One of the key negative impacts of mandatory bike helmet laws is that they are essentially a death sentence for bike share programs.
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@JaxxAI @enobacon @juliette
Also maybe bike sharing schemes are successful some places, but what % of cycles on the road are they?
They seemed to collapse here in Limerick.
We have a lot of cycle lanes now.
Most cyclists seem to have been wearing a helmet and something HiVis for years here.
There is a problem with bad drivers..@raymaccarthy @JaxxAI @enobacon @juliette A bike share scheme needs to be designed right to be a success. Edinburgh’s last bike share scheme flopped, but the current one is a runaway success, to the point that there seem subjectively to be way more people cycling now, and the majority of them seem to be on these hire bikes.
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@juliette My link covered some of that (but wasn’t where I first saw it). Interesting you mention gender, my — purely anecdotal — take based on the cyclists I know is that women cyclists suffer much worse abuse than men.
@james There's large variation between cultures / regions.
Here in Denmark cycling with a small child on the bike is often reported to attract less shitty behaviour from car drivers. My anecdotal experience agrees.
However. In summer we get a LOT of foreign tourists. And when encountering people driving cars with foreign plates effect seems be gone.
It's worse with rental cars (often Brits and Americans) but I think those are often just genuinely badly educated drivers.
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@Arapalla @marco_m_aus_f @juliette
Citing "doctors" is a propaganda technique: "More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigaret"
Meanwhile, daily exercise helps prevent stroke and increases learning.
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@leeloo @juliette is a false dichotomy.
Mandatory helmet reduce the convenience of a bicycle but ending parking subsidies appears to drivers the biggest costs of private vehicle ownership.That acts as a huge penalty .
The first step the Netherlands took to reduce car usage, since parking is the most expensive part of owning a car the bike use grow.
Switzerland is similar, with greater use of public transport instead of bicycles.@Luu @juliette
Mandatory helmet laws are probably not getting anyone to buy a car, but most people need a car for some things. Convenience is a huge determining factor for using the bicycle or the car for the rest.Also, to end parking subsidies, you first need to have parking subsidies. At home I park on private property. The grocery store owns their parking lot, and they are not going to charge for using it, because then people are going to shop at their competitor across the road. And work usually either has their own parking lot of pays for parking spaces. The last place I worked, I had a "parking card", even though I only used it once or twice per year when my bicycle needed repairs. They didn't ask if I needed one, I worked there, so I had one.
But anyway, you're attempting a misdirection - mandatory bicycle helmet laws do not change anything about parking, and parking is irrelevant to the well known results of such laws.
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@juliette Agreed, I see what you bring up as a strong point. On the other side, there is a lot of comments here suggesting "helmets don’t really do much". Here is a study which reports that "Head injuries were found to be reduced significantly with helmet usage by 60 percent, brain injuries by 58 percent and facial injuries were reduced by 4 percent. [...] Fatal injuries were shown to decrease significantly by a prominent 73 percent" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-35728-x Saying helmets don't work is harmful
@CrowOnAKettle Helmets can work. I only see one commenter here suggesting they don't?
Simple saying "helmets always work" and discussing this as if helmets are a stand-alone thing distracts from real safety though: preventing crashes instead of limiting consequences.
Context matters, and for many modes of cycling in f.e. the Netherlands, infrastructure, training (of all road users), age/experience, and type of bicycle influence risk significantly more than helmets.
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@james There's large variation between cultures / regions.
Here in Denmark cycling with a small child on the bike is often reported to attract less shitty behaviour from car drivers. My anecdotal experience agrees.
However. In summer we get a LOT of foreign tourists. And when encountering people driving cars with foreign plates effect seems be gone.
It's worse with rental cars (often Brits and Americans) but I think those are often just genuinely badly educated drivers.
@Pepijn @juliette I’ve never cycled in Denmark, but when I’ve visited I’ve always liked how cycle- and pedestrian-friendly it is. (We’ve also never driven there, so are innocent of that one). I’ve always had the sense that Danish culture places a lot more value on time and play outdoors, too. I don’t know how true that actually is, and whether that feeds into cycling/pedestrian culture.
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One of the key negative impacts of mandatory bike helmet laws is that they are essentially a death sentence for bike share programs.
Those programs win because they are convenient and encourage spontaneous cycling. That just doesn’t work if a person has to carry a helmet everywhere just in case they decide to cycle. Tourists are not going to pack a bulky helmet. Shared helmets are a hygiene nightmare.
Protect cyclists with bike infrastructure. That’s what works.
#helmets@juliette Not least also that drivers tend to drive closer to cyclists wearing helmets as they feel they are protected. Kind of lazy logic.
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@Pepijn @juliette I’ve never cycled in Denmark, but when I’ve visited I’ve always liked how cycle- and pedestrian-friendly it is. (We’ve also never driven there, so are innocent of that one). I’ve always had the sense that Danish culture places a lot more value on time and play outdoors, too. I don’t know how true that actually is, and whether that feeds into cycling/pedestrian culture.
@james Come visit again, bring a bike!
There's variation depending on big cities (excellent bike infrastructure, good networks) and the more rural areas (randomly really good infrastructure and then a tunnel that leads to a.. busy car commuter road).
