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.
While helmets will reduce accidents and you should wear one if you live in risky areas. Dutch’s don’t wear helmets and they have the lowest cycle accidents in the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpVncWxyMJw
Morale: Safe Transport infrastructure>>>Personal Safety measures
I am aware but their proper bicycle infrastructure and enforcement of the rules is very unique: Most places in the world are not like that. In America cyclists are killed by drivers and the dead cyclists get blamed, even when drivers do get in trouble, it’s often a slap on the wrist. If you’re a cop, you can mow down cyclists at 60+mph without facing any real consequences. Pretty far cry from a nice, safe Dutch city.
If I have to hit my head onto concrete I rather do it wearing a helmet than without.
I can’t believe the amount of hatred I used to get on reddit for suggesting that cyclists should wear a helmet so I no longer do. I don’t care. Not my head.
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.
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
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.
Not wearing a seatbelt makes you more likely to harm others in the event of a collision.
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.
with the exception of rear-seat passengers possibly injuring front-seat passengers
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.
Just wear the damn helmet. Done up properly too. Don’t just place it on our head so the cops leave you alone.
It’s nothing to do with your skill. It’s to keep you head intact when some idiot knocks you off your bike. Right of way and who is to blame don’t mean shit when you’re airborne heading for the pavement. Doesn’t matter who fucked up when your brains are mush. You won’t care because you’ll be dead if you’re lucky or brain damaged if you’re not.
I’d rather look like a retard than become one…
Wow, imagine not being able to make such a simple and obvious point without being a fucking ableist…
I’m just gonna say it. If you are a full grown adult and ride a bicycle without a helmet, you’re pretty stupid. I had a 35 year old girlfriend who didn’t wear her helmet because she thought it looked stupid. My sisters boyfriend sometimes goes on bike rides with his kids and refuses to wear a helmet. My sister and him argue a lot about it, and now she’s got him so far that he takes a helmet with him, but still doesn’t wear it. I see people with children in their child seats who wear a helmet, but the parent does not. What the fuck is the logic here? When you fall you crack your head open and while you are in a puddle of blood, your 4 year old is gonne deal with it?
One of our competitors lost their boss after he hit his head really hard in an escooter accident. Permanent vegetable now. Wasn’t wearing a helmet. Shook people pretty hard at my company as many used to hang out with him.
Wear a helmet.
Study limitations include lack of detailed clinical information with each report.
The reporting of ebike news articles should always be treated with a healthy grain of salt, for there is a lot of implicit bias that slips in. Even this fairly tame headline by NPR is falling into the trap, teetering on the suggestion that helmets are the sole preventative measure for avoiding head injuries.
The study – not very long to read; mostly has tables of data – details the rate of injuries observed in emergency rooms between 2017 and 2022, showing some monumental increases in that time period, split out by age, sex, hospital type, injury type, and helmet use.
What’s not here – as the study admits – is the nature of the collision, which is rather important because grievous head injuries involve an impact with someone or something else. There is a substantial difference in how public policy would address head injuries involving: 1) solo bicyclist rider error, 2) stationary motor vehicles, 3) moving motor vehicles, 4) pedestrians, 5) collision with other bicyclists, or 6) stationary object collisions.
At best, this study tells us that bicycle collisions are up, but not the flip side: are pedestrian collisions up? Motor vehicle collisions up? More collisions with stationary objects? We simply don’t know.
And in the absence of data collection to even attempt to answer that question, the wrong conclusion is often drawn: that ebikes are inherently more dangerous, which draws further legislative action by confused towns and cities, which eventually prove futile because they’re not following any data.
There is reason to believe that these increasing rates of collisions are due in part to popularity of ebikes – as the NPR as article mentions – but in larger part by motor vehicles.
A Google Search for “ebike collision causes” sadly turns up mostly ads for lawyers, but I did find this 2017 study of Corvallis, OR data on all bicyclist collisions. Table 2 shows that the top cause is “motorist fails to yield while turning” at 42%. This study notes that their data did not identify ebike vs acoustic bike, but it’s hard to see how that would make a difference if it’s an error by the motor vehicle driver. The next three causes are faults of the driver as well.
Going down that table, the non-zero collisions attributable to bicyclist behavior are: running red lights, going the wrong way, not yielding while turning, no lights, darting into the road, lane changes, and intoxication. None of those, except maybe that an ebike can dart into the road quicker, are substantially amplified by an ebike compared to an acoustic bike.
IMO, the trend of increasing ebike head injuries is from: 1) motor vehicle collisions where the auto driver is at fault, and 2) insufficient infrastructure to separate bicyclists from pedestrians. Proper infra means bikes and pedestrians are protected from cars, and pedestrian and bike flows are separated.
While I love the use of acoustic to describe non-powered bicycles, does no-one but me just call them pushbikes?
I never heard the term pushbike until I moved to the UK.
Crikey, you’ve discovered my Aussie identity
People who don’t wear helmets are cowards. What are they so afraid of? Really gonna risk permanent brain damage on the off chance some other loser doesn’t think safety is fashionable?
Yea it’s definitely that they’re afraid of how it looks rather than not liking the feeling of something that’s typically unbreathable covering the part of their body that tends to sweat and release the most heat while doing a moderate physical activity. Nope, definitely just the looks.
I won’t be attending your funeral
My dude, I wear helmets because I like my brain in my head. I’m not going to pretend they’re comfortable though. Helmets are hot and feel gross when you’re sweating. Thinking people choose to not wear them as a fashion choice is like saying people avoid the doctor because they don’t like the taste of tongue depressors. It’s just a stupid take that entirely fails to factor in reality.
