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To Encourage Biking, Lose the Helmets
Hugh Pickens writes in about the detrimental effects of mandatory helmet laws (at least as applied to adults): "Elisabeth Rosenthal writes that in the United States the notion that bike helmets promote health and safety by preventing head injuries is taken as pretty near God's truth but many European health experts have taken a very different view. 'Yes, there are studies that show that if you fall off a bicycle at a certain speed and hit your head, a helmet can reduce your risk of serious head injury,' writes Rosenthal. 'But such falls off bikes are rare — exceedingly so in mature urban cycling systems.' On the other hand, many researchers say, if you force people to wear helmets, you discourage them from riding bicycles causing more health problems like obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. Bicycling advocates say that the problem with pushing helmets isn't practicality but that helmets make a basically safe activity seem really dangerous, which makes it harder to develop a safe bicycling network like the one in New York City, where a bike-sharing program is to open next year. The safest biking cities are places like Amsterdam and Copenhagen, where middle-aged commuters are mainstay riders and the fraction of adults in helmets is minuscule. 'Pushing helmets really kills cycling and bike-sharing in particular because it promotes a sense of danger that just isn't justified — in fact, cycling has many health benefits,' says Piet de Jong. 'Statistically, if we wear helmets for cycling, maybe we should wear helmets when we climb ladders or get into a bath, because there are lots more injuries during those activities.'"
The real problem is that I'm an adult and I can decide for myself whether or not I will wear a helmet. The government doesn't need to make this decision for me.
The US is absurd: you don't have to wear a helmet on a motorbike, but you need one on a pedal bike ?!?
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Yes, there are studies that show that if you fall off a bicycle at a certain speed and hit your head, a helmet can reduce your risk of serious head injury
People don't wear helmets because they are worried they are going to fall of their bike. They wear them because they are worried they are going to get hit by a car and then have their heads hit the pavement with much greater force.
I knew a kid who rode a bike and then got hit by a car without wearing a helmet. After about 6 months of care in the ICU he was released. He was never able to get a driver's license due to his brain damage. About 2 years after his initial accident he was killed on a bike while he again did not wear a helmet.
This is why so many "common people" look down on academia. The blind grabbing of statistics by people who've never lived in anything other than a wonderland of privilege in their major cities. You know why people feel it's unsafe to bike? It's because it's fucking unsafe to bike in areas without bike lanes. Which is pretty much most of the US except for major urban areas or the occasional statistical fluke. Rich people in the suburbs who are terrified of their own shadow are the exception. The norm are people who actually are at high risk of being run off the road if they tried to bike to work at 7am.
Everything will be taken away from you.
Australia is an oft-cited example. Many Australian territories passed mandatory helmet laws for cycling. Off the top of my head, cycling fell by about 40% in the aftermath, and the injury rate went *up*. (Of course the injury rate may have gone up because the people who were helmet wearers in the first place, and didn't stop cycling, were higher risk takers - and removing the other 40% who were not risk takers from the cycling pool made the accident rate go up - note rate, not absolute value).
Another experiment someone did in Britain was to fit an ultrasonic measuring system to a bicycle to measure how close cars were passing. They tried riding in various different manners, for example further from the kerb (tr.US: curb), with helmet, without helmet, dressed as a woman etc. He found that as a hemetless woman, cars gave him the greatest amount of room, and as a helmeted man, the least amount of room. http://www.drianwalker.com/overtaking/overtakingprobrief.pdf
There's also the theory that the more cyclists on the road, the lower the accident *rate* (absolute numbers may go up) because car drivers are just more used to seeing them. Holland has probably the highest rate of regular cycling, probably the lowest rate of helmet wearing, and probably the lowest cycle accident rate.
In summary, I don't think helmets ever should be made mandatory, and may actually have the unintended consequence of making the remaining cyclists less safe.
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I ride my bike to work every day, in the Netherlands. For the most part I ride on specific bike paths. If I had to wear a helmet, I would probably use a different form of transport in the future. The attitude of the car drivers is different here because people expect people on a bike, which makes it safer.
"car's part of the road" ???
This is a mistake. Where does it say the road belongs to cars?
This encourages bike use by tourists, and probably others who are out and about and just decide to ride somewhere rather than catching a cab, on impulse.
You're not likely to go for an inpulse ride (like we did, plenty of times, including around Vienna at midnight), if you need to be carrying a helmet around with you.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
It's called EVOLUTION.
It's called NATURAL SELECTION, not EVOLUTION.
I am sitting right now in the Surgical ICU of a level 1 trauma center. 3 of our 34 patients have serious intracranial hemorrhages from bicycle crashes.
> "maybe we should wear helmets when we climb ladders or get into a bath"
Of course we should wear a helmet (or better a harness and a safety rope) when climbing ladders. It is know to be one of the most dangerous activities in a normal household.
But you also have to look at the context. Free-climbing for example is technically much more dangerous than climbing a ladder, but people are typically skilled and very concentrated when they do it. Average folk climbing a ladder are inexperienced and often distracted. This combination can make any activity dangerous.
In The Netherlands, part of the success is in the fact that sharing the road with bicycles is considered an important part of driver education (and has been for a long time). In cities with (almost) all bicycle lanes separate from the main road, no driving exams are done (example: Almere, the 6th city of the Netherlands has no possibility to do driving exams). Any mistake where a bicyclist is not given the space and care (s)he deserves results in failing the exam, so this part is taken very seriously. In additions, drivers are always held responsible in accidents invoolving bicycles.
As a result, car drivers are very careful around bicyclists and they need not wear helmets. Cycling is considered safe. These factors make more people want to use the bicycle.
...most of us only wear helmets when skating - not during ice-skating though. If you loose balance when skating, you can fall on the back of your head and that gives a messy picture. And after you fell other skaters could slip in your blood, so they should wear helmets too. But when you bike, the chances you fall on your head are much, much lower.
Laws should be about self-responsibility and not being allowed to bother others. For instance it is not allowed to have "aggressive defence-tools" (guns, knifes) on you here for *obvious* reasons, and you are allowed to eat French cheese. What most tourists don't understand is that this "non-bothering self-responsibility" is very deep in our culture - you are allowed to smoke marijuana as you like, but you should not bother others with your smell - that is rude and is at the wrong side of the grey area. Want to suicide yourself? Your call, but it is not a quick road though. Jumping in front of train or taking a whole school with you? Bothers, so rude and therefore not tolerated by society.
Yeah, in hilly northern San Diego, it's really *only* the helmet laws that are preventing 40% more people from riding bicycles. Also it has nothing to do with the way that main roads have 50mph speed limits with a "white line" separating the cars from the bicycle lane. Also not due to the fact that one of the official "bike routes" has an uphill section that is actually on Interstate 5 between two exits where the bicyclists have to ride on the paved shoulder with, you guessed it, a magical white line keeping bicyclists separated from cars on the freeway.
Honestly, anybody stupid enough to believe that eliminating helmet laws will reduce obesity is living in a dream world.
I don't ride much anymore because I'm lazy, not because of helmet laws.
I cycle at least 60 miles per week from and to my children's schools (I drive them to school in the morning, but cycle home). I always wear a helmet, and when my children cycle with me, I require that they wear helmets too.
I have been cycling for 22 years. In that time, I have only had one serious fall from my bike, about 14 years ago. I wasn't wearing a helmet that day, and I landed on the back of my head, ended up in hospital and was concussed for days. I would not like to go through that again!
Any fool can talk, but it takes a wise man to listen.
Well, as others have pointed out elsewhere, the risk of injury appears to actually go up when wearing a helmet (for several reasons including the attitudes of the cyclists themselves as well as others in traffic).
And I suspect that your view of riding a bicycle is one of "Have plan to go somewhere specific, gear up, get on bike, ride bike to destination, "un-gear", done". Sure, this may be the case for some people but most people who regularly get around on a bicycle treat it more like a hybrid between walking and proper vehicle. If I'm heading down to the corner store that is literally 2-3 minutes on my bike with no effort whatsoever on my part, just roll over there. Ok, well I was only stopping by at the corner store, next stop is the library to return a book, then I'm meeting a friend downtown and we'll probably head over to another friend's place after which we'll probably be going to... Are you starting to see my point? Throughout all of this I am most likely not lugging around a 90L backpack suitable for hiding away a helmet (and forget about leaving it on the bike, it'll be ruined or stolen when you get back) so I'm forced to carry the helmet around in my hands all day long.
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
Here's two reasons:
1. Helmets give the cyclist a false sense of security.
2. Helmets give drivers a false sense of security.
You may think [1] does not apply to you, and possibly it doesn't but people are incredibly bad at judging that kind of thing. It's very likely that you take more risks when wearing a helment.
The second point is far more important and it's not something you as a cyclist can do anything about. Studies have shown that cars pass closer and faster to bikes when the cyclist is wearing a helmet. On some subconscious level they see the cyclist as being less vulnerable and hence they drive more dangerously around them.
For these reasons I discourage my three daughters from riding helmets when they cycle and I don't wear them myself.
However, even if one discounted both these reasons, mandatory helmets are horrible on principle. Its my own life I may be putting in danger, so if you want to wear a helmet, go ahead, if you want to tell other people to wear a helmet, go fuck yourself.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
If I can reduce the chance of damage to literally the most valuable thing in my life by wearing a $25 helmet OF COURSE I'M GOING TO WEAR A HELMET
It's all about the "If" at the start of your sentence, though. The question is, "does wearing a helmet increase or decrease the chance of you having a serious head injury?" Of course the intuitive answer is "decrease" but science-aware folks on Slashdot are comfortable with the idea that we don't just accept intuition, we test and find out.
So I'd settle yourself down a bit, instead of calling people names.
"car's part of the road" ???
This is a mistake. Where does it say the road belongs to cars?
It seems to be etched into the brains of some of the car and, worse, truck drivers around here. One on-coming driver even thought it'd be amusing to veer over to my side of the road to give me a surprise. nice.
I ride a bike in London, don't own a car and am in my 60s, to declare interest. I don't wear a helmet and am unwilling to do so.
The arguments that I citing in the heading are summarised here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Problem_of_Social_Cost that is, neither car nor bike is particularly 'wrong' about any of this. The best thing [that we don't really have in London] is safe bike lanes.
However there's also more economics that probably shows that safety features make activities more unsafe by making the operators more reckless: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Peltzman the younger bikers who run lights seem to prove this.
Finally I like to appear as a soft, helmetless pink squishy thing with white hair, I suspect these signals make motorists more careful around me. But, for certain, the debate tends to be emotion rather than reason and statistics.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
As a cyclist and well trained driver (more licenses and drivers training/saftey courses then average, in the USA at least) I don't think helmets will help/hurt much.
I don't wear a helmet except for events/races(lots of close cyclist make me nervous, and odds of an accident likely go up) and while I'm sure a helmet would help if a car hit a cyclist, I'm betting it'll cause lots of damage, helmet or no. No, the problem in my town is it seems cars *try* to cause bike wrecks. Shouting, tossing things at me and my two wheels, or just not watching for cars, never mind less visible bicycles come to mind for reasons why. It doesn't matter that I try to avoid cars, do everything to stay out of busy traffic, drivers still do those very annoying, dangerous things.
That's not to say I haven't done stupid things with cars and bikes, I make mistakes like everyone. But if drivers and cyclists try for safety and to share the roads, it'll help alot more then helmets ever could.
(*I'm sure there's speeds/circumstances/accidents where helmets make all the difference, but it's likely a very tiny percent.)
This sig left intentionally blank.
I believe in the Netherlands, the first tarmac roads were actually placed for cyclist.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
I am a 64 year old dutchman and lived for 20 of those in Amsterdam. We do not wear bicycle helmets and we do not wear stepladder helmets or soccer helmets or tennis helmets. Having said that, the dutch infrastructure is very bicycle friendly up to the point that according to our traffic lawas, when a cyclist (or pedestrian) collides with a car, the driver of the car ALWAYS carries the responsibility.
What I am much more concerned about is people on bicycles that carry a cellphone in their hands. Only yesterday I saw a kid of about 14 driving with one hand glued to his ear, falling from his bycicle without any apparent reason, continuing the conversation while falling, hitting the ground, getting up again and driving on.
I do not know how the authorities can stop this, but that is what I worry about.
Paai
I find the dents and gouges in my helmet to be pretty compelling evidence of injuries and pain that didn't occur.
YMMV, Science Guy.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
To encourage car use, lose the safety belt, air bags and bumpers.
I live in the Netherlands, where helmets for cyclists aren't mandatory and we have a lot of cyclists. Yes, compared to the number of cyclists we have we do not have a significantly higher injury/death rate than in the USA, but we do have a lot of injuries and deaths non the less. Drivers are more aware of cyclists here, but the ones that do get hit, often have head injuries. Helmets save lives, just like car driver awareness does. Don't think you can substitute one for the other and make the world a better place. As long as drivers will hit cyclists, the cyclists that get hit have a better survival/injury rate if they wear a helmet, period.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
I can't respond to number one quantitatively because I've literally never cycled without a helmet on, ever. All I know is that American drivers scare the bejesus out of me. I trust them enough to not clip me when they pass me in the bicycle lane when I stay in it and that's about it.
As for point number two I'll take your word on the studies (I can't be assed to dig anything up). I will still wear a helmet because I feel the additional protection is absolutely worthwhile.
By the by, I never suggested anywhere that I thought mandatory helmet laws for all was a good idea. I live in California where the helmet is legally required until age eighteen, and I can literally count the number of children on bicycles with helmets I've seen on two hands. I personally think you should wear one or not as it suits you. I was just explaining why I didn't understand why people would want to not protect their brains, their selves, their perception of who they are, and all the money ever spent by or for them.
You should turn signatures off.
If I can reduce the chance of damage to literally the most valuable thing in my life by wearing a $25 helmet OF COURSE I'M GOING TO WEAR A HELMET DO YOU THINK I'M STUPID?
Are you wearing helmet all the time then? Or just while biking? Why not while walking? Or while entering bath tub?
That's actually also true for the united states. The first macadamization was done by bicycle clubs.
