Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by gus_massa » Sun, May 22, 2022, 1:34 PM UTC

andrenotgiant wrote: post #13

tomphoolery wrote: post #6

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.

https://researchportal.bath.ac.uk/en/publications/bicycle-he...

From the abstract:

> The distribution of overtaking events shifted just over one-fifth of a standard deviation closer to the rider – a potentially important behaviour if, as theoretical frameworks suggest, near-misses and collisions lie on a continuum.

Looking at the graph in figure 1, "one-fifth of a standard" looks as unimpressive as expected. The distance from the kerb looks much more relevant.

IIUC all the analysis is based on 2355 data gathered by Walker riding a bike himself a few years ago between two cities. It's not a mix of data from different persons or a mix of city and countryside rides. The most interesting part is that Walker published 5 articles about the same data, and he got a different result in each one.

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

#142

Post by aaaaaaaaata » Sun, May 22, 2022, 1:35 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #129

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'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…

I've seen research stating adjacent car drivers will give less space to a cyclist wearing a helmet due to implied added safety.

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

#143

Post by h2odragon » Sun, May 22, 2022, 1:35 PM UTC

Individual choice? Perhaps some people really do have more awareness without a helmet? Maybe the individual involved is the only one that can decide if a helmet is better for them or not?

Why can't our prejudices on this be just our own? We don't have to mandate them for others.

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

#144

Post by nbernard » Sun, May 22, 2022, 1:35 PM UTC

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…

> It ignores that much of the risk comes from outside of the drivers control.

True; on the other hand I remember (I don't have a handy reference, sorry) a study showing that car drivers were leaving less space around cyclists wearing a helmet (hence increasing the probability of a collision) than around those without...

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

#145

Post by grapeskin » Sun, May 22, 2022, 1:35 PM UTC

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…

Even in Vietnam the scooter-taxi services provide helmets for passengers.

A first world country has zero excuse.

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

#146

Post by arjvik » Sun, May 22, 2022, 1:35 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #129

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'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…

Correlation vs causation much?

In order to show that helmets *cause* accidents, they need to create a randomized study where they force employees to flip a coin to decide whether to wear a helmet or not.

Otherwise, here's one plausible scenario: Employees who work in tiny suburbs with small roads and very little traffic feel safer, and this are less likely to wear a helmet. They get in less crashes because their town has fewer and safer drivers. Employees working in the city have more crashes simply because of being in a busy city, so they are more likely to wear helmets.

Right now, you cannot prove that helmets cause crashes and not the above.

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

#147

Post by judofyr » Sun, May 22, 2022, 1:35 PM UTC

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.

> It was researched.

Citation needed please.

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

#148

Post by Kim_Bruning » Sun, May 22, 2022, 1:35 PM UTC

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 :)

Technically you are correct that wearing a helmet does reduce risk of head injury somewhat. However -when infrastructure for cycling is already very safe- you start seeing all sorts of strange statistical effects; and it is not immediately obvious that helmets are a net benefit.

As an example of one of the more funny&misleading statistics: People who wear bicycle helmets in the Netherlands actually end up in hospital more often. https://waronthemotorist.wordpress.com/2012/06/28/who-are-al...

I looked around a bit to see if I could find a paper that takes a balanced view. This particular paper seems to be a bit more from your perspective where wearing helmets might be of some utility. However it does leave the impression that it is would actually be somewhat hard to break even on wearing helmets in the Netherlands. https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s...

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

#149

Post by indymike » Sun, May 22, 2022, 1:36 PM UTC

_Wintermute wrote: post #78

Sebb767 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like if a delivery company banned their drivers from installing seat belts and airbags. Even if you are a perfect driver, other people aren't and on a bike, your will be the one hurting after a crash.

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.

I'm pretty sure a professional looking branded helmet would be better for business. This is just a classic case of putting the employee at risk of injury to scire some tiny marketing points. This is an easy decision. Endanger employees or make a tiny bit more money. Factor in one lawsuit and all the profit will be gone.

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

#150

Post by mrgoldenbrown » Sun, May 22, 2022, 1:36 PM UTC

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.

Is the data you're talking about the data from Ian Walker's study in Bath, England? The sample size was one rider - himself. Other folks have analyzed his raw data and disputed the statistical power of the effect described. That rebuttal has also been re-rebutted. So that's three published studies about this, and three sets of headlines, but as far as I can tell, there's only ever been one actual study that collected data, and it was based on one dude in one area of one country.