1982. On a country road without a helmet, I hit a big patch of gravel, lose control and black out. I'm taken to the hospital with a concussion.

1988. On a country road with a helmet, I hit a dog and flip over. The dog runs away. My worst injury is a sprained ankle from my toe clip. I never wear toe clips again.

1995. Rollerblading in Central Park, I forget to bring my helmet and pads. I notice that everyone, including the pretty women, seem to pay more attention to me and treat me like a social being instead of a vehicle.

1999. In Albuquerque I see a cyclist hit by a car running a red light. He flies 30 feet in the air and lands on his head. He has no helmet on. People call 911 immediately, but by the next day he is dead. The motorist gets jail time, but that doesn't bring the cyclist back.

I'm basically with Serial Catowner on this: Helmets shouldn't be mandatory, but they're a good idea. Especially if there are cars around, or if you're a hotheaded kid who rides too fast down hills where there might be gravel or dogs.

While it's true that kids do lack the judgment and experience of their older bicycling peers and would therefore be well advised (as well as legally obligated) to wear helmets when riding bicycles, adults are under no such obligation and should not be ostracized for their decision to either wear one or leave it at home.

As Steve (#27) notes, I think the helmet issue is more symbolic than anything else. Sometimes when I have a near-scrape with a car, the driver will yell at me "Get a helmet!" as if to say that whatever injuries await me as I bicycle through the streets of New York, it serves me right for not taking my safety into my own hands. I get the impression that drivers like this often seem to feel that because I'm not wearing a helmet while I ride, I deserve to be given no regard. That in true "blame the victim" fashion, I'm just "asking for it". My helmet-less state almost seems to absolve the driver of any culpability in the event of an accident. The helmet issue seems to be a red herring which is keeping us (not the SB community, but society as a whole) from addressing more relevant livable streets issues.

A bicycle takes you right into the dangerous territory of velocity. Most bicycles don't have very good brakes, if only because the swept brake pad area and the tread on the road are very small compared with the weight of the cyclist.

Do the math. You have one head. It must last you for 70-80 years.

Now, if you were in Holland, riding a balloon tire bike at about 8 mph in a car-free zone of Amsterdam, you would probably be pretty safe without a helmet.

When I ride in an American city, though, I try to go the same speed as the traffic, about 30 mph, or (whoopee!!!) even faster. To me, wearing a helmet makes sense.

But I don't think they should be mandatory.

I say this because in 25 of years of tooling helmet-less around the streets of St. Louis as a kid, mountain biking, road racing, and commuting everyday in NYC, I've fallen badly or been hit by cars many times. Fortunately, in all but one of those falls (probably around 1979) I was wearing a helmet, which got mangled every time, whether it was from whacking a tree or the pavement or the body of a car. In short, the helmet did its job well, and I didn't end up physically deformed or dead.

Why anyone would neglect to use one seems irresponsible to me. Why someone would proudly stand firmly in opposition to them seems delusional. How someone can claim that wearing a helmet makes you less safe is just plain absurd (I agree with the contention in other posts that the much ballyhooed study that makes this claim stands on pretty shaking ground). Sure, if you ride with less caution in your helmet, you'll be at more risk, but that's not the helmet's fault.

I think everyone reading SBlog firmly supports making cities safer for riding bikes, but that is a totally separate issue. You can fall off a bike anywhere, and if you have a helmet on, you're less likely to get seriously injured. In my mind there is just no arguing that. That's why helmets are now required in the Tour de France, who's host country may be the leading bastion of personal accountability when it comes to risky behavior.

Whether or not you regulate the practice is really the crux. There's no refuting the deep and often misguided paternalistic streak here in the U.S. - you really can't protect people from their self-destructive urges - but there are strong socio-economic arguments for safety laws. It cost society a lot when people don't wear seatbelts or motorcycle helmets or bike helmets and have to go to the ER.

In my view wearing a bike helmet, like any assessment of risk, is a very personal choice that I wouldn't want to dictate to anyone. But people I care about get an earful if they don't.

