Why people don't wear bike helmets

The Star attempts, unsuccessfully, to delve into the issue of why adults don't wear bike helmets. I think I can provide some insight here.

The introduction of bike helmets is rather recent. I'm 25 years old, and when I was a kid my parents made me wear a hockey helmet to ride my bike, because bike helmets either weren't available at all, or weren't available for small children. The law that kids must wear bike helmets didn't come into effect until I was in my teens. This means that most adults grew to adulthood without ever wearing a bike helmet, and most young adults who did wear them as kids were not required by law to do so, which means that the helmet was imposed on them by parents who were overprotective (at least compared with their peers' parents). Personally, during the years when I had to wear the hockey helmet on my bike, I never saw any of my peers wear a helmet. I think I was over the age of 10 before I saw someone other than myself and my sister wear a helmet while riding a bike. Even my own parents didn't model the behaviour.

Now, obviously some adults do wear bike helmets so this isn't intended to apply to everyone, but I think I can pin down the motivation of those who don't.

For older adults, it's a simple matter of habit. If you've never worn a bike helmet in your life, why would you start at the age of 30 or 40 or 50? Adults tend to think that they are more cautious and in better control as adults than they were as kids (I can't speak to whether or not they actually are), so if they've never hurt themselves on a bike as a kid, they'll assume they're not going to do so as an adult.

For younger adults who were made to wear helmets as a kid before it became widespread, the helmet is a tool of parental oppression. When we were kids it made us look funny and geeky. While our friends were enjoying the wind blowing through their hair, our hair was getting sweaty and greasy and matted. This was particularly problematic in early adolescence, when looks were important, oil and sweat glands were out of control, and bicycles were the primary mode of transportation. It was a shamefully uncool thing - I personally remember people throwing rocks at me because I was committing the social faux pas of wearing a bike helmet (this was in addition to the fact that looking sweaty or greasy was also a social faux pas punished by tormenting). You can see why someone who dealt with this throughout childhood and adolescence as a result of parent-imposed helmet-wearing would gleefully cast aside the helmet and ride around with the wind in their hair the instant they hit the age of majority. Personally, in early adolescence, I decided that I would prefer the inconvenience of simply never riding a bike again to the ongoing humiliation of wearing a helmet. As an adult, I don't enjoy biking as sport, and it's not practical as transportation because I'm not comfortable riding on Toronto city streets (with or without a helmet), so I have never had reason to revisit that decision. Even during threatened transit strikes I would prefer to walk if it came down to that, because I would have to go far out of my way to find a route that's quiet enough that I'd feel capable of biking on it.

Many people would think riding on the street without a helmet is foolish because of the potential for injury from motor vehicles, but even if you do wear a helmet, there is still great potential for injury. We're talking broken bones, at the very least. People who ride on busy streets are either accepting great potential for injury, or are blithely disregarding it. On a separate bike path that doesn't involve streets, the potential for injury is very different. Yes, you could still fall off or drive into a tree or something, but you're not going to end up under the wheels of a truck. The Star article doesn't mention the specific conditions of the cyclists they interviewed - whether they were on a street or a bike path or what. But the picture shows a smooth, separate bike path with no noticeable obstacles or traffic interference. In childhood, I fell off a bike under similar conditions many times, and none of those falls were such that the presence of a helmet made a difference in the outcome. (I don't go that fast, because I don't particularly care to break a sweat just for the sake of going faster - and I break a sweat at the slightest provocation.) Therefore, as an adult, if I were biking on a smooth bike path that was separate from traffic, I would likely forego the helmet and rejoice in the wind in my hair as a joyous celebration of the liberty of adulthood. If the venue was not a smooth bike path that was separate from traffic, I wouldn't be there on a bike in the first place.

I think this all will change within the next 20 years, as wearing a helmet is normalized with today's children. By the time I'm 40, not wearing a helmet when you bike will probably be as weird as not wearing a seatbelt in the car. But not all of today's adults are going to make that change, because they believe they are aware of all the factors and are making a calculated risk using their best judgement. Speaking as an adult who does not want to wear a helmet, I have weighed all the factors and am using my best judgement. That's why I don't own a bike.