DH refuses to wear a cycle helmet

[Beatie]

My DH cycles to work everyday. We live in a city with poor cycle lanes - basically non-existent in most places and where there are some, cars tend to park on them

Everyday DH seems to come home with cycle rage, ranting that someone cut him up here and someone left him no room there. He won't wear a cycle helmet though.

He says that more pedestrians are killed by cars than cyclists and that pedestrians don't go around wearing helmets. I think his point is stupid. Like talking about apples and pears. If I found out more minis were involved in accidents than saloon cars, I would be an idiot to stop wearing my seatbelt because of it.

I suspect the statistics of pedestruans being killed by cars are bumped up by all the misfortunate children who die each year struggling to cross busy roads.

Now I need some stats which say X amount of cyclists died last year and X amount of those would have lived or been saved a brain injury if they'd been wearing a cycle helmet. Anyone know of any?

It's not like he refuses to wear a helmet to not look like an idiot. He'll happily wear bicycle clips and a yellow flourescent top.

I know a lot of keen cyclists say they're not effective enough to be worth wearing - sorry.

However, if this helps..me and dh were out on a very quiet cycle path once (admittedly dh was a bit of a learner on the bike in those days cos his parents never let him have one) and he had a nasty fall. He got concussed and didn't know where he was/who I was/ what on earth was going on for about half an hour. No lasting damage but it was really scary and we never ride without helmets now.

I've found some articles here - haven't read them in detail but there is some mention of helmets.

My cousin was badly concussed and off work for 6 months(!) after falling off her bike without a helmet.
Of course helmets protect you. People who cycle without helmets on busy roads, should at least carry organ donor cards to make themselves useful!

lol at fairymum, surely he wouldn't let your children ride without wearing one. He should be setting them an example.

Try stressing to him how incredibly light and comfortable they are these days. Some really are featherlight! Tell him that after a while he won't notice he's got it on, and won't feel right without it. And they're very stylish - even sexy . And you can get stretchy flourescent bands to go round them to help with the visibility. The good points are endless.

One of my family is a consultant who works specifically with people who have had serious head injuries, and she works in rehabilitation. Cycle helmets are her BIG bugbear - she said that 95% of cycle injuries would be avoided by wearing a helmet. She has a mini cycle helmet that she puts an egg in and drops it as a demonstration - the egg is fine. Drop it without the egg and it smashes to smithereens. She regards people who don't wear helmets as amazingly stupid, because your head is the most vulnerable part, and cracking it off the pavement as you fall off a bike will do you no good at all, whereas a helmet will probably save your life.

My physio and dentist are both sure it makes a difference. They know about head and neck injuries.

If you wear a helmet, and cycle in not-too-fast traffic, the only way you can actually die is that whole get-dragged-under-a-lorry thing.

I'm not 100% sure, but I wear one because it stresses DH if I don't. And as jangly says, you get used to it, and feel wrong without it. And, of course, to set an example for the boys.

My dad was keen cyclist in his youth and one of his friends was killed, aged about 21, when she was knocked off her bike, hitting her head on the kerb. This would have been prevented had she had a helmet on.

Look at the ones here (scroll down list of left to "helmets" good for bike accessories

It's not true to say that you can only die if you get dragged under a lorry. I knew someone who was knocked off his bike in slow traffic, and fell, hitting the back of his head. He got up, walked to A&E because he had broken his collarbone, died in the hospital from a brain haemorrhage - again if he'd worn a helmet he'd have been fine - just a broken collar bone.

tortoiseshell - that's more or less my point, I said if you wear a helmet, and cycle in slow traffic, the lorry thing is the only likely killer.

Sorry - completely misunderstood you!

Reread your post now - I'm clearly illiterate!

No stress!

When I bought my dh a bike for christmas, I bought him a helmet 'to daddy from dd and ds' and had them give it to him. He doesn't like wearing it but is shamed into it because the children notice if he doesn't, and because I tell him he has to set an example!

I think your dh is mis-interpreting the statistics anyway. It's probably true that more pedestrians are killed, but then there are a lot more pedestrians than cyclists. I'm sure that if you factored out the deaths of child pedestrians (from running into the road without looking), and percentaged the number of accidents on the number of journeys made it could be a completely different story. (Sorry, I'm a bit of a saddo with statistics).

My dh is a very keen cyclist - (races and everything). He always wears a helmet and he's come off a few times. Once he banged his head on the kerb and you could clearly see a large right angled kerb shaped dent in his cycle helmet which would've been his head . Anyway Lance Armstrong is a pretty cool sort of chap and he wears one

I'm with Pixel - if he won't wear it for himself then he should as an example to children. Dh doesn't like wearing one, but wouldn't dream of letting the kids see him go off without one, and it makes it a lot easier to get ds1 to wear his as its the same as Daddy's.

He does own a helmet and will wear it if DD is on the back of the bike. I suppose when she gets a bit older I can get her to bully daddy into wearing it all the time.

It's really frustrating. He is the youngest of 3 brothers, all keen cyclists, and none of them wear helmets. I suspect if one of the older ones did, he would follow suit. Anyway, DH is the only one with a wife and dd, so he's in a very different position where he has more responsibility to protect himself.

Thanks everyone for your comments. I'll take a look at those articles PC.