No, my question is actually "Is spending $25-$50 for a marginal or even theoretical reduction in the chance of serious brain injury worthwhile considering the immense value I place on the spongy tissue behind my eyes?". It is rhetorical, because for me the answer is "yes".
Please, I love science! Show me more science!
You should turn signatures off.
Your point is incisive and thoroughly annoying to me and my worldview.
To answer as completely as I can:
I do not wear a helmet all the time (for example, when walking or entering the bathtub) because I am not placing my safety in the hands of my fellow Americans when doing so. When the margin of safety is a foot and a half at best and there's nothing between me and the car passing me (like a curb would be were I pedestrian, or a grab bar in a tub) at speed differences of twenty or more miles per hour I would like to improve my chances of surviving being knocked off my bicycle cheaply and effectively.
You should turn signatures off.
in Denmark and I am sure that will put an end to the popularity in Copenhagen or we will have a lot of criminals.
I can see it now, the cheap law/cop shows on TV now on the hunt for these CRAZY criminals not wearing a helmet. Should be a nice change from those "high speed"(lol) car chases where people drive 10km/h about the speed limits.
There is no way in hell I am going to wear a helmet every Sunday morning when riding all the 500m from my house to the bakery for bread.
just look at Me, i allwaze rode My bike when i waz yunger an got in lotsa accdents and dint hert my Head er suffer no drain bamage.
Seriously though, I did ride a bike all the time when I was younger. I also *never* wore a helmet and don't recall one single time that I actually hurt my head while riding a bike. And I've done some pretty dumb things too that led into some pretty spectacular crashes. As animals, we have natural instincts that allows us to "see" what danger may be happening on-the-fly in case of accidents, and this allows to adjust our bodies, without any real effort, for such situations. It's hardwired into our brains for survival, and if you don't have that and die in such an accident on a bike... then well, your genes probably don't have much to add to the gene pool when it comes to survival. Instinct says, if your body is heading down to the right and cannot be stopped until it hits the ground, tilt your head the other way and put your arm, elbow, hand, whatever down to take the blow instead. It'll hurt like a bitch and probably burn for a while, but it'll heal. I've had some serious scrapes on my arms and legs and even got blisters, but *never* any kind of head injury.
Also, bicycle accidents never catch me off-guard; I was always quick to notice them and easily adjusted for them before the bike went down, with no need to go to the hospital after. On the other hand, it's easy as hell to slip and fall while in or near in a pool or tub or something. Wet porcelain is wicked slick, and given you've pretty much always got walls and other objects around you (including the side of the tub to stub your toes onto on your way to the floor), there's never a lack of things to make a simple slip really bad in such settings. Even then, I tend to bang an elbow into the wall or catch the toilet before my head strikes anything. The article has a point on the helmet-in-bathtub comparison.
Yes, Amsterdam has lots of bikes, but it also has many dedicated cycle paths and car drivers who are conditioned to expect cyclists everywhere. I doubt that the relatively low number of cyclists with head injuries is due to them not wearing helmets.
(BTW: protip, dear tourist: if you are in the Netherlands and the pavement under your feet has a reddish-brown color, you are probably standing on a cycle path. Get off unless you enjoy non-helmet wearing cyclists swearing at you).
I never understood people who don't wear helmets when cycling.
Because, with literally thousand of hours biking as a (helmetless) kid growing up in the pre-nanny era, even riding about two miles to and from school every day (no, not an exaggerated memory, thanks to the magic of Google maps I can actually trace the route) - I took plenty of falls off my bike.
And a helmet wouldn't have done a hell of a lot to protect the one part of me that got injured over and over in those falls, my knees.
If I can reduce the chance of damage to literally the most valuable thing in my life by wearing a $25 helmet OF COURSE I'M GOING TO WEAR A HELMET DO YOU THINK I'M STUPID?
Yep, I kinda do - Because falls not related to a car hitting you won't affect your head, and if you do get hit by a car on a bike, that little eggshell won't do much to help you when the rest of your body gets smeared across the pavement like so much squirrel.
Free tip for all the Lance-wannabes out there - Quit "clipping in". When you can actually move your limbs to catch yourself falling, nothing short of getting run over should give you much worse than a bit of road-rash. Maybe a broken wrist if you go down hard.
I'm not sure how I feel about this argument that helmets give everyone a 'false sense of security'.
reduction ad absurdum - the best thing is to make the whole enterprise of bicycle use simply as dangerous as possible?
Hej! Nasi tu byli!
As a cyclist I've seen a fair few arguments and studies like this one against wearing a helmet, but most people just use the 'common sense' argument for wearing one.
I don't wear a helmet, and in general I'd rather learn the arguments for changing my behaviour. Does anyone have a good link to well conceived arguments or studies that say you should wear one?
This is not the greatest sig in the world. This is just a tribute.
Two hours of biking uphill are equal to two thirds of my BMR, so you are quite wrong.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Almost every case of TBI stemming from a bicycle wreck I've ever heard of wouldn't have been mitigated by a helmet. Helmets simply are not capable of preventing the brain from impacting the inside of the skull as a result of rapid deceleration.
They may prevent superficial lacerations or cracked skulls, but in the latter case the fracture is typically not any sort of substantive injury anyway. The internal trauma is what causes massive injury or death. In the cases where the fracture is substantive, well, the survival rate isn't very good because the deceleration trauma to the brain is even more so.
I don't begrudge you your emotions, but the appeal to them doesn't help your case.
Where I live you never see a racing or a mountain biker without a helmet. At speed they make absolute sense. When speeding I wear them but for short urban trips I don't.
The thing is that once your condition -and hence also the speed- augments you almost automatically get more interested and you will eventually start wearing one. So no, I don't think we should assess this issue in society as it is a self regulating one.
I also see a parallel with cyclist roads. Either have proper good cyclist roads where you can get up to and maintain speed or get away with them altogether. These rods lull you in a false sense of security an comfort. The consequence of cyclist roads is that motorists loose attention for bikes. Also, switching from one cyclist road to another is awkward and will cause accidents at speed.
In short, only regulate things that cause unacceptable risk to society. (E.g. a car insurance obligation protects society against people that would never be able to cover damages caused.)
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
If he died because he got run over and his chest collapsed, a helmet would not have helped one iota.
Since bike helmets are sorted to protect against 12mph collisions and the energy released goes up as the square of the speed, if a car going slowly at 24mph goes past, the helmet would absorb and dissipate only 25% of that energy before failure. If the collision at 12mph were enough to warrant protecting the head then this is obviously not enough.
Bike helmets are designed to disintegrate to dissipate energy. They aren't crumple zones and aren't rubber compression zones. This is why you have to get a completely new one as soon as you get a dent (never mind a disintegration) in your helmet since it has now powdered in that area.
If we get rid of seat belt laws and reckless driving laws and we will get a lot more car and truck sales!
Show me one person that has said, "I would love to start bicycling, but I refuse to because of the damn helmets."
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Ha! That's a great fun fact. A shame it didn't launch a cycling revolution like it did in Holland.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
Actually, no. Just no. That is none of the government's goddam business. You couldn't have possibly chosen a more perfect example of nanny state big brother busybody intrusion. All that shit does is increase contempt for those governments worthy of contempt.
I moved from the US to The Netherlands four years ago and traded in my 30 minute commute on the highway for a 7 seven minute commute on a bike and it has proven to be the best part about the move. It took some time to adjust to not wearing a helmet (you do tend to stick out if you ride around with one on.) The biggest issue in terms of safety is not the helmet but having dedicated, physically separate bicycle lanes. I mean *real* bicycle lanes, not just lines painted on the road. It feels like here that they plan the bicycle lanes first and then try to fit in the car lane in what is left over. It the US it always seemed that there was never enough room to add a proper bicycle lane because no one was thinking about that when the road was planned.
The key is the word "false".
Helmets give you a sense of security. It might be false.
Having a proper bike seat instead of a rusty spike gives you a sense of security. It's almost certainly not false.
I doubt you're located in Copenhagen or Amsterdam...
But then the world moved past the 19th century.
'Pushing helmets really kills cycling and bike-sharing in particular because it promotes a sense of danger that just isn't justified — in fact, cycling has many health benefits,' says Piet de Jong.
Sadly, right after saying this, Piet de Jong got on his bicycle without a helmet and crashed. After hitting his head on the curb, he was rushed by ambulance to the hospital for emergency brain surgery.
"Contrarily the lookaside buffer might not be the panacea... "
(Warning: anecdotal evidence)
A friend of mine was obese. She tried dieting, but she wasn't eating particularly unhealthily in the first place, and moving to tiny portions of very low-calorie food didn't suit her.
She started running, and very quickly brought herself to a healthy weight, having ditched the diet.
Actually, at first she was on Weight Watchers, and followed their plan of "if you do x amount of exercise, you may eat x more 'points' worth of food". After a while she ignored the points, ate normally, and ran regularly.
Do condoms give a false sense of security, too?
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
I guess it depends on where you live, but in the UK cars (and other vehicles) pay for the roads via a road tax, so it would make sense to say the roads belong to "them". At least as far as who pays for most of the maintenance.
Cyclists do not pay road tax, or insurance, or contribute to the maintenance of the roads. If they were registered at least, then I'd hope to see a little less stupidity and recklessness (e.g. when it comes to red lights and junctions).
I live in Barcelona, Spain, where I have been using the city official bicycle network (bicing.com) as main public transportation for a couple of years now. The city has build bicycle lanes all over the place, an extensive network of stations where you can pick/station a city bike, using a simple card (yearly subscription).The city and company that built the physical & It infrastructure also provides free mobile apps ( for Android, iOS and Windows phones - I have the Android one), which gives you real-time info on available stations (slots to release the bicycle, or available bicycles to pick) , geo-location, hot line, etc.
Although the bicycle network had initial problems, it works quite nicely now. I have seen similar settings in other cities in Spain, like Seville, and others in different countries I visited, like France or Italy.
The adoption of the bicycle as a means of transportation seems to have been a success. Now, to the point: riding these bicycles is pretty safe. You don't need to wear helmets (nobody does), the bicycles have dedicated lanes and accidents are rare. The biggest problem here are motorcycles accidents, and yes, there, wearing a helmet is mandatory
Seems to me that any legislation on wearing bicycle helmets needs to be based on actual statistics, and a number of facts:
Otherwise the State only infantilizes its citizens, and meddles yet again with their freedom to decide for themselves.
The keyword here is "mature urban cycling systems". I'm pretty sure no US cities can even remotely compare to Amsterdam or Copenhagen (I've biked in both and you really notice that the bike is considered the equal of the car, not an afterthought as is so common), neither can my city (Stockholm). When bikes interact with cars to such a large extent and the bike network tends to suddenly disappear, leaving cyclists to biking on roads with motorists who tend not to notice cyclists. This is a big problem in Stockholm and I recently biked in San Francisco where it seems to be an even bigger problem, a motorist completely cut me off in order to park when I was coming fast in the bike lane, I was barely able to brake in time, this is even worse than I've ever experienced in Stockholm where motorists like to use bike lanes as "temporary" parking spots, but at least look around first when driving into a bike lane. In an environment like this, I would never leave the helmet unless I knew I was not going to interact with cars at all during my trip.
Your best friend died in a tragic accident with a truck. Wearing a helmet *might* have prevented a deadly injury. Oftentimes children look anywhere but forward, especially when learning to ride a bike, therefore it is a good idea to put a helmet on them. But always remember: Helmets do not prevent accidents, they sometimes alleviate the consequences.
If it's rhetorical, then there's no answer.
rewriting history since 2109
Arlington, VA. Go from Rosslyn to Falls Church... hell of a ride until you get used to it.
"injuries" during ladder climbing or taking a bath... Are they head injuries? I think there's a reason why helmets are required for cyclists. Of course I had two head injuries from cycling as a child without a helmet so maybe I don't think as good as I think.
Many of the most healthy foods and additives are limited or outright banned thanks to lobbying and FDA hackery. Meanwhile HFCS runs rampant all over the place. The government ALREADY controls and limits. They are just doing it wrong.
Meanwhile, other nations are doing it right and their obesity rates are nerly zero compared to the US.
Well that finishes me for moving to the netherlands.
Good.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
In general, people aren't good at estimating risk. Most of the time biking is safe, and you don't need a helmet. But if you do crash, you are quite high above a very hard surface, so landing on your head can easily cause a concussion or worse.
So if you ride carefully and avoid crashes, maybe you don't need a helmet? Well, that's where bad risk estimation comes in. In many years of riding I haven't crashed often, but I was never expecting it: once my front wheel got stuck in a rut, once a stick on the road flipped up into my spokes, once a taxi driver who was looking the wrong way drove into me. My wife has crashed less (she lost control on a patch of loose gravel once), but she got a concussion from it. (She wasn't wearing a helmet; I think it would have made a difference.)
I don't think people should be forced to wear helmets, but I think they're taking stupid risks if they don't. Brain injuries take a long time to heal, if they ever do.
Do you cycle much? For Commute? The article is about how there's a correlation between forcing helmets on cyclist and the attractiveness of cycling.
Around here ~70% of daily cycle commuters do use helmets so many people think like you, but on the other hand you are complete wrong about car the dangers of cycling is more about road conditions than cars (20% of reported cycle accidents here in Sweden involve cars).
Your point is sort of valid but I think there is an important aspect missing. Hypothetically, the purpose of road tax is to maintain the road infrastructure. Even if everyone cycled, the roads would need an awful lot less maintenance than they do currently. In fact, cycling is so low an impact of tarmac roads that it is effectively negligible.
I cycle quite a bit and I have to say that I do deliberately try to impede cars that think it is their god-given right to overtake cyclists even if there is clearly no room or they're going round a blind corner.
By the way, here's a penny to compensate for all the damage my bike does to the roads.
By the way, do you think horses (with riders) shouldn't be allowed on the road? They don't pay any road tax either. Do you angrily overtake them without giving them enough room?
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Well I've lived in London (pre cycle land), Bangkok, and I've lived in Amsterdam, Leiden etc. and I'm with Cloggy on this. They (the Netherlands) have this right, better lanes, better marking is the way to do this, the helmets are not.
As more people travel by bike there are fewer people driving and the roads benefit as a result.
I use to love cycling to work every day, I'd take a detour to go through a park, it kept me fit and healthy.
