Bike-share schemes improve safety; helmet laws do not
bmj.com
bmj.com
... or that the cities built bike lanes next to the bike share stations.
> Individuals with documented helmet use had 2.2 times the odds of non–helmet users of being involved in an injury-related accident
... perhaps because cyclists are more likely to wear helmets in areas with unsafe biking conditions.
Helmet-wearing cyclists being more likely to cycle in unsafe areas seems far less plausible. Do you really believe this is the case. At least anecdotally, I would say the opposite.
Perhaps the studies should differentiate these: i.e. comparing accident rates of helmets against non-helmets within each city individually, vs comparing e.g. non-helmet-users in Amsterdam against helmet-users in Berlin.
I live in Dublin which, as mentioned in the article, has recently seen marked improvements in cycle safety. Helmet usage here is high but under 50% and seems evenly distributed. I'd be curious to see the stats on what the means for accident rates local to here.
Driving and biking is a large mental effort. The brain does this because it knows it will die otherwise. The safer the environment the less the brain cares about putting full power into attention to the activity.
DHH Mentioned this about F1. F1 is WAAAAAAY safer than it used to be, yet more accidents. Why? Because when before people realized that speeding down a sharp turn could lead to a fatal cliff fall, now with the guard rails they can push themselves harder without as much risk, so they do, and end up crashing.
That depends a lot on location. Biking at 15-20 km/hour on segregated cycle paths that you know well, in a society that knows how cyclists behave, is very relaxing.
An interesting note about bike shares usage. I have seen some very effective bike sharing programs but also some very ineffective ones. In San Jose, there is a bike share program, but the bikes themselves cost $9 to ride, while in London the bike share cost 2p (~3-4$). The price point made all the difference to me.
(edit: inserted 0'th reason)
0) It could be true but irrelevant: We mainly want to reduce severe injuries, accident rate only peripherally interesting in relation to this.
1) Is the direction of causality estabilished? Is it possible that a trend of increasing accident rates results in lawmakers passing helmet laws?
2) But generally it stands to reason that cycling helmets can't actually reduce accidents, just reduce their impact. And it also sounds reasonable that helmets would give bikers a small amount of additional risk appetite.
3) Maybe helmet laws encourage casual or impaired cyclists (uncoordinated people, children, people with bad awareness, etc) to get on bikes, and/or repel the confident types who choose to do other exercise rather than wear sweaty and dorky looking helmets. So the bicycling acuity of the bicycler population is reduced.
4) Is there data picking at play? This cites only 2 studies reporting increased accident rates, and both of them were in USA, so the data is not very good for drawing general conclusions. Is there something in the local circumstances or bicyclist demography? How many studies can you find where this increased accident rate doesn't show?
A helmet law wouldn't encourage a new biker who already had a helmet option.
I think it would be interesting if conducted with multiple riders, and different areas. Combine this with the fact there are studies showing increase car and bicycle crashes with helmet wearers. It definitely plausible.
There is also an other study I remember seeing that noticed helmet wearers took more risks. So there could be more variables at play.
I was expecting the exact opposite. It's the casual or new cyclists who stop cycling because of a helmet law, this is the most common finding of all the investigations into a possible helmet law I've seen. It then leads into 3.5) the type of people who cycle when a helmet is required take more risks/spend more time among cars and have less fellow cyclists keeping the drivers aware/honest/giving.
It's hard for me to face stats like these. I can't imagine a world without helmets, much like cars without seatbelts.
Why are people trying so hard to kill mandatory helmets, can they honestly do that much damage?
More bike activity increases exposure to cars who in turn might expect bikes by default so drive with that in mind.
On the other hand unexpected events [accidents] can still happen solo [sudden mechanical failure], other bikes, cars, pedestrians. I've personally witnessed a couple of cases bikes not stopping at a two-way and striking a vehicles [which had right of way]. Without those helmets the results would have been graver than warped rims and scraped quarter panels.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/aug/12/mandato... there are more sources from more countries.
From the article it implies that helmet laws discourage casual cyclists or those wanting to use a hire bike. It seems silly to many people to have to don PPE just to pootle down the road to the shops.
No-one is trying to take away people's decision whether or not to wear a helmet, just the obligation.
You could also argue that if you're enforcing helmets for riding bicycles then you should also enforce it for other activities that suffer from the same or higher incidences of head-injury. E.g. being an occupant in a motor vehicle.
> Because perhaps people who refuse to wear helmets shouldn't be on the road.
Why shouldn't they be on the road? What danger to they present to anyone (expect, debatably, themselves) by not wearing one?
Funny you mention that, because in my country a motocycle passenger is required to wear a helmet (the driver is required too, obviously). I cannot think of any sane reason why helmet would be required for the driver but not for the passenger (other than unintended omission in the law).
The best way to encourage cycling is to build segregated infrastructure, not to mandate helmets.
This doesn't even touch on other benefits (e.g. reduced heart disease, greater Vitamin D, less traffic) of more cyclists on the road.
The only effect in reducing the number of accidents that helmet laws make is in reducing the total number of cyclists that are on the roads; the proportion of cyclists in accidents doesn't go down with helmet laws.
Helmets good; helmet laws bad.