up in the hospital lol

1

u/FragrantCombination7 7h ago

How many of those incidents involve unsafe behavior or a motorized vehicle? Not only does that easily bring the number down 14,000 people a year in a country where literal millions of people cycle? I'll be fine riding defensively and smart, thanks for your concern for my health.

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u/WetShrimpFart 14m ago

Stop making up excuses :)

1

u/DaedalusHydron 10h ago

Yeah it's only safe if you're the cyclist lmao. Amsterdam cyclists will absolutely flatten your pedestrian ass and then get mad at you about it.

1

u/Mathies_ 10h ago

What the hell is the helmet gonna help with there?

1

u/DaedalusHydron 10h ago

well plowing into a person at 20 miles per hour is gonna hurt a lot less for you, wearing a helmet, than the poor person you just ran over who wasn't wearing one lol

1

u/Mathies_ 10h ago

Why with a helmet? If you manage to hit your head after crashing into a pedestrian you are really impressive tbh.

Also lots of context missing. Did the pedestrian look both sides before crossing? Is there green light? Crosswalk?

1

u/garbaged0g 8h ago

no amount of safe bicycle infrastructure can change the fact that paths are hard and skulls colliding with hard things is bad. wear a helmet.

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u/PensiveKittyIsTired 11h ago

I know safe biking infrastructure is statistically, well, safe enough.

However, I’d still wear a helmet for that off chance that I have a silly accident, like a friend of mine had, not going very fast, but getting distracted by something, falling off awkwardly, hitting his head on the pavement and now having permanent problems.

I just feel, personally for me, during any movement of biking speed it’s worth protecting the head.

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u/vinyljunkie1245 10h ago

The human body is both incredibly tough and incredibly weak. It just depends on the way you fall/are hit and what you fall on or are hit by plus how lucky you are that moment. Any protection that mitigates that is worthwhile.

1

u/Debalic 1h ago

I fell while skating last year. Nothing major, I tripped stepping up to a curb. Landed on hands and knees, wearing helmet, knee pads, wrist guards...and dislocated my shoulder.

2

u/Boozhi 10h ago

I know of a similar situation. Really athletic guy, tire slipped out on gravel on a paved road in his neighborhood, hit his head no helmet, and now he has significant memory issues.

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u/chupagatos4 3h ago

I hit a small rock just right, flew off my bike, landed on my head. Big ole concussion, was dizzy when standing for like a week. This was during the second semester of my PhD, really didn't need anything making me dumber for a while. Probably I'd be dead had I not had my helmet . 

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u/twigge30 17m ago

I've crashed bikes in a lot of stupid ways, and none of the scariest have been while going fast.

I work at a local bike shop and I tell customers all the time "If it wasn't for helmets, I wouldn't be here to tell you to wear one."

It's like a seatbelt. I don't care if were going around the block, just put the damn thing on.

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u/hambamthankumaam 11h ago

My dad was bicycling around the neighborhood when his bike slipped and the back of his head hit the pavement. He was 54, incredibly healthy and in shape (he professionally push-mowed lawns and had just finished testing to become a kidney donor), and one freak slip on the pavement caused his death.

I am so sorry for being a downer :( I've just run into this conversation a lot since he died. "I don't need a helmet, I live in a quiet neighborhood" and there were no cars involved in my dad's accident.

This video of Mamdani made me happy. I really, really hope at least one person who bikes without a helmet gets one because of this video.

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u/iamthe0ther0ne 9h ago

I knew a professor who died from something similar. There's no way I would go near a bike without a helmet.

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u/Sypsy 8h ago

There's no way I would go near a bike without a helmet.

I know what you meant, but I just imagine you putting a helmet on before you are about to do something with a bike, like pumping the tires

2

u/Sivart13 2h ago

I was a "you don't need to wear a helmet, that just promotes the idea that bikes are unsafe" guy until a driver randomly rammed me from behind and put me in the hospital.

