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.
There was a study that car drivers would benefit far more than cyclists from wearing bike helmets. Apart from there being 100x as many car drivers - there were a lot of accidents were the seatbelt saved them but they suffered injuries hitting the dashboard (this may have been before airbags).
Except that the evidence is not clear that cycle helmets actually improve safety for adults (it is clear that it improves it for children), and cyclists will avoid cycling altogether if helmets are mandatory.
Perhaps more importantly, cars carry safety risks for everyone. If I walk or cycle I am at risk of being run over by your car, my lungs get damaged due to the exhaust, the climate suffers.
Helmets are still the best way to reduce a lot of head injuries among motorists. Cars travel at a much higher speed than pedestrians/bicycles, so it takes a lot more to dampen the injuries, and auto-related head injuries are simply more common than bicycle-related ones.
It's absolutely as reasonable to exhort motorists and pedestrians to wear helmets as it is to exhort cyclists to do so.
There's a difference between "cyclists will take more risks (with their own lives) if they wear a helmet" and "drivers will take more risks (with cyclists' lives) if they see cyclists wearing a helmet".
And you're leaving out by far the most important argument, which is "people are less likely to cycle if they're required to wear helmets".
Wearing a helmet is of course never a bad thing. But studies has also shown (on mobile, can't find now) that people see helmets as really cumbersome, and that many of the potential cyclists chose another mode of transporation if they have to use a helmet. Seems strange to me, I ride with a helmet every day. But each to his/her own.
[…] In contrast, despite increases to at least 75% helmet wearing, the proportion of head injuries in cyclists admitted or treated at hospital declined by an average of only 13%. The percentage of cyclists with head injuries after collisions with motor vehicles in Victoria declined by more, but the proportion of head injured pedestrians also declined; the two followed a very similar trend. These trends may have been caused by major road safety initiatives introduced at the same time as the helmet law and directed at both speeding and drink-driving. The initiatives seem to have been remarkably effective in reducing road trauma for all road users, perhaps affecting the proportions of victims suffering head injuries as well as total injuries. The benefits of cycling, even without a helmet, have been estimated to outweigh the hazards by a factor of 20 to 1 (Hillman 1993; Cycle helmets—the case for and against. Policy Studies Institute, London). Consequently, a helmet law, whose most notable effect was to reduce cycling, may have generated a net loss of health benefits to the nation. Despite the risk of dying from head injury per hour being similar for unhelmeted cyclists and motor vehicle occupants, cyclists alone have been required to wear head protection. Helmets for motor vehicle occupants are now being marketed and a mandatory helmet law for these road users has the potential to save 17 times as many people from death by head injury as a helmet law for cyclists without the adverse effects of discouraging a healthy and pollution free mode of transport.[1]
I've also seen the argument advanced that requiring helmets makes cycling less safe: Some people will refuse to wear them and won't bike at all, and others will get the impression that cycling is more dangerous than it is because a helmet is being required. (Are drivers or pedestrians nagged to wear helmets? Besides, the most common injury from cycling isn't a head injury - it's a broken wrist from trying to stop a fall.)
The decrease in cyclists on the road reduces the likelihood that drivers know how to share the road with them, that cyclists will learn from each other how to ride safely in traffic, etc.
I think the biggest reason people don't see a bicycle helmet as necessary is from personal experience. I grew up on the 70's, long before kids helmets were in vogue. And I had several bicycle accidents.
Once I hit a curb, went over the handlebars, and skinned up my hands/knees and my wrists hurt pretty bad for a week or so after. Another time I wiped out at the bottom of a hill, tore a huge gash in the side of my knee. Then there was the time I chipped a tooth on a curb when trying to ride no-handed.
In all the falls I experienced, none of them involved a head injury that a helmet would have prevented (the chipped tooth incident could have been prevented by wearing a mouth guard, or by not being stupid). So based on that, it feels like helmets are useless.
Of course, in reality there is a huge difference between a kid riding a bicycle at single-digit MPH on neighborhood streets and back-woods trails, vs. going 15 - 20 MPH on roads or paved trails. At those speeds, it would probably be impossible for me to break my fall using just hands and feet, not to mention the possibility of getting distracted hand running into a street sign or tree branch. Logically I'm aware of all this, but still I have trouble with maintaining proper helmet discipline.
