I owe my life to a helmet; I sustained a brain injury from a motocross accident as a kid which I would be here had I been helmet-less. Damn you to hell Pedal Me.
Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons
781–790 of 797 posts
Re: Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons
#782Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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...
Sheckler has done bigger and many kids do more than 17ft drops for fun. When it comes to falling in street skating there is a certain pattern to falling and knowing how to “fall correctly” almost like stuntman do without helmets in movies all the time. Stuntman do sometimes wear padding, but not always. Bombing a hill is very different from skating a stair set. The speed at which you do tricks is manageable to be abl…
That’s the way it is! If you’re going to do stuff like that, learning how to crash gracefully is something you should learn up front. Tuck and roll!
Re: Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons
#783Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Do you wear a helmet when you drive inside your car? If not, why not? My car has other safety measures in place to protect me from head injuries. A bicycle does not.
sure, but if a helmet makes things even safer by all means lets mandate helmets in cars. I want people to follow that safety logic to the end.
Who here is saying helmets should be mandated even for bicycles, let alone cars? Why are the only options "pursue safety to its absolute maximum" v. "don't pursue it at all"? Why can't that decision be left to the individual rider, rather than forcing riders to forego safety equipment for astoundingly-lissencephalic rationale like "helmets reduce safety"?
Re: Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons
#784I 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…
The case for helmets on bicycles is less clear cut than it is for more dangerous forms of transit such as downhill longboarding. Among other things it makes car drivers drive more dangerously around you, but it also changes much more common and less dangerous accidents into more dangerous ones. Taking a tumble on a bicycle is generally not fun, but getting your neck twisted due to a helmet isn't improving things.
Of course I come at this from the perspective from a country where there's more miles of cycle lane than miles of car-only roads. Who knows which way the balance tips if you need to mix bicycle and car traffic. To be honest I would simply not ride a bicycle if that was required of me on a regular basis.
Re: Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons
#785I 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 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…
The distance from your head to the ground on a bike is sufficient to cause serious injury of you just fall off. Your individual risk is very low, because you don't fall of bikes often. But multiplied across millions in the population, it starts to make a difference.
Re: Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons
#786Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why not wear it? Car drivers often get head and brain injuries if they are involved in a collision with another car or with a tree/building. Do you wear a helmet when you drive? The helmet doesn't add almost any inconvenience, is reasonably cheap and light, as you say. Unless you're on a racetrack or driving a test vehicle, probably not.
I think most people will disagree with you on how big of an inconvenience a helmet is. At least I will. In Europe most people didn't even wear helmets when they went skiing (on-piste) until a few years ago. Now pretty much everyone does, but it's one more thing you'll carry with you everywhere you go. And on warm days I sometimes have to take my helmet off in the gondola because it gets very warm.
Yeah when I visited Europe I didn't wear a bicycle helmet either. American cities are a different story, with poorly designed roads and poorly designed vehicles with large blind spots around the A pillars especially.
Re: Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons
#787Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sarcasm. If a car isn't beside you they can't side swipe you. You are aware that London basically doesn't have multi lane roads, right?
Why would I be aware of that? A quick Google Maps search shows some multi lane roads.
Because this is a discussion about a London company. If you don't understand the context, you should at least be prepared to learn.
Re: Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons
#788I 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…
What does down hill long boarding have to do with low speed cycling? A bike 15-20mph is much closer to a runner (5-10mph), than your sport (50+ mph). You gonna stop people from running without a helmet?
Their underlying point is we don't have a major problem with people falling off their bikes randomly, we have a problem with multi ton vehicles slamming into bikes and pedestrians. Did you know most bike helmets (not motorcycle ones) aren't tested for the force of car/truck hitting a bike? We need to stop pretending that if people put a helmet on their safe and we can go back to our lives. We need safer separate infrastructure, and if we had that you'd probably not worry so much about helmets.
Re: Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons
#789Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I mean they all wear helmets. Cycling as in road cycling, group rides, as a sport, not for transportation. They're not professional cyclists, they all have other jobs. https://youtu.be/_QUPWs07mKU
I think they use those for aerodynamics also. But yeah they turn up in spring and summer. Not much outside those seasons. I find them very annoying, they tend to be very inconsiderate. Cycling on the road where bike lanes are available, and when they are on the bike lane they tend to be agressive to normal cyclists if they don't move along as fast as they want. They're not all like that but many of them are, which le…
I don't think helmets are worn for aerodynamics. IIRC professional race cyclists only started wearing helmets after in 2003 when they became mandatory. If there had been any advantage in aerodynamics the athletes would have voluntarily picked up helmets before.
Also, anecdotally, I am occasionally road cycling for sports and do wear a helmet at all times. However, I am certainly not doing that because of aerodynamics.
Edit for clarity.
Re: Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons
#790Earlier 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…
What does down hill long boarding have to do with low speed cycling? A bike 15-20mph is much closer to a runner (5-10mph), than your sport (50+ mph). You gonna stop people from running without a helmet? Their underlying point is we don't have a major problem with people falling off their bikes randomly, we have a problem with multi ton vehicles slamming into bikes and pedestrians. Did you know most bike helmets (not…
Coffee and tee are not mutually exclusive. We need better infrastructure, better (cheaper, lighter, stronger) safety gear, AND to call out anyone who thinks you're safer sailing without a life-vest.