Occasional or regular non-bike helmet cyclist?

[badgercat]

I am a Speech-Language Pathologist and I have provided cognitive therapy for people who heave brain injuries due to hitting their heads in various ways. Not a nice sight. Some are never normal again. It's not worth it to me. I always wear a helmet. Not wearing a helmet isn't an option for me.

*waves* I'm training to become an audiologist--I always feel a bit of kinship when I find out there's an SLP around, given our common roots in communication.

Anyway, back to topic. Helmets were certainly around in my childhood (I'm 25), but NONE of my friends wore them. It was absolutely devastating to me at the time that my parents would not allow me to ride my bike or rollerblade without one. It wasn't so bad when we were out on an MUP as a family, but around the neighborhood? The horror!

Junior high came around, and still I was the only kid in the neighborhood wearing a helmet. "But, you're the smartest kid in the neighborhood," my parents would say. 13-year-olds do not respond to this kind of logic, so my parents acquiesced and said I was old enough to decide to not wear a helmet if I didn't want to.

I didn't really ride during high school (it was too far away to ride to school, and it wasn't "cool" to ride around anymore). But the bike came to college with me for transport. I rode for that first year without a helmet until a woman I volunteered with (who went for THIRTY-MILE rides on the weekends, which seemed just unfathomable to me then) told me about two cyclists colliding on a slow-moving local MUP and one died. That was enough to push me back into the helmet camp, and when I was home that summer I went to a LBS and bought a helmet. I got a very stylish red and black one.

Long story short, I went through a "rebellious" phase (I use that very loosely, as I certainly accept that it's your choice to wear one or not), but now I never, ever, ride without one. Ever.