I think it's really important to understand the impact cycle helmets have. They negatively impact the number of people cycling. They enforce the perception that cycling is dangerous. Finally, as the study showed, they are designed to only be involved in an accident between you and the road. Not another vehicle. They bring a false sense of security.
If cycle helmets were made compulsory in the UK, it is calculated that an extra 253 people per year would die from obesity related diseases ( http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1231.html ) . Ironically cycle helmets kill.
What is interesting about this is the identification of two groups of cyclists. The 'speed' group who currently wear helmets (and usually have lycra) and then the slow group (the rest of society) who just want to go from A to B. Helmet laws specifically have a negative impact on the slow group. This is the group of people that we need to encourage.
As mentioned in the BMJ article ( http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f3817?ijkey=I5vHBog6FhaaL... ) :
"For others, this is an explicitly political matter, where an emphasis on helmets reflects a seductively individualistic approach to risk management (or even “victim blaming”) while the real gains lie elsewhere. It is certainly true that in many countries, such as Denmark and the Netherlands, cyclists have low injury rates, even though rates of cycling are high and almost no cyclists wear helmets. This seems to be achieved through interventions such as good infrastructure; stronger legislation to protect cyclists; and a culture of cycling as a popular, routine, non-sporty, non-risky behaviour."
This stuff is important. The UK justice system is permeated with the belief that if you were not wearing a helmet then you were, in some way, partially responsible. It's got so bad that insurance payouts are being affected by this.
Note I personally don't wear a cycle helmet except in winter when I want to have a bigger light to see the trail ahead of me as I commute to work. However if I go out on a club ride then I wear one. I'm pushing the speed of the bike and it could slip out from under me. I do not wear it with the belief it would save me if I had a collision with a car.
Yeah, people think bike helmets are miracle devices like seat belts, and that it’s a moral failing not to use one, but they sadly don’t provide that much protection.
My assumption has been that worrying about the unfashionable nature of bike helmets was mainly restricted to the developed world, and that people in the developing world were likely not wearing helmets because they are an added expense (above and beyond the expense of just getting a bicycle in the first place).
It is possible that airbag devices could 'save many lives' (if helmetless riders wore them), but I am not convinced that more wouldn't be saved by wearing helmets.
That said, the work on putting airbags on the exterior of vehicles to protect cyclists and pedestrians seems very promising, and I hope it comes to market soon.
> the benefits of wearing a helmet apply equally to pedestrians and automobile drivers/passengers
Cycling is about six times more likely to kill you, per hour, than driving. So while helmets in cars would help some, the case for them on bikes is stronger.
In 2015 there were almost 467,000 bicycle injuries in the United States. This is a direct quote from the CDC regarding bicycles and helmets: "Bicycle helmets reduce the risk of head and brain injuries in the event of a crash." [0] This is a strong enough warning from an accountable and transparent source that I choose to wear a bicycle helmet every time I ride a bike and I believe people that do not wear a bicycle helmet are reckless. I believe that companies that encourage riding without a helmet do not care about the safety of their customers.
Perhaps bicyclist are more likely to have a head injury if they are struck by a car. I share roadways and crosswalks to with cars when I ride.
Helmets better than no helmets is not necessarily true, strangely. Perhaps on an individual right-now level, but not long term. The reason: the biggest protection you can have as a cyclist is lots of cyclists on the road. Helmets lower bike use, so in the end you'll be a lone, vulnerable road warrior...
Btw, would you also wear your cycling helmet while walking on the pavement as a pedestrian? At least in the Netherlands there are more head injuries for pedestrians that fall or hit something than cycling-related head injuries. :-)
I disagree. I think that forcing people to wear helmets would result in less people cycling, defeating the purpose. Being able to hop on and hop of your bike while not carrying a helmet around is great. I don't think anyone would want helmets introduced. If you are doing high speed cycling on a racing bike then you need a helmet, but if you are going to the shops to get milk on a city bike with no gears I don't think it adds anything.
Of course safety is important. Not having lights on your bike in winter is very dangerous (drivers can't see you in their mirrors) and the police do frequent random stops and issue fines.
