“Safety first” continues to be one of my dad’s favorite lines. It didn’t stop me from keeping a bicycle helmet off my head for most of my early life.  I grew up in a pretty small town, I didn’t know anyone who’d had a major accident on a bicycle and I figured if I was only biking up to the store there wasn’t any point. Since my arrival in Eugene two years ago I’ve spent a fair portion of my day to day time on a bicycle. Until a few weeks ago I did so without any head protection.
I probably spent a cumulative thirty minutes a day on my bike. Some of that time is spent navigating wide empty walkways, a relatively safe situation. But the real majority of my time on the bicycle is on the streets between my apartment, south of campus, heading to daily classes. This route involves cycling down University Street and the three way intersection next to the Rec, a regular Bermuda Triangle of foot and vehicle traffic.
Between bikers flying through, cars barely stopping or whipping out of parking spaces, and the pedestrians of Eugene who saunter across without a glance either way, this intersection at midday is the trickiest part of my venture. Keeping all of this in mind while also trying not to be late for class can often feel like navigating a labyrinth of obstacles. Obviously the best way to protect your skull is to avoid landing on it at all, but regardless of how careful you are busy intersections like this one can be incredibly and unavoidably dangerous.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has a plethora of statics on the dangers of unprotected cycling. They report that not only are the majority of cyclist death the result of head injuries but that wearing a helmet reduces the odds of those injuries by an estimated eighty five percent. The numbers on this subject are pretty much indisputable. Unfortunately I don’t think that in this case statistics serve to convince anyone. I’d be shocked to find a cyclist unaware that a helmet could save their life. The statistics confirm only what we already know. That you are significantly safer cycling with a helmet than without. But safety hasn’t always come first in life, even when it should, so it may take more than a study to convince the cyclists of Eugene.
Eugene is a town full of college students who don’t cycle with helmets, and that in itself actually creates a huge barrier. It’s a situation of passive and standardized peer pressure that normalizes something really dangerous. A close friend recently had a significant collision on his bicycle that had him coming back to consciousness on the sidewalk. Luckily, he was wearing a helmet. I’d rather not think about the alternative had he not been.
It took a personal story like this to convince me. It was enough to make me step back and take a look at this bicycle heavy town full of people who spend large portions of their day putting the most important piece of their body at risk. It also made me take a look at my motivation for being one of these people. I asked myself if any of these motivations outweighed the idea of being in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, or worse. Turns out they don’t.
Breaking habits is difficult, particularly lifelong habits. Every time I get in a car I put on my seatbelt, it’s second nature. Leaving my helmet next to my bike is a start, but wearing it has yet to become as natural as the seatbelt. But I’m working on it. Because I want to wake up if the unexpected happens.