Pedal Me bans staff riders from wearing helmets for safety reasons
bikebiz.com
bikebiz.com
If some riders choose to not wear a helmet, that may be fine, but prohibiting helmets is irresponsible. Riders have a much higher cumulative risk of accidents that are not their fault than customers. It's a workplace safety issue.
It's seems like marketing and cost-cutting issue for them.
Customer: "Driver is wearing a helmet, and nobody provided helmets for us.. Are we in danger?"
Pedal Me: "Say no more.. "
Plus it seems they only bought caps & jackets for their drivers previously, no safety gear. Drivers are replaceable, aren't they? (\s)
And other thing, why is a 3 meters long bike road-legal?
Why shouldn’t it be?
Huh? Why shouldn't it be?
A normal road bike gets close to 2 meters at the tips of the wheels. Add a trailer and that's easily 3.
Because there’s nothing unsafe about it.
Better questions are: why are cars that exceed 90 mph street legal? Why are trucks with lift kits street legal? Shouldn’t we be preventing things from being on the street that are actually killing people?
However, the type of bike they are using is much safer than a normal bicycle because of its size.
I have had my bike's wheel get physically jammed into a train track and went over the front. I was wearing a helmet, though I didn't hit my head. I was practicing Aikido back then and did a nice roll resulting in no injury. There is no way I could do that today.
With a wheelbase of 2-3m, there's just no way the bike tips forward like this, especially with the rider positioned towards the back. Couple that with the fact that cargo bikes travel at lower average speeds and it's not clear to me how this injury occurs.
A company should design their safety protocol well and it includes what equipment workers should and should not wear to protect them best.
So prohibiting helmets is very responsible. Criticizing them seems to be taking an irrational stance that it’s better to address your feelings than the actual reality of what happens.
This demands proof, citation, and of course, controlling for how many cyclists in an area wear helmets vs. not.
Because otherwise you go in the dead column.
Comparing the fatality rate of bicycling to the one for riding a motorcycle is not good.
edit: That's not only a claim that bicycle helmets vastly reduce the fatality of bicycle accidents (rather than just significantly reduce them), but a claim that so many unhelmeted riders die from bicycle accidents that it distorts safety figures. All of this without any safety figures.
You provided no data.
> Bicycle helmet use was associated with reduced odds of head injury, serious head injury, facial injury and fatal head injury. The reduction was greater for serious or fatal head injury. Neck injury was rare and not associated with helmet use. These results support the use of strategies to increase the uptake of bicycle helmets as part of a comprehensive cycling safety plan.
OK, let's see your data!
I ask because there are “studies” that show there are more skiing accidents with helmets than without, but anyone who has spent a day at a ski hill can tell why that is: the vast, vast majority of people are wearing helmets. Throw a rock into a crowd of skiers and you’ll probably hit someone with a helmet. Does that mean helmets attract rocks?
Assuming their accident rates are anywhere in the same ballpark, accidents will involve more helmet wearers by a significant margin just because they outnumber non-helmet wearers.
Never read any triumphant reports about how this has saved ten thousands of lives though, so I suspect that numbers aren't that impressive.
I don't remember a big campaign or anything but probably some combination of snowboarders normalizing, it becoming seen as negligent not to make kids wear them, and probably a general increase in safety culture--especially among the sort of people who can afford to downhill ski.
There are only around 40 downhill skiing deaths in US annually--although the majority of those are brain injuries.
I'm getting real sick of the, "your feelings" talk. You used to get socked in the eye for talking to people that way in public. There's a better way of expressing your point than speaking to proverbial others as though they're children. It's enormously toxic.
Helmets are mandatory in all major cycle competitions - so I'm not sure this reveals a preference among professional cyclists, so much as a preference among competition administrators.
The question is actually more interesting with public health. I have seen several studies that showed that mandatory cycling helmets decrease life expectancy. That's because less people will ride a bike if they have to wear a helmet and the benefits of cycling outweigh the dangers of not wearing the helmet. That doesn't mean it isn't good to wear one anyway if out cycling.
>Also in terms of common sense consider that all professional cyclists wear helmets when they're competing.
Mentioning professional cycling does not help your argument. The riders organisations were fighting strongly against mandatory helmets, and professional cycling was very late with requiring helmets they came many years after they were mandatory for amateur races. There is also the observation that professional cycling has become riskier, although I would not necessarily link that to cyclist wearing helmets, it would be worth investigating though.
Helmets may inadvertently create more accidents, but they also protect the most vital organ in your body during those accidents.
My impression is:
1. Dutch-style utility riders using a bike to get around town for errands -> Rare helmets
2. Lycra-clad competitive cyclists with drop handlebars -> Widespread helmets
3. City cycle hire scheme users -> Rare helmets
4. Parents cycling with young children -> Widespread helmets
5. Poor people commuting on beat-up mountain bikes -> Rare helmets
6. Organised cycling events with mandatory helmets -> Widespread helmets
7. Teenagers riding with their friends -> Rare helmets
So the popularity of helmets depends on your locale (does your area have utility riders?) - and whether you measure per-mile or per-bike-owner :)
But fair, I don't have numbers.
My personal feeling is that the "helmets don't help" line is a strategic choice made by bike activists who are doing work I approve of, but I don't trust them when it comes to my safety. They're fighting for separate infrastructure, which I like, but they're dedicated to the idea that the kind of riding I have to do to get anywhere is inherently unsafe. They aren't interested in making what I have to do now more safe; they're interested in making sure people in the future don't have to do it.
If people only choose to put on their helmets when doing dangerous things, but don’t bother when doing relatively safe things, then it’s going to look like helmet use is correlated with injuries. Even if, on a per-person basis, the helmet actually reduces injury severity.
And it’s difficult to test helmet effectiveness directly because it is widely considered unethical to randomly subject people to blows to the head.
I find it much more likely that claims of "data shows..." are due to uncontrolled confounding factors, such as riders being more likely to wear a helmet when they perceive the ride as meeting a certain risk threshold.
There’s a reasonable causal story to tell wherein helmet-wearing leads people t take make riskier maneuvers on trips they’d be on, which leads to helmet wearing being associated with injury.
There’s another reasonable causal story wherein helmet-wearing leads people to chose to bike on trips they otherwise would take alternative transport, or skip entirely, which leads to helmet wearing being associated with injury.
In the first, a pedicab company might prohibit helmets to reduce risky behavior, but should really compare that intervention to just training and incentivizing lower-risk riding. In the second, the company is severing the connection between the intervention and the effect! The passengers tell riders where to go, so helmet wearing has no effect on risk-taking behavior _specifically for their riders_. Prohibiting helmets then dramatically increases risk/severity of injury.
I’d want to be very sure about the specifics before taking such a counterintuitive decision.
It's total BS to try and combine accidents with injuries and I'm aware of no reputable study that claims both of your statements.
So that means ice cream causes drownings and that we should ban it? Or it happens that ice cream eating and swimming both happen during the summer.
One interesting way of reducing doorings is to teach drivers and passengers the Dutch reach. Basically you should always use your furthest hand to open the door as that involves twisting your body and encourages you to see a nearby pedestrian/scooter/cyclist.
I suspect that a side-effect of the popularity of electric scooters will be that passengers will habituate a bit to seeing faster things on the sidewalks.
That's unlikely. Even if 95% of people did, there's still 5% who won't. The real problem is bad design that places preferential use lanes for cyclists too close to parked cars and expects cyclists and occupants of motor vehicles to figure it out. This results in serious injuries and deaths of cyclists.
Authorities should be encouraging cyclists to ride at least 6 feet away from parked vehicles. One way is to paint shared lane markings to guide cyclists to ride in the safest position in the general purpose lane far enough away from parked vehicles.
That really doesn't work. First, a cyclist is moving at least 15 feet per second, which is the average length of a passenger vehicle, so by the time they're besides you, they're already past you. Second, your view is blocked[1] by the B and C pillars of the vehicle as well as the headrest, so you won't be able to see a cyclist approaching.
The second best approach is to check the outside mirror before opening the door, but that doesn't work for passengers in the vehicle. The absolute best approach is to never, ever, ride in the door zone, regardless of whether or not door zone bike lanes are present.
The British Highway Code now includes the "Dutch Reach" car door open (where you grab the door handle with the hand furthest from the door to force your body to turn, hopefully seeing inbound cyclists).
A LOT of the updates to the highway code are for the sake of road users that aren't in cars.
https://www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/changes-and-answers/category...
>239 ...
>where you are able to do so, you should open the door using your hand on the opposite side to the door you are opening; for example, use your left hand to open a door on your right-hand side. This will make you turn your head to look over your shoulder. You are then more likely to avoid causing injury to cyclists or motorcyclists passing you on the road, or to people on the pavement
Unfortunately, it doesn't work unless you're in a convertible type vehicle. Otherwise, the B and C pillars as well as the headrest will block[1] your view of an approaching cyclist. Checking the outside/wing mirror is sufficient. The British highway code also includes a provision that says that cyclists can ride in the primary position given the situation. Riding far enough away from parked vehicles to avoid a potential dooring collision is one of them.