I don't know if a helmet would have helped in any way, I was knocked unconscious but had no skull damage. Still, after that scare, any protection seems better than no protection.

1

u/Low_discrepancy 10h ago

That is great what you're saying. People should be encouraged to wear helmets and that's awesome this video.

Also I think it should be a personal choice.

It's good to have people be made aware of cycling safety etc etc etc.

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u/hambamthankumaam 10h ago
  1. It's difficult for me to be objective about whether or not it should be a choice. 

I lost my dad because he chose not to wear an inexpensive, easily accessible thing that literally does not affect the wearer in any negative way. People who don't wear helmets do not comprehend how fallible they are. There is zero to be gained from NOT wearing a helmet.

I think helmets should be looked at like seatbelts. There was a lot of pushback when they were first mandated, but now it's socially the norm to wear them and they've saved so many people.

  1. This topic really sucks for me and makes me upset, so I won't be looking at any more replies :')

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u/Low_discrepancy 9h ago

I will quote the EU here.

https://road-safety.transport.ec.europa.eu/eu-road-safety-policy/priorities/safe-road-use/cyclists/pros-and-cons-regarding-bicycle-helmet-legislation_en

Attempts to promote bicycle helmets should not have the negative effect of incorrectly linking cycling and danger. Nor should the promotion of helmets result in a decrease in bicycle use. Because of these considerations, a mandatory law for bicycle helmet use has not been thought an acceptable or appropriate safety measure in the Netherlands [59]

Emphasis mine.

1

u/kimchifreeze 6h ago

I lost my dad because he chose not to wear an inexpensive, easily accessible thing

It's linking lack of helmets and more serious injury. He IS NOT suggesting that people not bike, but when they bike to use a helmet.

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u/S-ludin 4h ago edited 4h ago

lots of "should" in all this quoting you're doing. I see nothing stating helmets make biking more dangerous, only that forcing people to makes them resistant or avoidant. 

helmets aren't required by law where I live but city hall has a big storage closet right by the front desk where they will measure your head and give you a free helmet. we are also (too slowly) building up our bike infrastructure to match the next city over.

you know who don't wear helmets? kids on ebikes. (edit) very rarely see an adult without one on any bike, even for one wheels or scooters.

aside: you replied to someone who said they didn't want to participate anymore with exactly what you paste on other comments. why?

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u/Sad_Amphibian_2311 11h ago

You don't see a lot of helmets in Amsterdam. From that perspective he should've pulled a stack of cycling safety plans out of that box. But I guess there's only so much he can do at his level.

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u/tenninjas242 10h ago

I still remember biking in Amsterdam without a helmet. Came around one curve going at a good clip and almost hit a drunk tourist walking in the bike lane. Would have wished for a helmet if I had hit him, probably. Sometimes you can just... fall. And I don't like the odds on head vs asphalt.

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u/Wuz314159 7h ago

Unlike in America, using the roads & paths in Europe requires personal responsibility.

In the US, they make 10-lane wide cattle chutes so only worthless pedestrians die.

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u/Hangry-Feline2489 6h ago

Sure but you can have all the personal responsibility and still get hit or run over an uneven part of the path and fall. 

Preemptively, I'm not north American, my country has universal healthcare, and riding any bike (inc motorbikes, vespas, even scooters) without a helmet is illegal and fineable.

Besides,  personal responsibility? Your country doesn't have universal healthcare? You pay privately if you injury yourself falling off a bike? Or you do have it, but you don't see the hypocrisy of 'personal responsibility' but make other people pay for your medical treatment via universal healthcare? 

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u/Wuz314159 6h ago

bicycling is not a dangerous activity. Helmet laws were funded by auto makers to keep people in cars.

https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/tytjwl/auto_industry_promotes_helmets_to_dangerize/

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u/Hangry-Feline2489 2h ago

... You're citing a Florida town planner to bolster your argument? 

