Re:Can't agree more (Score 1)

There won't be much difference for the head. But if you get hit by a car, a cm of Styrofoam is not going to make much of a difference.

I have firsthand experience that "there won't be much difference for the head" is far from given. Took a ride one evening in college, no helmet. I vaguely recall riding past the engineering building, and then I recall being put in an ambulance about two blocks away from there, unable to see. I recovered vision in one of my eyes, but lost it in the other, and only had a couple stitches above my eyebrow to show for the damage I did inside my head. Had I been wearing that bit of sytrofoam would have almost assuredly prevented that. And I know that having that bit of sytrofoam protecting my head if I get hit by a car may not save me, but I think I'd rather err on the side of caution.

So I'm going to wear it, and I'm going to teach my kid to do so. I don't need a law to know that I should wear safety goggles when I'm using using power tools, or that its good if I have someone spot me if I'm up on a ladder, or that I really should turn off a circuit breaker when I'm working with electrical wiring. Same goes for the helmet. But even having lost my sight, it was my own stupidity. I had a helmet. I often rode with it as I'd crashed a few times before and hit my head a couple of times while I was at it. But I'm not going to call for a law to cover what I should have been doing in the first place.

Now what I find really amusing is watching families out biking, kids are in helmets, parents aren't. Apparently the kids heads are more important the parents, who are taller, heavier and going to fall a lot farther.