So it does in fact mention that both people driving around those wearing helmets as well as the cyclists themselves take greater risks.
The argument is that in the GP’s anecdote that the cyclist (and perhaps even the truck driver) would have taken less risky actions preceding the crash, thus avoiding it all-together.
Really? Data shows that a driver will subconsciously take stock of the fact that a cyclist is wearing a helmet and adjust their risk assessments accordingly? I find that incredibly difficult to believe.
“ In 2006 he attached a computer and an electronic distance gauge to his bike and recorded data from 2,500 drivers who overtook him on the roads. Half the time he wore a bike helmet and half the time he was bare-headed. The results showed motorists tended to pass him more closely when he had the helmet on, coming an average of 8.5 cm nearer.”
> Walker said he believed this was likely to be connected to cycling being relatively rare in the UK, and drivers thus forming preconceived ideas about cyclists based on what they wore. “This may lead drivers to believe cyclists with helmets are more serious, experienced and predictable than those without,” he wrote.
The article also mentions this risk-taking study where some participants were asked to gamble and some had helmets on and some had hats on, and found that people with helmets on took greater risks. If I were asked to do something like wear a helmet where one is completely unwarranted, I might feel silly and do silly things for that extra fun factor. Wearing a helmet on a bike results in a completely different mindset than wearing a helmet at the office, if not solely for the fact that it's unusual behavior.
> Our findings initially appear different from those of some other studies. Fyhri and Phillips (2013; Phillips et al., 2011) found that risk taking in downhill bicycling, measured through riding speed, did not simply increase when a helmet was worn; rather, the people who normally cycled with a helmet took fewer risks when riding without one. Why did the participants in Fyhri and Phillips’s study who were not habitual helmet users not react to wearing a helmet with increased risk taking, as our experiment might suggest they would? Clearly more work is needed to definitively pin down all the mechanisms here, but for now, we speculate that the difference might be related to considerable variations between the two studies’ procedures. Fyhri and Phillips greatly emphasized the physicality of their task (“to increase the difference in measures between the helmet-on and -off conditions, all participants were instructed to cycle using one-hand in both conditions”; p. 60), which provides a direct link between the action (bicycling) and the condition (helmet wearing) that was absent in our study. Moreover, that study used a repeated measures design, in which participants were aware they were riding a bicycle both with and without a helmet. This could have meant that behavior changed through mechanisms different from those seen here, where participants took part only in one condition and were not aware of any manipulation, nor even that they were specifically wearing a safety device.
So, in the past other studies have concluded that when the helmet has an _actual_ potential impact on safety, they do not induce greater risk-taking behavior. This fits right in with my personal experience, where I don't even consider that fact that I'm wearing my helmet during a ride.
1. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09567976156207...
This study proves nothing about rider safety. What matters here is actual accidents, and most bike accidents do not even involve a car. The study only proves that motorists would pass about 4 inches closer to author of the study when he had a helmet on. Motorists were not frequently hitting the author.
We really need some high-quality studies with a much better experimental design that look at overall risk. Perhaps riders are marginally more likely to get into accidents if they wear a helmet, but I know from personal experience that when you do get into an accident you really want to be wearing a helmet - if I wasn't wearing one when I had a big accident about ten years ago, I'm pretty certain I'd have serious neurological problems now.
Personally, I believe the correct thing is to provide separate infrastructure from cars for bicyclists. One big nuance in the helmet debate is that the helmet is really best designed from mistakes while riding, ie when done for sport.
On a more serious note, I assume that conclusions about helmet safety predicated on motorist passing behavior (which I already pretty much just intuitively reject) could not be safely extrapolated to include much larger and more visible multi-person passenger bearing bikes. They are very different visually and culturally and motorists almost certainly behave differently around them, so I'm gonna require new data that takes these different psychological effects into account.
If you could demonstrate that the helmet was splitting and taking energy with it maybe you could make an argument for splitting, but it seems unlikely that this is a mode of operation.
Also, there are various degrees of helmets, from a simple polystyrene to a mountain bike one to a motorcycle helmet.
You can always go to the next level if you want more protection. The polystyrene one is not supposed to be the end all of protection, just to be better than nothing with minimal inconvenience.
I don't like the concept of requiring PPE for a relatively safe activity as cycling as it makes cycling seem like a far more risky activity than it is and there's also the problem of "helmet hair" which can dissuade commuters. It's telling that countries where bike helmets were mandated had a sharp downturn in the numbers of cyclists.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/express/wp/2016/05/12/how-saf...
I'm with you on the mandatory helmet issue, I don't like it either, but mostly because I don't like needlessly restricting ones freedoms, if you want to risk your life, that's fine with me as long as you don't risk others lives too.
Just throwing your hands up and not asking for change is a sure way to not improve things.
More seriously, you can easily hit a rock or something and go over the handlebars on a bike path.
So, yes, physics.
When cycling for sport you should always wear a helmet.
When I spent time in a French hospital after bike helmet use (not involving a car by the way, except for the ambulance that called the helicopter), I was really curious if I would continue that pattern or become of of those "helmet even on civilian clothes rides" people. Was expecting the latter, but nope, would still feel as alien as putting on a helmet to drive.
Now you can decide you want to bike faster, and by all means (and I would make this choice as well), when riding aggressively in any context, you should wear a helmet.
Mutual yielding (where two pedestrians approach each other on a sidewalk) works perfectly fine at walking speed. It doesn't work at vehicular speeds, which is why the rules of the road exist that determine positioning and right of way. In order to travel at faster speeds, one must follow a set of rules. Relying on mutual yielding results in the collisions you mention.
We should also be demanding that there is no crime as well.
But outside of this fantasy land you need to accept that cyclists will be interacting with cars at multiple points in their journey from A to B. There are just too many practical issues building an entirely seperate cycling network.
So until this magical day cycling should be considered risky.
Use of shared infrastructure for all vehicles is risky when the rules of movement (position and right of way) rules are not followed. Some cyclists do not follow those rules and end up in collisions. Other times, authorities paint lines that guide cyclists to ride in unsafe areas (too close to the edge of the roadway, or too close to parked vehicles), or designate areas for cyclists to ride where they're hidden from the motorists' view until both enter the intersection.
When one follows the rules of movement and rides in a predictable manner, that risk is largely eliminated.
> We already have sidewalks in many places for this reason
Sidewalks or side paths that have cyclists follow pedestrian right of way rules on approach and through intersections simply doesn't work. The reason is that cyclists move much faster than a walking pedestrian. Pedestrians walk between 2 to 4 mph, while cyclists ride between 10 to 20 mph. A pedestrian that's within a few feet of entering the roadway can be seen by a motorist in time for the motorist to stop and yield to them. On the other hand, a cyclist can be 50 feet away and not seen by the motorist before the enter the intersection. So, instead of yielding, a collision happens instead.
Cyclists move closer to vehicular speeds as opposed to pedestrian speeds (you can't ride in a straight line when going at walking pace). It makes sense for them to be treated like vehicles and follow the same rules. The rules are designed in a way to accommodate vehicles moving at different speeds.
Now you just need to figure out how to cycle from A to B that doesn't interact with them.
Not that I'm in favor of requiring wearing any safety gear, I'm totally in favor of weeding out morons from the gene pool.
But to act like helmets aren't a good idea for cyclists is asinine. Personally I try always rock a full-face MTB helmet when I'm cycling.
I'm not convinced that cycling is especially dangerous and my experience is that I've inevitably put my hands out when falling, so I think that gloves should be the first part of PPE recommended for cyclists. Luckily, I've never hit my helmet/head when coming off so I've found that a bike helmet is most useful for stopping low branches etc from hitting me. I'd recommend cycling/protective glasses too - very good for protecting against insects hitting your eyes.
I find it interesting that people seem to have a skewed attitude towards head protection and cycling. If head protection is that important, then why are helmets not recommended for car passengers, people showering, changing a lightbulb etc.?
Strawman much?
car passengers: airbags and seatbelts are in direct conflict with and superior to helmets.
people showering and changing lightbulbs are not traveling at speeds exceeding a walking pace in an orientation predisposing them for a head/facial impact for hours at a time.
The full-face helmet I wear is heavily vented like any other bicycling helmet, there is practically no worse comfort than any other cycling helmet worth wearing. And considering how much I appreciate my teeth and not potentially needing to drink hamburgers through a straw while my broken jaw heals due to a cycling mishap, even if it were less comfortable I'm totally on board.
I've written this up with details in previous comments on this subject, but I have multiple friends/friends' family members who have suffered substantial facial/dental injuries in seemingly totally benign cycling activities gone awry. All of them would likely have been non-events had they been wearing a full-face MTB helmet.
