A bicycle helmet is designed to attenuate impacts to the head of a cyclist in falls while minimizing side effects such as interference with peripheral vision. There is an active scientific debate, with no consensus, on whether helmets are useful for cyclists in general, and on whether any benefits are outweighed by their disadvantages. The debate on whether helmet use should be enforced by law is intense and occasionally bitter, often based not only on differing interpretations of the academic literature, but also on differing assumptions and interests on the two sides.
Read more about Bicycle Helmet: History of Use, Cycling Risk and Head Injury
Famous quotes containing the words bicycle and/or helmet:
“Newspapers are unable, seemingly, to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilisation.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces through the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She looked down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror cracked from side to side;
“The curse is come upon me,” cried
The Lady of Shalott.”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)