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Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons

bikebiz.com

121–130 of 797 posts

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

#121

Okay, true story. Years ago I struggled with this exact logic regarding skiing with helmet. After serious consideration I decided to start skiing so carefully that I do not need a helmet. As you may guess at this point, The very first day I left my helmet home, I got into an accident and got a skull fracture. I started using my helmet again after that. (But another safety related thing I have started to really doubt.…

Michael Schumacher would disagree.

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

#122

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 :)

Which they mentioned in the article:

“A major cause of head injuries is going over the handlebars, which is not possible with a 3 metre long bike.

Helmets protect against falls. They don't protect against cars.

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

#123
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 think the point is that you'll have less traumatic brain injuries without helmets than with helmets because you'll have less accidents over all and less severe ones. If a cyclist have a helmet he and everyone around him behaves dumber. This was researched.

> If a cyclist have a helmet he and everyone around him behaves dumber. This was researched.

This seems like an extraordinary claim, given that safety systems in all other places have no such effects (or at least, not as significant). I would very much like to see this research, and even then I would be very wary of it.

Either way, it's irrelevant given the levels of training that they are claiming they demand of their drivers. Given those claims, it's obvious that they helmets + training would be safer than just the training, if the training is good enough to protect the drivers at all.

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

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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

As a biker who understands marginal thinking, 8.5 cm could absolutely be significant from a safety perspective.

The study is disputed by one researcher, the paper I linked contains a rebuttal and I think it is convincing.

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

#125
post #70

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…

> If I was a staff rider, I'd be putting that helmet on and telling Pedal Me to eat an OSHA-sized bag of dicks if they have a problem with it. And then they would fire you and you will have to find a company that allow helmets and everyone will be happy

We can downgrade from OSHA to class action lawyers with this kind of thinking. Seriously why not require helmets and hire for safety, too?

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

#126
post #21
post #2

From [the tweet], "People that are taking risks that are sufficient that they feel they need to wear helmets are not welcome to work for us" [the tweet]: https://twitter.com/pedalmeapp/status/1489594692857647113?s=...

Riding on roads isn't like mountain biking where you mostly control the amount of risk you take on. Riding on roads puts you at the mercy of other people's choices. I feel the need to wear a helmet anytime I'm riding on a road for that reason.

Helmets protect against falls. They don't protect against cars.

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

#127
post #63

Maybe relevant: the Netherlands is probably the country with the highest use of bicycles for transport, yet no one, except for cyclists on racing bikes/MTBs or foreign tourists, ever wears a bike helmet. This is because they're only marginally effective at preventing injury, and the disadvantage of reduced cycling use if helmets are mandated results in far worse public health outcomes. See also https://dutchreview.co…

There is a HUGE difference between NOT REQUIRING helmets and PROHIBITING helmets.

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

#128
post #63

Maybe relevant: the Netherlands is probably the country with the highest use of bicycles for transport, yet no one, except for cyclists on racing bikes/MTBs or foreign tourists, ever wears a bike helmet. This is because they're only marginally effective at preventing injury, and the disadvantage of reduced cycling use if helmets are mandated results in far worse public health outcomes. See also https://dutchreview.co…

To me, that seems like a clear difference in infrastructure. If a biker shares a stretch of asphalt with a car, that's a risk for the biker and they need a helmet. In the Netherlands, this is widely understood and bikes get their own infrastructure everywhere. Only then you don't need helmets anymore at all.

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

#129

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'm sorry, and pardonner mou Français, but what in the actual fuck?

Do you wear a helmet when you drive inside your car? If not, why not? It might make you much safer in case of a crash, according to your reasoning.

Wearing a helmet can itself become a leading factor to cause an incident, and it's clearly what they are hinting at in the linked article: that data seems to indicate that riders wearing helmets may be getting more incidents on average. Then it's a simple equation: number of incidents x gravity of the incident in both A/B scenarios, and compare which one is the most favorable. It's not a question you answer with a "what the actual fuck" kind of reasoning.

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

#130
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that you'll have less traumatic brain injuries without helmets than with helmets because you'll have less accidents over all and less severe ones. If a cyclist have a helmet he and everyone around him behaves dumber. This was researched.

> less traumatic brain injuries without helmets than with helmets because you'll have less accidents over all and less severe ones. Less accidents overall? I can believe that, maybe. But you'll need to back up "less severe ones". If a new driver who's phone distracted them for a split second is going to hit me on my bike, I feel like it's going to be more severe if I don't have a helmet on.

> I feel like it's going to be more severe if I don't have a helmet on.

Without the helmet you die on the road. With the helmet you die at the hospital.

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