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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

#111

Post by Nextgrid »

_Wintermute wrote: post #81
herodoturtle wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's see how that works out for them. Being clever. Edit: this was a tongue in cheek reference to the follow-up line in Fight Club (after the scene alluded to by OP).

They're hugely successful in London, so pretty well I guess?

Are they? First time I'm hearing about those. Is there actual demand for this?

I live in their target area and I can't ever recall a time where I wanted to combine the risks & downsides of biking and ordering a cab.

If I want to bike (note: I wouldn't recommend it in Central London), I'd get the Santander bikes or the various bike-for-hire ones littering the streets and just do it myself.

If I wanted to spend time fiddling with my phone, I may as well just order an Uber instead of this thing? The prices would be similar considering they both have to pay drivers and driver wages represent a significant chunk of the sticker price of any manned transport-for-hire service so I really don't see why anyone would get this thing instead of a good old Uber.

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

#112

Post by Simon_O_Rourke »

Nextgrid wrote: post #85
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…

The problem is that as another commenter points out, passengers wouldn't feel safe next to a helmet-wearing driver while not wearing one themselves. The proper solution here is to provide helmets for passengers as well, but that raises more problems - they needs to be a way to sanitize them, multiple sizes might need to be available (I assume they need to be sized properly for adequate protection?), etc. The aforemen…

> the objective here is to make money whatever-it-takes..

This. Definitely. However if it came to court, as indeed it might, and they tried to argue helmets cause risky behavior, it wouldn't take Johnny Cochrane to get them slapped with a massive fine and laughed out of court.

They're gambling that the cost of safely resolving the issue will be more than any legal costs. Talk about preventing risky behavior!

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

#113

Post by qzw »

speed_spread wrote: post #92
somewhereoutth wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect skiing was invented to cull the clumsy (and the simply unlucky) from the ranks of the rich.

There was already Polo for that.

Well, you would need something when it's too cold for polo.

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

#114

Post by edmcnulty101 »

harvey9 wrote: post #65
sva_ wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you fall on asphalt without a helmet, you can very easily get seriously injured

I used to be an EMT. There was one week when I went to two different calls that illustrated this perfectly. Both riders middle aged, both at low speed. One wearing a helmet hit a pothole and had minor facial injuries despite going over the handlebars. The other no helmet and out of practice fell sideways and the first thing to hit the kerb was her head. She's permanently disabled and living in a care facility.

Anecdotal fear inducing internet story.

Statistically 'in real life' extremely rare for this to happen.

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

#115

Post by mbrookes »

Nextgrid wrote: post #89
chrisshroba wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This would make sense for situations where the main risk was the driver/operator of the machine, but when it comes to cycling on the road (especially in crazy Central London traffic) I would expect the risk to primarily come from cars.

For which there is some evidence [1] that you are less likely to be involved in an accident doe to external causes when not wearing a helmet than when wearing one - in essence the same effect that helmet wearing has on the cyclist (taking greater risks) it also has on drivers passing cyclists.

[1] https://www.cyclist.co.uk/in-depth/1365/is-it-safer-to-wear-...

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

#116

Post by dhersz »

They justify their decision basically saying that helmets increase the driver's (and the people in its surroundings) willingness to take risks, while mentioning that their training system is so good that it minimizes risks, so drivers won't be in danger because of the lack of helmets.

It's funny that could assume a totally different posture here: if helmets increase risks, we will use our great training system to make sure our drivers won't put themselves in dangerous situations even when wearing helmets. That would reduce dangerous driving and keep drivers' heads safer, instead of just reducing dangerous driving (which allegedly is the reason behind this decision).

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

#117

Post by edmcnulty101 »

alanbernstein wrote: post #41
edmcnulty101 wrote: post #9

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

Sorry, but this is a bad, dumb comment. Your point is valid generally, but not here. What is the COST of wearing a helmet? $60 purchase and 5 seconds every time you ride. Essentially nothing. Compare to, e.g. TSA, which has a cost of billions of dollars and millions of person-hours. Unlike helmets, which are known to actually prevent some injuries, TSA is also effectively useless at its intended goal.

It's hypocritical of you to not be wearing full body chain mail to protect yourself from bullets and stabbings.

There's more gunshots and stabbings than people injuring their head on bicycles.

You can buy a suit of chainmail for the same price as a modern bicycle.

Its minimal cost.

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

#118

Post by yellowapple »

Nextgrid wrote: post #85
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…

The problem is that as another commenter points out, passengers wouldn't feel safe next to a helmet-wearing driver while not wearing one themselves. The proper solution here is to provide helmets for passengers as well, but that raises more problems - they needs to be a way to sanitize them, multiple sizes might need to be available (I assume they need to be sized properly for adequate protection?), etc. The aforemen…

Passengers could always bring their own helmets if they feel they're safer wearing one.

EDIT: also, this doesn't explain prohibiting helmets for cargo bikes, too.

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

#119

Post by _Wintermute »

Sebb767 wrote: post #91
_Wintermute wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. Seatbelts are a legal requirement, helmets are not. This is employees wearing body amour, which is seen as either encouraging risk-taking, or giving the illusion that the activity is risky.

In Germany it's actually discussed quite heavily whether to make helmets a legal requirement. I also don't see how you don't think of bikes driving on roads as risky. Even with a helmet, you can get very seriously injured; a helmet will just help you to not die and (hopefully) still walk again afterwards. Feel free to look up images from serious bike accidents; I can't imagine anyone sane risking that, helmet or not.

I cycle 10,000km+ a year in London, so I think I have a better idea about this than the vast majority of HN commenters. I generally wear a helmet, but encouraging and definitely enforcing helmet use is the least effective thing we can do to protect people [0].

https://lmb.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/FJKHORIVUAI799Z.j...

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

#120

Post by stephen_g »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #79
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting! AFAIK, in the Netherlands helmets are considered to slightly reduce safety in the general case (but this is not a strong effect). The general objective is to make infrastructure sufficiently safe so that helmets become redundant.

No amount of infrastructure safety will help if you take a tumble and hit your head - a helmet would totally help. Even experienced cyclists take the occasional fall :)

Yeah, my dad almost died like that. On a separated bike path in very good condition, he would have only been going about 30 km/h given where it was (he can't actually remember what happened due to TBI but managed to make a full recovery after four months of hospital and rehab). Comparing the size of the foam on the impact side of the helmet vs. the other side was amazing, it was squashed to a fraction of the size. If that had been skull straight onto the concrete it would have been lights out pretty much instantly.
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