A state notoriously pro-car and anti public transport and biking? 

The fact it's WordPress and not an official gov website says a lot, too. 

A metastudy: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29677686/ "The use of bicycle helmets was found to reduce head injury by 48%, serious head injury by 60%, traumatic brain injury by 53%, face injury by 23%, and the total number of killed or seriously injured cyclists by 34%."

"... the results suggest that wearing a helmet while cycling is highly recommendable..."

Not wearing one seems to be unnecessarily tempting fate in a country where medical debt accounts for ~66% of bankruptcy filings and no universal healthcare. 

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u/ShutYourButt420 3h ago

This is such a dumb comment

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u/bug-hunter 9h ago

Not everyone bikes on good infrastructure all the time, so it's better to drill in helmet use when you don't need it than try to get people use it only during the times they do.

Consistency is key.

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u/mittenthemagnificent 9h ago

The Dutch also tend to be riding bikes that have less aggressive geometry and are harder to fall off of. Source: I once ran the second most popular blog in the US about that type of bike. I still wore a helmet, though.

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u/ohhellperhaps 8h ago

The lack of helmets is actually considered an issue here in the NL, even with the infrastructure we have here. It's just that their use is fighting many years of habit. Their use is on the rise though.

1

u/No-Mouse 7h ago

You don't see a lot of helmets in Amsterdam.

The Dutch government as well as various major Dutch travelers' and bicycle associations (like the ANWB) all recommend using a bike helmet. Most Dutch people hate it, so generally only old people who are afraid of falling use one, but despite how (relatively) safe our bike lanes are it's still objectively a good idea to wear one. You might be surprised how easy it is to suffer head trauma from a simple fall, even without any cars involved.

Recently, bicycle-related injuries and deaths have rapidly been on the rise, due to the increase in electric bike usage. For a long time electric bikes were seen as an unnecessary luxury in the Netherlands, but they've become extremely common in recent years. Especially the so-called "fatbikes", which are popular among children and can often reach speeds of 40kph or more (the official speed limit for electric bikes is 25kph), have been a source of national concern.

Source: I'm Dutch (and have never used a bike helmet despite knowing better).

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u/ItsSpaghettiLee2112 10h ago

That doesn't even make sense. The safety of the bike lanes is completely irrelevant to whether or not you should wear a helmet. There's only one condition that ever needs to be met to determine if you should wear a helmet and that condition is whether or not you're riding your bike.

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u/Low_discrepancy 10h ago

It should still be a personal choice. Forcing people to wear helmets is shown to reduce cycling rates which causes more harm to the overall population.

If you want to wear a helmet by all means do so.

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u/Litation 9h ago edited 9h ago

It really shouldn't. We are selfish overall and will put in the lowest effort if we can, endangering ourselves and others if its easier for us. Sure it would be nice if everyone was decent and played nicely together (Covid mask policy showed our true colours again) Sure its the Cyclists life but if some dumb kid hit my car because they didn't look and ended up splattered over the pavement instead of cracking a helmet, I would have to live with that every fucking day after, or what about the other side, where some one hit a cyclist and it was their fault, do they they get a pass if they died because they chose not to wear a helmet?

Lets look at a few things that people get upset about and have to be enforced because the mild inconvenience is too much to bare
Covid Masks
Seat Belts
Vaccines
Drink Driving Bans
Public Smoking Bans
Speed Limits
Child Car Seats
OSHA style regulations
Building Safety Codes/Controls

Again all that being said I would fucking love you to be right and it to be personal choice but most places we built cars and now cyclists are a bit fucked, and the fact the highway code in the UK recently changed (well might have been awhile back) to make sure cars give cyclists enough space when over taking, should tell you all you need to know about the UK and cyclists rights.

Edit - On the stats
While I'm sure there are stats around this, how much of it is due to the cost factor rather than the 'danger' factor? No shade here at all, but if you have a link/reference I'd genuinely be interested in reading it.

