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Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons

bikebiz.com

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Re: Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons

#101

Post by sampo »

perlgeek wrote: post #7
whimsicalism wrote: post #3

IIRC it is studied that cars behave more dangerously around bikers with helmets while they give a wide berth to unhelmeted bikers.

There was one study about that, which was... not very robust science. It relied on self-report of the biker (and if I remember correctly, it was just a single one, so not enough data).

> There was one study about that, which was... not very robust science. It relied on self-report of the biker

Here is another study, where they measured the distance to overtaking cars with a distance sensor:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00014...

"A Trek hybrid bicycle was fitted with a Massa M-5000/95 temperature-compensated ultrasonic distance sensor with its centre 0.77 m from the ground, facing perpendicularly to the direction of travel and feeding into a laptop computer running MultiLab software via a MultiLog Pro data-logger sampling from the sensor at 50 Hz."

Re: Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons

#102

Post by littlestymaar »

tomphoolery wrote: post #6
whimsicalism wrote: post #3

IIRC it is studied that cars behave more dangerously around bikers with helmets while they give a wide berth to unhelmeted bikers.

"it is studied" Source please? This sounds like absolute bullshit. I've known so many people who have been killed or permanently disfigured because they didn't wear a helmet while biking in a large city. Cars don't give a fuck about us.

Wikipedia links to this study[1] which found a difference of about 8,5cm in average, which sounds far from significant from a safety perspective (and again according to Wikipedia this study has been disputed).

[1] https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.aap.2006.08.010

Re: Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons

#103

Post by II2II »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #9

Helmets are trying to reduce an already tiny risk. We live in a world of safety fanaticism.

The "tiny risk" and potentially large consequences is why people should choose to wear helmets, regardless of experience. You never quite know when an accident is going to happen and it is difficult to account for that. The big risks are easier to account for, to be alert and modify your behaviour accordingly.

I have seen experienced ice skaters go from not wearing a helmet to being fanatical about wearing one, simply because they had an accident and had to deal with the consequences. I have also seen experienced cyclists who would have likely lost their life if they weren't wearing a helmet.

As for the company in question, which (incidently) was insisting that employees not wear helmets, it sounds more like a decision based upon the perceptions of customers. If they were truly interested in hiring people who are safety conscious, they would hire people who are safety conscious rather than those who are willing to ride without a helmet. There are more than a few people who don't wear helmets who have an astronomically high tollerance of risk.

Re: Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons

#104

Post by nkozyra »

slackfan wrote: post #97

Quoted post unavailable.

In these casual conversations non-experts weigh in and give their opinions on subjects of all varieties all the time.

I'm assuming from the snark that you have some expertise in this area and if so it would probably be good to see some of it here because all I've seen from the company and commentary is anecdata.

Re: Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons

#105

Post by Rygian »

mabbo wrote: post #32

This feels a bit like the narrator in "Fight Club" explaining "the formula" car manufacturers use. > Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one. Pedal Me has done the math on what the average settlement for a traumatic brain injury to it…

I didn't remember that the real-life Ford Pinto case [1] was mentioned in Fight Club. Time to watch it again.

[1] https://philosophia.uncg.edu/phi361-matteson/module-1-why-do...

Re: Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons

#106

Post by MafellUser »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #59
_Wintermute wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is why you always wear a helmet when walking or going for a jog?

When did anyone fall off a walk or a jog?

When was the last time you've been outside?

Re: Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons

#108

Post by edmcnulty101 »

yellowapple wrote: post #66
_Wintermute wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is why you always wear a helmet when walking or going for a jog?

Unless you're Usain Bolt, you probably ain't jogging or walking at bicycle speeds.

At bicycle speeds?

Re: Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons

#109

Post by yellowapple »

chrisshroba wrote: post #84
yellowapple wrote: post #52

I'm sorry, and pardonner mou Français, but what in the actual fuck? Should delivery drivers not wear seatbelts because they might not be as afriad that they'll fly through the windshield? Should linemen not wear harnesses because they might be more confident working on power lines? Should warehouse workers not wear hi-vis jackets because they might be more confident working around forklifts? Should construction worke…

I understand where you’re coming from, but I’d like to see some data rather than “what the actual fuck”. I believe there are some cases where safety protections make people act dumber - and now I’m curious if this is or is not one them. I don’t take a position either way, but I don’t feel like shouting that you’d tell your employer to eat a bag of dicks really contributes much here.

> I believe there are some cases where safety protections make people act dumber

And I don't believe that to be a justification for removing those safety protections entirely. This ain't some data science problem to be solved; this is ethics and morality, and there is precisely nothing ethical or moral about demanding that your employees make themselves less safe and then having the gall to pretend that this somehow makes them safer.

> I don’t feel like shouting that you’d tell your employer to eat a bag of dicks really contributes much here.

You're right: all employees telling their employers to eat an OSHA-sized bag of dicks if they try prohibiting basic safety equipment would contribute far more greatly to society than just one. But we gotta start somewhere.

Re: Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons

#110

Post by edmcnulty101 »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #59
_Wintermute wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is why you always wear a helmet when walking or going for a jog?

When did anyone fall off a walk or a jog?

How often do people fall off of bicycles?
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