People do land in ditches :-(

[Geonz]

There's a lot of talk about road IDs and riding in the boonies ... just this past week we had a fatality in a nearby town.
Basically, he took a corner where the road was not in good shape, too fast; there was a dropoff to a drainage ditch, BAD FALL, major head injuries & broken vertebrae. Apparently not discovered for some time (but still alive; died a week later).
He wasn't really that far out into the boonies, either.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Wow, awful. Poor poor guy.
Do you happen to know if he was wearing a helmet?

We had a 20 year old young man killed here on his bike in my small town last month. But he was drunk, leaving a bar on his bike at 2am, no lights, no helmet, pouring rain. Killed by a hit and run on the highway, and they never found the driver (who I would wager had probably been drinking too).

[Denise223]

I haven't been cycling for long, but.....I cannot tell you how many people I see, (men, women & children ), that are riding bikes WITHOUT HELMETS !!!

I just cannot understand it - it makes me crazy!

On another thread I read that someone kept a new helmet in their car to give to a person who wasn't wearing a helmet. I thought, "what a nice idea, perhaps I should do that..."
But -- 60% of the people I see riding are not wearing a helmet.

I can't figure it out.

Denise

[KnottedYet]

The bike club here sells them for $10.

I'd say the majority of the folks I see riding in the areas I ride are wearing helmets. Maybe 90% or so?

[Geonz]

YES, he was wearing a helmet, far as his wife knows (people said something about straps). It was just a bad fall with a big drop... tho' it also begs the question, did he have the thing on right? (Helmets are pretty common around here, too.)

[DeniseGoldberg]

Deaths are certainly very possible even with proper helmet use. The orthopedic surgeon I saw in followup from my crash told me about a friend of his who had a very similar accident to mine (over the handlebars, landing on head) who was also wearing a helmet. His friend didn't survive; I did. I believe that if I hadn't been wearing a helmet that I would not have survived. And even knowing that a helmet doesn't always save your life, I won't take a chance without one.

I think that we need to do everything we can to keep ourselves safe, but we also need to realize that accidents can still happen. I consider myself lucky that I'm still happily wandering the roads on my bike (with helmet).

--- Denise