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

^^ you just need to air it properly. take it out somewhere nice and open with a gentle breeze and just kind of waggle it about a bit

But I am sorry, anyone with any decency will make it damn clear that despite this helmets are 100% a symptom of the problem and 0% part of the problem. The closest parallel I can think of is that anyone with any decency will say that a young women who wears little clothing, gets blind drunk and gets into an illegal minicab late at night and ends up a victim of a sexual assault is 0% to blame despite the fact that with hindsight we can all make suggestions to her as to how she might have behaved differently to reduce her chances of becoming a victim.

Logic 101 says you can't prove anything by analogy. It's a poor analogy anyway: you are trying to show the difference between cause and symptom but your analogy actually demonstrates the difference between causation and negligence. It's not wrong but it doesn't illustrate your symptom/cause dichotomy. (And that in itself is a false dichotomy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_feedback)

Also, that's the second time you have used a rape analogy. It's pretty gross that this is your go-to image, and hideously ironic that you started that paragraph with the phrase "anyone with any decency"

If helmet wearing is a "symptom" of the problems caused by cars, the analogous "symptom" in your little rape scenario is not the woman's choices but the rape itself. You are apparently saying having to wear a helmet is analogous to being raped by cars. It's a brave position, I'll give you that.

We have a duty to accept the reality - that fewer helmets would reduce 3rd parties impression of cycling being dangerous [edit - and it might well be good !overall if fewer people wore them]. But as important if not more important is that we have a duty to remember that people wearing helmets is not the problem on any level whatsoever - bad drivers, bad cyclists and ignorance are the problems.

The reality is that humans learn from other humans, so in the absense of more formal information about safe cycling they will look at the cyclists in helmets, see that the majority choose to wear them, assume they must therefore be necessary and follow their lead. So because it is the most visible step a cyclist can take towards safety, the perception grows that a helmet is the most important step towards cycling safely. And this is compounded by the well meaning advice of those who say "well it must do something" or "if it makes even a tiny difference", and by the less well meaning advice of organisations like the AA who choose to promote helmet use rather than address much more significant risks to cyclists.

Now you will undoubtably say the problem is not the helmet but the ignorance and assumptions being made. And in principle you would be right. But that is basically staying the problem is we have the wrong sort of people, because humans are wired to learn by example. And trying to solve a problem by changing the people to meet the principle never works.

So here's a better analogy. Wearing a helmet is very often like the drunk looking for his door keys under the lampost instead of by the door where he dropped them. It makes him feel like he's addressing the problem but he isn't, and it's stopping him doing anything to solve the real problem. Initial cause: dropping keys. Ongoing cause: trying to solve dropped keys with the wrong method.

And helmets are 0% of that problem? What if they are a small percentage of the problem in that people are treated differently, consciously or not based on helmet use. On a case by case situation, you should not be blaming the victim for their choice of headwear, but if the problem you refer to is "road safety" then helmet use could be factored in to it.

And all that^^.

And especially that^^^^ but be careful not to fall on anyone.

I've got a sweaty helmet, should I clean it ? People at work are starting to notice the smell

Put it on the floor of the shower, shell side down, after a few days of being splashed it should start to smell a little better. Try not to piss in it though.

You should always wear your helmet showering, massively risky pastime, I avoid it when possible.

I like to make sure I shower with the window wide open and the shower curtain pulled back because I would hate to think if i slipped and fell that I could be accused of being at fault because no one could see me.

I like to make sure I shower with the window wide open and the shower curtain pulled back because I would hate to think if i slipped and fell that I could be accused of being at fault because no one could see me.

The resident opposite the Coach and Horse seemed not to have a problem with this despite the tinted window.

Rape victims, eh? How do they work?

I bet if rape victims wore helmets they'd suffer from fewer head injuries.

Has anybody got any papers or regulations or anything on helmet usage amongst rape victims?

Just knowledge gleaned from experience.

it's a very specific fetish* that one so thankfully few attacks.

*safety masochism

^ there you go, then. Any rape victims not wearing a helmets basically brought it on themselves. They knew that with helmets they'd be less likely to be attacked, but did they care? No! They were too worried about their hair and making up stupid excuses like "wearing a helmet to walk down the street suggests that it's dangerous for women to walk down the street"

Edit: or indeed for men and children to walk down the street, let's not confuse this important issue of helmet-wearing and rape by limiting it by gender

Cyclists are a part of cyclist road safety, have you seen the way some people ride? Wearing a helmet could be argued to be a small part of the problem too.

How on earth does wearing a helmet stop me -

signing an online petition to prevent helmet compulsion, or
signing an online petition to get a stupidly lenient sentence handed down to a bad driver increased, or
explaining to people how inconclusive helmet safety evidence is so that praising me for wearing one and admonishing someone else for not is fucking stupid, or
etc etc etc

It doesn't, in the same way that the drunk person could look elsewhere for their keys too, possibly even in the correct place.

Your analogy isn't an analogy and argues a different point.

Wearing a helmet doesn't stop you doing any of those things, that doesn't prevent wearing a helmet from playing a part in the problem you say they are 0% of.

I think it would be a good idea to stop trying to find an analogy as you suck at it.

Do you get your point?

I've got a sweaty helmet, should I clean it ? People at work are starting to notice the smell

I got a new liner for the inside of mine the other day, it's like a new helmet, maybe you should treat yourself (and your work colleagues) to one.

Earlier on you were moaning at charlie and saying helmets are 0% of the problem, FACT. All I'm saying is that there is a chance that they may contribute in a small way to that problem, I have not saying that they are the main cause of it, no one has suggested such idiocy.
Reminds me of that analogy about the chicken who lived near nandos but got a B on his English GCSE, and found 10000 forks when all he wanted was a knife.

bloody hell. this thread.