President Obama was photographed riding his bicycle without a helmet. Like Obama, I don’t wear a helmet when I ride. So we have that in common.

I hadn’t been on a bike in ten years and haven’t owned one in longer. But we recently moved and our neighborhood is bicycle-friendly — flat and not lots of traffic and the cars that do come by actually obey the speed limit of 25. My son graduated from his training wheels right before we moved and I promised him that when he did I would get a bike and ride with him. My wife and I bought new bikes a couple of weeks ago, and nearly every day she and my son go for a ride and some days I join them.

My son wears a helmet. He’s a kid. It’s the law. More importantly, he is more likely to fall than I am, less likely to catch himself. Were he not to wear a helmet I doubt serious harm would come to him — of all the kids I knew when I was one myself, and with all the riding we did — lots and lots of it — only one friend ever had a head injury from falling off a bike, a concussion, but he made a full recovery and went to Yale and made a lot of money. None of us wore helmets back then. It just wasn’t done. Still, kids wearing helmets while riding with some speed on pavement seems a reasonable precaution (leaving aside the role of the government here), and my son wears his.

We had his annual doctor’s visit yesterday, and when he told his pediatrician that he was riding without training wheels now, the doctor predictably asked if he always wears his helmet. Then he asked my son if mommy and daddy wear helmets, too. My son ratted us out. The doctor made a light-hearted, good-natured remark about my son being smarter than his parents, then dropped it. It was ribbing with good intent. He’s obese, this doctor, at far more risk of dying from that than I am of damaging my brain from falling off a bike.

My wife and I don’t ride very fast — we keep up with a seven-year-old. Half the time I am on my brakes just to stop from getting a block ahead. I’m not commuting on major roads, or hurtling down steep inclines through thick forest. When I start going faster, or farther, I’ll probably wear a helmet. None of the other parents — educated, professional types — in the four families, who participate in these casual neighborhood rides, wears helmets when they do.

It turns out that we’re all as smart as the President of the United States. Wow.

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