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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

#221

Post by [deleted] »

aaaaaaaaata wrote: post #142
ekianjo wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

[deleted]

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

#222

Post by Brian_K_White »

breakfastduck wrote: post #167
Brian_K_White wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who decided that was reasonable? I certainly did not.

You dont think its reasonable to offer passengers the option to wear a helmet? I suppose it's also not reasonable to provide seatbelts to passengers as well as the driver of a taxi?

"You dont think its reasonable to offer passengers the option to wear a helmet?"

No. Which means it's not automatically "the reasonable thing", just an opinion.

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

#223

Post by mcherm »

hammock wrote: post #214
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…

>passengers wouldn't feel safe next to a helmet-wearing driver while not wearing one themselves. Wouldn't the same apply to mask wearing? Yet we consistently see service employees wearing them and customers not.

> Wouldn't the same apply to mask wearing?

No, for a ton of reasons. Off the top of my head:

(1) Masks are more effective at preventing transmission than reception.

(2) Different individuals have different levels of concern, which might lead one to choose a mask and another to choose not to wear one.

(3) Different individuals face different levels of risk. The person who is immunocompromised may wear a mask even when it would make no sense for other people.

(4) The customer may encounter 2-3 service employees in a day; the service employee may encounter hundreds of customers in the same time.

And that's without even getting into political issues (in the US, where mask-wearing has become politicized).

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

#224

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

whimsicalism wrote: post #218
zmgsabst wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Note, I doubt that this is actually true, but I wanted to highlight your moral apriori claims as ridiculous. You failed to do that: You didn’t address the agency problem where the 15 chose to engage in risky behavior while that 1 was coerced into dying — and ignoring the role of agency in the Trolley Problem is amateur hour. The helmets didn’t kill anyone, their following choices while wearing helmets did; which is…

They were not coerced into dying. I prefer fewer people dying personally, your mileage might vary. All I can say is I am glad that the actual people making decisions seem to also prefer fewer people dying over non-coercion.

>They were not coerced into dying

Despite this bare denial, I believe "coerced into dying" to be an accurate description of someone coerced into not wearing a helmet dying of head injuries from an unavoidable accident

sorry, that's not a coercion I'm willing to make. First, do no harm. Come back when you've tried safer ways to reduce risky behavior.

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

#225

Post by mcherm »

shkkmo wrote: post #210
indymike wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can prove that helmets reduce head injuries both in quantity and severity.

You have the exact same causal issue to untangle. Do safer riders wear helmets or does wear a helmet make you safer as a rider? In reality there are confounds both directions. The effects of helmet wearing are higly contingent based on the geography and demographics.

Yes, but it IS possible to do research that untangles these effects.

Here is a review (from just 3 years ago) of such studies:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136984781...

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

#226

Post by stfp »

wasmitnetzen wrote: post #128
y7 wrote: 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.

One flaw in this logic: helmets don't protect against cars ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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

#227

Post by Jensson »

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?

Every single winter lots of people fall when walking or jogging.

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

#228

Post by ntoskrnl »

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…

"We're sorry your husband got a concussion, but at least his passenger felt safe!"

This isn't the 70s. Just give everyone helmets. Passengers included. And yes you should clean them. If you're running a business I'm sure you can afford some little bottles of alcohol spray.

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

#229

Post by mcherm »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #222
breakfastduck wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You dont think its reasonable to offer passengers the option to wear a helmet? I suppose it's also not reasonable to provide seatbelts to passengers as well as the driver of a taxi?

"You dont think its reasonable to offer passengers the option to wear a helmet?" No. Which means it's not automatically "the reasonable thing", just an opinion.

Just because one person disagrees doesn't mean it isn't reasonable. I've met people who (claim to) believe the earth is flat, but surely no one would consider that belief "reasonable".

So I'm curious what the REASONING is behind your feeling that offering passengers the option to wear a helmet is unreasonable. Personally, I would AGREE that offering passengers on a pedicab the option of a pineapple would be unreasonable. There just isn't any practical correlation between pineapples and pedicabs. But helmets are different: there are large numbers of people who campaign vigorously to persuade others to wear helmets when on a bike; many places even have laws mandating helmets on bikes, at least for some ages. So it is a plausible thing for passengers to want. Given that, why would it be unreasonable to offer it?

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