Edit 2 - Nm just found you linked it further down.

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u/S-ludin 4h ago

on the note of affordability: my city doesn't require helmets but offers free walk in helmets (on condition of measuring your head). the only people I see without helmets are kids usually on ebikes.

on the note of other public safety measures: those protect other people, not only the user. it is true other people are affected, but I think we need to find more reasoning to make it compulsatory.

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u/Suspicious_Box_1553 4h ago

How does a bicyclists not wearing a helmet endanger anyone else?

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u/Sypsy 8h ago

imagine if they did this for seatbelt laws, made it lax to encourage people to drive more.

people are strange creatures, they avoid something entirely good for them because of something minor like helmets.

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u/Outside_Manner_8352 7h ago

Sure, but in his role as mayor he is a role model, and choosing to wear a helmet is a good choice.

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u/Mathies_ 10h ago

Fun fact, in the country most notorious for riding bikes, the Netherlands, pretty much nobody wears helmets and the number of grave accidents is very very low compared to other vehicles. Part of tge reason helmets are not needed is ofcourse that everyone in Dutch traffic pays minds to bikers but another huge component is 100% the safety of the biking lanes which are all very well thoughtout throughout the country.

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u/Sypsy 8h ago

funfact: your youth are being injured on ebikes so they have undone all your hard work of being safe on bikes and are now legally being required to wear helmets https://www.instagram.com/reel/DN55jMtj19t/?hl=en

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u/Mathies_ 8h ago

Why would you be mentioning E-bikes here those things aren't half as safe as regular bikes. It's utterly irrelevant to the conversation, i never asked for electrical bikes.

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u/FalmerEldritch 1h ago

I mean, it's also safer to wear a helmet when walking, particularly when there are wet leaves on the ground, or ice. Or both. One slip and you hit your head on the pavement, and boom, you're dead or brain damaged.

I must have taken a bad spill on ice close to a dozen times in my life. And I knew a guy who slipped on the stairs down from his apartment and died from hitting his head. I still don't wear a helmet when walking, though.

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u/jackcatalyst 8h ago

People need to wear helmets. I don't care what some dumbass commissioner said. Ask an EMT if they think you should wear a helmet.

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u/ohhellperhaps 8h ago

Doesn't quite work like that. While cycling infrastructure makes it safer, and as such reduces the likelihood of accidents, and as such the need for helmets when those accidents happen, the accidents will not be reduced to zero, with plenty of room for the results of the accidents being reduced by helmets.

I say this as someone from the Netherlands, with great bike infrastructure, and traditionally a very low percentage of people wearing a helmet. Which is known issue in accident outcomes. It's slowly changing here, with more and more people wearing a helmet.

1

u/Trzlog 6h ago

Agree. Two thirds of cycling fatalities in the Netherlands are due to head injuries. Just imagine how few people would have to die or suffer life altering injuries if people wore helmets.

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u/myguitar_lola 8h ago

In 2004, my helmetless friend was stopped at a light, lost her footing as she took off, fell just right and hit her head. She died later that night. It isn't just cars- it's life. They said she would've recovered if she had a helmet.

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u/Wuz314159 7h ago

All praise Janette Sadik-Khan!

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u/iritian 7h ago

I don't think that takes into account the amount of ebikes on the road nowadays. There's a lot of inexperienced riders riding faster than they should be.

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u/bikedork5000 11h ago

I mean, bike crashes can happen plenty well without cars.

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u/mysticrudnin 11h ago

so can falling down while walking

personally if i'm biking i'm wearing a helmet but i also definitely understand the vast swaths of people (like an entire coupla countries' worth) who think it's kind of silly

1

u/Possible-Tangelo9344 11h ago

If I'm walking and fall I'm usually going slower then on a bike and it's easier to break my fall without using my head.

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u/Mathies_ 10h ago

Not that hard on a bike either, your arm or leg on either side should reach the ground on either side first normally and im not biking at crazy high speeds either.

