in message <[email hidden]>, John
(') said:I was just after wondering what the ratio is of people wearing helmets
when riding their bikes to those that don't?Do Helmets for bikes really give that much protection? A lot of them
look a bit flimsy in design like they would just fall off.
They're designed for low speed falls and for low speed falls they're
probably reasonably protective.
Quoted message said:If you are just riding a bike for leisure in flat areas without much
traffic, I can imagine not many people bothering. In towns and cities
I could imagine it being 50/50. For mountain biking though I can't
see many people not wearing one.
I think you're right that a helmet makes sense for a lot of mountain
biking (although not all) - certainly I don't wear one except when
mountain biking. In cities I think it's very much more questionable.
Helmets are of extremely limited value in higher speed impacts and the
balance of the evidence is that helmet wearers are slightly more likely
to be killed or seriously injured than non-helmet-wearers, although as
yet no-one really knows why.
Much more information on this at <URL:http://www.cyclehelmets.org/>
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[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
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