"Why should a bicyclist be required to wear a yellow helmet & jacket to be called "good"? Certainly reasonable road conduct should be demanded from all road users, but first from automobile drivers, who cause the vast majority of injuries & deaths on the streets."
1. First of all, it is mandatory in my country.
2. Wether the accident is the biker's fault or the car driver's fault or anything else you are way better wearing a protective helmet if you fall off your bike. Head trauma is not something to be dismissed on the basis that wearing an helmet isn't mandatory or - gasp - fashionnable.
3. Regarding the yellow jacket: without it most bicylists are simply invisible in night traffic. In broad daylight there are easier to see and thus one can be more cautious around them. Remember that cyclists are "weak" road users.
4.
> Why should a bicyclist be required to wear a yellow helmet & jacket to be called "good"? Certainly reasonable road conduct should be demanded from all road users, but first from automobile drivers, who cause the vast majority of injuries & deaths on the streets.
Wearing a helmet and yellow jacket are really good signs that the biker knows what he is doing. Especially in a country (mine) where it is mandatory. Especially in a country (mine) where car culture is overtly agressive towards cyclists.
There is absolutely no reason not to wear protective gear when riding a bike (especially in a city).
From the wikipedia page regarding the "australian bicycle helmet law" I read this:
For example, one recent French study analyzing over 13,000 cyclist casualties during a ten-year period "confirms the protective effect [of helmets] for head and facial injuries," and finds that "the reduction of risk is greater for serious head injuries. The study is inconclusive about the risk for neck injuries."[45] The most widely quoted case-control study, by Thompson, Rivara, and Thompson, reported an 85% reduction in the risk of head injury by using a helmet.[46] It has been suggested that these studies may be fundamentally flawed.[47][48][49][50] [51] [52] Thompson and Thompson have rejected these criticisms.[53]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet#Case-control_stu...
Are you suggesting something along:
1. Cyclists wearing helmets are prone to take risks because they are wearing helmets ? ;
2. people don't want to ride bikes because they don't want to wear a helmet because they don't like the look of it and as a result of that they might do less exercise activities than if they could have ride helmet free ?
There are some frightening points being made (and contradictory to my position) but I have some tingling doubts about some. Have to read it with more attention later.
Make helmets mandatory and people choose to take their cars instead of cycle. More cars on the road = more cyclist (and driver and pedestrian) deaths.
Suppose for example that train passengers were required to wear motorbike helmets - would it save lives? Well there has probably been a very rare train accident where somebody died of a head injury. But if all those train passengers decided to drive instead there would be a huge rise in deaths.
Why do you assume they are going to take their cars instead of their bikes ? Public transportation can be as convenient on bike distances.
I am not going to take off my silly hemlet and take more risks so fashionistas can ride their bike.
Did car drivers stop driving cars because seatbelts were made mandatory at some point ?
Anyway, from what I read, I am more at risk with my silly helmet because car drivers think I am safe and more prudent so they take more risks around people like me[1].
So it's a catch-21 or something to me. I'll get back to my car.
Or maybe we should enforce mandatory helmets for car drivers too. Since they _have_ to wear in any case they might stick to bicycle :)
[1] source: those australian articles all around the web
The idea is to persuade car drivers onto bikes - then if they have to wear a helmet they might switch to busses, but it's more likely they would stay in their cars.
I'm not going to take my helmet off either - but if a change in the law converted 10% of the cars passing me to other cycles I would be happier and safer.
>Did car drivers stop driving cars because seatbelts were made mandatory at some point
Unless there was an alternative MORE deadly form of transport they could adopt it doesn't matter. If they said, "I'm not driving with a seatbelt - I will drive my jet fighter to work" it might have had a negative effect on accident rates.
[1] The research was by an ex-collegue of mine at UCL. He also proved that drivers give blonde women more space. Although since he did the field work himself (in a wig) he couldn't discount the chance that car drivers gave more space to very unconvincing transvestites! ;-)
>> 1. First of all, it is mandatory in my country.
>
>This is a bit of a circular argument, isn't it?
Sorry, I should have been more explicit. I stated that fact to give more context and because I wanted to link the mandatory helmet to the fact that bikers not wearing one in my country are more likely to be bad bikers than those wearing it. Moreover, I wanted to also state (I should have make 2 different bullet points) that we (in my country) must wear helmets because it's the law (not only because I, in my personnal opinion, think it's better - I often answer to people who asks me why I wear a stupid helmet that "it's just the law").
Wearing a helmet is a pretty strong hint but it's not a proof.
> you are way better wearing a protective helmet if you fall off your bike. Head trauma is not something to be dismissed on the basis that wearing an helmet isn't mandatory or - gasp - fashionnable.
