Even if your the only person on a closed smooth track, you can get a pretty bad TBI injury if you crash. Wear a helmet for yourself, not because it's against the culture of where you live.
> Even if your the only person on a closed smooth track, you can get a pretty bad TBI injury if you crash.
Yeah, or in my experience on the W&OD bike trail (largely just people on bikes), you can easily hit a rock or a deer and go sideways. It's more likely to break a collar bone than hit your head, but it's probably smart to have a helmet on.
We always go off about helmets, no one talks about learning how to wipe out. That guy didn't know how to go to the ground correctly.
Getting on a skateboard or a bike without having learned how to wipeout is about as irresponsible as going into a boxing match not knowing how to dodge or block a punch. Like, if there was a match between a guy with a helmet and no boxing experience, and a guy with no helmet but plenty of boxing experience, who would you bet on?
Pro skateboarders and BMXers rarely wear helmets and regularly walk away from spectacular, cringe inducing accidents that would kill or cripple a less skilled individual, and of course, they've been mastering the art of wiping out for as long as they've been riding.
A friend of mine once stood on a skateboard for not even 2 seconds before it rolled out from under him, he fell back and broke his elbow, he just hadn't conditioned himself to react properly in that situation. I saw another guy on a bike go sailing over the hood of a car that cut him off, and he did a face-plant on the other side, he didn't think to tuck his head or get his arms between himself and the pavement. His face was all bloody and his front teeth were knocked out, his helmet didn't do him much good. Being able to react instinctively to something like that takes training.
Strapping some styrofoam to your head is probably better than nothing, but framing bicycle safety as a binary depending on whether someone has a helmet on is a gross oversimplification. Between skateboarding, various styles of cycling, and general horsing around I've had hundreds, if not thousands of wipeouts and the only time I suffered a concussion was when I was mugged by a guy who came up behind me.
Look at this guy without a helmet get one because he screwed up on a track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVZz8EN_NKw&feature=youtu.be... The crash didn't look that bad, but it was enough.