No anti-bike crap please, this is just a simple question.

Here in WA, bike helmets are required by law. My question is, would you still wear one if you weren’t required to by law? Or does having to wear one stop you from cycling at all?

Personally, I’ve been a fan of helmet ever since my 7 year old self came off a bike straight into the side of a parked car. My trusty Stack Hat put one helluva dent in the car, but I was fine. I find modern helmets light weight, comfortable and airy enough, so I’d still wear mine even if WA laws changed. I wear gloves too after turning my hands into mince meat several times as a kid.

And not that this is a common occurrence, but look at the state of his helmet at the end of this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

So, helmets – yes or no?

I say hell yes I’d wear one even if it wasn’t required by law.
Many years ago i was a push bike courier by trade.
Almost every single day on the job I came close to getting taken out.
Taxis were the biggest offender.

On one particular day my helmet probably saved my life, at the very least it stopped my head being caved in.

I was run off the road by a car who merged into my lane from my right hand side.
It sent me heading towards the curb while i was travelling around 35km/h
It all happened so quick and I tried to bunny hop the curb onto the footpath but my back wheel hit the curb.
The bike jacknifed and i high sided off it sending me head first straight into a pole.

My helmet was cracked by the impact and I walked away with a good case of whiplash.

These days I do a lot of lycra clad road riding and given it’s very easy to hit speeds of 50 km/h + you’d be nuts to not wear a helmet.
Hitting the bitumen at those speeds sans helmet = a very bad day

Hell yes I’d wear them. I can’t see the logic in not.

But given that often not wearing a helmet only affects the rider of said bike, I wouldn’t care if they removed the law. If some douche wants to ride around without one, they take that risk themselves and the consequence of it (i.e. medical bills, income loss, disability, etc.) regardless of who caused the accident.

But that may blur the lines a tad.

Just wear one. Who cares what you look like. I’d rather look like a doofus (which incidentally I don’t believe they make you look) than look “cool” and be dead.

Traffic laws are generally made to save lives. Seat belts laws, Speed laws and helmet laws etc.

They are made to protect idiots who think they are indistructable until it finally happens to them.

If you care about your life, you’ll wear one…......if you are a d@#khead then you wont, but eventually you will become another statistic.

PS Yes. If it wasn’t law, I’d still wear one.

It’s a bit like wearing seatbelts. Initially a pain in the butt but after a while why would you question it, becomes automatic on sitting down. More traffic and more bikes = more accidents. Your a spoil sport Mub, as a Melbourne Bayside resident I could have a good rant

About 15 years ago while out cycling sans helmet I was overtaken by a fellow towing a catamaran (no, he was using a vehicle !). The left hull brushed my right ear ever so gently.
I rode straight to the bike shop, in my brown pants, to buy a helmet and now never cycle without one.

I say, if you have nothing to protect, don’t wear one.

I ride motorbikes and would never dream of riding anything on two wheels without protecting your scone. Some Kevlar reinforced Lycra wouldn’t be a bad idea either. Road rash is a bitch and cleaning it is even worse. Wire brush on an open rash wound that’s comparable to a 3rd degree burn anyone?

Grew up not having to wear one and had some awesome stacks w/o any damage to head. Just came back from France,Spain, Portugal and china, the traffic is far worse over there and there weren’t too many skid lids around.
If you feel the need then use 1. The cripple kickers are always pulling up kids on bmx bikes and fining em here in backwards land. (Qld)

I too grew up not wearing a helmet and had some stacks with no damage except my pride and some bark off. When helmet laws came in I begrudgingly wore one and slowly became a fan and even more when I started mountain biking and saw a few guys get knocked out or have big stacks and walk away with a cracked helmet and nothing more. I heard one guy used to ask young kids with a helmet over the handle bars if they were a zero or a hero…... And then say heros wear helmets.

with all two wheel pursuits
you need to dress for the crash

My take on it is view it from the perspective that it’s one of your kids. You’d do whatever it takes to protect them. Why should you take your own health any less seriously?

It’s a bit like wearing seatbelts.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure
It is exactly like wearing seatbelts. You put on a helmet, or secure your seatbelt, not because you will have an accident, but that you might have an accident, and the helmet or seatbelt is there to limit (or protect from) the consequences of said accident.

Seatbelt laws have been in for decades, but how often do we still hear of crash victims who died from NOT wearing their seatbelt??

If you are using something that can hurt you if things go wrong, it makes basic common sense to prepare for consequences.

