helmets are dumb.

I think this is his commentary on wearing masks, but maybe you know that and are putting a funny spin on it. I like your interpretation better haha
 
i didnt wear a helmet for the first several years of my career. i remember the company i was working for in New Mexico got a job on a government property, actually installing streetlights. we had to dig really deep holes. On thay job we were made to wear helmets and eye pro. I just couldnt get over how dumb it was that i had to wear a helmet that kept sliding around when there was literally nothing overhead. I was so releived when we went back to cutting trees and i didnt need to wear the dumb helmet.
 
One morning in ninth grade…circa ‘68…woodshop started with a write in campaign. The state legislature had passed a law requiring safety glasses in shop and chemistry classes. My teacher thought it was dumb so he had us transcribe what he wrote on the chalkboard to postcards that he mailed to the legislature. All four of us at my workbench thought that safety glasses made sense but we didn’t dare speak up. Been wearing them ever since

It took me a few years of doing tree work to wear helmet and ear pro though. Now I wear ear and eye pro when I mow and snowblow
 
All my first tree climbing was free climbing with no equipment. Then I transitioned to harness and rope, but no helmet or proper eye pro. People see me occasionally brushing saw chips/dust from my eyes and say "you need to be wearing goggles/mask etc to which the reply is fogged glasses and I'll end up chainsawing my arm or leg. I get visor and kickback protection and should do better in that department. But I was kind of pressured into wearing a helmet due to trouble stirrer upper types and ironically now I feel naked without it on. I always figured any decent helmet protects the side and back of your head so I first questioned the efficacy of the top-of-your-head-height-extension style helmets and eventually went complacent meh on the issue. I now get that the main premise is a knock to the top of your head from a falling branch. But I still think your head looks like a cucumber with a typical climbing helmet on :)
 
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I have bicycled as a form of transportation since I was in college and I'm 46 now. I never wore a helmet until my son was born 5 years ago and now I wear it automatically. I don't like it but I do it! I also get teased by friends for my seat belt habits. I'm so conditioned to wear a seat belt that I'll put it on to drive my car around the corner to my garage and not even realize I did it.
 
Njdelaney said:
I have bicycled as a form of transportation since I was in college and I'm 46 now. I never wore a helmet until my son was born 5 years ago and now I wear it automatically. I don't like it but I do it! I also get teased by friends for my seat belt habits. I'm so conditioned to wear a seat belt that I'll put it on to drive my car around the corner to my garage and not even realize I did it.
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A couple years ago I dropped my vehicle off for some repair work with the plan to ride my bike a few miles home. Forgot to put my bike helmet in the truck so I put on a climbing helmet. Hadn't ridden in a few months over winter but no problem. Did a quick move across a busy street with morning traffic, on the other side I made a sharp turn to avoid a gravel patch and tipped over. All slow motion/low speed but my shoulder and head hit the pavement right side. Felt like a coconut hitting hard ground, could imagine a little brain bounce. I was fine, waited a few minutes to make sure and rode home. Even though the climbing helmet isn't made for side impact I believe it made the difference between a pause to reflect and a more serious injury.
-AJ
 
I'm sure you're right about that @moss . I once bought a used motorcycle to do track days with from a guy who was selling it due to a recent brain injury. He was idling through his subdivision on the bike at 5-10mph to test out some new parts and tipped over while doing a slow speed U-turn(super slow turns are dangerous on bikes). He woke up in the hospital with a brain injury. You don't have to be going fast or be very high off the ground to hurt your melon!
 
Long ago I was riding my bike to high school, pretty fast, and sort of 'carving' down the street; doing deep wide turns. Well I must have hit an unseen rock or something, because my handlebars turned 90* and I launched 10' through the air, going from being on the road, to flying over a parking space, a small strip of grass and straight into a corner 4x4 fence-post. A guy in a car happened to be driving behind and saw the whole thing, came up to help and said "Man, I used to ride motorcycles, and your crash was BAD!"

In a complete daze and a little bloody, I decided to just ride home and take a shower, skipping school. When I got to the front door of the house, I finally unbuckled the helmet and found it was essentially cracked in half. I was so out of it, I didn't even realize I'd hit my head! But it turned out I'd flown through the air head first into a 4x4 fence post. The helmet absorbed much of the impact, broke to dissipate the energy as designed and probably saved me from a broken neck.
 
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27RMT0N said:
Long ago I was riding my bike to high school, pretty fast, and sort of 'carving' down the street; doing deep wide turns. Well I must have hit an unseen rock or something, because my handlebars turned 90* and I launched 10' through the air, going from being on the road, to flying over a parking space, a small strip of grass and straight into a corner 4x4 fence-post. A guy in a car happened to be driving behind and saw the whole thing, came up to help and said "Man, I used to ride motorcycles, and your crash was BAD!"

In a complete daze and a little bloody, I decided to just ride home and take a shower, skipping school. When I got to the front door of the house, I finally unbuckled the helmet and found it was essentially cracked in half. I was so out of it, I didn't even realize I'd hit my head! But it turned out I'd flown through the air head first into a 4x4 fence post. The helmet absorbed much of the impact, broke to dissipate the energy as designed and probably saved me from a broken neck.
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Sounds like you were very lucky
 
Motorcycle crash stories can leave impressions on the listeners, especially if they also ride. I got "convinced" one day when I crossed up on a 1 story down drop jump in a sand pit and when correcting the landing the front wheel knifed in, I somehow went down through the bike, saw a few flashes of orange on the way and ended up stuck between the front tire and engine/pipe. After I extricated myself I noticed a gouge on my chest/back protector dead center lower spine. Only thing that could have made it was the footpeg I figured. I got "convinced" about safety gear that day.
 
I've only had my life saved by a hardhat once. should I complain about the countless thousands of other times I had to wear it in the heat of summer or the thousands of dollars they have cost over the years?
 
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