Anecdotally a friend of mine was in a very bad cycling accident (hit by a bus). She had no helmet and it wouldn't have helped. After months of rehab for her broken leg she is cycling again without a helmet. Of course she could have fallen differently and a helmet would have helped, but most of the damage was caused by the collision and not the fall.
Nobody here wears a bicycle helmet unless he or she is a recreational rider who rides at high speeds. Helmets can help against high speed crash. Most commuters ride at low speeds. Helmets are inconvenient and pressure to increase helmet usage has been suspected to make cycling less safe in the aggregate because less people will cycle and other road users thus won't be taking them into account. If I'm being cynical it's possibly why people keep pushing for it in the first place.
Helmets are for those who take livability seriously!
I grew up in Melbourne. I've worn bike helmets since I was a kid. They have been compulsory since 1990. It's not a big deal. Everyone knows it is just common sense, just like wearing seatbelts in a car.
Over the years, I have had bike crashes and hit my head on the road three times. The one time I was seriously injured was in Amsterdam, where no one wears helmets. My front wheel jammed and I fell over the handlebars face-first onto the road. I had to go to hospital for stitches. I was very, very lucky I didn't end up brain-damaged.
Helmets reduce serious brain trauma by 50-60%. That's well worth the small inconvenience for me.
I mean, go ahead, wear one, they aren't going to hurt for sure, and probably make a lot of sense at an individual level, but at a macro, systemic level, helmet wearing is not really the answer.
I think people are overestimating the merit of normal bicycle helmets. I think the actual effect is something like this ([1]):
> The most reliable estimates indicate that at speeds of up to 20 km/h helmets reduce the risk of head injury by 42%, the risk of brain injury by 53%, and the risk of facial injury by 17%, whereas they increase the risk of neck injury by 32%. These estimates are partly based
on research carried out in countries like the United States and Australia, where standards for bicycle helmets are stricter than they are in Europe and can offer protection at higher impact speeds.
In wikipedia [2] I find this quote: "This effect is statistically significant in older studies. New studies, summarised by a random-effects model of analysis, indicate only a statistically non-significant protective effect"
And to the parents around here, make sure your kids know when to not wear a helmet (choking accidents [3])
Enormous amounts of testing prove that those "tiny" helmets do in fact help a lot. Cyclists aren't normally exposed to the magnitude of forces that motorcyclists are in crashes, due to their lower speeds, but they're still exposed to speeds well above those that are normal for human bodies to be propelled at, and in an environment surrounded with very hard, unnatural surfaces (concrete, asphalt), so the forces they can experience are well above those the human skull is designed to protect.
I had a friend in college who worked in a university lab testing bike helmets; this was 20 years ago now. They're only gotten better since then.
But it's true, bicycling helmets don't do much for protecting your face. But that's not what they're designed for; they're designed to reduce or prevent brain injuries from knocking your skull on the road or a curb. A full-face motorcycle helmet would be even better, but there's a tradeoff there in weight and ventilation (and cost), things that are more important to bicyclists than motorcyclists. Even a lot of motorcycle helmets aren't full-face and don't protect the face at all. But the idea with safety equipment isn't to completely eliminate all possible injury, it's to reduce risk to a reasonable degree; for the injuries you're likely to experience as a cyclist, a good cycling helmet is designed to protect against those. But it's not going to help keep a branch from poking your eye out on a backwoods trail.
Finally, the charge against bike helmets from all these anti-helmet people lately isn't that they don't help prevent injuries (they absolutely do), it's that they allegedly cause more accidents by making car drivers more reckless around cyclists. The claim has nothing to do with physics, and everything to do with psychology. Personally, I think it's a terrible argument to make, and if there's any truth to it, it simply shows that we absolutely need to mandate that cyclists are provided with physically separate roads from cars. Considering how dirt-cheap cycling trails are to build compared to car-roads, how much better for the environment cycling is than driving in cars, and how much public health would be improved by more cycling (which would reduce healthcare expenditures greatly, and also improve workplace productivity and reduce sick time, all important factors for good capitalists), there's simply no excuse for governments to not be buildings lots and lots of safe cycling paths and encouraging cycling.
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.
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