Safety-Shaming and the New Culture of Fear

In the name of safety, have we totally forgotten an entire set of skills?

Most everyone by now has heard, seen, or read the memes and nostalgic quips. They go something like this: “We spent our childhood riding in the beds of pickup trucks, jumping our bicycles over homemade wooden ramps, careening down hills on runner sleds, and riding our little red wagons down the street. And we survived!” There are multiple variations on this theme, with varying lists of activities that, by today’s standards, would be considered dangerous, foolish, and irresponsible. Laws now forbid anyone from riding in the bed of a pickup truck, children under a certain age are required to wear a helmet anytime they hop on a bike, and cities across the United States are now starting to ban sled riding in any form. Public schools have now started to actually ban running during recess. The benefit of all this newfound safety is fewer injuries and possibly even lives saved. But is the cost worth it?

I remember quite a bit about my childhood, probably more than the average person. One of the things I remember is that I took a lot of falls. Some falls were spectacular, like the time I waterskied right up onto the rocky shore of the lake at Tionesta Dam; my feet popped out of the bindings at exactly the same time, which meant I did a very fast unintentional forward flip that landed me on my back. Skateboarding brought with it a whole new level of assorted crashes. Then there were bicycles, motorcycles, snow skiing, etc., etc. There were indeed concussions, and I must admit, it’s pretty remarkable that I didn’t come out of it with some sort of serious permanently-debilitating head injury. But I remember something else: In just about every case, I applied, through self-preservation instinct, whether learned or built-in, an amazing tuck-and-roll technique. As I tried more physical activities, my body (and mind) learned new tricks; many of those tricks were simply surviving unintended impact with immovable objects.

Fast-forward to what I call Helmet Culture. I first became aware of this mindset back in the mid-1990s, when a small group of my inline skating friends decided to form a club and represent ourselves by skating in local parades. We’d zig-zag from one side of the parade route to the other, hand out candy to kids, and occasionally I’d ask someone from our group to lie down on the road so I could jump over them. Inlines were still a bit novel at the time, so many of the small-town folks hadn’t seen them before. But during one of those parades, I heard a young voice from the sidelines yell, “Hey, where are your helmets!!?” I was shocked! That was a question I’d expect to hear from my mother, not a little kid! Here I was, being shamed in public by someone no more than a third my age! I knew then and there, this was the beginning of something new. I still skate on inlines, and now, just like when I first started in the 1980s, I wear minimal safety protection. I wear wrist guards. This is based on my experience in the sport, which taught me very early on that the most likely type of injury, for me, is going to be a forearm fracture. I’ve never had one, but I can certainly say that without those wrist protectors, I’d have gotten one by now.

So what is wrong with always wearing a helmet? Let’s take a look at a sport where helmets are a hot topic of discussion: skiing/snowboarding. Helmet use among recreational skiers and snowboarders was virtually nonexistent until around the 1980s. Competitive snowboarding is probably what drove the trend to start wearing them, particularly personalities such as Shawn White. Since then, an entire market has blossomed, with all sorts of colorful and creative helmet designs hitting the market. But still, after 30 years, the industry has no set standards for recreational-grade helmet construction. So when you buy a helmet for snow sports, you have no idea just how much protection it is going to afford you. Granted, any helmet is going to offer more protection than no helmet at all, though, right? It depends on how you view it. There are two distinctly different views on safety – accident survival, and accident avoidance. Most safety gear, particularly a helmet, doesn’t really serve a purpose until it’s needed, when a collision occurs. Naturally, if a collision never occurs, the helmet isn’t necessary.

But what if the helmet actually contributed to the collision? Interestingly, a study by the National Ski Areas Association revealed that during a 10-year study, of the roughly 42 deaths per year among skiers & snowboarders, the vast majority of them were wearing helmets. And their 2012 report stated: “There has been no significant reduction in fatalities over the past nine seasons even as the use of helmets overall has increased.” The report goes on to say: “This Trend emphasizes the importance of not increasing risk-taking behavior simply because you are wearing a helmet. Skiing and riding in control is essential in improving slope safety and reducing fatalities.” Realistically, most consumer-level helmets are only designed to prevent injury at impact in the 12-15 mile per hour range; so beyond that, all bets are off with regard to their effectiveness. Helmets are best suited to protect the head from impact from solid objects, like rocks, tree branches, and airborne skis. What they are not suited for is protection from concussions. Here is a very good write-up on the subject. But again, just because a helmet doesn’t protect us as much as we think it does, it isn’t a valid argument against wearing one, right? Let’s get back to the notion that a helmet can actually contribute to a collision. A 2009 study (International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion, 2009; Volume 16(1): p9–14) interviewed a sampling of 100 ski patrollers. While the patrollers felt that helmets protected against injury, only 23% of them reported wearing a helmet themselves. Interference with hearing was listed as one of the main reasons. While I have read conclusions that claim hearing impairment while wearing a helmet is a myth, I have personally worn helmets (see below), and they do indeed muffle the sounds of my environment. The ski patrollers are not lying! Also, studies have shown that the majority of today’s skier-to-skier collisions are among helmet-wearers. It is not illogical to conclude that helmets do indeed impair our hearing, and therefore dull our environmental awareness. This directly affects our abilities of accident avoidance.

