The cyclist busted for riding without a helmet on the cover of the City Paper speaks.
all words by Floyd York (of New Rock Church of Fire fame)
photo by Darrow Montgomery
I was woken up at 6:19am Saturday morning to a text from a friend telling me that I was on the cover of the City Paper. I thought little of it as it was early, and my head was still cloudy from the night before (I drank beer like it was my birthday). Knowing good and well that I had no business being on the cover of the City Paper, I laid there for an hour wondering what in the hell she could have possibly been talking about. Sure as shit, though, later that day I saw it and was completely stunned. The immediate feeling was that of panic. Who?!! What!?!? It was like someone had snuck into my room and stolen all my underwear. Like a playful punch to the groin by a good friend, it didn’t make any sense. I felt vulnerable, confused, betrayed, and still drunk. Then I read the caption: “WHAT’S THIS GUY THINKING?”
(BUSTED, the City Paper cover photo)
Holy hell. WHAT’S THIS GUY THINKING???? It may as well have said, “Hey! Look at this idiot!!” So blunt; it cut right to the bone. Slowly the calls came in from friends having seen the cover, everyone wanting to get a good laugh in while they could. You forget how many friends you have until the City Paper puts a picture of you on the cover and calls you a moron. Having no clue how to react, I read the caption one more time and I thought, “You know what, I’ll tell you exactly WHAT I was thinking.”
Late in the night before that photo was taken, I was on my front porch employing my Tobacco-Use-Only glass pipe. Possibly due to how tired I was, it slipped from my hands, and with a beer in my other hand I was unable to grab it before it fell to the ground and shattered. It was a fitting end to my evening, and I laughed it off as I fell asleep (in my bed, not on the porch). The next morning I woke up knowing that it was going to be a warm Saturday and that I wanted to spend it on my bike; remembering that I had broken my pipe the night before, I decided it pressing to replace it by that afternoon. Deciding to kill two birds with one stone, I biked the bike path from Old Town Alexandria into Adams Morgan and visited Capitol Hemp for a new Tobacco-Use-Only glass pipe. I’m not one to usually visit such establishments, but when you need a Tobacco-Use-Only glass pipe, where else are you going to go?
I used to road race and hated helmets. I refused to race a few where they were mandatory. Been in tons of wrecks, one resulting in a car losing its passenger side window (my hip) and its rear window (my ass after I flew into the air and landed on it) and my hip smashed (aforementioned passenger side door/window) and never hit my head.
First thing some numbnuts said after I came to a stop after sliding across three lanes of traffic on MacAuthur?
“Man you’re lucky to be alive since you aren’t wearing a helmet.”
My response: I didn’t hit my head.
I hate the damned things.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/bjarneriis.jpg
March 16, 2009 at 10:56 amI wouldn’t take it personally. Everyone who’s ever ridden a bicycle has been guilty of riding without a helmet, but you were just unlucky enough to cross in front of the lens when D.M. was shooting for a story about helmet safety with your helmet not on.
To be honest, I’ve hurt my ass many more times than my head in bike-related fuckups, and I would have liked to have had some butt protection, so why isnt CP interested in protecting our glutes?
March 16, 2009 at 11:09 amI wish I could somehow share the inspirational crayon poster my sister drew entitled “wear a helmet”.
it is moving.
March 16, 2009 at 11:13 amFUCK YOU CITY PAPER next thing you know they’ll be trying to make us wear a condom
March 16, 2009 at 11:13 am@pedro: Considering the fact that the AIDS infection rate in DC is 3%, I don’t think that the City Paper (or the Post for that matter) needs to tell anyone to do anything. Common sense dictates that in an epidemic, you wrap that jawn up.
March 16, 2009 at 11:22 amJTC – most safety nazism isn’t clearly thought through.
March 16, 2009 at 11:41 am@safetynazis: 3%? I’ll take those odds. Like the bike messenger says, “helmets keep you from fully experiencing the space you’re in, so they put you more at risk.”
March 16, 2009 at 11:57 am>“Man you’re lucky to be alive since you aren’t wearing a >helmet.”
>
>My response: I didn’t hit my head.