I'm trying to compare activities that have a significant risk of head injuries (and deaths) with cycling and yet PPE is very rarely mentioned for them.
Downhill skiing in particular has transition from essential no non-racers wearing a helmet to quite a high percentage in maybe a couple of decades.
All those grease monkeys driving around with aftermarket cages in their cars and not wearing helmets are actually less safe for it. The last drag strip I was at wouldn't even let you run if you had a cage and no helmet to accompany it.
Airbags and no steel tubes next to your head change the calculus completely.
Can I ask, is it only safety equipment for cycling you're against?
It looks like you're trying to argue that people shouldn't wear helmets when cycling because people in cars; that have protection from a steel cage with crumple zones, and airbags, and seatbelts, and cushioned seats; don't wear helmets.
Like, sit in your car and get someone to launch a paving slab towards you; then sit on your push bike and do the same thing ... I'd do the first without a helmet, I definitely wouldn't do the second without a helmet (or at all). I can't see how you can find these situations comparable wrt indication of benefit from a protective helmet.
For the record, I always wear a bike helmet here in the UK, but I am not convinced that they really provide much benefit. There's plenty of different studies on bike helmets and a lot of them are very flawed (quite often ones that are sponsored by helmet manufacturers), which is worrying as it should be easy to demonstrate if they are having a big effect on road safety. My opinion is that population wide, they do provide a small benefit, but they can also act as a barrier to cycling for some people, so it's best to not over-emphasise them.
The health benefits from active travel are undeniable, so I'd prefer cycling to be promoted as much as possible and talking about helmets is missing the point.
Around 15 years ago I fractured my right arm doing the same. There were no scratches on my hands--I used my right hand to stop the fall primarily and the force was just too much. However, if I had hit my head, which was not unlikely in that particular fall, a fractured skull would have been much worse.
If passenger cars, large trucks and buses. and motorcycles can share the road, so can pedalcyclists.
Separated bike infrastructure empirically reduces cyclist fatalities. And it isn’t hard to guess why.
Cycling infrastructure that places cyclists in the pedestrian position when crossing an intersection exacerbates the risk of getting into a collision when crossing the intersection because motorists aren't really looking to see someone moving at cyclist speed as they're exiting the intersection. The other problem is that cyclists are hidden from view by parked cars until a short time before entering the intersection. This makes it difficult for both the cyclist and motorist to see each other until it's too late to avoid a collision. If you're not riding where motorists are looking, you're far more likely to end up in a collision, fatal or not[1]
If we take death of out of the equation we all live forever. It isn't a useful "if".
Breaking: Helmets and safety gear are largely irrelevant if collisions don't occur.
(Hey, PPE is also largely irrelevant if you are never in a situation where a virus can establish a foothold on your person!)
I don't know a single cyclist commuter that has not been involved in a car crash - and I'm in my early 30s.
I think helmets in a car would be a net loss.
Motorcycle helmets also have degrees of protection, from the useless DOT standard to the less bad Snell standards to the quite good ECE and FIM standards.
Nope. As a cyclist, I've seen numerous people in social media groups, friends, etc post pictures of their helmets that "saved their lives." Every single time, it's cracked to pieces, with no visible denting to the polystyrene foam.
Deformation of that foam is how a helmet absorbs impact force, and cracking apart is a failure of the helmet.
Bike helmets in the US are required to pass one test - a weight being dropped directly on top of the helmet that simulates a detached adult male head falling onto the ground from about the height of an average adult male. The test makes absolutely no sense, because the whole thing is a sham.
That's a completely different story from the primary task of the helmets for rock climbers, construction workers or soldiers, which is distributing a small, concentrated impact (a rock or a dropped tool or random debris) to a wider area.
Compressed polystyrene I know only from light accidents, but it has been a while and I suppose todays helmets are a bit more durable. (But luckily never had to find out, if they fare better nowdays. Also I learned to fall and only rarely wear a helmet nowdays)
> If some riders choose to not wear a helmet [...]
...we take their board from them, until they show up with one.
This sport is almost completely unregulated (outside of official events), but somehow the community has developed an incredibly strong culture of keeping both yourself and the others around you safe. I guess something about being a niche sport, perhaps a bit of natural selection.
If e.g. a sponsor (hypothetically - I'm nowhere near good enough to get sponsorship) told me not to wear any particular piece of safety gear, I'd laugh them out of the room, and likely the entire local crew would join in the laughing. It's a small sport, once the word gets out, that company would also likely no longer be getting many sales either.
The only correct move for the Pedal Me riders is to go pedal for someone else.
The safety gear allows you to just walk away from some otherwise life-ending accidents like nothing happened.
Reminds me of a blessedly terse reminder on the entry to a building site: "No hat no boots no job"
I'm confused what this means. So you steal their board? Or are they borrowing/using someone else's board and they forfeit the right to use it?
I've never actually seen this threat "executed": the rules are all unwritten, but most people get a clue when reminded or lectured. My friend once wanted to skate in a broken helmet - it literally saved his life a few days before. We had a cute argument, he said it's not really broken if he only hit his head very lightly (so "lightly", he actually had a slight neck pain). I told him I'd buy that broken helmet from him at a full price, just so he doesn't use it, he wouldn't believe me until I took €150 out of my pocket. Eventually he agreed to not be an idiot ;)
If you'd insist on not wearing a helmet? On an official event, you'd probably get removed, possibly banned from future events. You need a sticker with your number on the helmet, so you wouldn't make it as far as the start line. I guess on an unofficial freeride, you just wouldn't get invited again - it's all invite only to begin with, and doesn't make much sense unless you have at least 3-4 people participating; someone needs to shuttle, you split the gas cost, sometimes you need spotters, etc. Randoms on a local spot? You either already know them (so you are allowed to yell at them), or they're new, so you make friends and they get a mentor.
Watching the olympics this summer, it was amazing to watch the street skating events with none of the competitors wearing any sort of protective gear. And it’s not like they didn’t need it either. They were getting wrecked in falls to the point where some of the couldn’t even finish the competition.
It was nuts watching it, since my last exposure to the sport was from the 90s where Tony Hawk would be padded out to the nines while standing around giving an interview by the side of the park.
What is going on that made helmets so uncool that you wouldn’t even wear one if you knew you were going to fall on your head?
That alone makes safety gear much more essential for downhill.
In addition, if someone shows up to a spot without adequate gear, crashes and badly hurts themselves, it can cause the spot to be blown for other riders. Downhill skateboarding is much easier when you’re on the good side of local residents and police.
Also, since DH communities tend to be very small and tight-knit, if someone gets hurt you hear about it. I’ve personally witnessed multiple incidents leading to broken spines, countless minor injuries, and have had one friend die while skating. Either you take safety seriously or pay the piper.
There are more factors than this, would probably make for an interesting sociology dissertation.
it's all context, no?
You wouldn't try to trick over a 17ft drop on a longboard, either. [0]
[0]: https://www.vice.com/en/article/kzn58e/the-leap-of-faith-was...
The 17ft drop is equivalent to the 80mph example in my post, and should definitely involve a helmet, gloves and impact padding (which can be worn under clothes).
Bombing a hill is very different from skating a stair set. The speed at which you do tricks is manageable to be able to tumble your body correctly if you fall (and you’re ready for that fall usually) but bombing a hill is an enormous amount of speed and you can’t prepare yourself for an unknown rock that throws you off.
That’s another somewhat important difference too with street skating, for big tricks you triple check the area and often sweep it because of those tiny rocks.
So context does matter. I’m not advocating against helmets but these are incredibly different things.
Edit: and fwiw I’ve hurt myself far more bombing hills than I have skating something like the big four in ATL. Notice how they fall: https://youtu.be/Ban0D24Aip4
(And the reason they aren’t making this trick is ironically they are not going quite fast enough)
Edit 2: and because I’m reminiscing a bit, the big four is hard because the run up is pretty short. You need good bearings and small wheels to gather the speed required. The only time I’ve ever seriously hurt myself in 15+ years of skating was doing a dumb trick in a standing position. Helmets are important for things like vert for sure where it’s lots of speed and lots of height, and if my kids and I go out and skate we wear helmets (they’re small and I want to set a good example). But most of street skating can be treated as though you’re a trained stuntman (because you basically are)
I don't have a dog in this fight, but I wonder what the velocity of one's head hitting the pavement is if you just stand still and fall over.
That's 0MPH, but it still seems like it'd be enough to do damage.
So yeah, that can be enough (might have been a heart attack as a result of the shock, I am NOT a doctor, but he was gone by the time the ambulance arrived).
Also, one of the reasons street fighting is so dangerous has nothing to do with MMA dudes, it's when someone falls down and hits their head. This happens all the time. They sometimes die from the fall.
I had a friend who fell while ice skating at the speed of a slow stroll, and hit the back of his head. He was dead a week later.
And just getting a concussion can result in measurably decreased mental capabilities for months.
Dad time: you’ve got one brain for your entire life. Stop relying on luck to keep it in working order.
