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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

#161

Post by jdietrich »

There is no evidence that segregated cycle facilities improve cyclist safety. The majority of serious bicycle accidents are right-of-way disputes, occurring at junctions. It is just as likely that segregated facilities could increase the number of accidents, by making the movements of cyclists less predictable to motorists when they merge onto general roads. It is known that sidewalk cyclists are significantly more vulnerable than cyclists who use the roadway, possibly because their movements are more difficult for motorists to predict.

The evidence for the efficacy of cycle helmets is extremely poor. There are a great many people with strong opinions on helmets, but we simply do not have the evidence and it is likely that they are a relatively unimportant factor. While we know that helmets moderately reduce head injuries, we do not have good evidence that they improve rider safety overall. We do have some evidence of risk compensation, with both drivers and riders taking more risks when helmets are used, based on the belief that the helmet provides safety. Head injuries are an important class of injury, particularly in the most severe incidents, but they represent only a minority of the serious injuries suffered by cyclists.

The best available evidence shows that one factor completely overwhelms all others - the number of cyclists on the road. Most Americans believe that the numbers of cyclists will increase when action is taken to improve safety, but in fact the inverse is true. An increase in the number of cyclists invariably leads to a decrease in the number of accidents per km. That is the key message and everything else is just noise. Meaningful improvements in cycle safety are wholly reliant on increasing the number of cyclists and normalising cycling. Motorists cannot be blamed for struggling to predict the movements of a type of vehicle which they encounter rarely and do not understand.

Re: To Encourage Biking, Cities Lose the Helmets

#162

Post by koide »

mahyarm wrote: post #110
comicjk wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"American" is not a race. If anything it's the opposite.

It's definitely a culture! In america although, the concept of race still persists everywhere, including government forums which split people's choices into appearance strains and not ethnicities or cultures.

America has no single government and is a huge mixture of cultures, from Canadians to Argentinians. I hate the fact that the USA has no proper demonym in English.

Re: To Encourage Biking, Cities Lose the Helmets

#163

Post by RegEx »

corporalagumbo wrote: post #108
cbr wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the benefits of wearing a helmet apply equally to pedestrians and automobile drivers/passengers Cycling is about six times more likely to kill you, per hour, than driving. So while helmets in cars would help some, the case for them on bikes is stronger.

I would also like to see some evidence for this wild claim.

This thread is full of "evidence I've seen" without sources, on both sides of the argument.

Re: To Encourage Biking, Cities Lose the Helmets

#164

Post by lloeki »

jdietrich wrote: post #161

There is no evidence that segregated cycle facilities improve cyclist safety. The majority of serious bicycle accidents are right-of-way disputes, occurring at junctions. It is just as likely that segregated facilities could increase the number of accidents, by making the movements of cyclists less predictable to motorists when they merge onto general roads. It is known that sidewalk cyclists are significantly more v…

When one ton of metal hits you naked at 50kph (the legal speed limit in traffic areas of cities here in France) the acceleration alone can tear or damage your aorta with impressive odds (IIRC about 50% chance). A helmet is an extremely marginal protection.

On a pure energy analysis, I'd rather have cyclists navigate with pedestrians than with cars. The latter result in a basically non-elastic collision transmitting most of the kinetic energy (1T@30~50kph) to the human body (75kg@5~20kph) while the former is much, much more even.

I don't know the state of streets in the U.S but his is especially true in old european cities, where streets are often narrow and there's simply not enough room for both cyclists and cars on the road, especially when cycling is thought of after the fact.

Re: To Encourage Biking, Cities Lose the Helmets

#165

Post by speleding »

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…

I now live in Amsterdam but also used a bike when I lived in the US and the difference is night and day. Sure, the inner part of Amsterdam doesn't have as many bike lanes, mainly because it was designed 500 years ago, but there are always biking lanes around on roads with higher speeds.

Even so, I agree that the main difference is that every car takes bikers into account. In the US either people simply don't check their mirrors for bikes or even if they do you can't count on them to give you the right of way. And I've had to swerve into traffic several times when a parked car opened the door and nearly hit me, people are simply not trained to look in their mirror before opening their door.

Re: To Encourage Biking, Cities Lose the Helmets

#166

Post by oneandoneis2 »

rayiner wrote: post #6

What's so wrong with helmets?

They increase your chances of having an accident.

Seriously: The more vulnerable you look, the wider a berth car drivers will give you. If you ride erratically down a road, swerving a bit as if drunk, cars will go yards out of their way to pass you.

If you ride confidently in a straight line, they woosh past with inches to spare. That's just human nature: The more likely something is to cause a problem, the further away from it you stay.

By the same token, drivers will give helmetless cyclists a wider berth than those with helmets - they rate higher as a potential hazard.

Citation: http://psychcentral.com/news/archives/2006-09/uob-wah091106....

Re: To Encourage Biking, Cities Lose the Helmets

#167

Post by oneandoneis2 »

Helmets aren't as cut-and-dried as even this article makes out: Studies have shown that wearing a helmet increases your chance of having an accident in the first place:

http://psychcentral.com/news/archives/2006-09/uob-wah091106....

So you may improve your chances of not getting injured, but you also increase your chances of an accident in the first place.

It's nice to think it's as simple as "X is safer than Y" but matters are rarely that cut & dried..

Re: To Encourage Biking, Cities Lose the Helmets

#168

Post by nl »

lloeki wrote: post #164
jdietrich wrote: post #161

There is no evidence that segregated cycle facilities improve cyclist safety. The majority of serious bicycle accidents are right-of-way disputes, occurring at junctions. It is just as likely that segregated facilities could increase the number of accidents, by making the movements of cyclists less predictable to motorists when they merge onto general roads. It is known that sidewalk cyclists are significantly more v…

When one ton of metal hits you naked at 50kph (the legal speed limit in traffic areas of cities here in France) the acceleration alone can tear or damage your aorta with impressive odds (IIRC about 50% chance). A helmet is an extremely marginal protection. On a pure energy analysis, I'd rather have cyclists navigate with pedestrians than with cars. The latter result in a basically non-elastic collision transmitting m…

Energy Analysis is pointless in this situation.

Mixing cyclists and pedestrians is extremely dangerous in locations where pedestrians aren't used to cyclists, because pedestrians have a tendency to change directions very quickly.

Re: To Encourage Biking, Cities Lose the Helmets

#169

Post by more_original »

dmix wrote: post #72
rickmb wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

This is my experience exactly. Cars are generally predictable and most drivers are really careful. In my experience most dangerous situations arise from pedestrians walking on te cycle lane abruptly or from other cyclists that don't obey the traffic laws. In the end, I think it's much safer to ride on the road than on cycle lanes (where in addition one is hard to track for drivers).

Oh, and a helmet once saved me from serious head injury. I don't know if it should be compulsory, but I recommend wearing one.

Re: To Encourage Biking, Cities Lose the Helmets

#170

Post by nl »

davidjohnstone wrote: post #103

As a keen cyclist (I'm building http://www.cyclinganalytics.com/ ), I wish we didn't have mandatory helmet laws, but there are a lot of points on both sides of the argument worth pondering. * Making helmets mandatory makes cycling look dangerous. What other things do you wear a helmet while doing? Between this, ruining peoples' hair, not looking as chic, and the inconvenience of it, helmets discourage people from cyc…

http://www.cyclinganalytics.com/ looks interesting.

FYI .tcx files exported from Garmin Connect seem to fail (.fit files are ok).

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