As Northwestern students, we pay an exorbitant amount of money for one of the finest educations this country has to offer, yet every day, bicyclists whiz by, with their hair perfectly sculpted, in a frenzy to get to class on time with little regard for their personal safety or the safety of others. For the most part, they neglect to take even the simplest safety precaution of all, wearing a helmet. By the end of our four years here, the contents of our heads can tote a hefty price tag, so why aren’t we protecting our investment?
The answer is simple: Bike helmets look stupid. The problem is that severe head injuries also look stupid, but just slightly less stupid than a bike helmet. When forced to make a decision between the two, there seems to be little hesitation among college students.
Data might suggest that we’re making the wrong choice; there are numerous studies surveying the effectiveness of bicycle helmets in preventing death. One conducted in 2006 by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that of the 770 bicyclist deaths that year, 95 percent of the riders weren’t wearing helmets. Numbers like these are hard to refute, it’s true, but what’s even harder to refute is the devastating look the cute girl from my poli sci class gave me when she saw me wearing a bike helmet. I promise you this: never again.
The problem isn’t just cyclist negligence though. The problem lies with the manufacturers of bicycle helmets. Designing a bike helmet that looks cool and is also functional is a difficult task. For a while during the late ’90s, they did just that. But, bike helmets haven’t been cool since Mario Lopez donned one in the USA Network’s beach-bike-cop drama, Pacific Blue. What the helmet manufacturers need to do is start bringing the sexy back to the bike helmet.
The best solution I can come up with is to mask the helmet. Now, I’m still working some of the kinks out and my patent is still pending, but I think I have solved the problem. The idea is this: a normal bike helmet with a wig slipped over it. Demetri Martin suggested a similar product for shower caps on Important Things. The problem with the bike helmet is that it covers your hair and ruins it for later, right? Not with my invention! Slip this sucker on and the cute girl who would normally say “Look at that tool in the helmet” is now going to say “Look at that tool with a very full head of hair.”
If that doesn’t work, the only other solution I can think of is to make everyone walking down Sheridan Road wear a helmet because — let’s be honest — pedestrians are in a lot more danger than the cyclists riding down Northwestern’s main road. Who said that the responsibility belonged to the bicyclists?
There is no easy solution to this conundrum. Unless my helmet wig idea takes off, we’re going to be stuck with the choice between looking stupid (read: safe) or forgoing safety for the sake of our appearance (read: stupid). I mean, I guess we could shell out $25 to $30 for a bike helmet and protect the most valuable pieces of equipment we own — our heads. But what would that cute girl in poli sci think?