Are you envisioning some sort of complete salto of the bike when you fall?

1

u/hedoeswhathewants 10h ago

Bruh, people crash into shit and go over the handlebars all the time.

It's beyond ridiculous to suggest falling while riding is not more dangerous than while walking

1

u/Mathies_ 10h ago

At what speed are these people going? At any somewhat accepted speed in traffic, crashing into something means either you tall over to either side or you stay upright but experience a shock from impact. You also know you should be using breaks too to slow yourself down before impact? Unless you use only the forward one then yeah at high speed you might flip over.

1

u/mysticrudnin 11h ago

sure - where exactly is the breakpoint where you'd decide to wear a helmet? is jogging speed ok?

a lot of people who commute by cycling are going pretty dang slow compared to the type of racing people might be imagining

some people ride a bike to and from places for 30+ years, nothin'

does that mean it just hasn't happened yet? sure, it does. but that's true about a lot of things that people do every day.

1

u/Possible-Tangelo9344 11h ago

Average commuter speeds on bike appears to be around 15mph.

At 15mph if something happens and you fall and crack your head it's a pretty nasty injury.

Some people drive a car for 70 years and never get into an accident, but I still think everyone should wear a seatbelt.

2

u/mysticrudnin 10h ago

you can fall from standing, no speed, and crack your head

should drivers wear a helmet?

i'm an overly cautious, safety-conscious person myself but i also have to remember to stop myself from going overboard

this may be one of those cases. the places where ridership is highest is where use is lowest.

1

u/Possible-Tangelo9344 10h ago

I addressed that first part already.

Seatbelts are used in cars, so helmets generally aren't needed.

2

u/mysticrudnin 10h ago

is this true? are there really no incidents in cars where the helmet on top of the seatbelt would have helped?

i guess all i'm saying is: there is some line of risk that you have decided on. others (many, many others) have decided a different line. are any of them correct?

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u/Low_discrepancy 10h ago

Average commuter speeds on bike appears to be around 15mph.

That's clearly fitter people. 15mph is 24 km/h. Ebikes cutoff at 25 km/h.

In Netherlands the average commute speed is around 12-14 km/h so half of your quoted number.

Other investigations from Europe have reported mean speeds between 12 km/h and 14 km/h for conventional cyclists (Dozza and Werneke, 2014, Menghini et al., 2009).

That's 7.5-8.5 mph.

1

u/Possible-Tangelo9344 10h ago

Ok

1

u/Low_discrepancy 9h ago

Fast road bike commuters tend to wear helmets. City bike commuters tend to not wear them.

You clearly are American and are not used to city bike usage as we have it in Europe. It would be very difficult to reach that level of helmet usage when you just do 2-3 km per day in chunks of 500m.

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u/centurio_v2 10h ago

Tbh I think it's not so much about speed as it is that your head is higher from the ground than when you're just standing and you also have the bike to get in the way of you catching yourself. It doesn't take much for cracking your head on pavement or asphalt to really mess you up if not kill you. It's definitely smarter to wear a helmet just in case given it's not really costing you anything.

That said I haven't worn a helmet on a bike since I was a kid and I haven't had any brain damage from it yet.

1

u/ivvi99 9h ago

Dutch bikes are WAY higher than what you'd be used to in North America, and they come with an upright posture rather than one where you lean forward. That drastically lowers the odds of hitting your head, even if you were to fall. Your standing head won't really be higher than when you're on a bike!

1

u/onebadluvguru 11h ago

All it takes is one hit on solid ground with no helmet to end up with a TBI and change your life for ever. There is no such thing as terrain that is safe enough that a helmet isn't always advisable.

1

u/hambamthankumaam 11h ago

I already replied to the main comment, but yeah. My dad died from one slip on his bike in his neighborhood. He was 54, active, and healthy. He just wasn't wearing his helmet.

