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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Not to mention that removing all the bike-share cyclists will lead to a drop in the amount of cyclists, which is one of the risk factors for bikes getting hit by cars.
@juliette agreed on all accounts.
I used to ride motorcycles. When I switched back to bikes I kept the helmet, but I acknowledge it's more of a reflex. I am unsure whether it really protects me. In my motorcycle riding days, I would have dismissed my flimsy bike helmet as a sort of talisman, rather than proper protective gear.
But OK, I like it that the law neither forbids nor compels me to wear a helmet.
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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 @enobacon @juliette 100% agree about driving standards. I learned to drive 32yrs ago and I’ve noticed a difference. Not entirely sure what it is but everyone seems to drive much closer/faster with very little respect to others on the roads, cyclists get caught the crossfire. Maybe it’s because there are more vehicles on the roads these days and the vast majority of roads are no longer fit for purpose. This has nothing to do with cycling helmets though, accidents happen anywhere.
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@Arapalla @marco_m_aus_f @juliette Well, in that myopic sense they do. They also reduced the miles travelled by bike by an even more drastical margin. As the exercise related to riding a bike helps to prevent cardiovascular deseases, several studies have concluded that helmet laws lead to a net negative effect on the health of the whole population.
@geeeero @Arapalla @marco_m_aus_f @juliette citations?
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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 @juliette does anyone know how that compares to seat belt impact? It seems like very good reductions.
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@juliette Thanks, loads of citations to indulge me there! My only regret about cycling is that I didn’t get back into it sooner, but looking back I recognise a big part of that is the hostile road environment we’ve created.
As an aside, on my quick read I don’t think it mentioned the change in attitudes towards individual cyclists wearing safety gear (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369847823001018). I know when I did a few rides with and without a helmet it felt the closer and fastest (and more aggressive) passes were when I was helmeted.
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@raymaccarthy @enobacon @juliette 100% agree about driving standards. I learned to drive 32yrs ago and I’ve noticed a difference. Not entirely sure what it is but everyone seems to drive much closer/faster with very little respect to others on the roads, cyclists get caught the crossfire. Maybe it’s because there are more vehicles on the roads these days and the vast majority of roads are no longer fit for purpose. This has nothing to do with cycling helmets though, accidents happen anywhere.
@JaxxAI @enobacon @juliette
Bigger, heavier cars.
More SUVs
More pickup trucks as domestic vehicles, & larger too.
Bring in much higher taxes (sale & road) and extra tests for heavier vehicles. Two extra licences between car & lorry/truck.
Proof of business/farm need for 4x4, SUV, pickups etc.
Abolish road tax for small cars & motor bikes as the fuel is taxed. Increase fuel tax. Needs to be much higher in USA.
Allow ebikes to have a throttle, but rate faster/more power as per a moped Honda 50. -
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
Bike Share, or are many (all?) parasitic offshore companies renting bikes?Bike infrastructure is important.
Reversing trend of monster vehicles too. -
@CrowOnAKettle @juliette does anyone know how that compares to seat belt impact? It seems like very good reductions.
@__d @juliette I think the impact is comparable. About 50% fatal injury reduction based on this source https://worldmetrics.org/seat-belt-effectiveness-statistics/
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@__d @juliette I think the impact is comparable. About 50% fatal injury reduction based on this source https://worldmetrics.org/seat-belt-effectiveness-statistics/
@CrowOnAKettle @juliette thanks!
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@juliette Thanks, loads of citations to indulge me there! My only regret about cycling is that I didn’t get back into it sooner, but looking back I recognise a big part of that is the hostile road environment we’ve created.
As an aside, on my quick read I don’t think it mentioned the change in attitudes towards individual cyclists wearing safety gear (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369847823001018). I know when I did a few rides with and without a helmet it felt the closer and fastest (and more aggressive) passes were when I was helmeted.
@james I can’t remember where I read it, but there has been a study on this! They compared the attitude of car drivers depending on a few factors: wearing a helmet, reflective gear, type of bike, perceived gender.
I remember the striking result was that the best way to protect against road rage was having a ponytail (and being perceived as female). -
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.
#helmetsWhy on earth can't the cycling industry design and manufacture a helmet that a person can carry around without to much effort, or that doesn't cost so much (the prices are ludicrous for a bit of plastic) or that can be made sanitary for multiple users ????
I bought my 1st 10 speed in 1970
and since then, I have thought that the cycling industry does a truly crappy job of designing and selling stuff that is helpful and useful
we accept that crap that the industry, now mostly in China, pushes at us
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@james I can’t remember where I read it, but there has been a study on this! They compared the attitude of car drivers depending on a few factors: wearing a helmet, reflective gear, type of bike, perceived gender.
I remember the striking result was that the best way to protect against road rage was having a ponytail (and being perceived as female).@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.
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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.