I think overal most Danes either cycle themselves or have family members that do. So they're all used to it being something that belongs in the public space.
I'm going to think a bit about "value on time and play outdoors". Dunno
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@billschulz here’s the science behind my statement. It’s not a vibe, it’s widely documented with data: https://rothar.ie/blogs/velostories/thehelmetparadox
@juliette may I suggest you actually read the references cited in that (clearly partisan) blog post. It's not 'data', it's an exercise in cherry-picking, with very little to support your argument. To be clear, I don't care whether cycle helmets are mandatory or not. I ride with a helmet because I am required to do so, but so much of the opposing view is heart-felt, common sense - and wrong! Do better.
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@s0 not sure if you saw the link I shared in other replies - studies have shown that mandatory helmet laws reduce cycling overall, and as quantity of cyclists directly impacts safety of cycling. I’m not saying helmets don’t improve safety, but that mandatory helmet laws as public policy (instead of recommended helmet campaigns for example) is demonstrably counterproductive.
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@james Come visit again, bring a bike!
There's variation depending on big cities (excellent bike infrastructure, good networks) and the more rural areas (randomly really good infrastructure and then a tunnel that leads to a.. busy car commuter road).
I think overal most Danes either cycle themselves or have family members that do. So they're all used to it being something that belongs in the public space.
I'm going to think a bit about "value on time and play outdoors". Dunno
@juliette @Pepijn Not quite sure I could (or even want to) get my ancient and heavy bike over there, but might try hiring one next time.
I do go for runs though, and note same thing everywhere, sometimes it’s really good infrastructure, sometimes you find yourself running on the edge of an horrendously busy road.
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@james Come visit again, bring a bike!
There's variation depending on big cities (excellent bike infrastructure, good networks) and the more rural areas (randomly really good infrastructure and then a tunnel that leads to a.. busy car commuter road).
I think overal most Danes either cycle themselves or have family members that do. So they're all used to it being something that belongs in the public space.
I'm going to think a bit about "value on time and play outdoors". Dunno
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@billschulz @juliette bicycle helmets don’t really do much to protect a rider except for low speed falls.
Close passes by cars are more likely when helmeted.
Overall health benefits of cycling outweigh individual risk.
The small protections that bicycle helmets afford would offer similar benefits to pedestrians, who also experience low speed falls. Nobody thinks pedestrian helmets should be mandatory. Not even for the elderly!
Can exacerbate neck injuries due to additional rotational forces.
@daycoder @juliette Low speed impacts, translated to the skull, will kill you quite effectively. (and a bicycle, on any ordinary day, can quite easily enable a high speed impact). Yes, pedestrians are not required to wear helmets. The human race has been standing on two legs a lot longer than we've been riding two wheeled devices. We can stand quite comfortably on two feet. Less reliably on two wheels. I don't have a problem with opposing mandatory helmet laws, just with poorly supported arguments against them.
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@Pepijn @juliette Hahaha. I’m not a weird stalker, but saw that ages ago and it sits at the intersection of my interests in local government, LEGO, and running. I actually tried to work out where it was so I could check it out on a run when I was in Billund. (And to reassure you, even if I was a weird stalker, I’m not a very good one, I didn’t work out where it was.)
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@Pepijn @juliette Hahaha. I’m not a weird stalker, but saw that ages ago and it sits at the intersection of my interests in local government, LEGO, and running. I actually tried to work out where it was so I could check it out on a run when I was in Billund. (And to reassure you, even if I was a weird stalker, I’m not a very good one, I didn’t work out where it was.)
@james Ok, I laughed out loud at that
I think someone actually shared a link in the thread I did on it. And then you could go there and get my email address from the contact sticker on the pump..
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@Luu @juliette
Mandatory helmet laws are probably not getting anyone to buy a car, but most people need a car for some things. Convenience is a huge determining factor for using the bicycle or the car for the rest.Also, to end parking subsidies, you first need to have parking subsidies. At home I park on private property. The grocery store owns their parking lot, and they are not going to charge for using it, because then people are going to shop at their competitor across the road. And work usually either has their own parking lot of pays for parking spaces. The last place I worked, I had a "parking card", even though I only used it once or twice per year when my bicycle needed repairs. They didn't ask if I needed one, I worked there, so I had one.
But anyway, you're attempting a misdirection - mandatory bicycle helmet laws do not change anything about parking, and parking is irrelevant to the well known results of such laws.
@leeloo @juliette 1/2 If a supermarket or any business is required to provide parking, whether for customers or employees, are effectively subsidizing that parking.
When a country or city stops doing this, the reduction of cars is dramatic. I personal experience with a company where, for every eight employees who didn't use a parking space (transport paid for by the firm), the savings funded a bonus equivalent to a full salary.
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@leeloo @juliette 1/2 If a supermarket or any business is required to provide parking, whether for customers or employees, are effectively subsidizing that parking.
When a country or city stops doing this, the reduction of cars is dramatic. I personal experience with a company where, for every eight employees who didn't use a parking space (transport paid for by the firm), the savings funded a bonus equivalent to a full salary.
