 Never let your government get away with claiming that #bikeHelmets are "the first rule of bike safety". Rule number one is infrastructure, and the 2nd is air+brakes+chain mechanical soundness of the bike, upright geometry of the bike, traffic awareness, ride with fingers on your brake levers and having practiced emergency stops, twenty is plenty... Helmets are for stunts or a footnote to "don't fall on your head" rule that applies to walking moreso than biking. 32 comments
@vitaminsludge mandatory car helmet rule would make a huge improvement to bike safety (on account of all of the people who would quit or at least make an effort to avoid driving)  @enobacon I've taken about equal numbers of falls while biking and walking, and every time my childhood judo training kicked in and kept my head off the ground. There's an abbreviated version of the training that is just falls, no throws, and it really ought to be mandatory for schoolkids.  @jef @enobacon I am not sure it has anything to do with judo training, because I seem to do a good job of not falling on my head w/o it. Usually some combo of feet, hip, shoulder, forearm. At least one fall on ice I had time to decide if I should use palm of hand or forearm, and (correctly) chose forearm. Helmets optional makes sense for jogging and bicycling below 10 MPH where the risks are equivalent. I wish I could remember where I read that number. I wouldn't have remembered it except from a reasonably rigorous source. Above 20 MPH is another story. I've taken two spills at speed and was glad I was helmeted in both cases. With each fall I learned another safety rule. For example, don't pretend you have aero bars on when you don't.  My approach is that I wear a helmet if I'm pushing the limit of my ability - in terms of speed, distance, terrain (for me that's winter riding in ice and snow. If I did mountain biking I'd use a helmet then too). For cycling as a form of utilitarian transport about town, during the ~8 months when ice isn't a concern, I don't generally bother with a helmet. @IngenieurStefan It doesn't help that there are more bad studies than good ones, and of course there's always someone who broke a helmet with their head and wants you to know that. The helmet laws are insidious though, particularly the kids one like Oregon so it's only required until you're old enough to drive. π @enobacon As a Dutch civil engineer Iβm familiar with a high standard of cycling infrastructure. We shouldnβt take it for granted and it is very important to get people to bike. The last yearβs fatalities and injuries are on the up because of the fast electric bike it seems. Helmets are not a solution. But it would help reduce negative effects. @IngenieurStefan yeah if infrastructure is designed for 8mph but suddenly everyone is doing 28, that's not quite what we're facing in the US though, where about half of the modal shift, during a land-use transition from parking lots to housing+shops/jobs, will have to come from 5-10 mile car trips. The 5mph sidewalk bikeways are totally unfit for the speeds & volumes required, the "last mile" is 4 miles of hills, and transit isn't meeting us with charging + secure storage, or 5min frequency. @IngenieurStefan but I ride more carefully without a helmet (and studies have shown this is a thing.) Would rather not have helmet-wielding 28mph e-bikers on the 5mph 8ft-wide* sidewalk with me. (* but half overgrown with thorny blackberry vines) @enobacon being an emergency doctor I saw and treated too many people riding a bicycle without helmet suffering cranial hemorrhages to approve your statement. @kriky not in cars though? What doesn't make sense, is governments using anecdotes and biased samples like yours to absolve themselves of the responsibility for infrastructure. That kind of helmet encouragement and/or mandate also fails to protect people from sedentary diseases or the respiratory impacts of traffic emissions. @enobacon where I live, there is no helmet mandate for cyclists. But there is a seatbelt mandate for car drivers. The kinetics in case of an accident is very different. You're free to ride your bicycle without a helmet. It's just a stupid decision, that's my point. You're right, that there is plenty to do for the safety of cyclists but denying the fact, that helmets safe lives won't make your point more credible. @enobacon your point was "it's not a well-proven fact that helmets prevent more harm than they cause" and that's wrong (or science denial). Why do you insist on doing just one thing? Vision zero does include a lot of small or large interventions to enhance the safety of cyclists. So, let's decelerate cars AND wear a helmet. As an emergency physician, you presumably treated people who had been walking, swimming, climbing a ladder, or playing soccer without helmets, who suffered cranial hemorrhage as well. But I expect that for at least some of those activities you don't advocate helmets. The question for me isn't just by how much a helmet would reduce the risk of cranial injury, but also how high it was to begin with. The few studies I've been able to find that actually address the base rate of risk, leave me comfortable riding a bike for daily transport without a helmet. From what I found, head trauma rate per hour of cycling seems to be a bit higher than walking, but the difference is less than the difference in speeds - meaning the rate per kilometer is a bit lower than that for walking. I'd never discourage someone from wearing a helmet, but I'm OK accepting such a risk without PPE.  @enobacon I guess itβs a sign of the times that we now have substantial numbers of people questioning vaccines and wearing a bike helmet. Next up is hand washing I suppose. Infrastructure, by all means, but when I pancaked a bike on a section of paved bike trail on some not-so-dry leaves at 25+ mph, I shattered my right collarbone, but my helmet saved me from at least a concussion. Complaining about βthe gubmintβ suggesting helmets are useful is just asinine to me. @enobacon I thought "ban cars" would be rule nΒΊ1 (and I'd ban rain as well while at it)  |
Gregory's Server
@enobacon Car drivers need helmets