Permanently, not months. All concussions result in some permanent damage, some moreso than others.
long answer: branding
anecdotally, am a daily skateboarder and long time snowboarder who is guilty of having an ego, and even wear pads to protect a couple massive contusions (swellbos) but i never wear a helmet, so ill frame it like this: 95% of the time i am not that much at risk for serious head injury when skating, and even though i take it for granted, there is an element of knowing how to fall/bail early and skating just within my means.
however on a snowboard, i am much more acutely aware of the consequence -- my casual and super comfort "resting" level is like 25-35+ mph, which is a car accident, which is almost always a threat for serious head injury.
there is a huge difference between tripping at about walking/jogging speed and hitting your head versus at 35mph, and this realization happened after 15 winters of safe riding without a helmet.
the reality is, i am just not that worried about it -- ego or no ego, except when i snowboard, which i will not do without a helmet anymore.
./shrug
After 2009: at least 80% of adult skiers in Austria and Germany wear helmets, from the looks of things. Most frequent non-wearers are very old, permanently tanned Austrian men who literally have 5000+ ski days behind them or young ladies with nicely-done hair and make-up much more interested in getting good pictures for Instagram than actually skiing.
What happened in 2009? The Ministerpräsident (think US state governor) of Thuringia, Dieter Althaus, was flying down a black (expert) slope, turned onto a blue (beginner) slope with enough momentum behind him to go up it and crash into a lady from Slovakia.
He was in the hospital for weeks, living to earn a criminal judgment for negligent homicide, paying tens of thousands of Euro.
She died on the way to the hospital.
He was wearing a helmet.
She wasn't.
The absolute crush of helmet sales then and continued rates since are sometimes called the "Althaus-Effekt".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natasha_Richardson#Injury_and_...
Widdershin's response is excellent, but I'll add a bit more context: the physical similarities between a skateboard and a longboard are very superficial (we can barely trade any hardware at all); that extends to the respective communities, which also have disjoint histories.
Longboarders trace their roots to surfers; likely someone bored of waiting for a good wave has put skateboard trucks on their surfboard. Some niche longboarding cultures/disciplines were inspired by surfing/SUP (surfskate, pumptrack, land paddle), and one major longboarding discipline is a lot about moving on and around the board ("dancing" on it).
In these other longboarding communities (perhaps except pumptrack), you will see people using helmets and other safety gear much less often, and it's probably fair. But I've never, ever been dissed by any of these people for wearing a helmet, even if just cruising.
You just don’t look “cool” switch back smithing down hollywoood 16 wearing a helmet.
I skated a ton growing up and it was beaten into you at skateparks how dumb you looked wearing a helmet. No major head injuries but definitely had some close calls. I look back and cringe and how stupid that was.
Natural selection is rife.
https://www.treehugger.com/why-dutch-dont-wear-helmets-48581...
Sure you can still get in an accident. That's true of everything though. I don't go for a walk in a plastic bubble just in case a car hits me
https://www.google.com/search?q=cars+hitting+pedestrians&tbm...
I've had a few times where I slipped so fast I didn't even remember what happened but every time my arm was there protecting my head. Reflexes are awesome.
Accidents can happen sure but the added hassle doesn't seem worth it. Of course things are different when you do high speed cycling or mountain biking.
35m isn't an awful lot though. You can pick up a lot of speed from a bridge in the Netherlands too.
And it sounds to me like Pedal Me wants its riders to ride at a leisurely pace, rather than breakneck speeds.
That said, some cyclists here seem to be downright suicidal. Helmet or not, if you run a red light against traffic while watching your phone, you don't seem to be very attached to living. I've even seen parents direct their kids into ridiculously dangerous situations. Fortunately car drivers pay attention even to stupid cyclists here.
I see few if any helmets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbsMKxNORgQ
I find them very annoying, they tend to be very inconsiderate. Cycling on the road where bike lanes are available, and when they are on the bike lane they tend to be agressive to normal cyclists if they don't move along as fast as they want.
They're not all like that but many of them are, which leaves a bad taste as soon as you spot these groups of wannabe lance armstrongs :P
Also, anecdotally, I am occasionally road cycling for sports and do wear a helmet at all times. However, I am certainly not doing that because of aerodynamics.
Edit for clarity.
Another way of looking at it is deaths / trip; a quick search shows 4,800,000,000 bicycle trips in 2019 for a rate of 48 deaths / billion trips and 229 deaths versus 3,600,000,000 car trips and 610 deaths or 169 deaths per billion trips.
The average trip length in the US is apparently something like 10-15m which might make the number of automotive deaths per billion trips something like 130-200. Maybe. (I can't find an actual estimate of the number of trips.)
Another way is deaths per population, see one of my other comments.
Also, it's something that is only a risk to the rider themselves so leaving it to their discretion is warranted IMO.
(Correction: They would not. There were ~610 auto deaths in NL in 2020. That gives 3.5 per 100,000.)
In the US, 2020 had 11.7 automotive deaths per 100,000 people and 0.38 bicycle deaths per 100,000.
isn't this a good example of confirmation bias? it worked for you, so it must work for everyone the same as it did for you each time they require it.
its your brain, I guess. and you do have that social health network to cover you when medical issues arise. guess it doesn't matter your quality of life post-brain injury :-)
https://www.lawfirms.com/resources/personal-injury/slip-and-...
What body/head armor are you wearing when you take a shower?
> A study conducted by the Consumer Affairs Agency based in part on these statistics estimates that around 19,000 people lose their lives every year in accidents while bathing
Your odds of dying as a pedestrian appear to be 7x more than cycling. Why are you not wearing armor while walking? Clearly it's irresponsible not to.
https://danger.mongabay.com/injury_death.htm
Are you ready to live in a society where it's expected you'll wear a helmet except when sleeping? You certainly don't want to be one of those people that slipped in your house and died. I don't. But, I'm also not willing to wear a helmet just to exist.
Am I stupid? In 2050 will everyone be wearing helmets for walking and people like me will be considered needlessly risking death for not wearing one?
Though there are some problems, like if you start running the race safety gear, you need to go all out--you can't have a bucket seat and a race harness without also using a helmet and HANS, your head is vulnerable, and if you run a roll cage without a helmet your head is vulnerable. But in race events a lot of people run "cool" safety gear and people have a good attitude towards it.
Longboarding is risky, downhill longboarding is riskier, doing it without a helmet slightly moreso, doing it naked probably slightly moreso.
Why is it okay for you to set the acceptable risk bar and steal boards from anyone that doesn't agree? Should people that think that downhill longboarding with a helmet is risky steal your board?
For the same reason we enforce seatbelts in cars: Enough people died. Then those who saw them die decided on these rules so we don't need to go through the same pain. The fact that you don't get this shows that the rules work.
I mean to say, riders overwhelmingly want to be safe and it seems to be both self-selecting and self-reinforcing. Outlaw riders are free to ride alone.
Especially if measured by any objective metric like fatality risk per passenger mile.
It's not fully objective. We're emotional humans, and that's ok. We're going to do things that are risky, and some people are going to get hurt or killed doing them. But that doesn't mean we should just throw up our hands and give up. We can still make it less likely people will get hurt doing those activities by requiring some safety measures must be taken.
Most states brought on mandatory seat belt laws in the mid-1980s--mid-1990s. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt_laws_in_the_United_S...)
1981 was the last year with motor vehicle fatalities over 3.0 per billion miles. By 2000 it was 1.53 and 2019 it was 1.10. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...)
I can only find pedestrian fatality numbers from 1994. (https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/road-users/pedestr...) It decreased from 5584 in 1995 to 4109 in 2009 and increased to 6272 in 2019.
In 1995, there were 2,423 billion vehicle miles traveled; in 2009, 2,957; in 2019, 3,248. Doing the division, that works out to 2.3 pedestrian deaths / BVMT in 1995; 1.4 in 2009, and 1.9 in 2019.
Interesting.
In this example, If people start getting hurt on a hill - sooner or later using that hill gets banned.
If it is a group activity the group sets the acceptable behaviour. Don't like it? Demand your board back and go play with another group, rather than expecting this group to accept your risk assessment which doesn't agree with their's.
This is especially true if the group is in any way more formal than a bunch of people arbitrarily meeting up.
I always find takes like this a little weird. This is something we do all the time in society. Seat belt laws. Bicycle and motorcycle helmet laws. All sorts of safety regulations and laws around sports, transportation, health, etc.
We as a society often decide to "protect people from themselves". Some of it is out of an understanding that humans are notoriously bad at risk assessment and will do unsafe things. Sure, that's a bit paternalistic, but... that's life. But some of it is also because severe injury and death don't just hurt the person injured or killed. The emotional toll of those effects are felt widely. The economic effects are felt widely too.
Certainly there are lines to be drawn, and there's plenty of reasonable debate as to where those lines should be drawn. Some possible safety measures might be very difficult, burdensome, or expensive; sometimes in those cases we can't require things like those without causing other types of harm. But others... not so much.
