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Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons

bikebiz.com

631–640 of 797 posts

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

#631
post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That really depends on where you live. In many parts of the US, public transit is non-existent, and there isn't much within walking distance.

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

#632

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.

The seatbelt thing is somewhat illogical. Like if that's the level of risk we deem acceptable for society then things like wingsuit diving and probably even motorcycles, longboarding and bicycling on city streets should also be illegal. Especially if measured by any objective metric like fatality risk per passenger mile.

It's certainly a slippery slope. You will find people who object to "their taxes" being used to do search and rescue, provide wilderness medical treatment, etc. for activities that they consider unreasonably dangerous, e.g. winter hiking up even fairly moderate mountains.

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

#633
post #532

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'd like to wear helmet as a passenger as well as a driver on such bike. The helmet doesn't add almost any inconvenience, is reasonably cheap and light. Why not wear it? I use shared bikes one-way quite often and I usually carry my helmet around, strapped to a backpack. In colder weather I would cycle in a business shirt. No issue with a helmet.

>Why not wear it?

The argument that is mentioned in the article -- "increasing helmet wearing rates make cycling more dangerous per mile... because while helmets definitely help in the event of a crash, that risk compensation results in more collisions. So riders wearing helmets take greater risks, and those driving around them take greater risks too."

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

#634
post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Yes, riding a bike in New York City traffic is generally dangerous. I fixed it by moving out of New York City. Except for the time on a quiet suburban street when my drivetrain inexplicably locked up (never figured out what actually happened) and threw me over the handlebars, or the time when there wasn't much traffic around but there was some slippery garbage truck sludge exudate that I didn't see, which I wiped out…

It is still oddly too much and each time on head. Most bike falls don't end up hitting head either. You seem to be crashing more often then ordinary and the amount of times you hit the head is higher then ordinary.

And yes I use bike fairly often. I know multiple people who use bike fairly often. The only people actually hitting protective gear that often are the ones doing mountain biking. (Which seems to be genuinly dangerous even with the gear.)

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

#635
post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

When we lived in the Netherlands, my wife rode her bike infront of a car at an unmarked crossing where the car had every right of way. The car driver sued for repair fees, but in the end, the car driver had to pay her compensation instead. It doesn't matter that he had right of way, he was the "stronger" side and hurt someone weaker by not being cautious enough. There's obviously more nuance to the laws there, but th…

I love the distinction between stronger and weaker road users.

With more power comes more responsibility, put into practice.

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

#636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it optimizing for customers, when customers don’t wear helmets either?

Because the crashes are less likely when the driver is not wearing a helmet. This is sort of the point of the article.

Sorry I wasn't clear. How is it optimizing for customers at the cost of drivers, which is what the post I was replying to said?

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

#637
> seem to be ‘much more likely’

I'd expect something more solid than "seem to be" as evidence from someone demanding I not wear a cycle helmet.

There is evidence that some drivers are less careful around cyclists wearing helmets meaning there are more accidents, but if you look deeper into to those stats most of the extra incidents are relatively minor and on the major ones significant head injuries are more common. So more a few more incidents, but the survivability rate is still better overall with a helmet.

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

#638
post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No one has ever been injured cycling on a trail! It’s amazing how the laws of physics no longer apply once you stop sharing infrastructure with motor vehicles. More seriously, you can easily hit a rock or something and go over the handlebars on a bike path.

It isn't a binary thing but a rate.

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

#639
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

You can do so in lab environments, not in real world situations.

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

#640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the crashes are less likely when the driver is not wearing a helmet. This is sort of the point of the article.

Sorry I wasn't clear. How is it optimizing for customers at the cost of drivers , which is what the post I was replying to said?

While number of crashes are likely getting reduced, head injuries to drivers may increase or be fatal.
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