A high-visibility vest does not protect you at all. Its only purpose is to make drivers pay more attention to you instead of actually protecting you.
A helmet actually protects you. Also not just from some specific danger that shouldn’t be there in the first place (cars) but from the results of every possible fall no matter what caused it.
Typically people don’t fall by their own, unless if you’re talking about the elderly (who are more brittle), or the very young (who drive on low tricycles to learn, and a fall then isn’t as bad). A bicycle also typically is much less fast than a car, so when you fall, the damage is also much less bad.
By far most bicycle accidents are caused by other drivers (especially car drivers) not watching out or driving recklessly near them. Or because bicycling paths aren’t cleared/salted in winter.
If you wanted to tackle accidents better, you’d prohibit smartphone usage while in traffic altogether for everyone (navigation excepted), and support separated, well-maintained bicycle lanes with protection rails.
There’s a huge difference between falling and falling because a car drove you over. Don’t blame the bicyclist overmuch. Blame the carcentric infrastructure instead.
What reason could you have not to wear a helmet that would outweigh simple safety in the event random disaster strikes?
Similar to how we wear seatbelts, you don’t drive expecting to crash, and in a perfect world you wouldn’t need it. Accidents happen though, that’s why the word exists.
it’s the simple fact that having to wear a helmet makes you less likely to ride a bike (because it’s a big extra effort, you have to bring the helmet along and mess with your hair and whatnot).
Society benefits more from people biking as much as possible, than it does from people always wearing a helmet on a bike.
A bicycle also typically is much less fast than a car, so when you fall, the damage is also much less bad.
As someone who have seen someone fall at walking speed without any outside influence and end with a basal skull fracture, I call bullshit.
There’s a huge difference between falling and falling because a car drove you over.
Yes, there is. I am however not advocating for wearing heavy proctive gear that would make a difference in such a case, but for helmets. And hitting your unprotected head can simply heavily injure or even kill you -no matter the circumstances or speed- just by hitting an edge, a curb, a random pebble or just aspllated ground at a bad angle.
If basic anatomy would allow for humans to fall over and hit their heads while standing or walking around normally, we would already be wearing helmets all the time, just like we are causally protecting our feet with shoes.
You are comparing apples to oranges.
A high-visibility vest does not protect you at all. Its only purpose is to make drivers pay more attention to you instead of actually protecting you.
A helmet actually protects you. Also not just from some specific danger that shouldn’t be there in the first place (cars) but from the results of every possible fall no matter what caused it.
Typically people don’t fall by their own, unless if you’re talking about the elderly (who are more brittle), or the very young (who drive on low tricycles to learn, and a fall then isn’t as bad). A bicycle also typically is much less fast than a car, so when you fall, the damage is also much less bad.
By far most bicycle accidents are caused by other drivers (especially car drivers) not watching out or driving recklessly near them. Or because bicycling paths aren’t cleared/salted in winter.
If you wanted to tackle accidents better, you’d prohibit smartphone usage while in traffic altogether for everyone (navigation excepted), and support separated, well-maintained bicycle lanes with protection rails.
There’s a huge difference between falling and falling because a car drove you over. Don’t blame the bicyclist overmuch. Blame the carcentric infrastructure instead.
What reason could you have not to wear a helmet that would outweigh simple safety in the event random disaster strikes?
Similar to how we wear seatbelts, you don’t drive expecting to crash, and in a perfect world you wouldn’t need it. Accidents happen though, that’s why the word exists.
it’s the simple fact that having to wear a helmet makes you less likely to ride a bike (because it’s a big extra effort, you have to bring the helmet along and mess with your hair and whatnot).
Society benefits more from people biking as much as possible, than it does from people always wearing a helmet on a bike.
As someone who have seen someone fall at walking speed without any outside influence and end with a basal skull fracture, I call bullshit.
Yes, there is. I am however not advocating for wearing heavy proctive gear that would make a difference in such a case, but for helmets. And hitting your unprotected head can simply heavily injure or even kill you -no matter the circumstances or speed- just by hitting an edge, a curb, a random pebble or just aspllated ground at a bad angle.
If basic anatomy would allow for humans to fall over and hit their heads while standing or walking around normally, we would already be wearing helmets all the time, just like we are causally protecting our feet with shoes.