Sean and d -- Judging from your comments (Sean in #28, d in #17 and #22), one would think that Alex had vehemently bashed (so to speak) helmet use as well as helmet campaigning, w/ no allowance for doubt. Yet his post was larded with acknowledgments (I count four) of the complexity of the issue. And if I read you correctly, you also faulted his lack of supporting data. Hell, I'm a data hound, but it wasn't that kind of piece. Alex was wrestling with an idea, a feeling, not trying to prove a point. He was encouraging us to think about trade-offs in a different way. I give him credit, and I'd like all of us to give him a bit more slack.

I am always thrilled to see the popularity of bicycling among the generally 20-35 y/o apparently single set, but I also sometimes wonder what will happen to their bicycling if they have kids (or if urban bicycling is such a close proxy for misanthropy that most of them will never have kids!). In my view, helping these folks make the transition to family bicycling is one of the main ways to institutionalize and expand and the prevalence of daily bicycling in NYC over the next 10 years. An unabashed, explicit pro-safety message and educational effort is a necessary part of that project. However my urging of various safety measures suited to kids--such as use of helmets, bike lanes, etc.--reflects a parenting agenda that goes to Sean's point #2 (#22 above), and is completely consistent with more general bicycling agenda in Sean's point #1 (it's motorists' job to behave safely and responsibly around bicyclists, not bicyclists job to protect themselves because "they are the lightweights," as Mayor Bloomberg has suggested).

Charles (#20), I'm talking about a bar approximately 8" long that is affixed, at a right angle, to the lower portion of the frame between the cranks and the handlebars. The kids straddles the top of the frame while standing on the 8" bar. My concern is that if the bike stops short the kid goes flying.

I disagree. d is addressing Alex head-on (wearing a helmet to avoid any rhetorical injury, of course).

Alex is arguing that there are costs associated with certain safety precautions (having a child wear a helmet or a seatbelt) that are larger than the benefits. Unfortunately, he doesn't back them up with data or sound argument. For instance, the notion that there are "safe" rides and "not-so-safe" rides is specious, at best, as d makes clear in his point #1.

There are two issues for me as a cyclist and a father of two kids I want to be cyclists:

1. What can we do to reduce the number of bad things that happen to people on bikes so that biking is a more attractive activity, especially children?

2. What can we do to reduce the risk of injury when something bad inevitably happens?

The answer to the first question is bike paths, safer streets, more bike-friendly culture, more experienced bikers, &c. Helmets are irrelevant.

The best answer to the second question is helmets.

It's bad when people focus on the second question at the expense of the first, but that doesn't make the second question irrelevant.

A lot has changed since the days I rode my Orange Crate with abandon about the neighborhood. More cars taking more trips. Less recognition that streets are for everybody. Our understanding that helmets saves lives.

I work to undo the first two changes. But, it would be foolish to ignore the third.

They take their cues from me, whenever I get on my bike, the helmet is on my head. My helmet stays hung on my bike so its there when I get the bike.

Having a helmet doesn't diminish the enjoyment of the ride. There is no alternative, no helmet, no ride.

To d and others about "supporting the argument" about being fearful. Sometimes, just observing can lead a rational being to make justified statements. There are many quotes here from people who “know of” an accident or had one themselves. Does that make it valid to make a generalization? No. Neither does it invalidate their personal experience.

If anyone does not think that Americans are more fearful, more apt to believe that terrorists are about to get them, that there are child-predators everywhere or that Saddam was a real threat (to the US), they have been in a cocoon the last ten or twenty years. It’s a well known statistic that, primarily due to TV News, the fear of the average American of crime is an order of magnitude higher than reality. Yes, there are studies which prove these theses and I can look them up for you.

All you have to do is travel abroad to notice a level of “risk” that most here would wonder at. No signs warning you of every possibility. In most inner cities, delivery trucks routinely go on pedestrian streets as needed, and there are no need of warning klaxons or flashing lights. The catacombs in Paris or Rome would be shut down as a health hazard to those stupid enough to have a heart condition and go in there. We cater to the lowest denominator here, be it in cycling, walking, driving or using a step ladder.

