EDIT: Don’t bother reporting people criticizing others for not wearing a helmet. It’s not victim blaming, just like criticizing someone for not wearing a seatbelt isn’t victim blaming.
Wear your helmets people: Of course nobody deserves to get hit by a car but the reality is people are getting hit by cars.
It’s a tricky subject on account of the levels of victim blaming stemming from car drivers.
I wear a helmet while bicycling as well, and I recommend that others do while cycling.
Simultaneously, I understand that mandatory helmet laws are a net negative, and that helmets have lower priority in the harm reduction pyramid when it comes to protecting the lives of cyclists. We must also push back against car drivers who blame cyclists who get injured or killed by car drivers if they happen to not be wearing a helmet or hi-viz.
I don’t think it should be mandatory. I’d probably apply that to seatbelts too though I’m pretty sure that such mandate does increase safety. I just don’t think it’s the government’s job to decide such things. It’s not illegal to hit oneself in the head with a hammer either.
Here in Finland it recently became mandatory to have lights on your bike when riding in poor visibility and I think that’s actually a good thing. Not because it increases the safety of cyclists, though it does, but because I as a driver don’t want to deal with the burden of killing/injuring an irresponsible cyclist/pedestrian that I didn’t see untill it was too late. It’s unreasonable to put the full responsibility on drivers. Especially outside of cities.
Not wearing a seatbelt makes you more likely to harm others in the event of a collision. And there’s a little bit of necessary nanny-state of making parents do the smart thing and protect their children.
How? The way I see it is that not wearing a seatbelt only makes it more likely to harm yourself with the exception of rear-seat passengers possibly injuring front-seat passengers but I think that’s on the driver’s responsibility to make sure they’re all buckled up. My car doesn’t move if the passengers doesn’t have their seatbelts on.
I’m a light fender-bender, there’s not much danger. In a full-speed collision, an unsecured person becomes a blunt force projectile. An unsecured person can move with enough force to be thrown out of the car. Imagine that same force thrown at a passenger instead.
As I mentioned. Other than that I don’t see what the danger is. You got to be insanely unlucky to be hit by an unsecured passenger that was thrown out of a vehicle.
Not an unsecured passenger that’s thrown out of the car, an unsecured passenger being thrown into another passenger who is in the car.
Do you think seatbelt laws have a negative effect on mode share for cars?
Then ask yourself the same question about helmet laws.
I’m not advocating for neither