So, statistically, the more often you wear a helmet, the safer you’ll be, right? Well, safer when there’s an accident. Not safer, if the helmet contributes to the accident, either by dulling our senses or by giving us a false sense of security. But where do you draw the line on when to wear one and when not to? Head injuries from auto accidents abound, so perhaps we should always wear a helmet when we drive a car? At some point, you have to mitigate the risk by your behavior, and make your own decision based on your own personal criteria. My biggest issue with Helmet Culture is the mindset that as long as I wear my helmet, I can do anything risky that I want to do, regardless of my skill level, and take comfort in the fact that I’ll never get a head injury. But what happened to those survival skills that I acquired naturally as a child? Are today’s children acquiring them, now that the only thing they need to remember is to put on their helmet? Maybe they are, but I fear that they are not. Our bodies tend to protect themselves out of necessity; but if you take away that element of necessity by over-depending on safety equipment, our defenses get lowered, and self-preservation takes a back seat in favor of reliance on technology.

This is not to say that I don’t believe in helmets. My helmet collection is quite extensive (5 of the helmets in the pile above are mine), and as today’s standards dictate, I have to have one for every different sport I enjoy. I have a helmet for rock climbing and caving, I have a helmet for mountain biking (which I will not do without a helmet), I have a helmet for kayaking on creeks, and I have a helmet for skateboarding. My point is, we all have our own personal level of risk assessment, based on our knowledge of an activity, our experience, and the skills we possess as we progress with the activity. How we choose to protect ourselves is a highly personal decision, and in today’s world that preaches more tolerance of each other, the few personal freedoms we still have should be respected.

How Helmet Culture Has Spawned the PFD Debate

In recent years, a philosophy has developed among the paddling community that I had, for the most part, been unaware of until fairly recently. That philosophy is that a PFD (personal flotation device, formerly known as a life jacket) must be worn at all times, regardless of weather conditions, water conditions, time of year, or skill level of the paddler. It is assumed that the PFD is your only saving grace if a capsize should occur, and choosing not to wear one is akin to giving yourself a death wish. The amount of groupthink judgment coming from this philosophy is absolutely astounding, not unlike being emblazoned with a capital letter “A,” a la Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter.” The general assumption seems to be that WATER = DEATH, and anyone who doesn’t acknowledge this fact is an idiot.

What, no PFD?

Folks with this mentality seem completely unaware that surfers almost never wear a PFD. And many windsurfers have argued for decades against the wearing of PFDs. While these two sports are, by their nature, much different than paddlesports such as kayaking, their reasons for not wearing a PFD are legitimate and take into account the skillset of the participant of the sport. One important point of note is that surfers are not dying left & right because they are not wearing PFDs. They prefer not to wear them, because they need the mobility to be able to navigate themselves and their boards through, and under, shorebreak. The added buoyancy of a flotation device would hinder that ability. So instead of relying on manmade devices, they rely on superior swimming abilities and total knowledge of their environment for self-preservation. The windsurfers’ argument is that in the event of a fall, the windsurfer can find himself/herself under the rig (often up to 10 square meters of mass), in which case ducking under and swimming out from underneath is a dire necessity, which would be hindered by the additional buoyancy of a PFD. While, for the most part, only a couple arguments exist in favor of paddling a kayak sans PFD (for instance, breaking free from a snag and squirt boating), the fact remains that sudden contact with the water does not guarantee instant death.

There are many factors involved that impact the effectiveness in lifesaving of a PFD; those include water temperature, air temperature, wave height, proximity to shore, and the skill level and experience of the paddler. Many experienced and accomplished paddlers may be uncomfortable ever being on the water without wearing their PFD, while others may be quite comfortable paddling still water on a warm day with their PFD stowed behind them on the deck rigging. In very hot conditions, the thermal insulation of a PFD could contribute to overheating, causing a much bigger problem for a paddler out on open water. I have often heard the argument that a PFD will save you if you are knocked unconscious. But the fact is, most PFDs worn today will not keep your face out of the water once you lose consciousness. You will still drown unless there is immediate intervention from a rescuer. How and when a responsible adult chooses to wear a PFD is a personal choice, and should remain so, without the scrutiny of those who feel the need to determine this paddler’s choice of safety precautions without knowing the details of their skill level and experience. A blind dependency on such safety devices for survival, without having the other skills, can be more detrimental than not using the devices at all.

Throughout my childhood, we spent a lot of time on the water, in various activities. We often would take our power boat, used mostly for water skiing, out into the middle of the lake, anchor it, and jump off of it, swimming around the boat, and occasionally even under it. We would purposely roll our canoes and practice paddling them around swamped. To those who would preach the importance of always wearing your PFD, I would ask this: Have you taken your kayak out into the middle of a lake and purposely rolled it to practice wet exits, assisted rescue, self-rescue, and re-entry techniques? Have you immersed yourself in extreme cold conditions in a controlled situation to feel and understand how your body will react? Have you swamped your canoe purposely to get familiar with how it will perform while full of water? If you have not done these things, simply putting on your PFD every time you get on the water is giving you a false sense of security that can be a far larger threat to your survival than not wearing one.

Everyone’s confidence level is different; there are really no hard fast rules for when one should wear a PFD, aside from what your local regulations require. But here, simply for demonstration, are my own personal guidelines. I will always wear a PFD when: I am skirted into my boat; I am on swift water that is turbulent enough that a capsize could mean separation from my boat; when the water and/or air temperature are below ~50°f; and whenever required by law. These are my own personal guidelines, and I would not assume they should apply to anyone else. It is simply the level of risk I have chosen for myself, as a responsible adult, based on my own personal skill level and experience. I believe that a logical, reasoned approach to safety gear and its effectiveness, combined with personal skills, is the key to survival.

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