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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

#441

Post by stevejb »

bluejekyll wrote: post #389
323 wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cycling is risky. I've stopped cycling on roads with cars because I realized it's just a matter of time until I get in a serious accident. https://www.washingtonpost.com/express/wp/2016/05/12/how-saf... I'm with you on the mandatory helmet issue, I don't like it either, but mostly because I don't like needlessly restricting ones freedoms, if you want to risk your life, that's fine with me as long as you don't risk ot…

Cycling is only risky due to the shared infrastructure with cars. The thing that raises the risk is cars. We should all be demanding that our streets are made safe for all users. We already have sidewalks in many places for this reason, we just need to extend similar safe infrastructure to bicycles and other road users too. Just throwing your hands up and not asking for change is a sure way to not improve things.

I used to live next to a popular bike trail, that had 0 sharing with cars. Not a road within 50 meters. There were plenty of injuries. Bike vs bike, bike vs pedestrian, bike vs stationary object, distracted cyclist injures themselves. Etc. If you're going 30 km/hr in thin lycra, you can certainly injure yourself with no help from anyone or anything else.

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

#442

Post by [deleted] »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #433
pengaru wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cycling has a pretty high probability of crashing/falling, and in such an event there's a good chance your face/head will impact something. Not that I'm in favor of requiring wearing any safety gear, I'm totally in favor of weeding out morons from the gene pool. But to act like helmets aren't a good idea for cyclists is asinine. Personally I try always rock a full-face MTB helmet when I'm cycling.

The full-face helmets provide much better protection, but they have the trade-offs of being more uncomfortable and hotter. I'm not convinced that cycling is especially dangerous and my experience is that I've inevitably put my hands out when falling, so I think that gloves should be the first part of PPE recommended for cyclists. Luckily, I've never hit my helmet/head when coming off so I've found that a bike helmet…

[deleted]

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

#443

Post by Covzire »

backtoyoujim wrote: post #428
rollcat wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Background: I do downhill longboarding as a hobby. > If some riders choose to not wear a helmet [...] ...we take their board from them, until they show up with one. This sport is almost completely unregulated (outside of official events), but somehow the community has developed an incredibly strong culture of keeping both yourself and the others around you safe. I guess something about being a niche sport, perhaps a…

Freedom in an unregulated space requires less freedom for the individual, I suppose.

Doesn't have to be a zero sum game, they may be free but have a strong safety culture for another reason.

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

#444

Post by DeWilde »

prepend wrote: post #296
spankalee wrote: post #272

I once saw an accident where a cyclist going straight through an intersection was hit by an oncoming truck turning left that was impatient, didn't see the cyclist and gunned it between cars. The cyclist was launched headfirst into the bumper of a car stopped at the light and her helmet loudly cracked in two. She was still hurt, but I'm sure she would have died without that helmet. If some riders choose to not wear a…

This is one of those situations where there is a lot of fear and anecdotes but data shows that more accidents and injuries occur with helmets than without. A company should design their safety protocol well and it includes what equipment workers should and should not wear to protect them best. So prohibiting helmets is very responsible. Criticizing them seems to be taking an irrational stance that it’s better to addr…

Statistics also show that increased ice cream sale rate correlates with increased drownings occurrences.

So that means ice cream causes drownings and that we should ban it? Or it happens that ice cream eating and swimming both happen during the summer.

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

#445

Post by dougmsmith »

eloff wrote: post #424
spankalee wrote: post #272

I once saw an accident where a cyclist going straight through an intersection was hit by an oncoming truck turning left that was impatient, didn't see the cyclist and gunned it between cars. The cyclist was launched headfirst into the bumper of a car stopped at the light and her helmet loudly cracked in two. She was still hurt, but I'm sure she would have died without that helmet. If some riders choose to not wear a…

I had a near miss like this that really scared me in Vancouver. I was going straight, and the light went yellow just before I got to the intersection. Thinking like a car, I speed up to clear the intersection before the red light. An oncoming car in the left lane also sped up to make a left turn. I don't remember if he indicated, certainly I didn't see it. We both slammed on the brakes and narrowly missed each other.…

No post body was provided.

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

#446

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

taeric wrote: post #383
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pictures that I've seen of the various "saved my life" destroyed helmets have the polystyrene split apart - it's usually quite easy to split polystyrene if the force is applied the right (wrong) way.

Interesting and scary. Curious what could cause the wrong behavior.

I'd guess impacts at different angles. AFAIK bike helmets are tested for direct impacts via drop tests, so manufacturers may not care so much about how the helmet performs under different conditions - it may even be a good marketing gimmick to have helmets destroy themselves dramatically as people are more likely to share a picture along with a "saved my life" anecdote.

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

#447

Post by tboughen »

op00to wrote: post #423
cycomanic wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a cycling accident when out training on a road bike coming down a hill doing about 50km/h and a delivery van turned in front of me into a parking lot. I hit the side of the van put a big dent in it and fractured my clavicle and t6 and had several cuts in my face. The helmet I was wearing was completely disintegrated on the side I hit the car with. Fortunately I was visiting Australia were cycling helmets were m…

> it’s true that drivers are more aggressive towards helmet wearers Citation, please? > can't think of an accident where a helmet would help when I'm on the cargo bike. Right hook.

“cyclists were given 8.5cm (3.3 inches) more clearance by cars if they were not wearing helmets.”

https://helmets.org/walkerstudy.htm

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

#448

Post by mhmmbt »

backtoyoujim wrote: post #428
rollcat wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Background: I do downhill longboarding as a hobby. > If some riders choose to not wear a helmet [...] ...we take their board from them, until they show up with one. This sport is almost completely unregulated (outside of official events), but somehow the community has developed an incredibly strong culture of keeping both yourself and the others around you safe. I guess something about being a niche sport, perhaps a…

Freedom in an unregulated space requires less freedom for the individual, I suppose.

No post body was provided.

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

#449

Post by skeeter2020 »

alexggordon wrote: post #344

Note, these are not normal bikes. From the article: > A major cause of head injuries is going over the handlebars, which is not possible with a 3 metre long bike. Another thing that makes us unique is our training systems, maintenance systems, and ability to track poor rider behaviour. Made me curious what they actually look like[0]. Seeing that, I’d tend to reset my presumptions about wearing helmets with these. The…

I changed my mind; I don't think any of the people, the driver/pedaller nor the passengers should have to wear helmets because that would make them look stupid!

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

#450

Post by anotherboffin »

ChoGGi wrote: post #255
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…

I forget the name of them, but there's those expensive air bag helmets, I think those are a one size fits all.

Hövding?

I thought they had two sizes, but maybe not the new ones.

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