If you feel unsafe without a helmet, then wear one, but don't make it compulsory because it's fake security that puts people off cycling and does far more damage to their health indirectly than they gain directly.
People in the US bike the same way they drive. GTFO my way you slow moving object. Never been to Amsterdam but when it comes to lack of courtesy when mobile, I think Americans seem to take the gold in that resulting in a larger need for safety measures.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Over here in Holland, we rarely see people wearing such helmets. Actually the only ones who wear them are some children, and that's only because they tend to be more reckless and/or can't estimate the dangers too well. After the age of 8-9, they too stop wearing them. Almost everybody here knows how to ride a bike and if you see how we do that; driving through busy traffic, together with cars, buses etc. on the same lane, all without helmets. Sure, accidents happen, but I can't remember one incident where a helmet would've proven useful. Most of the times a protective suit like you wear on a motorcycle would've been better :)
100% wrong. On average, a 75-kg body burns 75 kilocalories an hour just sitting. Walking at 6 km/hr burns 375 kilocalories an hour. Biking at 20 km/hr burns *600 kilocalories an hour*.
If the risk was obvious, I would agree. However I'm not sure that one's vulnerability when cycling is really appreciated - just as people didn't used to feel vulnerable when driving without seatbelts. Even a minor fall onto hard pavement can easily break bones, and if the broken bone happens to be the skull then you can be in real trouble.
A little while ago I took a tumble when a startled animal ran into my bike. I landed on my helmet, which cracked, and was dazed enough to earn a day in hospital. Later, when a road safety group visited my workplace, I got a chance to find out roughly what kind of impact I had taken. They took the remains of my helmet and hit it with a hammer on an undamaged area until it showed damage similar to the original fall. It required quite a serious blow with a heavy hammer. They then delivered a similar blow to a force-measuring stand, which indicated that the force delivered was far more than that needed to break a skull.
In short, even on an empty country lane an unlucky fall can kill you. Until recently I didn't know that, and I suspect lots of other people don't know it either.
Yep, I kinda do - Because falls not related to a car hitting you won't affect your head, and if you do get hit by a car on a bike, that little eggshell won't do much to help you when the rest of your body gets smeared across the pavement like so much squirrel.
If you are not smeared across the pavement but only hit hard enough to be thrown a few meters the helmet will protect you and avoid the your scull cracks open if your skull is first when you hit the curb. (or a signpost or anything else that is not flat road)
Safe bicycle infrastructure promotes faster speeds and more confidence and feeling of ownership of the road by cyclists. These are all components that speak FOR the usage of helmets. Speeds on the danish bicycle lanes are often high enough that if you get graced by another cyclist going past you you will fall (and the curb will be very close)
In Denmark, if you get hit by a car it is by default the drivers fault - it is also an integral part of drivers education to be very much aware of cyclist when making turns - especially right turns.
I do not think helmets should be mandatory, but they should be heavily promoted and maybe even subsidized to make them more easily available. Laws could also be passed to ensure that every bike has to come with a free helmet bundled. "Use it if you like, but we are obligated to give it to you. And please read this flyer on bike safety."
Its like insurance - you don't need it until you do - and at that time it is too late to buy it (or in the case of helmets - put them on)
"car's part of the road" ???
This is a mistake. Where does it say the road belongs to cars?
There's a certain group of car drivers are discourteous to each other, traveling in the passing lane and tailgating. As far as they're concerned they don't have to share the road with other motorists. Why would you expect someone like that to have a different attitude toward cyclists?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Helmets simply are not capable of preventing the brain from impacting the inside of the skull as a result of rapid deceleration.
Really? Isn't the purpose of styrofoam the prolongation of the deceleration phase?
Have you ever knocked over a hard disk standing on a stone floor? Or on a desk? On a carpet?
That doesn't work for a number of reasons:
That said, I chose to wear a helmet. I've had too many visits to the hospital. I've cracked a helmet (rather than my head) when I crashed at speed. I've seen the reports of James Cracknell who was taken off the road in America by a truck wing mirror and survived (probably because he was wearing a helmet).
We're all adults we should be able to make our own minds up. We can also encourage our kids to wear a helmet but we don't want to follow our European friends by legislating for it.
Europe has a lot of advantages over the UK. They have bigger wider roads with dedicated cycle paths, they have car drivers who aren't selfish bastards.
Sigs. We don't need no steenking sigs.
http://www.trailsandbikes.net/wp-content/data/deuter-classic-bike-bepackt.jpg.
It is not my photo, but I've got the same backpack (22L, 680g by the way). Not really as huge a problem as you describe.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Indeed, truly horrible accidents where helmets make the difference between life and death are pretty rare. Possibly more rare than airplanes making water landings or horrible car accidents. However, if we're fine with (and prefer) conceding to the last two scenarios, why is wearing a small thing like a helmet such a big deal?
Perhaps the author (thankfully) hasn't seen how much a helmet works, but I, and many others, who commute and ride often have certain been in such situations. They work.
I do think that a lot of serious accidents and fatalities are due to cyclists doing completely stupid things like riding against traffic on a major road or blowing stop lights (without looking!) in areas with high car traffic.
In the UK, taxation on cars has never wholly paid for road maintenance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_Excise_Duty
I'm 45.
When I was a school kid, EVERYONE rode their bikes. We rode around town constantly, we'd ride out to friend's houses miles outside of our small town. I'd say 90%+ kids rode bikes.
I don't know a single kid who ever had a serious head injury, in a class of 80+ several years ahead or behind. Say a rough demographic sample of 400 kids.
Today, I see very little bike riding. I know many kids that know HOW to ride a bike, and (apparently) enjoyed it, but simply aren't interested in riding.
I stopped riding for years once I became an adult, until I bought a recumbent and absolutely love it...one of the things I like about it is my posture as I ride makes it far less likely I'm targeting my head if the bike crashes. So I don't wear a helmet, and the dirty looks I get from 'cyclists' (you know who I mean), especially if I discuss it aloud, are frequent.
-Styopa
From Frankfurt/Main to Glashütten for example.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
You don't wear a helmet for all of those accidents that don't happen. You wear one for that accident that does.
Having been in a pretty horrific accident where my helmet saved my life, I'll just keep right on wearing it, thanks.
Helmets are not required for adults in the US, but most states require them for children under a certain age. I see very few, if any, adults riding without one anymore, but when I do it's usually an older person from "back in the day" when helmets were uncool.
There was a time back in the 50's, I think, when car companies were all up in arms about what to do with seatbelts. They wanted to add the "feature," but their marketing people were terrified that having safety features in a car would make the car seem unsafe and discourage people buying them. We look back on that today and laugh at how stupid they were to think that, just like at some point we will look back at this thread in the Internet archives and laugh hysterically at the stupidity.
Road tax is not hypothecated. It's not like a TV Licence where the revenue specifically goes to the BBC.
In the UK, tax payers in general pay for the roads, not just the car owners.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
I'm just glad someone is finally remarking how silly this is. I've been saying for years that ladder helmets are necessary. My kids, before doing any dangerous activity, go to the closet and get their helmet out. Whether that be their ladder-climbing helmet, their swing set helmet, or their swimming pool slide helmet, they know that being safe is better than being dead. Anything that requires being more than standing height from the ground requires a helmet. The kids are excited about it, too - for their birthdays this year, they know they'll be getting new "going down the stairs" helmets.
Take it to the limit, everybody to the limit, come on, everybody fhqwhgads.
The tax I pay on my two cars doesn't even cover the bill for third party insurance claims due to motor vehicle related accidents. I pay well above the average amount of income tax every year. I think I'm entitled to useful bicycle on the roads I'm helping to pay for.
Instead of arguing about helmets, could we instead agree that if you're going to ride a bike in the US you should really understand how street laws apply to cyclists here? I've seen WAY too many idiots riding their bikes (never with a helmet btw) down the left side of the road head on to the traffic, which means that traffic can do very little to avoid you -- even if they were to come to a dead stop, you still pose a risk because you're closing the gap. On top of all that, these cyclists do this on the narrowest of roads, where there is a small dirt shoulder which they refuse to ride on. Sometimes, they'll even ride side-by-side in the wrong lane like this and don't even make an effort to steer clear of the cars that they are riding head-on at.
Of course, I never ever see a person wearing a bike helmet do any of these stupid things. This only serves to confirm my long-held belief that a person riding a bike without a helmet has nothing in their head worth protecting.
Oh yes. Some truckers also show this attitude towards people on scooters. I once rode my scooter (capable of going 110-120 km/h) on the federal highway (speed limit 100 km/h). In front of me was a trucker going at his legal maximum speed of 70 km/h. The road ahead was clear so I decided to overtake him. My scooter was easily powerful enough to do so safely.
That didn't sit well with him, however. While I was next to him he decided to accelerate. Of course I accelerated further because driving on the wrong side of the road is dangerous and I was already next to his cab. He matched my speed and so we were barelling down the road at about 110 km/h (that's more than 150% of what's legal for him) and were getting close to a soft bend in the road. Of course then another truck came around the bend (which I couldn't see sooner because of a dike next to the road).
Since braking sharply would've been the only way to get behind "my" truck in time and I wasn't certain that the space behind the truck was even free I could only get close to the truck on my right to make room. I found myself driving next to one truck while another truck went past me with a speed difference of 190 km/h. That's when the truck driver to my right realized he'd screwed up and hit the brake.
Unfortunately I didn't bother to read his license plate or memorize which company the truck belonged to before overtaking him or I would've reported the guy to the police. Someone who pulls shit like that doesn't belong on the road.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Basically, the thing you're measuring (damage to the safety device) has no correlation with the protective abilities of that device. Thus to argue the thing you've measured shows the latter lacks any rational basis.
Laughable, that is.
I crash often enough I don't bother with bicycle helmets which are designed to disintegrate ablatively. I wear a skater's helmet, which I could bang with a hammer, &c., without damage. When it has gravel embedded into the hard plastic shell and major paint removal all over the surface after I've somersaulted the handlebers I don't feel the need for G-force sensor readings. I have many years of experience crashing bicycles and such, both with and without helmets. I'm pretty sure that the Shoei helmet I cracked flipping over the bars of my RD-400 and landing head-first @ 55mph was a life-saver, but you can continue in this chickenshit debate about data validity if you don't care for my anecdotal evidence. I am fairly sure that most of the damage I've done on bicycle mishaps wouldn't have been fatal, but I absolutely know that I'd have been badly hurt many times if I had not worn a helmet. One benefit in particular is the ability to protect other body parts when I'm tumbling and skidding because the helmet has the head covered, so it allows more options.
I'm sorry if my anecdotal data is too imprecise for you to engage in rational thought.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
Maybe you should whip out a calculator for once and calculate g-forces. A mere centimeter more means a lot less braking force to your head.
In physics we call what happens there a "plastic deformation". If you don't wear a helmet that energy, instead of cracking the helmet, will crack open your skull.
AFAICT, in the US, most kids don't ride bikes that much from an early age, the result being that there isn't an ingrained consciousness about biking as they grow up. They end up being drivers who don't really think about biking as a valid mode of transportation. Contrast this to Japan, where it's common for the parents in a household to commute by bike, shop by bike, and do everything by bike, and the kids are riding bikes to school when they're five, so the "bike consciousness" is developed from an early age.
The other issue that keeps people from riding bikes in the US is that you are forced to share the road with cars, rather than ride on sidewalks. I haven't bought a bike since moving back to the US for that very reason; I don't trust the drivers around me enough to watch out for me. It has nothing to do with a helmet. If the US infrastructure wasn't so hopelessly automobile-oriented, and was more accommodating for bikes (wider sidewalks, bike lanes, etc.), I would buy one in a second.
Last summer two of my friends had an accident while riding a bicycle. According to his GPS, one of them was going 35 km/h (about 20 mph) just before the accident. His bike and his helmet was a wreck and he suffered various injuries.
The other did not wear a helmet. He died.
I wear a helmet when I'm riding!
My opinion? See above.
So we know that if you are going head first into the pavement, you want a helmet on. But does wearing a helmet increase the chances of a serious crash by impairing the biker?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
More people would drive if we repealed seatbelt laws?
Or...
Maybe if we pass a law that requires people to wear helmets while driving we can get cars off the road and reduce pollution and congestion?
Car taxation don't pay for the roads, it only pays for the additional road maintenance necessary because of the damage caused by cars passing on it.
Yes, to a degree, it has been argued before. However the ACTUAL benefits of a condom outweighs the small increase in risky behaviour that this false sense of security gives.
In the case of bikes the ACTUAL benefits of a helmet is very small and only in very limited types of accidents, while the increase in risky behaviour is more dangerous and leads to accidents usually in a way that helmets would not protect against.
1) Huh? I have moved from a "you're kidding" to "mandatory helmet" country so have experience of both. As far as I am concerned right now it's just a thing you do and, on reflection, a good thing. No false security - just a "whatever" and, in my case, demonstrably a good thing. I have never been hit by a car (close though) but in my life I have come off several times due to tram tracks, intoxication, bad luck, gravel, ice. 3 helmets down - still going. I have no idea how any of those situations might have turned out otherwise but I can categorically say that my behaviour was not influenced by me wearing the helmet. It's not fucking bat armour - it's a sensible thing if you might fall over or hit the tarmac at anything over 10 km/h.
2) Don't know. Personally, I consider that a bike is a bike and I assume they're going to be a spaz, turn across or fall over, helmet or not. In fact as they are mandatory I consider someone without a helmet thinks they are "too cool for school" and more likely to be an arse rather than a careful road user. I can't speak for everyone.
I am sad you don't let your kids wear them and consider education instead. Also, hopefully you or any of your friends never have to scoop up a corpse or battered, mangled body up and put them through surgery & IC. Yeah, you pay your taxes so the guys who will do this are out there, but it's really best avoided if you can, for all involved.
Same thing for seatbelts - I think you need to spend a couple of seconds thinking if your right to exercise freedom to not wear one is really actually something you should be doing. Does it make you drive more carefully when you don't? Do you daughters not wear one so other drivers look out? [See also "baby in board" stickers].
