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To Encourage Biking, Cities Lose the Helmets

nytimes.com

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Re: To Encourage Biking, Cities Lose the Helmets

#71

Post by zobzu »

Someone wrote: post #65
zobzu wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

every of these articles manipulate the data to make you believe a simple fact "helmet or no helmet is the same". Just use common sense instead (yeah I know it's so freaking hard). If you're going to ride on a safe road, bike path, etc, like many people do, helmet or no helmet makes an insignificant difference. If you're going to ride in traffic, in SF, NYC or Paris, that is where you want to wear one. If you're going…

"Heck those guy don't need to be told, they know the risk if they don't." If only: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet#Required_helmet_... . I think culture in the peloton has changed a bit, though.

Hum right, I was thinking of the mountain bike kind of descent, not the road riders. Although since the helmet helps with drag, I guess most wear it there now.

Re: To Encourage Biking, Cities Lose the Helmets

#72

Post by dmix »

rickmb wrote: post #64
mikeryan wrote: post #8

This article is great but it does itself a pretty big disservice by pretty much ignoring a lot of why many of the European cities which have successful programs are successful. Namely they have made significant investment into infrastructure to make bicycling safer, many times prioritizing bike traffic over auto traffic. I ride quite a bit, live in Berkeley which has numerous "Bicycle Boulevards [1]" and I'm pretty c…

Why do people insist on pretending all of Europe is full of bike lanes? In most inner cities there often isn't room for bike lanes, or the lane is just a line on the asphalt. I bike to work every day in Amsterdam, not a single bike lane on my route, I have to share the road with cars, trams, buses, trucks and scooters. The only traffic that actually poses a regular challenge because of their erratic movements and ten…

The longer I ride my bike in the city, I fear cars much less because I've learned to avoid putting myself (and them) in dangerous situations.

What I do fear is other cyclists (on cruisers) and pedestrians.

The only two accidents I've had in the last two years was from getting hit by two different people on giant heavy cruisers/hybrid bicycles. They never seem to have control of those bikes and can't keep a straight line.

Re: To Encourage Biking, Cities Lose the Helmets

#74

Post by zobzu »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #56
Tiktaalik wrote: post #11

Folks in the US need to start demanding bike lanes from their elected officials. They're super cheap to build and so it's more of an issue of simply having the political will to remove a lane of traffic from exclusive car use. Such political bravery can pay off. Vancouver BC's Gregor Robertson (and his councillor slate) has been elected twice with strong mandates in large part because of his commitment to bike lanes.

Maybe outside of the denser urban areas it's cheap. Inside them though, I can't imagine how one could justify it being "cheap". Everything is built up already with cars in mind. You might say "Turn an existing car lane into a bike lane" - that is vastly more complicated than you might think. You're reworking traffic patterns, displacing parking spaces, and in the end just painting lines on the ground that no driver i…

I dunno why people downvote what they "dont like to hear". Sounds pretty much accurate to me (some guy is going to tell me my opinion doesnt matter if its not baked by graphs tho).

In SF, there are quite a few bicycle lanes. That's cool. Half of them are ruined by parking. That's not cool. Half of my bike-riding coworkers have been "doored" so far.

Heck, it's still a lot better than no bike lane, but it's hard to get right since the space is already taken by car lanes and parking lanes.

In Paris, even thus, as per previous posts, scooters ride on it, some lanes are actually part of the sidewalk and are forbidden to pedestrians. In Germany I've seen that too (albeit theyre not as well designated IMO). Advantage: no one car park on it. No car can even cross them. Feels a lot safer.

Unfortunately in Paris that's not the norm, its only a few places where they were able to do that.

Re: To Encourage Biking, Cities Lose the Helmets

#75

Post by diego »

This article is rampant with dishonest usage of statistics and anecdotes:

“Statistically, if we wear helmets for cycling, maybe we should wear helmets when we climb ladders or get into a bath, because there are lots more injuries during those activities.”

Ok, but how about the severity of the injuries? This is like saying that most car collisions in the US happen in parking lots. Also, there are lots more injuries per instance, or absolute numbers?

"The European Cyclists’ Federation says that bicyclists in its domain have the same risk of serious injury as pedestrians per mile traveled."

