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Comment by exelius | Hacker News Reader

I've seen this repeated many times, and people usually have this mixed up. Helmets on bicycles DO save lives: the majority of bicycle accidents are low speed (<15 mph) and they often don't involve severe trauma. I knew a guy in college who fell off his bike while trying to navigate around pedestrians at very low speed (walking speed). He wasn't wearing a helmet, and ended up with a brain injury that robbed him of the 3 years of his life he spent re-learning how to walk and speak. He's fine today, but still has a gnarly scar on the side of his head.

The same is not true of motorcycle helmets. The forces involved in motorcycle accidents are a lot higher, so fewer accidents are survivable even with a helmet. Motorcycle helmets also make you feel fucking invincible, so I can definitely see why people would take more risks.

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But by the same measures you can claim bicycle helmets are important, they would be just as important for walkers as cyclists. Or people in cars.

Just because people don't wear them in those instances doesn't mean they shouldn't. Also, it's less likely to fall over walking than to fall over riding a bike, one is inherently less stable than the other. Get pushed walking and stumble back a bit, get pushed riding a bike and you'll most likely fall over.

I imagine you catch your self more reliably when walking, too, and avoid head injuries.

Yes, but if you throw in the fact that walkers have far fewer crashes to the pavement than walkers then it is not the same. And cars have seatbelts...

Walkers hit their heads all the time. People die from it. And seat belts do not prevent brain injuries.

I looked into car helmets a few years ago [1] and my takeaway was that in older cars helmets would have helped, but cars made in the last 20+ years have enough interior padding and airbags that helmets wouldn't add much if anything.

If you convince me otherwise I'll start wearing a helmet in the car and advocating other people do so too.

[1] http://www.jefftk.com/p/car-helmets

> But by the same measures you can claim bicycle helmets are important, they would be just as important for walkers as cyclists.

Because, of course, walkers are elevated and moving at 20 to 30 km/h on an inherintly unstable platform.

It doesn't matter what they are doing, it matters if the basis for claiming helmets are useful for cycling apply to walking. And they do. The testing bicycle helmets undergo is in fact approximating the speed of a walking person falling over on their head. Research has failed to support the idea that helmets offer a net benefit for cycling. I suspect the same would hold true of walking if people took the insanity to the next step and push helmets on walkers.

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