Is wearing a helmet while doing a sport requiring a helmet a personal or community issue?

if you can add details about characteristics of falls and injuries caused by not wearing a helmet, you rock!

Amazing if you ask a helmet question you get results-- even for your homework.

Ask the same question in the homework category.

Helmets are always a personal issue, period. You can choose not to participate in the sport if you are dead set against a helmet.

most states require childern to wear helmets becuse they are more likley to be hit by a car or crash hard. but as an adult you should what to set the right example and wear a helmet when riding. ive fallen over on my bike put never hard enough to hit my head. but as motorcyclists say "every rider goes down once"....

-Wearing a Helmet while participating in a sport that "REQUIRES" a helmet is a RULE you have to follow when you play the game. If you don't wear a helmet while playing a game that requires a helmet to be worn, you either cannot play the game or you will be kicked out.

-So if the game requires a Helmet it is neither a Personal or Community issue, it becomes a safety issue.

-Here is a quick example. Take a raw chicken egg from the fridgerator. This egg represents your your head. The white outer shell represents your skull. The yellow yolk represents your brain. Take the egg in your hand and drop in from a height of about 4 inches onto the concrete. This dropping of the egg represents your head hitting the concrete during some type of sport that requires you to wear a helmet, but you did not wear your helmet. Crack!!
-Now take another egg and wrap it a few times in a face cloth or dishrag. This wrapping of the coth around the egg represents you wearing a helmet. Now drop the egg from about 4 inches from a hard surface. This represents you hitting your head onto the solid ground, but you are wearing a helmet that is required by the type of sport you are playing.

-If you noticed the egg without the protection cracked and all the yolk contents spilled out onto the concrete. This represents your skull cracking open and your brain matter spilling out.

-When you dropped the protected egg there was no cracking and the yolk was not damaged. This represented you wearing a helmet and you living to play another day!

The head is the heaviest limb/separate bit on the body. This means that you are more than likely to hit this first. Usual over the bars dismounts tend towards the top of the head if attempting to role. However, human nature requires that we look where we are going, so broken noses, jaw bones and teath are also quite common (See MBRs monthly injuries gallery.

Ned Overend made his views on the subject known in his book. He stated that if he had a $ for every person who had said that the only thing that saved them from a serious head injury is....

Hope this helps.

Luck

How about brain damage, or death ? In CA. ,anyone under 18 is required to wear a helmet. The police can issue a ticket if you don't.
I'm way past 18, and I ALWAYS wear a helmet 100% of the time. It's common sense. They say there's only two kinds of cyclists, those that have crashed, and those that will...

Back in the early 1970's, there were no bike-helmets. Some kids wore their football helmets. But the *Community* held football-helmets out of reach. Yes, originally, the *Community* was -against- allowing children to wear helmets while bicycling.
Not every kid was big enough to play football. A school football helmet would have made bike riders safer.

Then, in 1975, the Bell corporation invented a helmet for bicycling. But it was priced at $500.00, which was a lot of money for a ten year old kid, back then.

So, to answer the first part of your question, it's a Community Issue. But people are like a herd-of-cattle, and originally, the Community was AGAINST allowing children to have helmets for bicycling.

The second part of your question: I don't think any falls were 'caused by' not wearing a helmet.
I would like to take this time to recommend some other safety devices:
1. headlight and tail-light
2. rearview mirror
3. reflective vest
4. Brakes! make sure the brakes work on the bicycle!
5. a horn and bell.
6. Stop, look, and listen, when coming to an intersection. LOOk both ways before crossing the street.
7. Right Size? is the bicycle the right size for the rider?

Accidents have happened because of bicyclists NOT having these seven things. A helmet prevents injury, but it doesn't prevent the fall or crash.

Racing and Stunts: Bicycle racing is defined as riding the bicycle in excess of 25 MPH (Miles Per Hour). If you read the warrantee that comes with a new bicycle, you will see that the warrantee is void if the bicycle is used for racing or stunts. So if you rode your bike faster than 25MPH, the warrantee is void.

Yes, everyone should wear a hemet while riding a bicycle. But it's also a matter a personal choice. I paid for my own bicycle helmet in the 70's, when it was expensive, and the community was against helmets (like a herd of cattle).

I don't think a helmet should be mandatory, and I don't think people should yell at people over the issue, especially when the bikes are being ridden slow and out of traffic, and no ones doing any stunts, such as jumping.

I would like to sentence the Community leaders to thirty lashes with a wet noodle, because the community is like a herd of cattle. You don't realize how f crazy the people were in the seventies when I asked for a bike helmet and they wouldn't let me have one.