> Why is it okay for you to set the acceptable risk bar and steal boards from anyone that doesn't agree?
Because it's not just about the individual in question. It's about the entire community. The community of longboarders don't want severe injury and death on their hands, so they develop social norms that include requiring helmets. That's entirely within their right to do so, as it is their right to ostracize those who do not conform. (For the record, I think "steal their boards" was hyperbole. I doubt people's boards actually get taken. I expect it's more likely that they get shunned and ejected from the community.)
> Should people that think that downhill longboarding with a helmet is risky steal your board?
If the community consensus is there, then maybe that's reasonable. (In the "eject from community" sense, that is, not necessarily the literal "steal their board" sense.)
Certainly all of these sorts of decisions should be based on research as to what actually makes people safer. Humans are imperfect and don't always follow the science, but the hope is that, on a long enough time scale, with enough people weighing in, we'll get it right most of the time.
It's not a conclusive argument, of course, and I have no axe to grind on this issue. It's just that I think that you might not have taken in to account what they are saying.
By this logic, there should be no life boats on ships.
> And I imagine you would agree that you are less safe wearing a helmet and going downhill longboarding than not wearing a helmet and not going downhill longboarding?
And by this logic, we should just never leave the port.
Of course I come at this from the perspective from a country where there's more miles of cycle lane than miles of car-only roads. Who knows which way the balance tips if you need to mix bicycle and car traffic. To be honest I would simply not ride a bicycle if that was required of me on a regular basis.
Their underlying point is we don't have a major problem with people falling off their bikes randomly, we have a problem with multi ton vehicles slamming into bikes and pedestrians. Did you know most bike helmets (not motorcycle ones) aren't tested for the force of car/truck hitting a bike? We need to stop pretending that if people put a helmet on their safe and we can go back to our lives. We need safer separate infrastructure, and if we had that you'd probably not worry so much about helmets.
Since then I always were a helmet when out training. However I don't wear a helmet when dropping off the kids with my cargo bike. It's true that drivers are more aggressive towards helmet wearers, moreover I can't think of an accident where a helmet would help when I'm on the cargo bike.
Citation, please?
> can't think of an accident where a helmet would help when I'm on the cargo bike.
Right hook.
"After re-analysis of Walker's data, helmet wearing is not associated with close motor vehicle passing"
It's a small sample size, so take with a pinch of salt.
Olivier and Walter re-analysed the same data in 2013 and claimed helmet wearing was not associated with close vehicle passing. Here we show how Olivier and Walter’s analysis addressed a subtly, but importantly, different question than Walker’s. Their conclusion was based on omitting information about variability in driver behaviour and instead dividing overtakes into two binary categories of ‘close’ and ‘not close’; we demonstrate that they did not justify or address the implications of this choice, did not have sufficient statistical power for their approach, and moreover show that slightly adjusting their definition of ‘close’ would reverse their conclusions. We then present a new analysis of the original dataset, measuring directly the extent to which drivers changed their behaviour in response to helmet wearing. This analysis confirms that drivers did, overall, get closer when the rider wore a helmet.
My friend was cycling up a hill on a cycle route and his handlebars fell apart. Not sure why, think it was metal fatigue - they split down the fork. He woke up on the floor with his helmet in tens of pieces and with no idea what happened.
Things can just go wrong quickly on two wheels, and the outcome is often smashing your head on something.
> Cycling on roads with cars is dangerous, even when there is a dedicated bike lane.
Don't trust the motor vehicles to keep you safe. That's your job.
One thing I've noticed is that it doesn't really matter whether cars indicate or not, you should just treat them as hostile whether they are going to intersect with you or whether it seems like they won't.
When I first moved there I didn’t realize that a yellow was treated as if left turners now owned the intersection. Had a few close calls when I would go straight on a yellow while left turners were trying to turn.
This is a good realization for others to have before it takes a near death experience to change the view.
For precisely this reason, whenever I'm teaching aircraft right-of-way I always emphasize that you do not want to be "dead right."
If we insist that cyclists protect themselves against multiple tonnes of kinetic energy impact, we should insist on the same protection for car drivers.
Are helmets the bicycle equivalent of air bags then? Isn’t that quite a third rate equivalent?
If we are to believe a helmet will help a cyclist, it must be true that helmets would have helped those drivers and passengers too.
The airbag argument is just distracting. "Let's not use antivirus because we already have a firewall".
They used a watermelon and dropped it from maybe 5 or 6 feet up in the air.
I refuse to ride anything without a helmet ever since.
It's one thing to risk your own life by not using safety gear.
Its another level of reckless to not provide safety gear to your employees
To forbid someone else from using their own safety gear is a level of asine behaviour that trully terrible.
But these guys top even that- they don't just dicourage employees from wearing helmets through hush-hush, hint hint, they boast about it in a public press release.
It's not your life to risk, that person is not a serf, and if I wants to wear a bulletproof vest everywhere I goes that's not the employer's concern. If ee allow this to stand, it sets a terrible precedent.
Bicycle helmets "work" by deformation of the hard polystyrene foam. If it cracked in two, it failed. If the foam did not deform, no energy was absorbed.
It is an extremely common misconception, especially among cyclists, that a cracked/disintegrated helmet "worked" and "saved their life."
Bicycle helmets crack and fall apart in many of these crashes because they're not designed to take anywhere near the typical forces involved in actual crash. They're only designed to "work" for a stationary fall from about the height of an average adult male, falling straight upside-down on top of their head.
> I'm sure she would have died without that helmet.
That's not how that works.
"I saw someone wearing a bunch of ring of flowers around their head and they got hit by a car. The flowers exploded in a poof of pedals. I'm sure she would have died without the ring of flowers around her head."
"I wear a ring of garlic around my neck. I haven't been attacked by vampires. Garlic repels vampires!"
Etc.
> The name "Tullock's spike" refers to a thought experiment in which Tullock suggested that if governments were serious about reducing road casualties, they should mandate that a sharp spike be installed in the center of each car's steering wheel, to increase the probability that an accident would be fatal to the driver. Tullock's idea was that the normal process of risk compensation would then lead to safer driving by the affected drivers, thereby actually reducing driving fatalities.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Tullock#Tullock's_spike
https://slate.com/technology/2021/11/risk-compensation-debun...
https://www.mdpi.com/2313-576X/2/3/16/htm
Edit: added another reference
(1) Keep driving anyway without a license or with a suspended license.
(2) Use public transit that takes two or three hours one way. When the bus is late again one day they get fired possibly setting off a downward spiral and that's another person on public assistance.
(3) Vote for politicians who allow ridiculous policies like Arizona's lifetime driver licenses.
*Free to motorists, not the taxpayers and real estate consumers.
It does not make, nor need, that assumption. If only a few people drove better from understanding increased risk, then that may be enough to lower bad outcome rates.
Why did you claim Tullock "assumes that everyone has the same ability to assess risk"? I can find no such reference or claim online - except yours. Have some info about it?
People will need constant reminders that that spike is dangerous, like seeing people they know die from it. So it is essentially advocating that in order to make less people die from car accidents, we have to make more people die from car accidents, which make no sense.
Protective equipment, and the absence of spikes on the steering wheel work. For example, machine tools today are much safer than they once where, resulting in much less workplace accidents. By the Tullock's spike standards, removing the cover between you and that blade loudly spinning at high speed should improve safety by making people more careful, it doesn't, and there are few more obvious threats than that.
Getting from point A to point B faster is more than an incidental convenience to a driver, it is the primary goal of having a car and driving it!
The response here are hilarious, like "they also have better infrastructure" - wow, you are soo close to getting it!
1. The road infra is entirely structured around making it safer for cyclists in NE
2. They don't BAN the use of helmets. That study is NOT a justification to BAN them.
3. No one is suggesting that they be mandated either.
i bet the more useful metrics are length of trip, average speed of the cars around you, and if you need to cross stop signs/intersections. dutch bike trips are often very short and the speed limits are low. you do not share the road with 35mph+ traffic as is common in america. intersections are the place where people get hurt on bikes the most and it’s more likely in american biking you will cross them. this one is where the separate infrastructure really comes in to play
You T-bone a car.
It helps.
Nonetheless I recommend to always wear gloves when riding a bike. They weigh nothing, fit in every bag/pocket and if you ever crash you'll be glad you wore them. Hands are very likely to get injured in an accident and it's not fun to not use them for a couple of days.
My opinion on this might also be heavily and incorrectly influenced by popular media sprinkled with a few factual statistics that reinforce the bias.
With more power comes more responsibility, put into practice.
You can get a neverending stream of OUIs and keep your license after paying fines in most cases. We often joke that the best way to get away with murder is to run someone down and tell the judge that "they came out of nowhere".
But lord help you if you get caught walking down the street with a joint in your bag.
