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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

#611

Post by Drunk_Engineer »

kevinpet wrote: post #576
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…

Helmets, even the light helmets bicyclist wear, are very effective at reducing the severity of head injuries. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24686160/ That isn't to say that a policy of requiring helmets is good on net (because people may ride less), but in any accident that you hit your head, you would greatly benefit from wean a helmet.

This is junk science. The authors simply did the ANSI drop-test in a lab test. In the real-world, 99% of bike crashes with death/severe injury are the result of car-crashes -- which the ANSI drop-test does not model correctly at all.

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

#612

Post by ghaff »

progman32 wrote: post #485
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People do still receive head injuries from car collisions even with airbags and seatbelts, so it's reasonable to think that wearing a car helmet would provide additional head protection - it's certainly common in motorsport. I'm trying to compare activities that have a significant risk of head injuries (and deaths) with cycling and yet PPE is very rarely mentioned for them.

Perhaps those activities _should_ be discussing helmets.

Most sports where participants could materially benefit from helmet use absolutely do discuss helmets though usage varies from common (e.g. recreational downhill skiing) to almost universal--whitewater kayaking.

Downhill skiing in particular has transition from essential no non-racers wearing a helmet to quite a high percentage in maybe a couple of decades.

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

#613

Post by isbvhodnvemrwvn »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #421

I haven't seen anyone mentioning the Ian Walker study on drivers' responses to cyclists with and without helmets. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00014...

I don't have access to the study, but wasn't it the one where:

- the author was the only person studied

- the difference wasn't that big

?

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

#614

Post by GuB-42 »

UncleMeat wrote: post #373
988747 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't that be seen as an argument against seatbelts and airbags as well?

Not really, because people perceive the threat differently. A spike in the steering wheel is very obviously extremely dangerous. Not having a functioning airbag is invisible. If you are trying to change people's behavior, the perception of risk is more important than the actual statistical risk.

People will get used to that spike. People get used to a lot of dangerous and scary things. Going faster than walking speed and operating heavy machinery is dangerous and scary if you are not used to it, and yet, people do it every day without a giving second thought.

People will need constant reminders that that spike is dangerous, like seeing people they know die from it. So it is essentially advocating that in order to make less people die from car accidents, we have to make more people die from car accidents, which make no sense.

Protective equipment, and the absence of spikes on the steering wheel work. For example, machine tools today are much safer than they once where, resulting in much less workplace accidents. By the Tullock's spike standards, removing the cover between you and that blade loudly spinning at high speed should improve safety by making people more careful, it doesn't, and there are few more obvious threats than that.

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

#615

Post by isbvhodnvemrwvn »

ionwake wrote: post #494
cowtools wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What studies? Also, the purpose of helmets is not to reduce the number of injuries, but the severity.

You’re most probably another American as there is less bike use there. Google the studies. They create more accidents with varying severities including death while wearing said helmet hence they are more dangerous and so aren’t made mandatory.

It's on you to prove the claim. Post the full text of studies.

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

#616

Post by moralestapia »

arjvik wrote: post #146
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…

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…

>Correlation vs causation much?

Oh I'm so tired of this meme!

Plenty of times causation is found through correlation. Plenty. Of. Times.

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

#617

Post by michaelmrose »

It is insane to presuppose that a particular employee will take additional risk load if you allow them to take appropriate safety measures.

It tries to maximize expected utility based on dubious analysis while denying people the privilege of making the vastly simpler and actually maximum choice of riding safely and wearing a helmet.

Privileging complicated nonsense over straightforward analysis and the companies analysis of net utility over individual freedom to protect themselves is nuts.

This is important to all but likely more so to people who would experience a larger than average risk and thus likely to be denied the ability to work in a profession they could do sufficient safety if not denied safety gear.

It is thus inherently biased against many riders who have a higher risk of injury than average but not unacceptably so.

It also keeps users from responding to increased risk driven by changing road conditions by substituting the companies policy for individuals judgement.

For example riders cannot respond to icy road conditions or known dangerous areas.

I see this as ripe for inevitable claims as far as bias against classes of individuals and injury claims.

People are going to be injured in situations where they can trivially argue that a helmet would have mitigated the damage. With the rate of injury everyone who would prefer to wear a helmet ought to send a certified letter to that effect to the company.

The ones that have the misfortune to be seriously injured will at least have the comfort of owning whatever is left of the company in 2023/24

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

#618

Post by celticninja »

blfr wrote: post #610
bad_alloc wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is it okay for you to set the acceptable risk bar and steal boards from anyone that doesn't agree? For the same reason we enforce seatbelts in cars: Enough people died. Then those who saw them die decided on these rules so we don't need to go through the same pain. The fact that you don't get this shows that the rules work.

OK but longboarding is not essential like general transportation. Why ban helmet-less longboarding instead of the whole thing?

Cars aren't essential by that measure.

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

#619

Post by aspenmayer »

blfr wrote: post #610
bad_alloc wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is it okay for you to set the acceptable risk bar and steal boards from anyone that doesn't agree? For the same reason we enforce seatbelts in cars: Enough people died. Then those who saw them die decided on these rules so we don't need to go through the same pain. The fact that you don't get this shows that the rules work.

OK but longboarding is not essential like general transportation. Why ban helmet-less longboarding instead of the whole thing?

You ruin the roadway for responsible users by maligning the good name and reputation of your fellow riders when you do so.

I mean to say, riders overwhelmingly want to be safe and it seems to be both self-selecting and self-reinforcing. Outlaw riders are free to ride alone.

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

#620

Post by hklgny »

aeternum wrote: post #603
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…

Don't you think it's a little hypocritical to force everyone to draw their acceptable risk line at exactly where you happen to draw it? Longboarding is risky, downhill longboarding is riskier, doing it without a helmet slightly moreso, doing it naked probably slightly moreso. Why is it okay for you to set the acceptable risk bar and steal boards from anyone that doesn't agree? Should people that think that downhill l…

Unregulated sports like this are a delicate thing. It’s up to the participants to self regulate and avoid catching the public eye so they don’t lose access to the areas they get to enjoy. This is a huge thing in FAR 103 sports (ultralight flying). Unregulated doesn’t mean “do whatever you want” it means “we’ve given you some leeway here don’t mess it up”.

In this example, If people start getting hurt on a hill - sooner or later using that hill gets banned.

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