Of course, but bicyclists travel many more miles. That's the point of riding a bicycle. It would be more fair to compare against people who ride buses.

“Nobody wears helmets, and bicycling is regarded as a completely normal, safe activity. You never hear that ‘helmet saved my life’ thing.”

Of course not. If you don't wear a helmet and you have a fatal accident in which a helmet could have saved your life, you're dead. The dead don't speak.

EDIT: who downvoted my comment and why? I'm just stating obvious flaws in the article. Answer instead of downvoting, please.

Re: To Encourage Biking, Cities Lose the Helmets

#76

Post by scoot »

rickmb wrote: post #64
mikeryan wrote: post #8

This article is great but it does itself a pretty big disservice by pretty much ignoring a lot of why many of the European cities which have successful programs are successful. Namely they have made significant investment into infrastructure to make bicycling safer, many times prioritizing bike traffic over auto traffic. I ride quite a bit, live in Berkeley which has numerous "Bicycle Boulevards [1]" and I'm pretty c…

Why do people insist on pretending all of Europe is full of bike lanes? In most inner cities there often isn't room for bike lanes, or the lane is just a line on the asphalt. I bike to work every day in Amsterdam, not a single bike lane on my route, I have to share the road with cars, trams, buses, trucks and scooters. The only traffic that actually poses a regular challenge because of their erratic movements and ten…

> The only traffic that actually poses a regular challenge because of their erratic movements and tendency to step into the road without looking are American tourists on foot...

Was that really necessary? The racial stereotype detracts from your your argument, and frankly, one erratic pedestrian looks the same as another to a fast moving cyclist, much as one erratic cyclist looks the same as another to a driver.

Re: To Encourage Biking, Cities Lose the Helmets

#78

Post by kleiba »

A two-year-old bike-sharing program in Melbourne, Australia — where helmet use in mandatory — has only about 150 rides a day, despite the fact that Melbourne is flat, with broad roads and a temperate climate. On the other hand, helmet-lax Dublin — cold, cobbled and hilly — has more than 5,000 daily rides in its young bike-sharing scheme.

As for the Melbourne part of that sentence: the city is spread out vastly over 8,694 km² (acc. to Wikipedia). Some of my co-workers ride their bikes to work, but unless you happen to live in a close-by suburb, you cannot really get anywhere by bike. Besides, Melbourne really is a car city, and made to be one, with 8-lane highways cutting through its geography. There are a few bike lanes, but parking is permitted on them, so in practice they don't exist.

But from all that you cannot deduce that Melburnians are fat and lazy people at the risk of a heart disease. In fact, like most Australians, people here love sport. Hardly ever seen so many joggers ever before. And yet there's rumour that people South of the Yarra river, that divides the city from East to West, run while people North of it ride bikes.

I guess they don't participate in the bike sharing program because if you ride a bike on a regular basis, you own one.

Re: To Encourage Biking, Cities Lose the Helmets

#79

Post by mmagin »

maurits wrote: post #67

To Encourage Biking, Cities should do two things, and two things only: - Bike lanes. Physically separated bike lanes. This is not rocket science. Trains have rails, airplanes have a nice bit of tarmac and bikes should have a space tailored to their specific needs as well. Typically in the Netherlands, bikes are banned from roads that are 50km/h and up. And they don't need to battle it out with fast traffic, for there…

I assume this doesn't allow cars to make a right turn during a red light. That, and the long path for cyclists to make a left turn are probably what would make a lot of people in the US resist this design.

(I think it looks like a good idea, however.)

Re: To Encourage Biking, Cities Lose the Helmets

#80

Post by Volpe »

diego wrote: post #75

This article is rampant with dishonest usage of statistics and anecdotes: “Statistically, if we wear helmets for cycling, maybe we should wear helmets when we climb ladders or get into a bath, because there are lots more injuries during those activities.” Ok, but how about the severity of the injuries? This is like saying that most car collisions in the US happen in parking lots. Also, there are lots more injuries pe…

So you've rallied against the articles points from a logical point of view.

But do you have any evidence that helmet use decreases (severity of) injury?

From the evidence I've seen, requiring helmets lowers cycle usage, which in turn lowers the number (total, not per capita) of injuries, which politicians see as a 'win'.

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