It may take two seconds to secure a seatbelt, but you are dead forever.
It may take three seconds to put on a bike helmet, but it takes weeks or months to recover from many injuries.
You may not like the way you look with a seatbelt or helmet on, but you can look good later – sooner look a little ‘different’ in a car or on a bike, than fabulous in a coffin.
If you feel it is less than manly, or less than courageous to wear a seatbelt or helmet… imagine the conversation at the funeral…
Person 1 – How did he die?
Person 2 – Car accident.
1 – What happened?
2 – He didn’t have his seatbelt on. Steering wheel crushed his ribs, windscreen broke his neck.
1 – No seatbelt? Wow, what a guy!

Or would it be more like this?
Person 1 – How did he die?
Person 2 – Car accident.
1 – What happened?
2 – He didn’t have his seatbelt on. Steering wheel crushed his ribs, windscreen broke his neck.
1 – No seatbelt? Wow, what a d@#khead!

If it has wheels, use a helmet… bikes, skateboards, roller-skates/blades, etc.

Jack and Jill went up the hill
to ride their bikes, were well met
Jack fell down and broke his crown
but Jill had on a helmet.

Interestingly though, there is an “effect” (can’t remember whose name the study was based on) that showed drivers will drive their cars closer to a helmeted rider as they perceive that rider as safer, whereas they will stay further away from someone unhelmeted. Similar to how people will do stupid things if they perceive some safety feature will save them ie driving fast because you have ABS and airbags.

Pretty much every time I ride my bike on the roads, there’ll be someone who does something that could injure or kill me. I take the attitude that I am invisible and expect every driver to hit me, and it’s saved me countless times.

Internationally, very few countries mandate helmets for cyclists & Australia has been used as a guinea pig for this law.
Studies of our system have shown that the decline in cyclists here (primarily due to the invoking of compulsory helmet law) poses a greater risk to our national health than not wearing helmets. Hence it’s not likely other western countries will follow our lead on this.

If you ride then protect yourself…

Up to the individual. I’ll always put on a helmet where possible, however, I rarely wear one to roll the 150m to the shops..

Kids up to 16 – yes

Above 16 – no

Get off the bloody roads for one thing I say!!

Unless you pay for the roads via a rego sticker, like every other road user has to do …...... then you have no right being on the road on a bloody push-bike.

Ride all you like on the many and varied designated bike tracks …. that’s what they’re for, not to mention purpose built Velodromes if you feel the need to go push the pedals, whilst wearing some un-manly, spandex / lycra type arrangement ….. and you can do it either helmeted or not …. I care not a jot.

Everyone of us takes risks …..... each and every single day, so I look at it as …..... you make you’re choices …... and you take your chances.

FYI …..... try riding a pushbike around Paris on a Friday night …. if you think it’s dangerous here.

Unless you pay for the roads via a rego sticker, like every other road user has to do ……...

Does the rego sticker on my car count as me paying to be on the road, or does that only apply if I am in my car and not on my bike at that time?
Does that only count if I am on State roads as that is what my car rego pays for…

so in that case, does the Local Council rates I pay count for me to ride on the roads that I have paid for to be built or do my rates only go on bike paths?

BnR …... I reckon that the roads should only be used by registered motor vehicles.

If they just banned cyclists from using the roads altogether, than I’m sure that a lot of parents wouldn’t get a knock on their door, and be receiving some devastating news from the police .

Just because I too pay for the roads, it doesn’t allow me to set up a picnic table on them, or use them in order to practice my drives …. or in any other way I see fit.

The roads I reckon, should be for motor vehicles, and not “leisure activities”.

Just my opinion though …......

If cyclists want to ride on the roads, given the risks involved ….. then let them pay an additional rego amount, and then, make them sit a test, eg,

Q1. Can or can’t you roll thru a red light?
Q2. How many cyclists are allowed to ride abreast of each other?
Q3. Does lycra ever look good on a man?

etc, etc.

It would be nice if we’d designed our roads with more bike lanes at an earlier stage.
People on bikes are a good thing and should be encouraged.
Fitter people = less strain on health services
Fewer cars on the road = less congestion and pollution.

Having said that I understand that cyclists can piss off car drivers especially on busier roads when drivers have to come out of their lane to go around bikes.

I only do my riding on Beach Rd
Drivers there seem to be used to cyclists and there’s always a spare lane for cars anyway.
I’ve never been abused on Beach Rd and I feel safe riding there.
I often think I’d like a change of scenery and ride down the Nepean Hwy or something but I know i’ll face more motorised challenges.

Absolutely should have to wear one.

Pity the Police are too busy to enforce the law as it stands ,
which allows kids in particular to grow up with a shocking attitude towards road safety , as evidenced by these 16 year old clowns riding around our suburbs on mopeds thinking they own the roads.