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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

#661

Post by charles_f »

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…

> A major cause of head injuries is going over the handlebars, which is not possible with a 3 metre long bike.

Disregards that going over the handlebars happens in case if frontal collision, which can definitely happen with a 15m bike. Would you hurt your head? Who knows, because they're not looking at that statistics.

> makes us unique is our training systems, maintenance systems, and ability to track poor rider behaviour

Victim blaming. Assumes that accidents can be prevented by having a safer behaviour. They're lowered, sure, but anecdotally in all the bike accidents of people I know, the car involved did something stupid, and there's no prevention from that, whatever you train people for, short of not going on the road, they're at the mercy of people driving 2 tons of steel whilst texting. Multiply by the extended time they spend out, and it becomes statistics

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

#662

Post by ghaff »

MandieD wrote: post #653
ghaff wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In 2009, a German state governor caused a terrible skiing accident, which he survived but the victim didn't. He was wearing a helmet, she wasn't, and after that point, helmet sales in Germany and Austria shot through the roof and use has remained high. Before that, it was pretty much only racers and children.

Natasha Richardson (reasonably well-known actress) also died the same year from a skiing-related brain bleed. And yeah, while I haven't had a lot of visibility into ski area helmet usage over the past decade, that does seem to be around the time when it really shot up.

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

#663

Post by serf »

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…

No post body was provided.

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

#664

Post by serf »

Widdershin wrote: post #490
jasonkester wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you suppose happened to the rest of skateboarding that pushed it in the opposite direction? Watching the olympics this summer, it was amazing to watch the street skating events with none of the competitors wearing any sort of protective gear. And it’s not like they didn’t need it either. They were getting wrecked in falls to the point where some of the couldn’t even finish the competition. It was nuts watchin…

You wouldn’t generally exceed 15mph street skating. Competent downhill skaters can reach 50mph+, with world record speeds exceeding 80mph. That alone makes safety gear much more essential for downhill. In addition, if someone shows up to a spot without adequate gear, crashes and badly hurts themselves, it can cause the spot to be blown for other riders. Downhill skateboarding is much easier when you’re on the good si…

> You wouldn’t generally exceed 15mph street skating. Competent downhill skaters can reach 50mph+, with world record speeds exceeding 80mph.

it's all context, no?

You wouldn't try to trick over a 17ft drop on a longboard, either. [0]

[0]: https://www.vice.com/en/article/kzn58e/the-leap-of-faith-was...

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

#665

Post by cameronh90 »

throwawayhelmet wrote: post #44

Okay, true story. Years ago I struggled with this exact logic regarding skiing with helmet. After serious consideration I decided to start skiing so carefully that I do not need a helmet. As you may guess at this point, The very first day I left my helmet home, I got into an accident and got a skull fracture. I started using my helmet again after that. (But another safety related thing I have started to really doubt.…

My old boss was an experienced skier on an organised cross country ski tour and got killed by an avalanche. It was in a low avalanche risk area with no avalanches forecast, and he was wearing all safety equipment, including one of those balloons. Medical help was almost immediate and nobody else on the tour was seriously injured.

Sometimes the universe just wants you dead.

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

#666

Post by dd82 »

_abox wrote: post #542
idiotsecant wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could have the best designed city in the world and you will still be at a high risk of your fragile brain case impacting the ground or something worse at speed. Whether you're pedaling down a country road or the busiest NYC intersection not wearing a helmet on a bike is stupid, full stop.

In the Netherlands we're doing fine without them though. Nobody wears one on a regular bike. I've had a few times where I slipped so fast I didn't even remember what happened but every time my arm was there protecting my head. Reflexes are awesome. Accidents can happen sure but the added hassle doesn't seem worth it. Of course things are different when you do high speed cycling or mountain biking.

>I've had a few times where I slipped so fast I didn't even remember what happened but every time my arm was there protecting my head. Reflexes are awesome.

isn't this a good example of confirmation bias? it worked for you, so it must work for everyone the same as it did for you each time they require it.

its your brain, I guess. and you do have that social health network to cover you when medical issues arise. guess it doesn't matter your quality of life post-brain injury :-)

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

#667

Post by seoaeu »

whimsicalism wrote: post #133
yellowapple wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe there are some cases where safety protections make people act dumber And I don't believe that to be a justification for removing those safety protections entirely. This ain't some data science problem to be solved; this is ethics and morality, and there is precisely nothing ethical or moral about demanding that your employees make themselves less safe and then having the gall to pretend that this somehow…

You believe that if the evidence indicates more people would die with the helmets, it would still be morally verboten even though it would be a statistical certainty your omission of action is basically causing people's deaths when we are talking about large numbers of people? Crazy. I suspect you are actually reasoning from your thought that people are more likely to die without helmets and ignoring the premise of t…

I think there has to be substantial if not overwhelming evidence of increased risk before it would be moral to ban employees from using a given piece of safety equipment. And given the long history of companies not caring for the welfare of their workers, the evidence should be peer reviewed and coming from independent researchers rather than clearly biased sources

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

#668

Post by wolverine876 »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #303
timbaboon wrote: post #278

End of 2020 I had a serious bike accident. I was specifically riding slowly and carefully because I did not want to fall and end up in hospital - in the middle of the second wave in SA and a shortage of hospital space. Even so, I had the most ridiculous and embarrassing crash, whilst hardly moving, and ended up in the ER. I was wearing a helmet and I still got a concussion. My helmet was broken and certainly saved me…

Yeah, not sure how more careful a rider you can be when you have your own toddler in a child-seat behind you — and yet my bike went down on an unexpectedly slick part of the pavement. I had a helmet on, as did my toddler. I don't buy the argument that because someone has a helmet on they're intentionally (or even subconsciously) reckless. Shit can happen.

> Yeah, not sure how more careful a rider you can be when you have your own toddler in a child-seat behind you — and yet my bike went down on an unexpectedly slick part of the pavement. I had a helmet on, as did my toddler.

How does one safely transport a toddler? I am not asking incredulously, but curiously. I am an experienced cyclist; I don't know if I'd feel safe doing it, but I haven't looked into it either. Maybe a helmet is sufficient? And cars aren't perfectly safe either.

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

#669

Post by BrianHenryIE »

bagels wrote: post #488
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.

That's what airbags are supposed to help with, thankfully.

Yet 53,000 people a year in the US suffer traumatic brain injuries from motor vehicle crashes.

If we are to believe a helmet will help a cyclist, it must be true that helmets would have helped those drivers and passengers too.

The airbag argument is just distracting. "Let's not use antivirus because we already have a firewall".

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7048a3.htm#T2_down

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

#670

Post by mrraj »

I'd assume their dataset are professional couriers, Despite that, there are actually a few good examples of safety equipment causing more injury. Off the top of my head, striking combat sports have a similar opinion of headgear in sparring, it causes the participants to throw harder resulting in more head trauma. Similar sentiments with helmets & padding in football.

A bit apples and oranges with cycling as these are more example of mutually assured self destruction vs a car pulling out in front of you.

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