With regard to cycling specifically, I noted before that practically no one in the rest of the world wears helmets. Putting aside the possibility of it just being more dangerous in the US, this must mean a) that these furriners are just plain uneducated/unenlightened or b) they do, indeed, accept a higher level of risk than we do (which dovetails nicely into our being “fearful”.) Is safety an absolute value? No, or you’d never venture out your house. I’d rather teach my 9-year old how to be defensive (in walking, cycling or driving) than get a false sense of security because of armor. That way lies the Hummer.

I think Alex’s article is a breath of fresh air and hope he keeps on shaking up the preconceived notions.

In my neighborhood (Kensington, Brooklyn) you will be hard pressed to find one child wearing a helmet.

I've bicycle commuted 35,000 miles in the past 11 years BrooklynManhattan year round. I noticed that I fall once in a while. I noticed early on that when I fall, I hurt my elbows. I pay attention to empircal data. So I wear elbow guards now all the time when I commute.

People observe me with the elbow guards in the elevator at work as I am heading home, and assume I am "Rollerblading". WHen I tell them I am riding a bicycle, they can not comprehend why I would be protecting my elbows while on a bike. A bike which is a faster moving, higher placed vehicle that I ride inches from cars and trucks on Flatbush ave, in pre-dawn darkness. Hmmm. Why the perception that protection when 'blading is ok, but protection when cycling is not ok?

The answer is this, I think: from the very start of the "Rollerblading" (I know it is a trademark used generically now) people wore elbow guards and knee guards and wrist guards, so it is natural to see those protective items. Where as on a bicycle, most of us over the age of 25 probably grew up never wearing a helmet, so the thought of any protective gear is a strange one.

I had to change that view myself, since, afterall, I made it though the 1970s as a crazy kid on a bicycle and never wore a helmet. The truth is though that a lateral fall from a non-moving bicycle is enough to cause severe head trauma. It's not about your riding style, where you ride, or anything else. It is about gravity.

I see many bikers of all ages riding throughout the city on bikes that do not fit them properly. Watching these bicyclists contort their bodies when they stop at a light or how their knees almost kiss their chin when pedaling is a freightful sight. And what about those riders who ride with their helmets tilted back on their head or the straps loose under the chin!

I have biked with and without protective gear. What I find most important before a ride is to make sure whatever I am riding or wearing fits me.

America, an overly fearful country, has emphasized helmet use as a panacea to bike safety so much so that it has had the negative effect of discouraging greater numbers of people from cycling.

If this is his thesis, then the article should use data to support it, much in the way that most posts here use quotes, surveys, and statistics to support their claims.

He's using you to bring unnecessary politicization to the simple notion that our streets should be safe, clean and a part of our community. Not just a way through.

"America is a fearful country," says his friend ...from Holland.

Holland? The country where a cartoonist was murdered by Islamists for his work. We know this from the note skewed on the knife they planted in his chest?

Where a Dutch MP, Yaan Hirsi Ali, had to hide-out in the US for a while because of the unusual amount of Islamist threats on her life.

He quotes the great Gary Kamiya at Salon as writing that President George Bush "tapped into a deep American strain of fearful, reflexive bellicosity" that "we.." all 300 million of us "have difficulty acknowledging"

Which Americans? I get bellicose when someone makes facile generalizations about me.

A journalistic technique of writing an opinion piece where none of the opinion comes from you has been once again employed.

And the purpose of this piece? To discourage your from putting helmets on your children when you bicycle through one of the most congested cities in America.

Seems to me that "d" was talking past Alex -- which is common enough in discussions of this type, particularly on-line. Maybe Sblog would sponsor an informal forum on this topic, where it might be possible to have genuine dialogue?

Steve, were you asking (in #13) about the top-tube kiddie seat that comes with the fold-down footrests? I've had that on my MTB since 1999, when my older boy was four-and-a-half. I've used it with him and his younger brother (they're now 12 and 9) for over 1,000 miles of NYC "getting-around" riding. It's not hassle-free -- I have to lower my own seat to accommodate it -- but it's been a godsend. I can't imagine functioning without it.