What’s so funny about this anecdote is that we won’t hear from the guy who actually did hit smash his head instead of his ass in a similar situation. Because instead of smashing his hip and being laid up for a few weeks, he smashed his skull and died.
March 16, 2009 at 12:14 pmThe trouble with bike helmets is that the figures don’t show that they work – laws have stopped a lot of people cycling and have done nothing for head injury rates, see Robinson DL. No clear evidence from countries that have enforced the wearing of helmets. BMJ 2006;332: 722-5. http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/332/7543/722-a. It appears that helmets break easily, but don’t absorb the impact, see the engineers quoted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet. A broken helmet has simply failed. Helmets have also strangled some young children who were wearing helmets while playing off their bicycles.
March 16, 2009 at 12:59 pmRichard – thank you.
it’s one of those things that people just accept because it seems correct: helmet on head MUST equal safe head.
Except there is much more to it than that – there is the way the helmet reacts with the ground, there is the way your head reacts with a helmet on it vice reacting unencumbered (the head’s natural reaction is to tuck, which is lessened when something is ON the head), the way the helmet causes your head or neck to twist when on the ground, and so on. it is much more complex than styrofoam on head = safety.
Will helmets reduce injuries in some limited accidents? Yes. Will they exacerbate other injuries? Yes. Do they give a false sense of safety that can’t be measured? Oh yes.
March 16, 2009 at 1:21 pmI hate Maryland drivers too! They are the worst kinds of people!
March 16, 2009 at 3:10 pmhelmet Nazis are lose.
March 16, 2009 at 3:30 pm[I’ve hurt my ass many more times than my head in bike-related fuckups, and I would have liked to have had some butt protection, so why isnt CP interested in protecting our glutes?]
Well, because your brain isn’t in your ass. Although the lapse in logic in that statement would lead one to believe otherwise…
March 16, 2009 at 3:32 pmthe only viable solution: M.A.S.K.s.
because when bikes can turn into flying objects: everybody wins.
March 16, 2009 at 5:18 pmYou were probably thinking “This is America, the land of the free and I’ll do what I please, so long as it’s not hurting anyone else.” I only wish that were the case. We’ve gone soft and worry about other people’s business far too much. This cover would never happen in 1970s America.
March 16, 2009 at 6:43 pmA broken helmet is a failed helmet? Yep, because when people who’ve crashed their bike bring in their broken helmet to the bike shop where I work, they ALWAYS say “man, this did me NO good. This might as well of been my skull.”
March 17, 2009 at 8:16 amJian, you are way too young to know about MASK
Michelle – helmets are designed to break apart. Just because one does does not mean that a head would have done the same.
March 17, 2009 at 10:05 amOnly in DC man…….
this is a hilarious article, i’m sorry the city paper called you out.
Personally, I believe that people are masters of their own fate, and society and government have no real role in protecting them from evils that they are fully aware of.
That being said, DC is a dangerous town to bike in, and it would be really cool if they’d put in more bike lanes or even better, restrict car use like they have in London.
And yes, I’m aware of the contradiction.
March 17, 2009 at 10:51 amWhoa, whoa, whoa, a Virginia driver is going to get you before a Maryland one does.
March 17, 2009 at 11:29 am“Michelle – helmets are designed to break apart. Just because one does does not mean that a head would have done the same.”
to me, THAT sounds like the “false sense of safety that can’t be measured” you described earlier.
March 17, 2009 at 11:51 ami only LOOK young cale, you know how asian faces lie.
March 17, 2009 at 1:30 pmoff topic here, but cale.. i had that mask toy when I was a kid. Loved that cartoon.
March 18, 2009 at 8:57 pmHey Floyd, I wish you had mentioned your tobacco-use-only pipe about 37 more times. Sincere thanks for being a heroic American genius as well as a badass super-stud.
March 20, 2009 at 10:39 ama tobacco-use-only pipe? you don’t need a helmet, you have all the protection you need INSIDE your head.
March 21, 2009 at 8:05 am
You’re lucky to have had your ass helmet immortalized by the great Darrow Montgomery.
March 16, 2009 at 10:52 am