"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups." - Abraham Lincoln I'm a cyclist, I ride a road bike, I ride fast. I know exactly what will happen if I fall off... I WILL DIE! I live in the drunk driving capital of the United States. Laws meant to PROTECT CYCLISTS CANNOT HURT THE CYCLING INDUSTRY!! Reason? Because the helmet can mean the difference between living the rest of your life as a quadrapalegic and death. I know exactly what will happen if a car slams into me. I WILL DIE! Is cycling dangerous? YES!
I typed an ad-hominem, then deleted it. I may regret it.
In the UK, neither vehicle excise duty ("car tax") nor fuel tax is ringfenced to pay for road; and I'm pretty certain the equivalent is true in the US. Roads are paid for out of general taxation, and rightly so because they're of general benefit to everyone, not just drivers.
Even if you never leave your street, you benefit from roads, because a road is how your postman gets to you, how your local shop gets stocked, how the fire brigade can reach you, how the supply-chain that feeds you is joined up, etc. That's why it's right that everyone's taxes pay for roads.
But that also means that the cyclist you're so happy to cut up, probably did pay their share for the road. Not only that, but it's fairly likely that the cyclist owns a car too. I don't know whether you live somewhere where heavy traffic is a problem, but if you do, every car owner who chooses to cycle that day, is helping reduce traffic.
I don't defend cyclists who don't obey the rules of the road. But you should treat the cyclists who do with the respect they deserve.
I honestly believe that my helmet has saved my life more than once while riding on the road. I've been hit by two cars and I ride my bike in the winter (I've never been hit in the winter), and I've bounced my head off the pavement a couple times. I've seen the foam compress, and I'm pretty sure I would've had pretty substantial injuries from those incidents. That said, I spend more time not crashing than crashing. I know people that have been hit by cars while walking. It's hard to eliminate risk from your life—that's just life.
And not exercising is a completely different risk you take on. I think people would do well to understand the risks of riding a bike and wear their helmets, but the barrier to entry needs to be as low as possible.
I live in Montreal, where the Bixi bike rental system is incredibly popular. We now have bike traffic jams in the bike lanes. I see women in business suits riding the bikes in their high heels. 90% of these people aren't wearing helmets or they're wearing them so wrong as to make them useless, but they're riding. Heart disease and obesity related diseases kill so many people every year, it's really just a cruel matter of the math: even if the number of people dying in bike related injuries goes up, we're almost certainly saving lives in the long run.
But central Montreal is dense and easy to traverse. The city is well set up for walking and is an utter nightmare to drive in—ideal conditions for a bike culture to come up.
I guess it depends on where you live, but in the UK cars (and other vehicles) pay for the roads via a road tax
This is simply not true. "Road tax" is a common informal name given to Vehicle Excise Duty. Vehicle Excise Duty does not pay for roads. Some roads are paid for by general taxation (income tax, VAT, etc.) and some roads are paid for by council tax.
We all pay for roads, because we all benefit from them whether we drive or not.
I've got a 4yr old and he didn't want to wear his helmet. So I told him he didn't have to. My wife didn't like it but I told her "he's still in training wheels, he can't even go 5mph, short of him getting hit by a car, there's no way he can injure himself bad enough to warrant a helmet. She relented. Then some of the neighborhood moms saw him and freaked out. I reasoned with them, but they wouldn't shut up so finally I told them to mind their own god damned business. So they of course, all got together and ganged up on my wife when I wasn't home, who now insists he use the helmet. So... now he doesn't ride his bike anymore because he doesn't want to bother with the helmet. In fact, the majority of the kids in my neighborhood don't. Last week, while NOT riding a bike, he was climbing over a fence and fell on his head. Go figure.
I've ridden a bike in London's dense, cycle-hostile traffic for 40 years and don't wear a helmet. On the morning commute I'd guess 9 out of 10 wear one but I don't believe a bit of polystyrene would make much difference if went under the wheels of a bus.
Most of the cycle deaths in London are at poorly designed junctions where big stuff can turn across the path of cyclists going forward.Investment in cycle lanes would save more lives than stupid helmets.
maybe we should wear helmets when we climb ladders or get into a bath
For literally years, I've been extolling the virtues of wearing a diving helmet when bathing; glad to see someone finally acknowledge the obvious benefits to safety!
That is interesting. Out of curiosity, do you know what the road tax pays for? I mean, 5.63billion was generated from it in 2009, does that go towards maintenance of the roads or not? How much is taken from general taxation to fill the gap?
I am under the impression that road tax + fuel tax + emissions tax pretty much generated a surplus of money, more than is needed to maintain the road/transport infra. As such most of it is used in other areas. As such I doubt general taxation pays for the roads per se.
To Encourage Biking, Lose the Cars!
No helmets for motorcycles, no seatbelt laws, in fact people should be encouraged to cross highways at night on foot in the rain.
Oh screw bikes! they're annoying, hurt your back, and riders never obey traffic laws. I know many people who lost over 50 pounds playing Dance Dance Revolution. One US state made DDR mandatory in their physical education curriculum because it works, it's fun, and it's around 1800 calories per hour burned. After playing it for 2 years, I sat down at the leg press at my gym after not having lifted weights for years and did the entire weight stack easily. If people really want to lose weight in a way that's agreeable, get them off the bikes and on the dance mats!
In a lot of other places, you can bike for a long, long, time and not see other people. Generally this is not the case here. Most importantly, your odds of encountering a motor vehicle while bicycling in the US are extremely high. While most of the time bicycles and motor vehicles can share the road without incident, when that does not happen the incident rarely turns out well for the person on the bicycle.
Conversely, when I am on a ladder or in my bathtub, my chance of being hit by a car are quite small. If the US had more bicycle-only trails for people to ride on, then the accident rate would be greatly decreased. Instead they have to share the road with people who are reading and writing SMS messages on their phones, eating breakfast, putting on makeup, tuning their radio, and doing who-knows-what-else when they should be driving and focusing on the road.
Hence a helmet in the US for a bicyclist is important not to protect the bicyclist from themselves, but to protect them from the other people they are sharing the road with.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Yes, agree and plus cyclists that 'undertake' into the blind spot of large vehicles especially when there are railings on the pedestrian side, that's a good way to be crushed.
I live near the infamous Bow/Stratford roundabout and, frankly, I usually get off and walk it, it's the poorly designed junction 'best of breed'.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
Did you have a helmet going through that windshield?
Aren't public roads inherently socialist?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
At risk of sounding like an ignorant American, Why do we force bikes onto the road in many areas? I went to school in Wisconsin, and students were occasionally ticketed for biking (or skateboarding or rollerblading) on the sidewalk, rather than the road. It seems to me that the sidewalk is a more appropriate place (bike vs pedestrian = stitches, bike vs car = death or brain damage) Of course sidewalks aren't available everywhere, but where they are, why are bikes forced off the sidewalks?
In my experience, I think it is best to let the riders decide. The first, and probably obvious point, is that the only victim of a bike accident is probably going to be the biker. I don't know that we need laws protecting us from ourselves.
Secondly, this article is completely correct. I never wore helmets when I was young. The only exception was for BMX biking over jumps and all. Even at a young age, you understand the importance of self preservation. Today, I wear a helmet when I am mountain biking or when I want to better condition myself for wearing a helmet while mountain biking.
Otherwise, I prefer to leave the helmet at home. I've gotten heat stroke before (while biking on safe roads) and I will say that it was far more dangerous than any accident I ever sustained on a paved bike path or road. And helmets do make your head a little hotter. Besides, when you are on a safe trail or road, it's nice to feel the wind on your head and just feel closer to your surroundings. Biking is for more than transportation, it is for the joy of the ride.
I used to run a bike shop. Every time I would sell a bike, I would make sure the customer had a good discussion about why they should buy a $30 helmet. The $30 helmet was usually less than 10% of the bike purchase. When they would say "It's not comfortable", I would ask them what their head is worth. Maybe not to them, but to their family. If they had brain damage, what would their life be like? Could they still work? What would happen to their family if they couldn't? Once I sold a bike, and a helmet, to a bright kid who had a major head injury from a car accident. He had been a bright engineering student, after the accident he lived at home with his parents. He applied once for a job, but did very poorly on the math test (~ sixth grade skill level) we gave prospective employees. Head trauma can really screw up your life, so don't take the chance.
I've been in a number of bike accidents, one of which caused a concussion and an overnight hospital stay. No helmet. I've had some where I hit my head, and cracked my helmet, with no head trauma. If had more where I scratched my helmet, with no problems.
The rule with my family is the same as the rules at a triathlon: if you are touching your bike, you MUST have a helmet on.
This is a mistake. Where does it say the road belongs to cars?
When there is a bike lane, you're required to use it any time you're not required to do something else. We have to stay in our lane, why shouldn't you have to stay in yours? When there is no bike lane, the law generally requires you to ride as far to the right as possible, specifically for the purpose of enabling maximum use of the road. Drivers have specific obligations regarding cyclists, but you can't pretend that cyclists don't have any obligations. Every time a cyclist ignores those obligations, that is counted by many against all cyclists just as many cyclists count any offense by any driver against all drivers.
I don't pass cycles on blind turns and such like. In return, I expect them to get the hell out of the way as soon as it is convenient, and to make an effort at it. It's called sharing the road and both cyclists and drivers have the responsibility to do so. I get precisely the same feeling whether it's a trucker beginning a minutes-long "passing" move consisting primarily of driving alongside another truck just as I arrive and nudge the pedal down for my own passing move, or a cyclist taking up more of the lane than they need when there is in fact plenty of room for me to pass them to make a statement about their rights. Yes, in both cases, the individual in question has a right to be such an incredible douchebag, but in neither case is it necessary, and both people should really be voted off this fucking planet.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You're right; if we can point to 5 instances where a cm of styrofoam would've (or did) make the difference between a light injury and a very severe one, we should encourage people to wear helmets.
I'm glad you're on board with my campaign to make helmets mandatory while in moving motor vehicles.
Oh, and everyone under 18 and over 50 will have to wear one at all times. Those between can take them off before going to bed.
It's the only sane response.
Do not ride a bike without a helmet faster than you are willing to crash without a helmet.
Give the two big bike accidents I've been in, I've only managed to damage my arms and ribs, and that's without a helmet both times. The lack of a helmet also helps to limit risky behavior. Much like a car without ABS, airbags and traction control is driven much ore carefully than one with all those options.
Also cycling, even though I do it 5 out of 7 days a week has yet to result in any weight loss. In fact I packed about 15lbs of muscle on when I started. I'm just as fat as when I started, though from a heart perspective, I'm much better off.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
What the heck do you do?
Some of us prefer singletrack. It's the closest thing I've yet found to the experience of riding a speeder bike on endor. Sometimes you crash into a tree and blow up, though.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The article makes a good point, and there are arguments on both sides. However, to say that Amsterdam and Copenhagen are places that have a significant portion of the population using bicycles on a regular basis, and they don't mandate helmets and yet everyone's safe is oversimplifying the point in a way that's detrimental to the discussion. Even if we grant that this is the case, which I have no reason to doubt, it's not like everyone woke up one day, ditched the helmets, grabbed bikes and rode around. If a majority of folks in a given place ride bikes, it's safe to say that's a culture that understands and respects bicycling as a mode of transportation, and has experience combining bicycle and motor vehicle traffic in a safe way. Cyclists are comfortable with cars and vice versa. One of the things that helps contribute to accidents is nervous drivers, nervous cyclists, or a combination of the two. I'd also be willing to bet there are more bike lanes in places like those mentioned in the article. Helmets may make cycling seem more dangerous, but living in a car dominated culture where many places do not prioritize bike safety actually does make cycling more dangerous. No, a bike helmet won't protect me much if I'm hit by a car. In that case, I'll be lucky to escape with just broken bones. However, a helmet certainly would protect me if I'm riding between traffic and a row of parked cars (like cyclists in many cities are forced to do if their bike is their main source of transport) and I have to swerve to avoid a car who doesn't see me. In that case, I'd rather be wearing a helmet when I hit the parked car or the pavement. And, I'd rather be conscious and able to get my bike and myself up out of the street rather than being knocked out in the middle of the street and causing a bigger problem because folks have to go around me or come out in the road to help. Helmet laws aren't there to force people who could care less about their skulls to put clunky helmets on. It's to protect the other folks who would be dragged into or affected by an accident that would be exacerbated by someone not wearing one. Bottom line, wear a helmet. Do it for the children.
I fell off my bike with no one's help other than my own ineptitude, and broke my arm. My helmet certainly saved my head from a good whack, too.
Maybe cities are pushing for fewer helmets so we get more organ donors. My experience is that helmets are a very good idea!
--PeterM
That's not the question. Of course you should wear a helmet when cycling.
It's whether it should be a law. If it's a law then some people who would have taken the bike will now take the car (because of "those stupid idiot hats"). They then proceed to make more lethal accidents and gain a lot of weight, which makes them susceptible to a whole load of illnesses. Now what's the most dangerous option?
(to be honest I don't wear them, but I know I should).
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
This topic reminded me of what two swede women cooked up as a third option of sorts:
http://www.hovding.com/en/how/
In action:
http://www.hovding.com/en/film/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kZGTOLBvek
It's not that invisible actually. But I liked the concept (actually I was thinking this would be amazing addition to regular helmets for speed bikers and formula one racers)
I am an ACCA student. Got a query on Accountancy/Finance? Maybe I can help!
I'm sure he'll still agree that helmets aren't important...
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
That's why trucks should have blind spot camera's. Don't complain to me that you can't see me and expect me to know when you can't see me. Get a camera.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
So, you're stating that car drivers will (accidentally?) kill other road users if their own speed is curtailed?
Seems like a nice bunch of people.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Sorry, but that is also not true. A person who needs a 1000 kcal reduction a day can be able to ride a bike uphill for two hours. It all comes down to sheer willpower. How do you think I was able to lose 55 kg in first place? Alas, 25 more to go.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
My only certain helmet-saved-my-life story happened the day I learned that a Yamaha RD-400 will flip forward if the brakes are applied too abruptly. My Snell '75 rated Shoei ZG helmet got a ~2cm flat spot and a ~20cm long crack through the plastic shell where I'd bounced on the crown of my head @80kph. I suppose I might possibly have lived, but I really don't think I'd have somersaulted three times then bounced to my feet uninjured and run to a stop if I had not been wearing that helmet. (Kinda cool- everything was in slow-motion as I ran down the highway and my bike floated overhead, then it hit the ground and started shedding parts as I tallied the damage.)