What is that based on? People I know who have had DUIs had a lot of trouble and cost, their driving was highly restricted, and a second DUI would have stopped them from driving and maybe put them in jail (IIRC).
https://www.grievelaw.com/WisconsinOWI/Laws/Record
That article contains a common trope: an official expressing shock and surprise at the offender’s record and uncertainty as to how they still had a license.
Shoplifting and really any property crime that doesn't result in imminent grave harm can be safely considered "benign". Ditto for victimless crimes like drug possession.
Compare this with New York City where if you negligently kill someone with your car, the police won't even issue a ticket unless you're drunk. Then comes the civil lawsuit in which the surviving family will probably settle for your car insurance policy limits (e.g. $100,000, far lower than German limits that are in the millions of Euros).
Note that younger children still usually wear a helmet, since they are more likely to have an accident on their own (i.e. falling over).
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/06/14/raquel-nelson-finally...
What’s missing in US laws vs Netherlands?
If you are convicted of vehicular manslaughter, you are very likely going to serve time.
However, if you hit and kill and cyclist in the US, you are not likely to be charged with vehicular manslaughter, so long as you were sober and weren’t actively trying to hit them.
A joke I heard a few times was "If a bike fell out of the air onto a parked car, the car owner is going to court."
Certainly the perception is that drivers don’t face jail time in such a situation.
Whatever laws are on the books are virtually never actually enforced against motorists, because motorism (and disdain/resentment against cyclists) is deeply embedded in the culture.
The default reaction of the median American (or at least, the median law enforcer) to any accident involving a motorist and a cyclist, regardless of actual fault, is “fucking bikers always breaking laws, running red lights and stop signs, if they want to take our lanes and slow us down, why don’t they think they have to follow rules like a REAL vehicle,” etc.
No. It will be slap on the wrist time if there are any consequences at all. All it requires is a driver to lie about some mitigating cause they weren't responsible for.
- more helmet wearing in less cycling-friendly cities like Rotterdam which, IIRC, is an example of such a place in the Netherlands
- more helmet wearing (in the sense that the ratio between Dutch helmet wearing and helmet wearing in other Western European countries is higher) at points in the past when bicycle infrastructure was less protected. Though this is confounded by lots of things.
Instead, it is focused on make people feel as afraid of biking as possible. Literally all these debates are focused on making people afraid no matter of what conditions, speed. Whether you go mountain bike competition or whether you are 50 years old manager slowly commuting in skirt and business hairstyle.
https://www.fietsersbond.nl/de-fiets/accessoires/fietshelmen...
https://www-fietsersbond-nl.translate.goog/de-fiets/accessoi...
I live here and I'll say that almost all bicycle delivery drivers where helmets in NL. Lost of riders wear helmets here, but I agree that most people just riding to work or going shopping do not.
I will also note that probably the largest bicycle delivery service in NL has helmets for sale for its riders.
I think people most on the thread understand that there are negative consequences to mandates. The question is about whether you as a rational individual should choose to wear one.
I think the answer to that is an irrefutable yes, if you want to reduce your risk of catastrophic head injury. But that doesn’t mean it should be mandated. We take calculated risks all the time, and the law can’t know all the variables and circumstances for each person at each moment. The mandate is ineffective because the most important safety factor for bicycles is frequency of cycling — the more bikes there are on the road, the more everyone is aware of them. But if you still had all those cyclists and put helmets on them, they would be slightly safer.
It's nothing like riding a bike in the U. S.
Keeping in mind that American drivers aren't used to cyclists, it wasn't that bad in my (minimal) experience. But, of course, bikes are a little more prevalent there so that this experience won't stretch too far land inwards.
That isn't to say that a policy of requiring helmets is good on net (because people may ride less), but in any accident that you hit your head, you would greatly benefit from wean a helmet.
This might lower risk for the customers because driver may take less risk without a helmet in some situation but the risk for driver is only increased.
This is optimizing for customers at the cost of drivers.
I don't see any supportive extensive research linked from them .
I suppose it's also not reasonable to provide seatbelts to passengers as well as the driver of a taxi?
No. Which means it's not automatically "the reasonable thing", just an opinion.
So I'm curious what the REASONING is behind your feeling that offering passengers the option to wear a helmet is unreasonable. Personally, I would AGREE that offering passengers on a pedicab the option of a pineapple would be unreasonable. There just isn't any practical correlation between pineapples and pedicabs. But helmets are different: there are large numbers of people who campaign vigorously to persuade others to wear helmets when on a bike; many places even have laws mandating helmets on bikes, at least for some ages. So it is a plausible thing for passengers to want. Given that, why would it be unreasonable to offer it?
I'd worry about lice.
Also, the idea is to offer an option. Not to make it mandatory unless legislation require it. If your passengers are more comfortable not wearing them, their choice.
> A major cause of head injuries is going over the handlebars, which is not possible with a 3 metre long bike. Another thing that makes us unique is our training systems, maintenance systems, and ability to track poor rider behaviour.
Made me curious what they actually look like[0].
Seeing that, I’d tend to reset my presumptions about wearing helmets with these. There’s definitely going to be a different injury profile with these bikes than the bikes you rode as a kid. Without seeing those injury profiles I’d probably say you can’t really deduce anything from this announcement.
[0] https://www.positive.news/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Pedal-M...
The idea that you don't need to wear a helmet cause you won't fall over the handlebars is nonsense
Have you ever had a concussion?
Theres plenty of scenarios left. What about and impact from the side and the rider falling in an arbitrary direction? A car rear ending it? And while a front-flip due to heavy breaking is unlikely, I’m sure if the front tire hits a high enough obstacle at enough speed it would still do it
I use shared bikes one-way quite often and I usually carry my helmet around, strapped to a backpack. In colder weather I would cycle in a business shirt. No issue with a helmet.
The argument that is mentioned in the article -- "increasing helmet wearing rates make cycling more dangerous per mile... because while helmets definitely help in the event of a crash, that risk compensation results in more collisions. So riders wearing helmets take greater risks, and those driving around them take greater risks too."
I've cracked two helmets when I was younger. One in a forest, going downhill. Most probably, I wouldn't go there without a helmet. The other one was in a city, while distracted*. In the second case, the helmet definitely didn't have any influence on what I did. In both cases, I wore the helmet voluntarily and I was glad to have it.
The company from the article is definitely in a conflict of interests. Banning helmets, it doesn't have to provide (and check) protective gear for drivers and passengers. Also, it doesn't focus customers' attention towards potential risks.
* Putting a phone back into my bag, I accidentally hit a brake. Silly, don't ask me how I did that. Fortunately, no car was around.
Car drivers often get head and brain injuries if they are involved in a collision with another car or with a tree/building. Do you wear a helmet when you drive? The helmet doesn't add almost any inconvenience, is reasonably cheap and light, as you say.
Unless you're on a racetrack or driving a test vehicle, probably not.
The risk/inconvenience ratio seems OK for me when driving a car without a helmet but not for biking without a helmet. I'm not advocating for mandatory helmets. But I would feel very uncomfortable if they would be banned.
In Europe most people didn't even wear helmets when they went skiing (on-piste) until a few years ago. Now pretty much everyone does, but it's one more thing you'll carry with you everywhere you go. And on warm days I sometimes have to take my helmet off in the gondola because it gets very warm.
Disregards that going over the handlebars happens in case if frontal collision, which can definitely happen with a 15m bike. Would you hurt your head? Who knows, because they're not looking at that statistics.
> makes us unique is our training systems, maintenance systems, and ability to track poor rider behaviour
Victim blaming. Assumes that accidents can be prevented by having a safer behaviour. They're lowered, sure, but anecdotally in all the bike accidents of people I know, the car involved did something stupid, and there's no prevention from that, whatever you train people for, short of not going on the road, they're at the mercy of people driving 2 tons of steel whilst texting. Multiply by the extended time they spend out, and it becomes statistics
I started using my helmet again after that.
(But another safety related thing I have started to really doubt. Skiing alone is supposed to be risky. I do ski alone, quite a lot actually. I have gotten into my share of accidents of various seriousness. And not a single of them has been when I have been alone.)
My first time ever wearing a helmet on the slopes I slammed head-first into a tree. Got up, laughed it off, and rode away. Better lucky than good.
This correlates very well with the increase of helmet usage.
The trend is stable/slight increase in the past 5 years.
For the head injuries, it reduced from 2/1000 skier to about 1/1000 skier/year. It follows the general trend of the number of accidents per skier/year.
Looking at the material and the quality of the slopes in the past 40 years, they are definitely a big driver of this change, they improved a lot!
Even strong and careful skiers wipe out occasionally. A helmet is the difference between shaking it off and brain injury.
You can be as cautious as you want and never make a mistake, but if someone else skies into you you could still smash your head very hard. That's why you should wear a helmet. Not because of your own capabilities, but because of the capabilities of the people around you and the risk just being too high.
I wouldn't wear a helmet while cycling though. It's quite safe in The Netherlands.