I think you make a good point about lack of spontaneity as a bar to bicycling. Another, perhaps greater burden on casual bicycling in NYC is the risk of theft and consequent need to constantly remove and affix accessories whenever you park, and the need to lug a 25 lb. chain around with you everywhere). I am always irked by the experienced urban cyclists who will chide bike theft victims, as if the theft were the victim's fault. It's analogous to the blame-the-victim attitude of the helmet proponents you are talking about.

Chandru, I don't fault you for riding on the sidewalk when "with child," but this approach does not really address the safety issues that Alex raises. I'm glad to hear you are tolerated in the Slope. In my neighborhood we get plenty of nasty comments from pedestrians for sidewalk bicycling (putting aside my 4 year old on her own bike with me walking). A couple years back I had a cop order me to dismount and walk my bike when I was riding with my youngest, side-saddle on my crossbar while on the sidewalk.

Rich Conroy

I think your logic falls apart a little more in your response than it does in your original post.

1. Obviously, the longer one is out riding the more likely one is to get in an accident. The law of averages, and all that. However, a motorist who accidentally rams into a cyclist isn't going to make a distinction between the guy who's on an all-day ride and the guy who's taking a ten-minute ride to the store. (At least no more than a drunk driver will be able to read a yellow "Baby on Board" window sign. "Oh, let me hit the car without the kid in it.")

2. Ultimately, other factors influence whether or not someone wears a helmet in either scenario. Wearing a helmet on an all-day ride through Nebraska might not be necessary, but wearing one for a ten-minute ride to the store when you live on Queens Boulevard would be a smart move.

3. You are right that kids today don't ride their bikes like they used to. You wrote, "I think an over emphasis on helmets discourages cycling, and thus promotes a hosts of other ills, including fat kids." Not to sound like an old man, but I used to ride about two miles to my elementary school. Cut to 20 years later and none of the children in my former neighborhood ride to school, despite there being more kids on the block than every before. Is it because more people have advocated helmet use since I was a child, thereby discouraging a quick ride to school, or is it because of a host of other factors? Busier streets, increased development, more SUVs, suburban sprawl, fears (however irrational) of child predators...there are as many reasons for this as there are kids. Top it off with the fact that kids today are just as likely to be inside playing Tony Hawk video games as they are to be outside skateboarding and there's still another reason why your brother might not see so many kids on bikes.

4. What about the busier lifestyles of kids in general? Cycling has become a designated activity, as you mentioned, but so has everything else that used to be called "play." Today, kids' schedules are filled with music lessons, soccer practice, swimming lessons, play dates, and more. That would give them less time to bike from place to place (as any parent who has frantically played chauffeur to his children can verify) and less safe even if the distances were manageable, since it could very well be dark when they are done with their last scheduled activity.

5. "And is safety the absolute value?" Yes. I'm not sure what kind of conversations one would have with a two-year-old that trump piles and piles of data on car seats, but when I have kids I'll make sure they're safe in the car first and then worry about what we're talking about and the ease of our conversations. And including William Lucy's study about city versus suburban driving and accidents seemed unrelated to the efficacy of car seats, unless there is more data that you did not reference. It seemed tacked on.

6. You've also set up a false choice by saying that promoting helmet use zealously leads to fat kids and adults. There may be a very indirect link, but it's a long road indeed. Again, where is the data to support the idea that there are thousands of would-be cyclists out there who are itching to turn off the TV and get off the couch if only they didn't have to wear a helmet? If that's what's holding them back, why aren't they running, going for a walk, going to the gym, or playing catch? I'm with you on reclaiming streets for multiple uses, especially ones more focused on people than on cars, but I think you've given too much power to plastic and styrofoam head gear as a deterrent to physical activity.

Again, I'm disappointed that a blog that otherwise posts such reasonable and informed stories would give space to something that seemed more suited for the New York Post, sort of the opposite of their Hulk-like "bikes bad" mentality. Anecdotal data does not an argument make, and this piece seemed based on nothing more than a gut feeling. Sometimes that's fine, but it was hardly up to the intellectual standards of other SB posts. (Which is a shame, since Alex's other writing is well worth reading.)