Somersaulting over the handlebars was like, my signature move in the 70s. I avoided a lot of wrist and elbow damage that plagued others who did not have the Judo training I had. Once I had a good helmet (I destroyed three of the ablative type before I switched to the skater type) I was a able to land even more smoothly and safely because I wasn't shielding my head with my arms. One time my bicycle helmet was smashed into three pieces, and the center bit was compressed by ~1cm -that would have hurt. I read your friendly link, and it told me NOTHING THAT I DID NOT KNOW. I crashed many, many, many times before good helmets became available (curiously not once did I crash test my padded foam/leather skid-lid, fortunately as those were not regarded as very adequate.) I speak from experience, and I don't claim to have averted any necessarily fatal injuries with the other helmets I've destroyed, but they have positively saved me from much of the pain and blood loss of incidental injuries.
It is surprising to me how people can disregard physical evidence and anecdotes so they can point to a webpage with vague statistics and random conclusions as real truth.
Hippos kill more people so we should just laugh at folks afraid of lions, eh?
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
Look at The Netherlands for example. They have a network of dedicated bicycle paths to keep bikes and autos separated. In the USA, the bicycle lobby pushes for a 'share the road' philosophy. In some cases, abandoning existing bike paths for a painted bicycle symbol on the street. Also, in cities like Amsterdam, bicycles (with their own lane signals) are expected to stop and otherwise honor traffic controls. And these laws are enforced. Here, we have Idaho stops. In The Netherlands, you'll see people riding sedately, wearing business attire, carrying groceries, etc. Its just another form of transportation. Here, everyone is wearing spandex racing gear. And riding as though it was the tour de France. Perish the thought that a stop sign, pedestrian or traffic law should interfere with a rider shaving a few seconds off their previous best commute time.
Forget it. We need helmets here.
Have gnu, will travel.
So, How many people are there from falling off a ladder and/or slipping in a tub?
Just a note, if you helmet is damaged or dented, the material inside has lost some very significant amount of protective value and should be replaced.
I stopped riding because of the carpal tunnel syndrome that I developed---probably from biking. Hours and hours of holding my hands on the handlebars at awkward angles is just killing me!
Now I have carpal tunnel syndrome.
As an experienced bicyclist and mortorcyclist (I put several thousand miles on each every year), I have had my share of close calls with motor vehicles over the years. Last summer alone, I had two friends that were hit by cars and an acquaintance that was killed. The driver that killed the cyclist got a small fine of less than $200US. She and her husband were riding on a tandem bicycle, close to the right shoulder on a country road. The driver hit them so hard, that it sheared both seatposts off the bike. It was mid-morning, the sun was out, the riders were riding as close as possible to the shoulder and for some unexplained reason, the driver in his shiny corvette killed one and seriously injured the other.
Rather than giving out small penalties (seriously, less than $200 for a death!), we should be making examples of drivers that commit this kind of mayhem. Put them in jail or make them pay a substantial fine (how much is a life worth?). We need to be prudent about it, so we don't penalize drivers for something that's the fault of a cyclist.
For the record, I have had my share of run-ins with drivers, while riding my bicycle. I'm a Lance "wannabe". I clip in. I wear a helmet. I wear the silly spandex kit. I have had soda bottles, coins (mostly handfuls of pennies), trash, and cigarette butts thrown at me. I have been yelled at, honked at, and sworn at (for a while I thought my name was "get your ass on the sidewalk") on so many occasions, I wouldn't attempt to count. Yet I still ride (this year, over 3000 miles). This is the whole rotten apple thing. You get a few drivers that do some really stupid things, and the rest try to give you plenty of room.
I mitigate some of the risk by riding defensively. I don't give drivers the opportunity to hit me. I ride a lot of suburban and rural roads, which by nature are less trafficked. If a car is coming from behind me and another car is oncoming on a two-lane road, I take the lane to prevent the car behind me from passing. I use hand signals to let cars know what I'm doing, and if I have one stuck behind me on a curve in the road, I'll wave them around when it's clear to go. OK, I blow stop signs when there are no cars. I ride two abreast. I ride at breakneck speeds down hills (whee!).
Down to brass tacks
1. The government shouldn't force me to wear a helmet. I agree, but I choose to because I've done the risk analysis and figured it's worth the expense and since I've forgone hair, it doesn't mess with my 'do.
2. There should be stronger penalties for drivers that though neglect or malice, severely injure or kill cyclists. They should be made an example of (just like texting drivers have been of late).
3. If you don't think you need a helmet, then you probably don't.
And I view fellow riders who don't have a helmet as incompetent fools or idiots.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Most of the cycle deaths in London are at poorly designed junctions where big stuff can turn across the path of cyclists going forward.
That's because when you are in an auto turning left (in the UK) or right (in the USA), you are in the far left or right lane. Just because there is two feet between you and the curb doesn't make it a legal lane for a cyclist to shoot straight through. Bicycles need to observe lane discipline. Stay in line behind the previous vehicle. Or pass them on the correct side (after signaling and checking traffic to switch lanes). Then you won't get run over.
Have gnu, will travel.
When I was six or seven years old, I took a Judo class, and learnt to tumble forward and bounce up on my feet. By tucking and rolling I can avoid wrist damage, scrapes, and all that stuff. When I was a teenager, I was legendary for bouncing up and walking away unhurt from spectacular looking crashes. One time I went over the bars on a downslope, bounced to my feet then caught the bike over my shoulder as I ran down the hill. My friends all said it looked like Jerry Rice.
Too bad we didn't have video in those days.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
Most of the cycle deaths in London are at poorly designed junctions where big stuff can turn across the path of cyclists going forward.
That's because when you are in an auto turning left (in the UK) or right (in the USA), you are in the far left or right lane. Just because there is two feet between you and the curb doesn't make it a legal lane for a cyclist to shoot straight through. Bicycles need to observe lane discipline. Stay in line behind the previous vehicle. Or pass them on the correct side (after signaling and checking traffic to switch lanes). Then you won't get run over.
You've never ridden a bike in traffic, have you? Motor vehicles travel faster than you and often cut you up by passing and then turning.
require helmets for anyone under 16
as part of getting your state ID card (im assuming they would not be getting a drivers license) if you want to "legally" not wear a helmet then you must on the ID form check a box stating " I choose to wave the protection of a helmet while biking AND AGREE TO BE AN ORGAN DONOR"
given that these folks may not have the best brains but the rest of their organs should be useable
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Maybe you should take more attention not to fall...
If the dents and gouges come from mountain or off-road biking : the story is about urban cycling.
Twice I've got my front wheel got caught in a streetcar track and gone down (happens frequently in Toronto). The other time a limo raced away from a red light and knocked me over. (Yes, he was charged, and there was a trial in Old City Hall -- GUILTY.) I've also been in a motorcycle accident (speed wobble on the 401) where a helmet saved my coconut. And my uncle Tim died from a head injury when riding a bicycle (granted, this was in the 1940's).
So you could say that my position on requiring helmets when riding a bicycle is .. inflexible.
And yeah, probably time for a new bike helmet.
These box stores sell what customers want. The problem with cycling for most of us is that RACERS KILLED IT:
1. We don't want toe clips. 2. We don't want handlebars that force you to hunch over. 3. We don't want tires that will go out of true after 200 miles on potholed roads. 4. We don't want to spend any more than $500. 5. Steel is fine. Really. Sturdiness is hella more important than saving a few blasted kg. Yes. I said kg. Not grams. 6. We want a seat you can actually sit on..
Anyway, you see a lot of steel cruisers here with fat tires (but they are slick usually), wide handlebars, steel frames, and AFAIK most have on gear but they have handle brakes. People don't want overpricd finicky racing machines that cost as much as a car. We're not Lance Armstrong.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Shouldn;t we be talking about the shadowy and huge bike helmut lobby that owns all the politicians that create these so called "safety" laws, when we all know its the greed and corruption of said international helmut consortium!
I don't think a public road can be inherently anything except existing for use by anyone who wishes to do so.
In other words, it is a publicly owned utility?
That doesn't change the fact that bicyclists don't pay squat for public roads
I don't think that's true at all. They aren't allowed on freeways, so those are not in play. Local roads are usually funded through property taxes. State roads usually are funded through gas tax, sales tax, and income tax. The only one of those bikers aren't paying is the gas tax - but neither are electric car owners. Clearly they should all leave the road, too.
they rail against the idea that a greater economic concern (car owners) ought to have a greater right to an ECONOMIC resource (roads) than them
That's what you get when you submit to socialist concepts like publicly owned roads... you have to share the resources with the other voters. Whether you personally feel more entitled to the road or not has very little bearing on your actual rights. You could buy your own road, or purchase rights to use someone else's road on terms you agree with if you'd like to solve this little problem.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
... handguns without safeties.
Lots of theorizing by armchair quarterbacks here. How many of you actually ride a bike regularly? How many ride to work on busy streets in traffic? How many of you have had a head injury on a bicycle? Very few, I'll bet. I can speak to each of these.
My head injury occurred in my driveway when I was a kid. My handlebars came loose and I went down, head hit the concrete and bounced a few times like a basketball. I was knocked unconscious and had a lot of damage to my face. From this experience and as a parent, I support mandatory helmet laws for children on bicycles. Bikes can be dangerous, children are still learning, and we as adults owe it to them to protect them.
As an adult I ride my bike to work several times a week on very busy streets. In the US, there is zero bicycle infrastructure, so you have to share the roads with speeding cars, trucks, and buses. Comparing cycling in the US to cycling in the Netherlands is nonsense. They have dedicated cycling infrastructure - separate bike pathways that are protected from vehicles. We don't. We have to get out there and swim with the sharks.
Do I support mandatory helmet laws for adults? No. I often ride recreationally without a helmet. But if I'm riding in traffic or at high speeds, damn right I'm going to be wearing a helmet. Helmets are ENABLERS for riding in dangerous conditions.
"maybe we should wear helmets when we climb ladders or get into a bath"
;-)
Don't worry, legislation to that effect is already in the works
These comments are mine; I do not speak for my employer.
If the problem is getting around quickly without using some sort of engine.
Maybe 3 or 4 wheels and lower to the ground is a better idea? Ice/traction is far less of an issue, you don't have so far to fall and hit your head, you can perhaps be more aerodynamic and thus make up for the extra rolling resistance, and for visibility, you could have a conspicuous flag sticking up?
--PM
Having biked for years in Amsterdam and having recently moved to NYC, I can tell you there is no comparison.
In Amsterdam there is absolutely no reason to wear a helmet, but I wouldn't recommend to anyone biking through midtown without a helmet.
6 years in Amsterdam, riding my bike every single day, and never any incident, or near-incident.
After 1 month biking in Manhattan, the number of attempts on my life is already in the double digits.
In Illinois and Pennsylvania at least, this is the law. I see a lot of cars roll through stop signs too though, including most cops.
200 total fatalities on around 8 million bikers, doing each an average of 2.5km a day, and around 7000 injuries serious enough for a hospital visit. These are the numbers for the Netherlands.
The US has no hard numbers on the total number of bikers and km ridden, so let's stick to .nl. Even assuming all 7000 injuries and all fatalities are head injuries, on a population of 8 million, yes, this is rare.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Do you even know any drivers who attempt to not exceed posted speed limits on roads by 5-10mph? This may be anecdotal, but almost all people I've met who bitch about cyclists have a history of rear ending other drivers and causing accidents, meaning they are terrible drivers.
You want cyclists to respect cars? Start by respecting the traffic laws. This works both ways.
Further, roads were originally built for cyclists: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Roads_Movement
So I crashed on a bike with a helmet (in an urban environment in a commuting situation) and there was a big crushed area in front of my forehead. I suspect my forehead itself would have been crushed in if I did not wear a helmet (I managed to break my arm in that crash as well).
I cringe at the people in Amsterdam smoking and using their cellphone while biking with their kids in the basket and no one has a helmet! But maybe they know something I don't.
By the way, I've fell off of a bike in Amsterdam without a helmet, but at very low speed and took most of the crash on my arms and legs without serious injury. But I think I got lucky!
Once you have had a concussion, you'll wonder why you ever resisted wearing a bike helmet. Nausia and potentially vomitting while having a splitting headache is pretty miserable.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
No. The protective abilities of a helmet are determined by measuring the force transmitted to the head (e.g. using a dummy head-form instrumented with accelerometers). The damage suffered by the helmet is not only irrelevant, but is simply not at all indicative of the actual force-absorbing capabilities in crash situations.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
Yes, I'm well aware of how helmets work. And yet, visual inspection of the damage to a helmet still does not allow you to determine how much force, if any meaningful level, was absorbed before reaching the head. If you want to know that, you need to measure the force at the head. Also, the human skull is much, much stronger than polystyrene. A cracked or dented soft shell helmet by no means equates with a cracked open skull without the helmet.
Basically, I am not disputing a cycling helmet absorbs a significant amount of force in certain impact situations. I am saying the logic of "my helmet was cracked, therefore my head was saved" is, of itself, fallacious.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
Things I have never seen: 1. a bicyclist obeying a stopsign. 2. a unicorn. 3. a bicyclist stopping at a crosswalk.
Things I have seen rarely: 1. a perfect 10 on the uneven bars. 2. a car passing a cyclist without giving them a berth of at least 2 extra meters.
Things I see all the time: 1. cyclists cutting off pedestrians. 2. cyclists running red lights. 3. cyclists cutting in and out of traffic.
I live by a college campus. I've talked with a campus police officer about all the bike accidents we've had here. He says the overwhelming majority are the fault of the cyclist. Helmets are small potatoes compared to 1. the devil-may-care attitude toward traffic laws that seems to prevail among cyclists and 2. the unsafe piggybacking of considerations for bicycles onto existing roads. Consider the bike lane: it continues straight through an intersection, ACROSS the right turn lane for cars! Furthermore, drivers are not used to this situation because it's both novel and counter-intuitive. Someone please design a better road and let's all tell our cyclist friends to obey the signs.
