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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

#131

Post by newaccount74 »

scotty79 wrote: post #96
perlgeek wrote: post #5

This assumes that the risk primarily originates from the riders, not from other traffic participants. Is there any data to substantiate this?

Other participants take less risk with riders not wearing helmets. There's data on this. For example they leave more room between the bicycle and a car when they are passing.

As long as they see me I don't worry. They might do stupid stuff like honk at me or pass with small distance, but it's unlikely they'll kill me.

The thing I'm afraid of is a car hitting me at high speed cause they didn't see me, that would probably kill me.

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

#132

Post by _Wintermute »

Nextgrid wrote: post #111
_Wintermute wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fi…

I see at least one or two of them every time I commute across London, they seem predominantly used for transporting items rather than people.

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

#133

Post by whimsicalism »

yellowapple wrote: post #109
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.

> 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…

You believe that if the evidence indicates more people would die with the helmets, it would still be morally verboten even though it would be a statistical certainty your omission of action is basically causing people's deaths when we are talking about large numbers of people?

Crazy. I suspect you are actually reasoning from your thought that people are more likely to die without helmets and ignoring the premise of the question, or at least I hope that is what you are doing.

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

#134

Post by isbvhodnvemrwvn »

mrpopo wrote: post #126
wl wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When you get side-swept by a car you're going to fall. Getting rammed from the side or behind is not the only collision scenario, and getting side-swept seems like an extremely more likely scenario in London out of all places, where traffic in general is slow.

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

#135

Post by Nextgrid »

Simon_O_Rourke wrote: post #112
Nextgrid wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

I very much doubt this service is sustainable so most likely this is just a stop-gap/desperate hack until they reach their "exit", whether yet another round of VC money, a buy-out by a bigger idiot or quietly shutting down.

I bet they all know this isn't viable and just hope this problem disappears before an accident actually happens and brings this in front of a court.

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

#136

Post by Sebb767 »

_Wintermute wrote: post #119
Sebb767 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Well, if you think wearing a helmet increases risk, why do you wear one?

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to force anyone to wear a helmet. It's completely fine if one wants to take that risk. But forbidding them is just insane.

Also, helmets are not a get-out-of-jail-free-card. They increase your chances of survival in case of a crash, you will still get injured. Protecting people might be the least effective thing compared to eliminating the hazard, but splitting cars and bikes is simply not always an option.

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

#137

Post by wl »

scotty79 wrote: post #94
wl wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The point is the risk on the road is smaller when you don't wear a helmet because drivers take less risk with you. Even better if you are a woman in summer dress. Then the drivers give you way more space and are super careful around you. It was researched.

I think you're referring to Ian Walker's study. Yes, motorists on average passed helmeted cyclists closer than non-helmeted ones. The difference in average passing distance wasn't huge (1.3 m vs. 1.2 m) and was still a safe distance.

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

#138

Post by loloquwowndueo »

mrpopo wrote: post #122
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Unless the bike is made of rubber, you can totally hit your head somewhere on the bike.

Also look at the amount of car vs. bike accidents where the cyclists head smashes against the windshield. A helmet protects in that case too.

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

#139

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

moonbug wrote: post #90
teruakohatu wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comments like this do not make HN a better place. If you think helmets are a safety hazard, please make your case rather than mocking the OP.

HN is not a good place.

Hm. Pretty jaded towards here and everything, and I hadn't made my way to that, yet.

I'm sure one can make a case for it — but do you really feel that way as a default?

Why do you remain, if so?

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

#140

Post by eropple »

sampo wrote: post #80
davidg109 wrote: post #34

Do drivers take greater risks from wearing a seatbelt? Where’s the data to substantiate their claims?

> Do drivers take greater risks from wearing a seatbelt? Some people have suggested even that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation#Seat_belts

Followed immediately in the same section by a wider, more comprehensive, more recent study roundly asserting the exact opposite.
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