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E-bike riders aren’t wearing helmets — and head trauma cases are through the roof
(www.tomsguide.com)
this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2024
188 points (93.1% liked)
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I bought a new helmet for my downhill biking. It's almost lighter than some road bike helmets and has great air flow. Wear a helmet, people. Your noggin is precious and cars and trucks are aiming for us.
I hope your downhill helmet has a face/jaw.
Source: my previously broken face/jaw.
I wear a full helmet for any bike riding now
Its a smith mainline. Full face but it only weighs like 600 grams.
Excellent choice
Good on you man.
MIPS or bust!
The MSRP of your helmet is $310.
That's almost half of what I paid for my ebike (on sale). Though it also doesn't go at high speeds normally anyway (250w, 15mph limit).
"cars and trucks are aiming for us"
As he screams past a dozen cars into a busy 4-way stop without any regard for traffic laws or personal safety
helmets aren't made to protect you from "cars and trucks" but from falls
false sense of security
Falls that can come from avoiding cars and trucks…
The collision with a car is just one factor. Yeah, if hit directly, the collision itself can be devastating. But the fall from the collision is extremely dangerous in itself.
Cars and trucks can still smack your melon, or otherwise cause your melon to get smacked.
People are downvoting you but you are right. Bicycle helmets are not designed for impact collisions with vehicles and wearing a helmet vs not wearing one — in motor vehicle accidents — statistically doesn’t matter very much.
But why does this matter? Two reasons:
— Studies have shown that motor vehicle drivers are more likely to give a cyclist more space when passing if the cyclist is not wearing a helmet. Drivers think helmet = protected and no helmet = squishy.
— People tend to blame cyclists for their injuries if they weren’t wearing a helmet. Victim blaming is bad. A cyclist can certainly be at fault in an accident, but they don’t deserve their injuries.
That said, I still always wear a helmet when riding in the US because drivers are crazy, our road infrastructure is usually in disrepair, and I am capable of making mistakes that could lead me to fall.
I also had an incident two years ago where I was cycling downhill on a road, going 22 mph, and a child ran out right in front of me. Thankfully my hydraulic brakes did their job and I stopped me amazingly quickly, but my back wheel also came a foot off the ground. I was so close to going over my handlebars and cracking my head on the pavement.
i went over my handlebars a couple of times and once had a collision with a car that ran the red light to turn left. Luckily it was before the SUV hype and i did slide over the car instead of going under. My leg had the blue impression of the bike frame and my fingers had the impression of the brakes that broke in my hands.
During those couple of times i went over my handlebars I was practising ground based movements and i was lucky to be able to just push my body along and get up to a stop. I had decent gloves :)
for those who are interested : Advanced / basic Quadrupedal Patterns
my favorite fall is when i fell onto a soft pile of sand the city left without any visible signs on the quay (? wharf? riverwalk?) to rebuild the bike/walk path. I was riding in the night and suddenly ¼ of my wheel went in the sand and i fell on the floor that was softer than my pillow 😁
getting downvoted but you are 100% correct.
ignorance on this comment thread deep. people here don't have any idea what they are talking about and just want to blowhard about how helmet wearing is the issue.
if you're going 25mph on an ebike, a helmet isn't going to stop you from fucking up your head.
it's not like the information is not easily accessible 🤷
Maybe not a regular bike helmet, but if you are constantly riding around at those speeds you should get an actual DOT approved motorcycle helmet. Those will save you from fucking up your head in the vast majority of situations at that speed.
Even a regular bike helmet could help sometimes. It really depends on a lot of factors like how hard you slam into the ground, whether you roll or slide, the angle of impact, etc. It's not so cut and dry, but I would imagine wearing any decent bike helmet is always at least a small increase to your probability of surviving in a bike accident.