Esoteric reference.
As a racing cyclist of 25+ years, I've seen this discussion a thousand times. The fact is you're far more likely to get injured or die crossing the street as a pedestrian than you are riding a bicycle in any environment. The Centers for Disease Control has the mortality statistics to prove that, but just like with Windows fans vs. Mac fans no one wants to look at the facts, but instead they prefer to simply preach own "religious" beliefs regarding the wearing of helmets--and contrary to facts, religion is based on mere faith. BTW, I've had three friends killed while riding bikes over the past 30+ years. All three were wearing helmets. The helmet industry has done a marvelous job at marketing helmets in order to sell them, lots of them. They have preyed on the public not at all understanding or even looking at the actual statistics. Like it or not, that's the bottom line. (P.S. -- I only wear a helmet in races where they are required.)
/.'s Psychic-in-Residence: Psychic to the Geeks
It indicates pebbles not embedded in my skull and scalp that's still attached and not leaking blood. I haven't ever fractured my skull or even gotten a concussion, but I prefer to avoid the pain of smashing my head into the ground unhelmeted, as I have on a few occasions.
Why all this thickness? Is it September already?
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
I never did that much and now I don't at all... but I remember how miserable drivers can make things. I've almost been killed by cell phone people or mothers messing with the kids. The city and police ...the culture is just not friendly. I've been threatened with tickets by cops for breaking the law because I go AGAINST traffic. I am alive because I was able to see the distracted moron headed my way - at least if I was hit and lived I could remember what the car looked like and the plate numbers. I seriously do not know why they think it is safer to make bikes go with traffic; it makes some things less convenient for the biker but in a hostile environment it is worth it.
If you want to murder somebody, find a way to get them on a bicycle.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Ultimately it should be a personal choice, but there's an element of wisdom in wearing a helmet.
I've been in two bike accidents (and am not yet 30), both times seemingly random faceplants at low speed. The first one was with a helmet, and I looked pretty banged up for it. The second was without a helmet, and required stitches.
Helmets are that ounce of prevention, and while bicycle accidents are statistically less fatal than car accidents, safety measures are still a very good idea.
I read a discussion following the killing of a cyclist in a city near me. One of these comments was extremely enlightening. I don't remember all of it only the part that read: "BICYCLES ARE TOYS." Suddenly it all became clear to me. Many car drivers feel that bicycles are toys for kids and for entertainment and therefore should only be used off-road. Roads are for transportation and in this fellow's comment he said that the (US) government was to blame for encouraging the use of bicycles as a form of viable transportation.
That's how many motorized vehicle drivers feel so it's no wonder they hate having bicycles on the road.
You've never ridden a bike in traffic, have you?
Yes I have. Quite often.
Motor vehicles travel faster than you and often cut you up by passing and then turning.
So you wait in line behind them until they've turned. That's the way its done with all other vehicle types. Why are bicycles special? Don't get so offended by being passed where you have to 'get back' at them.
Have gnu, will travel.
That I personally know 3 people that have had their saved by helmets. I'm not even a cyclist!
If you want a helmet, wear a fucking helmet. If I don't want a helmet, don't fucking force me to wear one.
If you want a seatbelt, wear a fucking seatbelt. If I don't want a seatbelt, don't fucking force me to wear one.
Cyclists should be forced to wear helmets. They should be forced to register their bikes and pass a test in order to use the public roads. And they should be ticketed every time they run a stop sign or traffic light without stopping, or do something else that is unsafe. Any cyclist who disagrees is an entitled prick. These are the rules that motorists have to follow. If cyclists want to share the road they should follow the rules.
So if I cycle for two hours I burnt more calories "just sitting" for the other 22 hours of the day. That would seem to backup the claim your are calling "100% wrong".
Here in the Netherlands I'm commuting by bicycle 26 miles /42 km daily for the last 10 years steady without a helmet.
In those 10 years I had one fall that broke my upperarm and shoulder ,
and 2 years before that 2 broken ellbows .
In my whole life of biking (38 years on the bike) I have never bumped my head because of a fall or accident.
It's the arms that will break the fall ,
a helmet would be such a drag ...
Avoid your fears , or wonder at the past
I keep seeing people posting that if they were mountain biking they'd wear a helmet due to greater perceived risk. Having done my bit of both road and mountain biking:
- It's easy to chug along at 15-20 mph on pavement with a road bike.
- On our rough trails, going 8-12mph is *fast*. Our average speeds for trail riding are generally under 6mph because a lot of the climbing is pretty slow.
- While mountain biking I've had to throw on the brakes for deer or elk or turkeys on a trail before. I've pulled over for motos I could hear coming. Cars? Sometimes on a dirt road, but generally they won't fit on what I'm riding. They sure as heck won't be doing 50mph in any case.
- I don't think anyone with even a rudimentary grasp of physics is going to argue with my anecdotal observation that falling on pavement at >25mph (and breaking a helmet FWIW) was WAY worse than landing on my hip in dirt and grass at ~15mph. And the latter was an unusual case... most of my mountain biking tip-overs have been due to stalling out on something at 5mph.
tl;dr version: non-x-games mountain biking (as 90%+ of us practice it) IS NOT more dangerous than road riding. Due to the speeds of the bike and the speeds of the vehicles encountered- if any- off road riding is most likely MORE safe.
In countries where cycling is common (Denmark, the Netherlands, Japan) people regard riding a bicycle as common as taking a walk. Would you walk as much if you had to wear a helmet?
Cycling is not popular in those countries because of helmets or because of the lack of them. Those countries have a culture and an infrastructure supportive of bicycling. The US does not in most places. The US has a culture built around the automobile and bicycles are not regarded as transportation by most adults. I don't have to wear a helmet to ride my bike where I live but the lack of that requirement has had precisely zero impact on the popularity of cycling around me.
The highway code explicitly says it's OK to ride bicycles two-abreast.
That actually varies by locality here in the US. Some places it is fine, others it is prohibited. Usually there is a requirement to not unduly interfere with the flow of traffic. Check your local laws to be sure.
Put real, rideable bikes back in big box stores and you'll see a resurgence in bicycle commters... in about 15 years.
No you won't. The laws, culture and infrastructure were built to support cars. Most adults in the US regard biking as a casual recreation activity, not as transportation. It has nothing to do with the type of bikes found at your local mega-mart.
I even like to bike but I live 20 miles from work and am not about to get up 90+ minutes earlier (while it is still dark out btw) ride that distance, get all sweaty and smelly and gross for the whole working day, ride back home at the end of the day to finally take a shower. Furthermore I live in a location where bike commuting would be absolutely miserable (and dangerous) for 5 months out of the year thanks to cold temperatures and snow.
is the ONLY way I'd advocate for revoking helmet laws, whether they are for bicycles or motorcycles. If you're willing to give up any and all rights to any assistance to cover your medical or other expenses due to injuries that could have been prevented had you worn a helmet, then I'm good with it. That includes not only public assistance, but private (insurance) assistance as well; unless you're willing to pay significantly more given the additional risk you're willfully taking.
I used to have the same attitude that many of the posters have regarding speed and helmets while skiing. That was until a very good friend of mine, who is an expert-level skier, caught an edge while traversing a blue ski run and self-arrested on a rock. By the time I reached him, a halo of blood had formed. Fortunately we were able to get him off the mountain quickly enough that he survived and was able to make a full recovery.
I have another friend who was skating at a very slow speed and was clipped by another skater coming in the opposite direction. He wasn't as lucky, and has permanent brain damage.
You want to ride/skate/ski/whatever without appropriate protective gear, fine, but don't expect me to foot the bill for your stupidity.
My stance on this is simple. If you're doing anything on wheels where your body is exposed and you're going faster than your two feet can carry you - Wear a helmet. The basic act of bicycling may not always require a helmet, but if you're serious about commuting regularly on a bike then you know it's only a matter of when and not if you're going to take a serious spill. There are a multitude of things that can go wrong in a flash: Pot hole, crack, popped tire, unaware motorist, bad weather. I'd prefer to wake up in the hospital without having to relearn how to speak. I've been riding on the streets of Dallas where we're finally getting our bike lanes and sharrows (Within the past month or so). Been commuting this way for 6+ years (and many others for much longer), but why are we seeing an improvement now? Because a while back the bicyclists of Dallas decided to band together and agree that helmets and lights were a necessary part of bicycle awareness. I've seen the largest spike of new cyclists in the past year and am proud to say that the majority of them all wear their helmets and just about all of them have proper lights.
I went outside and it did not rain. Therefore, if everyone went outside it would never rain. In fact, I can point you to studies in various deserts where people go outside all the time and it never rains. Going outside is healthier, right, than staying inside, so we should all go outside.
Paid for by the Arrogant Cyclists Network
...cyclists the real problem is the way America designs its city streets and they way Americans think about movement. Living in L.A. made me give up driving; the craziness of the freeways, the sprawl of the city and the love of the car all got to me so I decide to chuck the car and switch to commuting by bicycle. I was fortunate in that I lived in Glendale and worked in Burbank which made my commute less then five miles. It wasn't easy to do and some of the biggest problems I found were lack of dedicated space for bicycles on streets, drivers who would pass at high speeds without proper spacing (I think 99% of the drivers weren't even aware I was on the road) and parked cars that would open doors without looking or pull in and out of spaces without checking to see if it was clear. I later moved up to Mountain View, CA and worked in Palo Alto, CA where my commute went up to just a little more then seven miles. The big difference from southern California to northern was the addition of bike lanes some of which even took cyclists completely away from car traffic but there still were problems with drivers and them being aware of cyclists on the road. I have also lived in Chicago, IL and Austin, TX and saw the same problems there. I now live in NYC and have been impressed by how some of the bike lanes are separated or at least shield from most of the moving traffic but I have found there is now a problem with pedestrians that blindly step off the curb into the bike lane without looking because they seem to think they are not stepping into traffic which is sort of true as they are not stepping into car traffic but they are stepping into bicycle traffic. Now I have also been to Germany (Munich & Berlin), Belgium, Amsterdam and Paris and have seen how there just isn't space for cyclists on the road but there is also awareness by both drivers and pedestrians of cyclists and the spaces dedicated for them. In the ten plus years I have ridden there have been at least two occasions that my helmet saved my life; one of which I was not moving at all, I was doing a track stand when a SUV hit me, sent me flying in the air and eventually I landed head first on the street. I always tell people I can break a leg or arm and it wont change who I am but if I break my brain well that is a different story completely and that is why I wear a helmet. I would love to be able to ride without a helmet but until the 99.9% of Americans, drivers and pedestrians, start thinking and seeing cyclists the streets of America will not be safe for riding.
@erroneus:
The extra 90 minutes spent on my bike commute daily burns -- depending on intensity -- up to 600 calories. I've repeatedly proven this to myself with pedantic calorie-counting, weighing, and measuring of my food along with long-term weight trend analysis. Doing this five days a week is 3,000 calories.
My longer rides on Sundays consistently burn between 1,600 to 4,000 calories. Proven in my eating and exercise logs, with predictable results in my physique, lean to fat ratio, and very repeatable once I got my particular burn-rates figured out. Add this to the previous bicycle commute, and I'm burning an extra 4,600 to 7,000 calories per week over someone sedentary who excels at changing "what they eat".
Exercise -- particularly bicycling, which often involves longer bouts of exercise at lower intensity -- has a measurable and profound effect on obesity on both an individual and statistical level. To claim a lack of activity has no impact on likelihood of obesity is a claim without merit.
"Eating Wrong" does cause obesity, but so does lack of exercise. The two together are the toxic mixture powering today's extraordinary obesity rates.
You can manage your body fat strictly through caloric restriction. But that's much, much harder than preventing obesity through a combined modest caloric restriction and exercise.
Matthew P. Barnson
I learn what I think when I read what I write
Wouldn't it be interesting if car companies were behind bicycle helmet laws?
I come here for the love
Sorry no such law over here, I'm free to cycle in the car lane. I think it's an extremely dangerous law and I will fight hard not to get it over here for many reasons.
But also I'm not sure I want to share a road with you, you sound very aggressive and seem to think that you can decide when it's convenient for me to give room. You have no idea what it happening on my bike right now, so I think you should calm down... Well unless I'm going around in circles and giving you the finger, then maybe you can road rage me.
I used to commute by bike everywhere in Washington until the Washington ghetto caught up with me and stole it. Washington has no helmet law, and I think helmet laws for adults are stupid.
I wore a helmet almost every time I rode, because I'd be crazy not to. But the one time I mislaid it, I made the informed decision to continue on to work even though I might get hurt, weighing the small extra risk of brain injury against the risk of getting fired. I'd like the ability to make this choice on my own.
And, as other people have said, the biggest risks to cyclists come from shitty drivers -- and, in Washington, a sorry excuse for a bike lane system constructed by someone who clearly has never ridden a bike.
No, I don't ride 3 abreast on roads, but I take up enough room so that I'm not forced into drains and pot-holes on the side of the road. I don't need to feel threatened by aggressive car drivers (why do people turn so aggressive whilst driving?), especially not ones that invoke their local violent in-breds.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Now, I get that all you morons are bummed about the big bad government trampling your rights to ride around on a bicycle without a helmet, smear your brains all over the street or whatever. But there are other laws you should be protesting:
1. There's actually a law against killing yourself. Start by protesting this, remember: defiance is the best protest.
2. The water company is legally required to purify water to 'promote public health and safety by providing pure drinking water.' WHAT ABOUT MY RIGHT TO DRINK POLLUTED WATER?
3. You're not allowed to put lead in things anymore, that's fucked up. I want lead candies, paint, toys, etc.
4. By law, cigarette companies are forced to put warnings on cigarettes to decry their unhealthiness, I want to remain ignorant about the poison I'm ingesting, WHAT ABOUT MY RIGHTS?
The fight against helmet laws is stupid, and I really wish that everyone protesting them would start riding without helmets all the time. A little bit of Darwinism between them and a streetcar or a bus would do wonders.
Keep on knockin'
https://robbiecrash.me
Good for you. If a car hits you - you'll sure teach them not to do that again. Or not.
