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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

#501

Post by threeseed »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #479
op00to wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

There's this Ian Walker study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00014... It's a small sample size, so take with a pinch of salt.

Refutation of the Walker study which "assesses the extent to which the sample size in the original analysis may have contributed to spurious results".

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3783373/

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

#502

Post by watwut »

calibas wrote: post #478

"If you're driving so dangerously that you feel the need to wear a seat belt, you shouldn't be driving a car."

That is actually true. If your driving style involves you feeling those seat belts or situations in which you think you might crash, the your driving style is too dangerous. Once in a few years close call? ok. Regularly feeling like you need seatbelts? You should not be driving and should take safety focused additional lessons.

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

#503

Post by ornornor »

ascar wrote: post #297
sokoloff wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also significant legal penalties for being at-fault and injuring/killing a cyclist in the Netherlands as compared to the US.

Can you elaborate? The US has such a high incarceration rate for in European eyes often benign offenses that I find that statement hard to believe even though I don't know the Dutch laws (I'm German). E.g. I can't imagine a Dutch person being incarcerated for injuring a cyclist unless it's on alcohol/drugs. I can totally imagine that for the US though. But I might be totally wrong. Would be really curious for some de…

My experience in NA was that killing a pedestrian or a cyclist with your car is actually the easiest way to get away with murder. At worst you’ll get away with a 500$ fine, at best nothing. And “wooops didn’t see them, the sun was in my eyes” is a valid defense.

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

#504

Post by gernb »

rollcat wrote: post #359
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…

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…

I''m not defending Pedal Me but you could try to design the city so biking is safer

https://www.treehugger.com/why-dutch-dont-wear-helmets-48581...

Sure you can still get in an accident. That's true of everything though. I don't go for a walk in a plastic bubble just in case a car hits me

https://www.google.com/search?q=cars+hitting+pedestrians&tbm...

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

#505

Post by usrusr »

bluejekyll wrote: post #463
stevejb wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is a common issue in this discussion. People using bikes for sport is a different category for cyclist than an urban and/or casual rider. When cycling for sport you should always wear a helmet.

If you put on special dress for an activity, don't skip the helmet. Same as driving, actually: people who don special driving kit wear a helmet with that, everybody else drives without.

When I spent time in a French hospital after bike helmet use (not involving a car by the way, except for the ambulance that called the helicopter), I was really curious if I would continue that pattern or become of of those "helmet even on civilian clothes rides" people. Was expecting the latter, but nope, would still feel as alien as putting on a helmet to drive.

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

#506

Post by rhinoceraptor »

profile53 wrote: post #499
rhinoceraptor wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should drivers also be required to wear helmets? Driving a car is itself unsafe, motor vehicle accidents are one of the leading causes of TBIs.

I don’t think helmets would mitigate that risk. For comparison, should bicyclists be required to wear seatbelts?

Race car drivers wear helmets, so clearly they help.

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

#508

Post by threeseed »

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.

> We should all be demanding that our streets are made safe for all users

We should also be demanding that there is no crime as well.

But outside of this fantasy land you need to accept that cyclists will be interacting with cars at multiple points in their journey from A to B. There are just too many practical issues building an entirely seperate cycling network.

So until this magical day cycling should be considered risky.

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

#509

Post by Matthias247 »

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…

Sure. It makes the profile slightly different. But is it enough different to eg say the risk of head injury is 99% reduced? I doubt it.

Theres plenty of scenarios left. What about and impact from the side and the rider falling in an arbitrary direction? A car rear ending it? And while a front-flip due to heavy breaking is unlikely, I’m sure if the front tire hits a high enough obstacle at enough speed it would still do it

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

#510

Post by threeseed »

grey_earthling wrote: post #426
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…

Sounds more like it's the cars that are risky, not the cycling.

Well done. You've figured out that cars are in fact incredibly dangerous objects.

Now you just need to figure out how to cycle from A to B that doesn't interact with them.

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