Thursday, November 6, 2008

What's My Age Again?

I am very passionate about bike safety.

Blame it on watching too much Rescue 911 as a kid (they never die, but they always almost die) but I am. I insist on wearing a helmet at all times while I am riding my bike even when I am biking across campus (typically I've just biked 5 miles from my apartment). This brings some people to say that I am overly cautious, but their arguments against wearing a helmet are always less convincing than the ones to wear a helmet.

The main protests to my health conscious habit is that it "looks stupid" and that "no one else does it". Now mind you - this argument is coming mainly from people with college educations who are well spoken and, typically, quite reasonable. If they were of any other standard I would, perhaps, not be as put off by this. However, this rebuttal to my helmet-wearing is remarkably lame.

Telling someone that they "look stupid" or that "no one else does" as justifiable reason to stop doing something, last time I checked, that logic went out in 5th grade. It seriously disturbs me that my peers honestly allow themselves to be so controlled by appearances that they put that before their safety.

2 comments:

Steaming bowl o' Calderone said...

It's called natural selection.

Demara said...

Haha I totally agree with you!

Although, I too have had those thoughts, that wearing helmets look funny, but you know now I actually think the look is really nice. At least I imagine bike helmets on a cyclist makes the Cyclist look like a professional Cyclist and THAT'S more stylish to me now, than someone who is not wearing a helmet (probably because a Professional is using their head intelligently).

I have often wondered how turban wearers wear their helmets though...do THEY need to?