...wearing a helmet if you feel you need one. What I'm against is government forcing me to wear one.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
I don't wear a helmet when cycling because the last serious study I saw on the effects showed that doing so meant that, statistically:
Weighing all of these, wearing a helmet didn't seem like such a good idea.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Don't forget that the tax payer's money pays for all roads - including motorways which cyclists are forbidden to use. Vehicle Excuse Duty (which goes direct to the Treasury and is not allocated to any particular part of running the country) would not even cover the annual cost of upkeep and development of motorways. This means that as a cyclist and not a motorist I am partly subsidising the motorways for motorists!
I rode bicycles everywhere in the 1980s when I had no car. There were very few bicycles on the road. However I noticed that there were two types of cyclists. There are those that use a bicycle because it is good, that is, 'good for the earth', reduction of resources and all that, and 'good for the body', health and aerobics and all that other good stuff.
Then there are the people who ride bicycles because they are too poor to afford either a car or even expensive public transportation. In the USA almost all of the people NOW on bicycles are in the 'riding for the goodness of it' category. But back then, it was about 50/50 between the really poor and the 'public good/health' crowd.
There was no way to tell them apart and since the USA is VERY class-conscious country, this made the 'public good' riders quite upset. People would see them on their bicycles and think that they were poor and not understand that they were riding to set an example of righteousness for all BFAC (big fucking American car) drivers. So they needed a way to show everyone that while there were dirt-poor people on bicycles out there, it certainly wasn't them. So they started wearing $100 helmets to show that what was under the helmet was a valuable social resource that needed serious protection, and they weren't just another minimum-wage burger flipper with six kids. Always insisting when asked that helmets were absolutely essencial and that no-one responsible would ever dream of riding without one. But basically they only wore them to not be confused with the burger flippers, who couldn't afford helmets and were smart enough to realize that if you just made sure that you stayed out of the way of moving cars, then you didn't really need a helmet when you're rolling around at 12 MPH on a couple of cheap metal tubes.
I was in both categories: I was dirt-poor and affected with a social-righteousness mentality,. So I saw both sides. When I would point out to people that bicycle helmets were a social class marker more than a personal protection necessity, they would go absolutely ballistic. One thing that middle-class white Americans just can not stand is one of their own pointing out their hyprocisy and stupidity.
But the same people wouldn't DREAM of riding a bicycle 10MPH on a quiet Sunday morning suburban street without racing car head protection think nothing of strapping a couple of boards on their feet and sliding down a snow-covered mountain at 40 MPH wearing nothing on their heads but sunglasses and an Hermes scarf!
This comes up all the time. Pay attention now. There is no such thing as "road tax" in the UK. Instead, there is Vehicle Excise Duty and is based on the emissions of the vehicle. Electric cars pay 0. Low emission cars pay less than gas guzzlers. Roads are paid for out of general taxation and have been since 1936.
Also, many cyclists have insurance, either through large scale organisations (CTC, LCC etc) or their home or travel insurance. And what is now required is a socialised insurance fund for all people, giving all citizens automatic 3rd party insurance cover when riding a bicycle. This would be cheaper than administering a authoritarian bicycle or rider registration system.
Furthermore, were cyclists to be asked to contribute to the cost of the road infrastructure, then they would be absolutely right to demand much more extensive, cycling-specific infrastructure and much stronger rights in conflict or collision situations with motorists.
Actually no I hit a traffic calming bump in a badly lit side street in London and obviously knocked my self out and gave my self minor concussion. when I got home in the morning I had bruising a blood all down on side of my face - i had not noticed until then.
I've avoided the price of road bikes as the area I'm in is impractical & they're therefore a recreation activity. My area is too spread-out making road bikes recreation which doesn't justify the price tag. I also typically see racing bikes which just look like a maintenance nightmare & uncomfortable.
Soon I'll be in an area more reasonable for road bikes, but if the goal is a commute, then the tools I've seen are poor fits.
As for a helmet, I see no problem wearing one. Those overly concerned with impressing strangers aren't impressing anyone anyway.
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
To what bans do you refer?
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
This is like saying that fewer people drown in the desert than in the ocean. The roadway system in the Netherlands is completely different than the one in the US, and that's why there are no helmet laws. If the majority of people in the US travelled by bike, it'd be safer to travel by bike in the US as well.
Roads that are crammed with unfocussed, inattentive drivers doing 40MPH in a Hummer are not the same as roads in the Netherlands where bike traffic outstretches that of cars 2:1.
Add to that the fact that the vast majority of Dutch cities have bike lanes, and you might as well be comparing the safety of Iraqi roads in areas with large insurgent populations with those of Main st Anytown USA.
In the US, where cycling is SIGNIFICANTLY less popular, you're looking at ~1,000 deaths a year, 90%+ of them with people without helmets.
Keep on knockin'
https://robbiecrash.me
I'm not sure why so many people are up in arms about helmet laws when there are no laws in the USA which require adults to wear helmets. Seeing as how there is strong statistical evidence that helmets greatly reduce the risk of death in the event of bicycle-vehicle collisions, is it such a bad thing to enforce the usage among children? How many parents would still be smoking in their cars while driving the kids to school if it were not illegal?
http://www.iihs.org/laws/HelmetUseCurrent.aspx
http://www.iihs.org/research/fatality.aspx?topicName=Bicycles&year=2010
Aside from these factors, people will choose to ride or not ride for a variety of reasons. For those who would choose not to ride because they think they have to wear a helmet, we're probably better off without them on a bicycle and giving the rest of us informed cyclists a bad name.
But I have personally seen someone traveling at a slow rate of speed on their bicycle (under 5 mph) hit a crack and fall over. I watched him die in my arms from a head injury I could do nothing about.
I have responded to sever bike accident. Every one of them where someone wasn't wearing a helmet had a head injury to some degree.
The moral?
Wear a FUCKING helmet.
also where one when riding a bike.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If you think so. Do what you will - it's not my stupid brain you're putting on the line here.
I might not be a great expert on the topic - but being an urban cyclism fan and convinced user, having the bike as my main means of transportation for over five years now, I can tell you that no matter how expert you are — you will have a fall at some point. I was recently reading that, for well-seasoned cyclists, it's one small fall a year on average, and one that can mean dangerous injuries if not reacted upon quickly every five years. I don't have the bibliography handy, sorry.
So far, I'm faring quite close to this study. I have been hit once by a (slowly, thankfully) moving car, and have had three or four falls. And, yes, I am wearing my third helmet. I exchanged the first one after falling - It seemed in good state, but I recall having bumped my head against the ground, and it usually means its inner structure is not so sound. When the car hit me, my helmet was really broken in two. I remember, yes, the bump — But I would not regard it as something serious. When I took the helmet off, I was really surprised. Were it not for the helmet, I might not be happily writing as I am now.
So, for me, the helmet is indispensable, even for a two block ride. It has probably saved my life - or at least, it has saved me from a much worse accdent.
I have better knowledge of when a helmet should be worn than some bureaucrat who has never ridden, as was the case when MHL was mandated in Australia all those years ago. I have been an avid cyclist for 9/10 of my life. I have competed on several levels in BMX, MTB and Road. I spent 5 years as a bicycle courier in Sydney and I have the scars to prove it.
I know that wearing a helmet on my road bike when doing 50kph with the traffic is a smart thing to do. I know a full face helmet for downhill MTB is wise. I also know that when I ride to the shops with my wife, we shouldn't be required by law to wear a helmet. I know the chance of accident in different circumstances, and the risk is negligible.
Cycling is not the dangerous pass time it is made out to be.
Having said that, here are some tips for motorists:
And cyclists, here's some tips to help keep safe:
I won a door prize three years ago at age 30, going about 15mph on a straightaway in a bike lane. Guy opened the door straight into my face, and I hit the edge of his door with the top of my head.
Not to discuss the moral of this story, but what kind of a cockup arrangement could result in a bike lane immediately next to doors that swing outwards?
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
As an adult, I simply don't need to be told I need to wear a helmet while riding a bicycle. Considering it isn't even mandatory to wear a helmet while riding a motorcycle (where I live anyway) I find the whole concept beyond silly. People throw out it's to prevent serious injury if you are hit by a car, well you might as well wear one if you walk anywhere. It doesn't lead to a safer activity in all except the most miniscule of situations that it doesn't even register on the map.
It is already known that since air-bags, people push the limits driving farther than they did before. Why? With the air bag, they are confident they won't die.
I have also noticed this with hikers and hunters and snowmachiners, etc.
They have their rescue beacons, or whatever, and go places and do things they would not have attempted before because they know that rescue is a 9-1-1 call away. I wouldn't mind so much (as a taxpayer funding these rescues), but they tend to leave common sense behind.
Road wear goes up to the 4th power of axle load, ie. (Wx / Wref) ^ 4.
Anempty semi trailer weighs around 20000 kg spread over 5 axles, ie. 4000 kg per axle. compared to a small car which weighs say, 2000 kg. on 2 axles - 1000 kg/axle. The truck is causing 4^4 times the road wear per axle.
A creally really fat cyclist on a heavy mountain bike might weigh in at 200 kg on 2 axles, weighing 1/10 of a car, and causing about as much wear as a butterfly landing on a rock by comparison.
If you really want to go after free-loading road users, go after the trucking industry, which causes disproportionate weight on roads compared to the registration efes they pay, effectively with roads being subsidised by regular car drivers to pay for wear and tear caused by big trucks.
If only cycle ways were needed, the'd be built at a fraction of the cost of what it costs to build roads.
I seem to have woken up on the wrong side of the Internet this morning. I looked back over some other stuff I wrote and it was crabby too.
I don't think I'll wake up liking bike shops tomorrow though. The $3000+ purchaser is their best customer, just like the 32 oz. big gulp buyer is the best customer at 7-11. You made me remember that back in the late 80s/early 90s there *was* a "decent bike shop" where I grew up. It started out selling lawn mowers and servicing them. They got into bikes as a sideline. Never pretentious IIRC. This was when bikes were still made in America. Maybe that's part of the problem... OK... I'd better quit before I get crabby again...
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I grew up in Holland and never wore a helmet. Currently I live in Canada and it's mandatory to wear a helmet. A couple of years ago I was involved in an accident (not my fault, but in the end who cares about that) that caused me to fly off my bike and land on my head. I was seriously injured and my helmet was cracked. However, I survived this accident thanks to the helmet. Cycling in Holland is safer because the infrastructure is made for it and the drivers are aware of cyclists. In Canada, the infrastructure for cycling is poor compared to Holland and the drivers are less aware of cyclists, thus it's more dangerous to cycle, so wearing a helmet makes more sense.
I'd be dead without mine. Picture this: me moving about 30 miles per hour down a long straight hill in the Bay area, pedaling hard, and misjudging the light I see changing on the side street, I plow my bike full-on into the side of a car turning right in front of me. The 100+ feet of skid marks I left on the asphalt before correctly determining that I would not be able to stop were not enough to avoid the collision. About 30 feet before my bike slammed into the side of the vehicle, I stood up on the left side pedal, timed my departure, and pushed off, jumping from it in time to fly through the air just behind the car as my bike proceeded ahead. It was a cool day, and I had a jacket on. I sailed upside down, face up past the car and landed on my back and head, sliding along the ground on my jacket and helmet for a good 20 or 30 feet farther down the slope. I remember coming to rest and laying there for a while, then getting up to check the car and the accident site. I was fine, though a little shaken up. Traffic had stopped in each direction and people were swarming around the car. The driver got out, completely white. I looked at the dent and my bike, crumpled and considerably shorter than it had ever been from one end to the other. People said they had seen sparks when the collision happened. I told the driver, looking at the dent, "I'm sorry about your car." He said in a high voice, "Never mind about the car! Are you all right?" I said I was fine. I felt pretty wobbly, though, and someone took me the rest of the way home. Later, I took the bike into our local shop, which was a good one. The guy behind the counter turned around from the bike he was working on, and when he saw what I had carried in, he put down the wrench, came around the counter, put his hand on my shoulder and said firmly but gently, "My friend, that bike is history." I would be dead without my helmet. Bikes are not just for tooling around parks slowly, looking at the scenery. And even when you think they are, or just vehicles for ambling gently from place to place, things can turn ugly in an unexpected way very, very fast. *Wear your helmet.*
Please don't mention September around here. Some of us are still waiting for 1 October, 1993.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Statistics is a nice game. That 90% number says nothing; it's the amount of preventable head injuries that counts.
The US also has more traffic fatalities total per year, so I grant there are differences. But saying that a helmet would have prevented 900 deaths is just committing a post hoc ergo propter hoc falllacy.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
You're one of the assholes Jeremy Clarkson believes that the answer to is Police Marksmen.
I'm currently in agreement.
Oh yes, exactly, had this from a motorbike this week, bad scare AND I [like the [some of] drivers] signal and use road-position to signal 'intention'. Best reason to be out front on the reserved bit at junctions.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
I'm fairly indifferent myself however there's no denying that they are inconvenient, uncomfortable, reduce vision and make head movement for all round vision more difficult. T
"uncomfortable and reduce vision"? WTF are you wearing? (I trust that it's not because your eyes placed somewhere strange ;-) )
People run stop signs and red lights all the time where I live. The police catch a few and write tickets. It may deter the person getting the ticket, for a while. It is not a deterrent for the masses who continue to break the law. It is about revenue for the police departments.
At the local university there was a main bridge across a bayou on campus. The bridge had a posted 10 MPH speed limit. Every fall semester the cops would sit at the bridge writing $200 tickets to anyone going even 11 MPH on that bridge. This did not help student safety or deter people from speeding on campus. It was a simple collection of revenue from people unfamiliar with the campus.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Sorry, didn't notice the question.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevia
Note that it is banned unless it it labelled "dietary supplement" which means it can't even be placed on the same shelf as "sweet'n'low" and other sweeteners. The use of Rebaudioside A hasn't yet caught on though stevia has been used in Japan for a very long time.
Other nations, for example, limit the import of Frito-lay products due to their content.
The 90% number suggests that you're significantly more likely to die if you get into a bike accident and don't have a helmet on. I'm not suggesting that helmets would've prevented anywhere close to 900 deaths, it's possible that all of those were death by laser bear in which case a helmet would do nothing.
