Helmets

I hate wearing a helmet particularly in summer when I feel like my head is about to melt like a piece of warm chocolate.

When I started kiting, I used my mountaineering helmet. it was OK until I did a face plant and badly scraped my face.

I wear only a full face helmet today when buggying primarily to avoid scraping off more face. Putting on body protection is part of my ritual when preparing to buggy. I keep all my protective gear in one bag, so that I don’t forget any of it.

To say that buggying without a helmet is a personal choice is in this part of the world is unacceptable & I will explain why by example.
We have one very keen French kite buggier who gets out with us often. He never wore a helmet for a long time and we used to give him hell about getting one.
There were several reasons for this:
Firstly, he is our friend & nobody wants to see one’s friend get hurt.

Secondly, in the event that he did injure his head badly, It would put the responsibility on the rest of us to administer first aid & get him out of the desert. Not only would it screw up our buggying day but our good buggying mate would not be able to join us until his head healed.
Incidentally, he succumbed to our pressure & bought a helmet. On his very first ride using the helmet he OBE’d with the rear axle smacking into his helmet. He succumbed a headache from the smack but he thanked us for nagging him to buy a helmet. He hates to think of what damage he would have sustained had he not been wearing one.

Thirdly, saying it is a personal choice means that in the event something happens, you could be using up valuable hospital & medical resources to get your head fixed.

Finally, if you did survive a bad head injury, you might be laying in your bed having a liquid dinner forced down your throat through a tube while your family stands around crying and trying to communicate with you.

I agree that going without a helmet is a personal choice but it is irresponsible to to do so without giving thought to how it might affect your friends, family & available medical resources in the event of an accident.

If I don’t know you, you live in another country, then I don’t care whether you wear a helmet or not. Your head injury if & when it happens will be just be another statistic meaning very little to me.
However, if you join my kiting world, then I will give you hell about not wearing a helmet.