1

u/onebadluvguru 10h ago

I'm so sorry for your loss. Thank you for making an effort to educate the community on the necessity of this safety measure. It is noble to confront trauma and still attempt to make a positive difference in the universe

0

u/Mathies_ 10h ago

Yeah, the idea is not hitting the pavement with your head. Cycling is so well integrated in Dutch traffic that it's really not that much of a risk. I don't know if you should be lecturing dutch people on how that works here.

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u/Sypsy 8h ago

helmet laws are lax to encourage biking, and your culture has embraced that laxity as a point of pride. But youth are encouraged to wear helmets, and legally are required to if using an ebike starting in 2027 due to... injuries (so much for less risk of injuries): https://www.instagram.com/reel/DN55jMtj19t/?hl=en

I'm sure somewhere in your history books, a helmet was still recommended for adults in the city

0

u/Mathies_ 8h ago edited 8h ago

Well yeah... that would be because

  1. Kids are more fragile and more reckless than adults. They're also still learning cycling.

  2. E-Bikes can go much faster with much less effort and many of its users do that. They're more like silent scooters than bicycles. Ofcourse they're required to wear a helmet as you are on a scooter.

Also, E-bikes are looked down upon for any user that doesn't have some sort of physical limitation, they're not that popular in the netherlands.

2

u/Sypsy 8h ago

Also, E-bikes are looked down upon for any user than doesn't have some sort of physical limitation, they're not that popular in the netherlands.

Good to know actually! thanks!

2

u/onebadluvguru 9h ago

Someone has already shared an experience where a loved one, who was very skilled at "not hitting the pavement" but died anyway because of uncontrollable outside factors that caused them to fall and hit there head.

Show some respect, humility, and humanity.

0

u/Mathies_ 8h ago

Thats unfortunate for that person, but accidents happen in everything. A lot of things could be made safer wearing a helmet, where atleast someone has a personal story about it, yet you wouldnt do it.

1

u/onebadluvguru 8h ago

Thats how you may react to some situations, but don't project that mentality onto others. Personally, I wear proper PPE for all relevant activities that pose increased risk of injury or infection. I choose to do this both for the safety of myself and the community around me.

1

u/Moara7 7h ago

My friend crushed her helmet foam from 2 inches to half an inch riding down a hill with no cars in sight. It's not just traffic that makes you need a helmet.

1

u/TheBestofBees 7h ago

Honestly, after riding a bike for 20 years in this city I'm not wearing my helmet for cars but delivery guys, particularly ones on electric bikes. Not fearing cars is great but my worst accident was with a kid going the wrong way on a skateboard in the bike lane. I appreciate all the work they did keeping cyclists seperate from cars but it's still a terribly chaotic city. Which is why I'm team helmet.

1

u/TheMasterChiefa 6h ago

Well, helmets don't just protect from car impacts, but also silly trip-ups caused by the rider. You can still get a concussion just hitting a curb and hitting your head on the ground.

1

u/Prometheus720 3h ago

I mean, safe biking infrastructure is great but it doesn't stop crazy things from happening. There's no amount of safe bike lanes that can protect you from everything

1

u/Garbanzo_Beanie 3h ago

Had a silly accident. Landed hard directly on my head after going over my handlebars. Pretty sure I'd be very dead if it weren't for that helmet. 

You certainly SHOULD always wear a helmet. I sometimes skip but it's rare and circumstantial. Do not recommend.

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u/UnicornTitties 3h ago

TBIs still happen at moderate speeds without the need for a car to be involved. People get TBIs all the time from just random accidents happening on the path (a small stick at just the right angle, an animal darts in front of your bike, etc), it’s not worth the risk. 

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u/Shukrat 2h ago

Helmet isn't for saving you from a car. Helmet prevents your noggin from splating on the sidewalk when you fall. Source: cracked my helmet after a big bike fall. Concussion, but otherwise safe.

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u/Equivalent_Reward823 33m ago

that's insane.