You'd probably also be better off wearing a helmet while driving a car if you were in a collision, but that doesn't mean we do. There are comfort tradeoffs, and really I've biked in Amsterdam (which is a bit more sketch in some areas than Copenhagen by the looks of it) and definitely did not feel I need a helmet.
Helmets are for sport racers (they go really fast downhill and collisions are likely) and cyclists who have to mix with automobile traffic or deal with poor quality roads (e.g. storm drains, potholes, etc.)
You're also committing fallacious thinking by arguing for the way something ought to be by appealing to the way it is (i.e. the laws in your country).
> There are comfort tradeoffs, and really I've biked in Amsterdam (which is a bit more sketch in some areas than Copenhagen by the looks of it) and definitely did not feel I need a helmet.
Regarding comfort: from the day I decided to wear an helmet (and it had been a long time I hadn't rode) it only took me 2 trips to feel "naked" without it. Just like I feel uneasy when there are no seatbelts in a car.
> Helmets are for [...] cyclists who have to mix with automobile traffic or deal with poor quality roads (e.g. storm drains, potholes, etc.)
Which is my case in Belgium. However, I still believe that even in a safe environnment such as Amsterdam or Denmark, with or without car on the road, you'd better fall with a helmet than without one.
Sorry again for the fallacy, I just wanted to give more context to how things are here.
On a side note: I remember when helmets weren't mandatory in the "tour de France" and in "Liège Bastogne Liège". I thought it was really weird people were complaining about "the ridiculous helmets" and didn't really fight the safety arguments of pro-helmets.
I strongly feel the bicycle helmet "debate" is almost the same as the one for the car seatbelt made mandatory in the 90's (in Belgium): people were screaming they were all going to get strangulated, that the incomfort would bring more accidents, etc.
You are ignoring the side effects of helmet use.[0] Mandatory helmet use is just as bad as mandatory drug administration when helmets can have lethal side effects.
* The mean motorist passing difference being several centimetres smaller for cyclists wearing helmets - increasing the chance of a collision. [1]
* Mandatory (and increased) helmet use correlates strongly with increased rates of cyclist fatalities. [2]
* Strangulation caused by straps around neck on catching helmet. (There is a mandatory legal disclaimer about this on every helmet in the UK)
* Increased risk of head injury due to increased head diameter
* Increased risk taking by the wearer based on reduced percieved risk
* Reduction in number of cyclists and "safety in numbers" due to making cycling a percieved risky activity.
* Diffuse axonal Injury injury caused by increased friction between helmet and tarmac
I personally do wear a helmet because the road conditions in London are made hazardous by motorists.
Helmet campaigns are really just victim blaming. Motorists kill more young people than aids and malaria combined and somehow society is ok with it.[3]
There was a study that showed having pedestrians wearing cycle helmets would save 100x as many lives and drivers 10x as many - as making cyclists wear them.
Partly this is because there are a lot more pedestrians/drivers than cyclists but also because above children speed a bike helmet doesn't do much for you. If you are cycling at 20-30mph you need the same helmet as a motorcycle doing the same speed.
ps. this was also before airbags became ubiquitous. a lot of non-seatbelt wearing drivers die of head injuries in common low-speed impacts.
It's true I always wondered why "small motor bike" drivers had such an hardened and heavy helmet compared to "styro-foam carbone fiber" made bike helmet.
I read some the abstract of the studies contradicting the health benefits of a helmet and the studies contradicting those very studies. I am convinced that helmets benefits outweight naked head benefits. The rare case where someone has a neck injury directly because of the helmet seems to be extremely rare.
1. First of all, it is mandatory in my country.
2. Wether the accident is the biker's fault or the car driver's fault or anything else you are way better wearing a protective helmet if you fall off your bike. Head trauma is not something to be dismissed on the basis that wearing an helmet isn't mandatory or - gasp - fashionnable.
3. Regarding the yellow jacket: without it most bicylists are simply invisible in night traffic. In broad daylight there are easier to see and thus one can be more cautious around them. Remember that cyclists are "weak" road users.
4. > Why should a bicyclist be required to wear a yellow helmet & jacket to be called "good"? Certainly reasonable road conduct should be demanded from all road users, but first from automobile drivers, who cause the vast majority of injuries & deaths on the streets.
Wearing a helmet and yellow jacket are really good signs that the biker knows what he is doing. Especially in a country (mine) where it is mandatory. Especially in a country (mine) where car culture is overtly agressive towards cyclists.
There is absolutely no reason not to wear protective gear when riding a bike (especially in a city).
Even if there were no cars on the road.
edit: removed personnal rant
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