Remember kids... always wear a helmet. (The almighty bikeradar helmet thread)

100% correct... Two of the mounts had popped loose but the helmet looks completely normal and feels normal now I put them back.

Sounds good to go then. I'd put one on my Christmas list but be happy still using it until then. Again, assuming it hasn't taken a hit. A scuff is fine

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Has this been resolved yet? I feel like I should wear one so my child will wear one on the bike, but I hate them and don’t really want to. But if I feel like she should wear one, should I believe I need one too? What should I believe? And what should I buy, just some cheapo shit from Evans?

Has this been resolved yet?

No. That's the point. There are no definitive answers, you have to draw your own conclusions and make your own choices. The upside of all that is that you won't be wrong whichever choice you make for yourself. People routinely fuck up much more consequential life choices than whether to get a special cycling hat.

Unless you live in Australia. Then it's been decided for you.

I don’t wear a helmet normally when riding but our 6yr old wears one when they ride their bike or skateboard. I have a helmet for when I’m skating with them, which they sometimes ask for me to wear when riding a bike with them, which I do.

When they are older i will have a chat with them about why I don’t wear a helmet, and why they do. And why when they are older (16+) they can make that decision for themselves.

I brought a triple 8 skate and ride helmet for about thirty notes or so..

I feel like I should wear one so my child will wear one on the bike, but I hate them and don’t really want to

Edited* Kids in the UK are not required to wear one. I don't wear one when riding with my kid (the kid does). There are lots of things that are different between kids and adults, It's not fair, it's just the way it is. I just explain it that way.

There is a non-negligible risk of coming off the bike in a range of circumstances which are outside of your control - given how concussions can be potentially a lot more catastrophic than skinned elbows/broken collarbones, what's the downside of wearing a helmet? Is it the cost and the fact that you may be more likely to take risks when wearing one?

Kids in the UK are required to wear one.

Citation needed?

Children are not required to wear a helmet. Not on a bike, a scooter or in a stolen car.

But they are when trespassing on a building site.

Quite right, not required for kids. Could have sworn that they were.

I'd get absolutely shafted by my entire family if I didn't put one on my kid.

For me it’s mostly just the faff, something else to remember and carry etc. And that coupled with the idea that they might not even help much, or at all, makes them quite unappealing. I actually think they can look quite cool and I’d happily wear one while riding and probably forget it’s even on.

There are lots of things that are different between kids and adults

Such as the type and frequency of bike crashes. Assuming we're talking small children who are not playing in traffic, they're going to topple off at low speed - exactly what cycle helmets are designed to mitigate. Sober adults tend to do that much less, but they get hit by fast moving lumps of steel, on which helmets have little effect.

Sustrans suggests four other causes, including slipping on roads and colliding with non-moving lumps.. Actually found it unsurprising that cyclists as a group make up the largest number of hospital admissions.

Don't exactly have an agenda (would far rather ride without my helmet than with it) but have come off the bike enough times in a non-collision incident (I would admit to not being most adept of cyclists but I don't think my bike handling sucks either) to think the helmet is worth wearing, and am genuinely interested as to why people would think otherwise.

what's the downside of wearing a helmet?

In think a lot of people who don’t use one (self included) wouldn’t necessarily say there is one. (That said, I’m glad I don’t have to always carry one around every day). It’s just that the same statement applies at many times in your waking life, where there is often some varying degree of head injury risk which might be mitigated (often actually only in a very small way) by head protection. I don’t have the source, but I think when you look at the numbers (eg per
mile travelled) the cycling risks actually are quite negligible, and compare similarly enough to other activities like walking, using the stairs, or driving.

So for me, good on those who want to wear one (eg yourself), but it’s not worthy of any particular notice or concern to me when people don’t

In keeping with the title I'm going to leave this here....

We used data about the same people included in the study by Feleke et
al. but this time, Public Health England provided us with the
‘secondary’ cause of death: the external ICD-10 codes provided
information on the cause of the event; these secondary causes were
what the medical consequences were, i.e. the medical reason they died.

Even when we combined six years of data and large age-groups, numbers
were small so we grouped the causes of death into head injury,
multiple injury, and other.

Using the raw numbers, we found that four times as many drivers and
five times as many pedestrians died from a head injury as cyclists.
Although a higher proportion of cyclists died from a head injury, this
represented 46% of fatal injuries in cyclists and 42% in pedestrians;
most pedestrians and drivers died of ‘multiple injuries’ which is not
coded as the separate injuries themselves.

When we used NTS data as a measure of exposure in people aged 17+ (the
legal limit for driving), we found that fatal head injury rates in men
were 11/bnkm for cyclists, 23/bnkm for pedestrians and 0.7/bnkm for
drivers and 9, 10 and 0.4/bnkm respectively for women.

Using National Travel Survey data has enabled us to combine data on
road travel deaths with an accurate measure of exposure – how much
people of different ages and gender travel by the different modes.

So we all need to start wearing hats whilst walking as well. And driving.

Article here for interest:

https://blog.ukdataservice.ac.uk/nts-road-deaths/

Think when you're looking at fatalities that's a very small proportion of bike accidents, and statistically far more likely to involve cars. Reckon the stats look very different if you're considering risk of injury more generally, so I think the HES data quoted by Sustrans is a better set to be considering if the concern is injury prevention. Probably wouldn't argue a helmet would make much of a difference in a crash where a car plows into you regardless of whether you're a cyclist or a pedestrian, but think it might help if you're plowing into a car that's cut you off/turned across you..

It’s also probably worth wearing one to avoid friends, family and work colleagues bleating on about how you weren’t wearing a helmet when you broke your wrist

the helmet is worth wearing, and am genuinely interested as to why people would think otherwise

I'm not sure that many people think the helmet has zero or even negative benefit, it's just that it has such a small benefit that it can be outweighed by seemingly trivial concerns such as comfort, convenience and vanity.

I didn’t wear a helmet at all riding in France earlier this summer.

The roads are better and drivers are more considerate. It was lovely but I don’t feel quite as safe from bad driving or potholes here.

This has all been argued to death. Ultimately helmets are not required to ride a bike in the UK.

As Sustrans has been quoted quite a bit, I think a link to their actual page on cycle helmets might be fair. https://www.sustrans.org.uk/our-blog/policy-positions/all/all/our-position-on-the-use-of-cycle-helmets