Sometimes the universe just wants you dead.
Part of this is complacency, but honestly most of it is just probability. The more you do something, the more chances you have for just the wrong combination of factors to happen.
I don't buy the argument that because someone has a helmet on they're intentionally (or even subconsciously) reckless. Shit can happen.
How does one safely transport a toddler? I am not asking incredulously, but curiously. I am an experienced cyclist; I don't know if I'd feel safe doing it, but I haven't looked into it either. Maybe a helmet is sufficient? And cars aren't perfectly safe either.
Safe? Well, as you say, nothing is truly safe. But I stuck to back roads and probably never exceeded 15 MPH. We would ride to the local park where she could play in the sand for a bit before we rode home again.
> But I stuck to back roads and probably never exceeded 15 MPH.
Seems safer than driving on a highway at 70 mph, even with the seatbelts, airbags, and steel.
That's why I've glued 3-inch shards of broken glass to my steering wheel.
I’m also super skeptical of studies that aren’t, like, randomized and carefully done. Correlative studies can easily end up with the authors drawing conclusions of causation in the opposite direction of reality.
“Good things are bad because of convoluted logic” is always something I’ll be skeptical of.
Sadly, it’s likely the first driver who dies without a helmet will result in their family filing a giant lawsuit. But that payout will be paid by insurance that is probably already factoring in the probability of such a payout.
My work doesn’t require a helmet, even though it would protect me. If I wore a helmet and my employer fired me, OSHA wouldn’t give a shit.
[the tweet]: https://twitter.com/pedalmeapp/status/1489594692857647113?s=...
I don’t think there’s any riding situation where you can think you’re in complete control of the risk.
My point is that when mountain biking, you encounter varied terrain and obstacles and you decide how to approach that based on your skill and experience. Some approaches are riskier than others. And sometimes you decide the best thing to do is just nope out and ride or walk around whatever it is.
Even better if you are a woman in summer dress. Then the drivers give you way more space and are super careful around you. It was researched.
Citation needed please.
It doesn’t mean the research wasn’t bullshit nor correctly understood what happened there.
glad I could help out here
Helmets absolutely protect against cars. If I'd been hit, I'd have fallen. Head hits ground, you're fucked.
Should delivery drivers not wear seatbelts because they might not be as afriad that they'll fly through the windshield? Should linemen not wear harnesses because they might be more confident working on power lines? Should warehouse workers not wear hi-vis jackets because they might be more confident working around forklifts? Should construction workers not wear helmets because they might be more confident working in areas with falling objects?
And I love the "if something bad happens, it's obviously the rider's fault" mentality here. I guess cars never hit bikes, right? Or bikes hitting other bikes? Or other accidents that, you know, are entirely unavoidable or otherwise have nothing to do with the rider being at fault?
If I was a staff rider, I'd be putting that helmet on and telling Pedal Me to eat an OSHA-sized bag of dicks if they have a problem with it. Banning helmets "for safety reasons" might not be the absolute dumbest thing I've read this year, but it's up there.
And then they would fire you and you will have to find a company that allow helmets and everyone will be happy
FTFY
> At pedal me, we believe in looking after our people properly. That’s why our team are employees, not contractors.
[1] https://www.cyclist.co.uk/in-depth/1365/is-it-safer-to-wear-...
And I don't believe that to be a justification for removing those safety protections entirely. This ain't some data science problem to be solved; this is ethics and morality, and there is precisely nothing ethical or moral about demanding that your employees make themselves less safe and then having the gall to pretend that this somehow makes them safer.
> I don’t feel like shouting that you’d tell your employer to eat a bag of dicks really contributes much here.
You're right: all employees telling their employers to eat an OSHA-sized bag of dicks if they try prohibiting basic safety equipment would contribute far more greatly to society than just one. But we gotta start somewhere.
Crazy. I suspect you are actually reasoning from your thought that people are more likely to die without helmets and ignoring the premise of the question, or at least I hope that is what you are doing.
claiming you're removing safety equipment to reduce risky behavior is the tail wagging the dog. there are other ways to reduce risky behavior which do not have such tragic consequences as side effects to them.
Let's say you do an A/B test on this policy and find 15 more people die with the helmet allowed policy, but in the other side, one person died who if they had chosen a helmet they likely wouldn't have. You're saying it is unconscionable to pick the policy where the 15 wouldn't have died?
Do the other things to reduce risky behavior, certainly, but if this is an uncorrelated improvement I don't see why that wouldn't be worth taking.
Note, I doubt that this is actually true, but I wanted to highlight your moral apriori claims as ridiculous.
You failed to do that:
You didn’t address the agency problem where the 15 chose to engage in risky behavior while that 1 was coerced into dying — and ignoring the role of agency in the Trolley Problem is amateur hour. The helmets didn’t kill anyone, their following choices while wearing helmets did; which is in contrast to mandating no helmet, that is directly responsible for a death.
What you did was make a ridiculous argument that ignored the crux of the issue and pretend that the other person was wrong.
All I can say is I am glad that the actual people making decisions seem to also prefer fewer people dying over non-coercion.
Despite this bare denial, I believe "coerced into dying" to be an accurate description of someone coerced into not wearing a helmet dying of head injuries from an unavoidable accident
sorry, that's not a coercion I'm willing to make. First, do no harm. Come back when you've tried safer ways to reduce risky behavior.
> if even 1 incident occurs which was unavoidable by an unhelmeted cyclist which harms them more than they would have been harmed wearing a helmet, then the policy is unconscionable
if you can think of a scenario in which what I described as unconscionable happens, then I would find that scenario unconscionable.
> Do the other things to reduce risky behavior, certainly, but if this is an uncorrelated improvement I don't see why that wouldn't be worth taking.
whereas I DO see why such a helmet ban would be a risk not worth taking, it is at the top of this post.
That ain't what was argued. The commenter above argued that helmets encourage people to take more risks. Even assuming that to be true, the sane answer is to train people to ride safely even when wearing helmets, not to ban helmets.
> it would be a statistical certainty your omission of action is basically causing people's deaths
1. "statistical certainty" is an oxymoron.
2. correlation != causation
2. Yes, this is why we have RCTs.
“In sum, this systematic review found little to no support for the hypothesis bicycle helmet use is associated with engaging in risky behaviour.”
Those are safest rides, they are good for your health and the ones that drop first.
The proper solution here is to provide helmets for passengers as well, but that raises more problems - they needs to be a way to sanitize them, multiple sizes might need to be available (I assume they need to be sized properly for adequate protection?), etc.
The aforementioned problems are hard (read: expensive) or impossible to solve, so while the ethical idea might be to just not offer this service at all, the objective here is to make money whatever-it-takes (or most likely, raise money, as I doubt this thing is profitable) as opposed to providing a good transport service (maybe because there's no actual demand for this?).
Too bad? If your business model depends on this then you just have to suck it up and deal with it, not compromise worker safety.
> The proper solution here is to provide helmets for passengers as well, but that raises more problems - they needs to be a way to sanitize them, multiple sizes might need to be available (I assume they need to be sized properly for adequate protection?), etc.
Too bad? Cost of doing business.
This. Definitely. However if it came to court, as indeed it might, and they tried to argue helmets cause risky behavior, it wouldn't take Johnny Cochrane to get them slapped with a massive fine and laughed out of court.
They're gambling that the cost of safely resolving the issue will be more than any legal costs. Talk about preventing risky behavior!
I bet they all know this isn't viable and just hope this problem disappears before an accident actually happens and brings this in front of a court.
EDIT: also, this doesn't explain prohibiting helmets for cargo bikes, too.
I think it's a PR thing. They don't want prospective passengers seeing their branded bikes as dangerous enough to justify wearing a helmet, regardless of whether that particular bike is currently transporting passengers.
A first world country has zero excuse.
Wouldn't the same apply to mask wearing? Yet we consistently see service employees wearing them and customers not.
No, for a ton of reasons. Off the top of my head:
(1) Masks are more effective at preventing transmission than reception.
(2) Different individuals have different levels of concern, which might lead one to choose a mask and another to choose not to wear one.
(3) Different individuals face different levels of risk. The person who is immunocompromised may wear a mask even when it would make no sense for other people.
(4) The customer may encounter 2-3 service employees in a day; the service employee may encounter hundreds of customers in the same time.
And that's without even getting into political issues (in the US, where mask-wearing has become politicized).
This isn't the 70s. Just give everyone helmets. Passengers included. And yes you should clean them. If you're running a business I'm sure you can afford some little bottles of alcohol spray.
By this logic, no one would feel safe riding a bus when the driver has a seatbelt and you don't.
I actually laughed out loud reading this.
So what? It’s the company’s job to ensure safety for the riders and the staff. There are many places in the world where it’s actually illegal not to wear a helmet.
If you get into a business like this; and you didn’t factor this in, you’re a plain and simple idiot and your business deserves to fail if you make it the staff’s problem.