There's no debate about the fact that having a helmet on will reduce head injuries. You put armour on something, it's not going to be as easy to injure.
Keep on knockin'
https://robbiecrash.me
Wearing a helmet does not encourage any sort of jackassery on my part, indeed, I ride my bicycle as nearly akin to a 90-year-old-grandmother as is possible. I learned many painful lessons in the 70s, and use them to inform my actions today. I ride in town primarily on side walks, this may partially explain why my helmet has probably not had to save me from any fatal injury.
When I encounter a pedestrian, I stop the bike and walk.
I am not an ordinary asshole biker.
Allow me to re-reiterate that my helmets have repeatedly saved me from painful head-slams and skin injury, not necessarily fatalities. I find this fact indisputable, and if you knew me at all, you would concur. Pain avoidance is a valid motivation, IMHO, and I use it to justify my helmet use.
I ride off- road a lot. That is another way of avoiding car-human-interface and possible fatality. Unlike in my foolish youth, I do not ride in a reckless or particularly fast style. In fact, I am always the slowest person in sight at any place I have ridden for at least ten years. I generally push my bike on foot up steep ascents, and very frequently get off and walk on steep descents. Mostly I ride on graded fire roads, but I do like a good singletrack. (we called them cow/elk trails in my day.) Tolman Creek Road up to Mount Ashland is my current favorite ride.
I use my skill at somersaulting over the bars as a technique to avoid painful injury. I consider it a routine response to certain situations, and I suppose the alternative for the rest of you is flat crashing, with the attendant contusions and fractures. Painful and avoidable, I will continue to eschew that.
I perfected the somersault method long ago, before bicycle helmets were useful, available, or effective. (I did use a motorcycle helmet for BMX and stunts back in the 70s.)
A helmet allows me more freedom of motion/trajectory when I do a somersault because I don't have to work so hard at protecting the noggin.
Basically the helmet is effective and useful for saving damage to all the rest of the body. All you folks who think a wrist/knee/elbow injury is the worst one should expect are [expletive omitted] doing it wrong. Tumbling is preferable to a flat landing, in fact the last time I remember pain from a crash was when a poorly built front rim collapsed under hard braking and slapped me face-first into the pavement. (Major hand sting, shin dentage.)
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
As I grow my own Stevia in the US, I'm familiar with the controversy & glad it has been over for a few years now (FDA GRAS & Sugar Substitute standing exist now ). I was hoping to learn of any other exciting things with similar trajectories.
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
I think the whole question of helmet encouragement and requirement stems from the perceived responsibility of government and society to safeguard the health and safety of its citizens but is also for its own convenience. Such laws or policies often are enacted to protect those who have to pay for the injuries of individuals who are injured and subsequently require public care. This is the way of the world, but in the process, the rights and responsibilities of the individual get lost or are at least minimized. I haven't worn a bicycle helmet in decades. They are expensive, uncomfortable, a hassle to carry around, hardly stylish, etc. and they have only once prevented a head injury for me, and of course I am glad I was wearing one at the time. But in my many years of riding (I turned 60 last November), I have developed my own personal safety strategy the far outweighs the focus on if and when I might be injured. This includes riding on back streets, extreme shoulder areas, and even sidewalks with due respect for pedestrians. I avoid major roadways without bike lanes especially during peak hours, I avoid major intersections and especially queuing up in a turn lane far from the curb preferring crosswalks until I can get back to a curbside route. I also ride a low cruiser style bike so I'm not high and tilting forward ready to fall. I did have a major accident of this sort with my old mountain bike (I am 6 feet plus and the bike was a high frame) where I hit a traffic circle in the dark (without a light - my bad) at moderate to high speed and I sailed all the way over it flipping all the way over onto my shoulder and back. My head never once hit the pavement although I spent 4 days in the hosipital nursing broken ribs and a totally separated shoulder. Bottom line: I take full responsibility for my personal safety and the consequences of my bicycle riding. I only ask that no one bother me with chides about not wearing a helmet (people do this) or legal requirements that I have to wear one (I hope this does not happen.) In my motorcycling days I rarely wore a helmet out on the road (unless it was raining) but usually in the city. Second bottom line: it was my choice to wear one or not.
Is autonomous bicycles...
I lived in Falls Church summer 2011 - yeah, it was quite hilly, but there were ups and downs like any hilly area.
I went on a bunch of short rides and occasional ~15mi rides.
My hometown isn't as hilly, though not flat either. I ride a similar amount and distance at home, occasionally going farther.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
I've biked heavily for years, in the US even, and my few injuries have involved scraping up my arms and/or legs, not hitting my head.
If I remember my helmet, great. If I don't, I keep on riding and not worry about it.
I ride in the shoulder, sidewalk if shoulder doesn't exist or is occupied. I use crosswalk lights when available. I generally don't have trouble with cars on the road.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
"Elisabeth Rosenthal writes...'Yes, there are studies that show that if you fall off a bicycle at a certain speed and hit your head, a helmet can reduce your risk of serious head injury,'... 'But such falls off bikes are rare... [and that]... many researchers say, if you force people to wear helmets, you discourage them from riding
You don't wear seat belts because most car-rides end in serious injury, you wear them in order to avoid the extremely unlikely occurrence of a car accident.
THINK! It's patriotic
I generally just keep the helmet on during stops. I obviously don't need it while off the bike, but the best way to 'store' it is to keep it on. I had to take it off at the barber shop of course, but that's about it.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
What about the (probably approaching 150%) fuel taxes?
I believe that mandatory helmets for anyone riding in a car (driver and passengers) would reduce injuries much more than mandatory helmets for bicyclists. There are many more of them and they are going much faster. It would also be more convenient, since the helmets can simply be stored inside the car when the car is parked.
Has not happened to me in the last 35 years of cycling. Currently I'm riding about 9500 km/a and of course I hit the ground every now and then, especially during winter.
Either for psychological or physical reasons so called "helmets" must increase the risk of serious accidents.
can be increased by repealing helmet laws.
I ride a bike in London, don't own a car and am in my 60s, to declare interest. I don't wear a helmet and am unwilling to do so.
The arguments that I citing in the heading are summarised here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Problem_of_Social_Cost that is, neither car nor bike is particularly 'wrong' about any of this. The best thing [that we don't really have in London] is safe bike lanes.
So you've made the assumption that the only way you can have a head injury from cycling is by being hit by a car, and have built an entire argument around this premise then, huh?
Please allow me to relate the following two stories of accidents I've been personally associated with, one where the cyclist was wearing a helmet, and one where they weren't, with differing outcomes, and both occurring on cycling trails completely away from any motorized vehicles:
Back in the late 80's/early 90's, my brother (then a teenager) was riding helmetless on a cycling path, doing a good clip downhill when the front forks on his bike, without warning, broke off completely. As you can imagine from the physics, he landed face first on the pavement. He broke his skull in numerous places, broke his nose, jaw, and numerous teeth, had hair and skin ripped from his scalp, and suffered from a major concussion. At the hospital, my parents were told to expect that he may not make it through the night. He spent over a month in hospital, with his jaw wired shut. My grandmother sat at his bedside every day feeding him pureed watermelon through a straw. And while he has made a full recovery, 20+ years later he a) still has no memory of the incident, b) has numerous dead teeth, and c) bears the scars.
Two years ago I had an accident while cycling to work on a paved commuter cycling trail (a "mature urban cycling system" as someone terms such trails below), when I lost traction on a wooden bridge that spans a creek at the bottom of a hill. After sliding for 10m or so, my front wheel hit the pavement on the other side of the bridge at an angle, and I wound up going down hard. I broke my collarbone, impinged my rotator cuff, bruised all the ribs on one side of my bode, along with associated scrapes and bruises. I suffered no head injuries (and was assessed in hospital for concussion), but the impact at 20+km/h broke the helmet in half. I required a few months of physiotherapy for the collarbone, shoulder, and neck issues, but my head was fortunately unaffected.
So if you think your skull is somehow invulnerable, and there is no possible mechanisms for accidents and skull injuries because there are no cars nearby, then you are a total idiot. Helmets are cheap and effective, and there is no reason why any rational person shouldn't consider them standard gear when cycling. They do save lives -- and more importantly, minimize suffering.
I wouldn't wish what my brother and parents went through on anyone, including you. So good luck on your continued tempting of fate. I hope none of your loved ones ever has to hear the words "we don't know if he'll make it through the night" after you go out for a quick cycling trip.
Yaz
Drunk driving is about 100x more important than this.
I cycle 10-20 miles a day and everything I have seen leads me to believe that my greatest dangers are 1) drunks 2) speeders. I wear a neon yellow helmet and my bike has lots of lights (including EL wire!). I don't care what the law is. The attitude that people in the US have towards casual drunk driving is far far more important than people being used to bicycles on the road.
I've ridden a bicycle now for fifty or so years. I've driven a taxi for the disabled carrying wheel chair passengers who fell over skiing or in the bath or while having sex and every other activity known to man. Bike riders did not figure prominently in the wheel chair population. My contact in a hospital emergency room says that it's because they die because of many things but often because of massive head trauma. He won't ride a bike any more but thinks helmets are sensible. I would like to see more data but can't find it. Yet. Traffic has changed in the last thirty years. Life is more intense, faster and roundabouts are not for the faint of heart. I wear a helmet. After an unavoidable collision with a stray dog, helmet number one was destroyed but my head was intact. During an unsatisfactory shoe clip disengagement when stopping, I fell over and totalled another helmet. [I now no longer use toe clips.] OK - my fault you may say. But humans do make errors. So, tell me - how many times does this have to happen before I say to myself helmets seem like a good idea. A seriously good idea.
"When in airports, railway stations and all public places, keep an eye out for possible exploding penguins."
No one ever really believes in how valuable helmets are until they have personally smashed their second helmet .. and walked away.
"When in airports, railway stations and all public places, keep an eye out for possible exploding penguins."
Helmets are a good thing but there is no need
for extreme helmets for many folk.
I have taken some bad falls as have friends and I can tell ya that helmets
are a good thing.
Stated slightly differently helmets are a tax, there are no helmet hooks or
racks at work. Heck it is hard to get a decent coat hook in California on
a rainy day.
Work places MUST wake up and provide places and hooks for employees...
gone are the days when an engineer worked 24/7 and only needed a dark
box in the corner to nap in (I kid you not).
Women in high heals need sensible shoes to walk and drive in. Again the ... to be sensible.
work place makes this a PITFA
Winter is at hand fellow workers, Demand worthy coat hooks and places to
keep sensible outside shoes in the work place.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
But your question *assumes* that there is a marginal or theoretical reduction in the chance of serious brain injury. That assumption may be dead wrong. As others have pointed out, there are a number of ways in which helmets may lead to an *increase* in the chance of serious brain injury, including:
- you modify your own behaviour to be more risky, eg you cycle more quickly, cut traffic more -- because you feel safer
- other road-users modify their behaviour to be more risky, because they see you as lower-risk
Additionally, you are also only looking at brain injury, and only thinking about yourself. Which is fine for your own calculus, but inadequate for the people setting the regulations. They need to take into account that one way leads to brain injuries, the other way leads to heart disease.
I ask both sides to make this entire argument really simple. Just go by the statistics, which are consistent and factual after being gathered and analyzed for at least 20-30 years now by no less than the Centers for Disease Control and the National Highway Transportation Safety Board, neither of which have an agenda either way. And as stated in the topic's starting quoted paragraph, that very large body of data simply does not support the purely anecdotal evidence the pro-helmet crowd without fail uses as justification for their position. The pro-helmet zealots is one group which simply refuses to be swayed by the facts. If they were swayed by now indisputable facts, they'd religiously put on their showering or walking helmets before stepping into the shower or crossing the street as pedestrians--both activities being far more likely to result in bodily harm or death than cycling without a helmet. (This is why I hate religions. Facts are very rarely are taken into consideration. Belief and faith without any supporting evidence whatsoever is good enough.)
/.'s Psychic-in-Residence: Psychic to the Geeks
This reminds me of a similar counter-argument for increasing car safety: if seatbelts were banned and cars were fitted with a large metal spike on the steering wheel, pointing towards the driver, you could be pretty sure that people would drive more carefully.
As a former skater, skateboarder, cyclist, and rock climber my position is that using helmets for head protection is a must. Even as a skateboarder, protective gloves, knee and elbow pads should always be worn. I also believe cyclists and ATV riders should wear special footwear, knee and shin guards, and protective garments. Even professional motorcyclists know the extreme benefits of wearing protective gear. There is absolutely no excuse for at least wearing head protection. The cranium and skull bones are not adequate protection for the brain and its membranes even when encountering mild impacts. Properly designed helmets can even protect accident victims from serious neck and cervical injuries. Please pursue any or all of the activities I have referred to in my comment. They are not only physically beneficial but also are psychologically beneficial. But please wear the proper protective equipment. You may be exceptional at any of these activities. But it only takes one careless moment or another careless individual to either permanently cripple you or end your life.
Might I once again reiterate: My helmets often have scrapes and rocks imbedded in the shell. They are from somersaulting my way out of difficulties that would injure elbows, knees and shins for all of y'all, but that I bounce up and walk away from UNINJURED. the only two times I've crushed the foam, I tossed the (obviously destroyed) helmet. Helmets have saved me from fatality once, maybe twice or more, but
it's all about not hurting the rest of my body.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
Apparently the full quote goes like this:
I joke often about how, if I were in power, I’d employ police marksmen to sit on motorway bridges picking off people who drive too slowly -- Jeremy Clarkson (of Top Gear fame)
If I was in power I would post laser dolphins targeting the ones who go to fast. Strange that no one has thought of that, oh wait...
I hit Ctl+F, typed "china" and went through the 17 pages of stupidity. Sigh. Do i really have to be the one to remind you asshats there are more people riding bicycles in East Asia without a helmet, nay, without even having considered something as laughable as a bike helmet, than there are clowns advocating its use or debating its usefulness in internet forums? Learn to ride.
We had a local biker get his foot caught and fall over at the curb. At zero forward speed he suffered brain damage with no helmet. Another had a jogger step in front of her on the rail trail and was killed. My daughter attended MI State. They had far more serious injuries from bikes on campus than cars.