Helmet Recommendations by a … Motorist
About 500 yards down the 800 yard long two lane section of Deerwood Park Blvd, 1 min and 15 seconds into it, a black sub compact that was patiently following me started to honk. The other lane was fairly busy, there was no room to pass. The traffic light was red, therefore, even if I was not on the road, they would have no where to go.
When I was stopped for the first time, the passenger, male, leaned out of the window and asked me fairly politely with a hint of frustration to stay on the side of the road. I turned around and explained that the lane is less than fourteen feet wide making it unsafe for me to stay on the side. To this, the passenger asked me why I don’t wear a helmet! This was a rhetorical question on the passenger’s behalf because he quickly returned to his usual perch and rolled the windows up as I was saying, “It is not the law”.
The inherent problem with the motorist’s abrasive culture against bicyclists is that few take time to research the law and its inherent flaws. I wish they would like to stop for a conversation and let me explain that I don’t wear a helmet not only because it is not the law. I would start by the epic video of Jens Voigt crashing at high speeds during Stage 16 of the 2009 Tour de France, wearing a helmet but sustaining injuries on his face, not a scratch on his helmet. Further, I would talk about the two crashes during last month’s Women’s ride where the first one walked off without head injuries while the second one had a swollen ankle and no head injuries.
Thereafter, I would point to this study http://bhsi.org/walkerstudy.htm where a cyclist gets extra room and consideration when not wearing a helmet. Though this study was done in the UK, it holds true for USA because the cycling culture and its popularity are similar in both countries. Moreover, I have personally experienced the change in attitude of the motorists in terms of passing clearance once I ditched my helmet.
What I do is bicycling for transportation. Most times I ride under 12 miles per hour. At that speed a fall will mostly result from being hit by a 3000 pound or heavier vehicle, at which point a helmet is vastly insufficient.
From Ken Keifer’s research on this matter,
bicycle head injuries constitute only about from 1.02% to 1.54% of the US total serious head injuries and from .56% to .87% of the head injury deaths. The largest group of head injuries, by the way, are among motorists. Therefore, bicycling is not dangerous, nor is it a leading cause of head injury.
The passenger in the car had already made up his mind that I was illegally blocking his path. After our brief conversation, he had assumed that I am a hypocrite who is spinning his own tales of safety. I find that inference bigotry because he isn’t the one on the same road as rush hour motorists pedaling along. It is foolish to pass judgment on an activity that you are not participating in and therefore can not comprehend.