Shame on these idiots. I’d never heard of these guys before, and my first impression is one of the worst I could have. How is this even worth it for them from a PR side?
I thought they had two sizes, but maybe not the new ones.
Do you wear a helmet when you drive inside your car? If not, why not? It might make you much safer in case of a crash, according to your reasoning.
Wearing a helmet can itself become a leading factor to cause an incident, and it's clearly what they are hinting at in the linked article: that data seems to indicate that riders wearing helmets may be getting more incidents on average. Then it's a simple equation: number of incidents x gravity of the incident in both A/B scenarios, and compare which one is the most favorable. It's not a question you answer with a "what the actual fuck" kind of reasoning.
In order to show that helmets *cause* accidents, they need to create a randomized study where they force employees to flip a coin to decide whether to wear a helmet or not.
Otherwise, here's one plausible scenario: Employees who work in tiny suburbs with small roads and very little traffic feel safer, and this are less likely to wear a helmet. They get in less crashes because their town has fewer and safer drivers. Employees working in the city have more crashes simply because of being in a busy city, so they are more likely to wear helmets.
Right now, you cannot prove that helmets cause crashes and not the above.
In reality there are confounds both directions. The effects of helmet wearing are higly contingent based on the geography and demographics.
Here is a review (from just 3 years ago) of such studies:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136984781...
> Risk compensation, as it is typically defined and understood, is only one of six possible scenarios, namely a usual non-helmet wearer puts on a helmet and increases their risk taking. Importantly, evidence in the opposite direction, i.e., taking a helmet off leads to less risky behaviour, is not evidence in support of risk compensation as it is a type of logical fallacy
After reviewing that article none of the studies are convincing either way. The only studies that actually look for causality are the ones which only measure speed to asses risk. Those are also the one that I would qualify as positive results but were listed as negative results because of that above mentioned logical fallacy.
So while is is possible to untangle these effects, it has yet to be done properly to show a clear result either way.
Research on helmets has been ongoing for 40 years, and has even led to ANSI standards for helmet design and protection. The UCI requires hemets in amateur and professional events. This isn't about risk taking behavior, it is simply about if you do have an accident, you won't be killed, turned into a vegetable or concussed when you hit your head.
> The effects of helmet wearing are higly contingent based on the geography and demographics.
I'm pretty sure that hitting your head on Ugandan cement will damage your head roughly the same as American Cement or European cement. S
Additionally, I've never seen any research showing any kind of demographic relationship to severity of head injuries in bicycle accidents. Nor have I once saw research that did anything other than present some statistical noise about distance cars give you based on helmet or not. Close shaves are not accidents or injuries, so even the basis of the research is questionable.
The effects of a helmet on overall safety when ridden at low speed on dedicated bike paths is very different from when ridden at high speeds in traffic with no bike lane.
Thus the the design of the city and streets (geography is perhaps not the perfect term for this) and the what/how of the local culture's bike riding behavior (perhaps demographics is a bad term for this, not sure of a better one.) have huge impacts on how much a helmet affects your safety simply because the risk profiles are very different.
The data is messy due to regional variability plus the difficulty of reliably removing the confounds mentioned above. I would never discourage someone from wearing and will actively encourage it when riding in bicycle hostile areas. At the same time, I think the push for helmet laws and helmet education is often a cop out to avoid talking about how we need to redesign cities to support safe bicycling. If we did the later, we would see much larger safety gains and the former would be much less necessary.
Oh I'm so tired of this meme!
Plenty of times causation is found through correlation. Plenty. Of. Times.
Because I have a seatbelt, an airbag, and a reinforced shock absorbing shell around me.
I'm not going multiples of walking speed on something standing upright only thanks to gyroscopic forces, so no.
Also even when running I have way better maneuverability than as a cyclist.
Generally limbs > wheels when it comes to getting out of trouble.
I wear a helmet when skiing though.
My car has other safety measures in place to protect me from head injuries. A bicycle does not.
Whether I do or not has a lot to do with how likely it is that I might get in an accident. Wild right? Why would I opt for more safety gear in a more dangerous situation.
Cars already have airbags and seatbelts which help a lot for the kind of collisions that would otherwise result in head injuries.
> It might make you much safer in case of a crash, according to your reasoning.
I don't see what in their comment could be construed to say that helmets make you much safer regardless of vehicle.
> Wearing a helmet can itself become a leading factor to cause an incident
Is there a source for this? Should be a randomized A/B test as you mentioned, not just a correlation - wearing a hi-vis jacket or other precautions taken more often in dangerous situations probably also correlate with accidents.
Even if helmets do cause accidents through increased carelessness, some may still take issue to intentionally making a scenario more dangerous such that people are more careful. It's kind of settling for a local minimum, rather than aiming to reduce inherent risk alongside aligning people's risk estimates to not overestimate the precautions.
A competent car helmet is probably a motorcycle helmet, which is more like $100 to start, but it impacts hearing, reduces vision in all directions, is a significant weight, usually doesn't adjust much for sizing, takes longer to put on (especially if you wear eyeglasses).
A bike helmet in a car would likely be more trouble than anything, it would interfere with the headrests and probably increase neck injuries.
But besides that, even if the average nation-wide number of accidents can be taken as a basis for nation-wide policy making because confounders can be ignored (a huge assumption), you can still not use this data reliably for individual decision making or policy making for smaller groups without further analysis. You need to account the variance, where the confounders occur, and what these confounding factors are. For example, regarding individual decision making, it could be the case that certain people who cycle with helmets on the average cycle more recklessly, but you cycle even more carefully with a helmet and are better protected. If so, you cannot take the average to inform your cycling. The same holds for other groups, such as professional cyclists for a company like in this article.
To give another example, consider accident statistics of self-driving cars versus human drivers nationwide. The human driver statistics include each and every reckless and drunk driver in the country, including many people with whom you'd never share a car ride. At the same time, you might have been driving accident-free for more than 40 years. For you personally, or a specific group you belong to, self-driving cars could thus be way more dangerous than driving yourself.
Would it? I've never heard anyone recommend this, but if this did actually reduce the likelihood of a serious head injury in the event of a car crash, then I would seriously consider wearing a helmet while I drive a car. I have no problem wearing one while I ride a bicycle or motorbike.
I don't know, however, if a helmet may work worse in conjuction with an airbag though. So personally I think I'd stay away from helmets in cars (but I really have too little data to make an informed decision).
Having said that, in the case of this company, perhaps they could offer their passengers a "Hövding" device? (Hövding being the swedish word for a chieftain, but "hövve" is also slang for head, and in the case of this product it is a... "backpack/necklace thingy" that is a wearable airbag. Supposedly works really well, but probably comes with a price tag matching this function.
I am not aware of any studies looking specifically at the effects of helmet wearing on TBI rates of regular drivers, but then good data on that for bicycles is also hard to come by but that doesn't stop people from pushing for bicycle helmets.
Yet, lethal TBIs are more likely to come from motor vehicle accidents than from bicycle accidents.
> the risks seem low enough that the expense (including time to equip) of that additional equipment is too much to justify its general use.
Yet, somehow this argument is deemed irrelevant when helmets for bicycles are discussed.
There really is not a compelling reason why helmet usage in a car is different from on a bicycle. The main difference is social acceptability, not any objective risk analysis.
Is that per mile, per minute, or per lethal TBI? Also, is a collision between a bicycle and a motor vehicle a motor vehicle accident or a bicycle accident?
Of course, bike helmets protect against more than just brain injury. They also protect against road abrasion of some portion of the head, which is not usually a factor for car occupants, except if they're ejected or they're in a car that rolls over and doesn't have an roof or an effective roll bar.
Bike helmets are much lower expense and hassle than car helmets (which are mostly motorcycle helmets) and neck restraints, etc. If it's a public use bike system, especially the leave anywhere bikes, the expense and hassle gets overwelming, and helmets for customers of a pedal cab would be similar.
I've got a bike helmet with integrated lighting, which adds functionality and is kind of neat, although it was much more expensive than a good enough helmet.
Per lethal TBI, I don't think the data exists for per mile or per minute.
> Also, is a collision between a bicycle and a motor vehicle a motor vehicle accident or a bicycle accident?
Good catch, looking at their methods, they do include IDC-10 codes for pedestrian and bicyclist injuries due to motor vehicles in that number so I am not sure how many of those are actual vehicle occupants and I can't find any data at the moment that breaks those numbers down per IDC code group.
> Bike helmets are much lower expense and hassle than car helmets (which are mostly motorcycle helmets) and neck restraints,
Your "simple equation" relies on your variables being solid. And they aren't.
It's important to stress that the behavioural studies from Bath (that show helmeted riders take more risks in simulations, that cars give them less space) are not data about whether helmeted users are at greater risk. Or that comparisons between US and NZ riders and outcomes are comparable because of vastly different road and rider profiles.
It's also hard to show how much helmets are helping because zero-harm accidents are rarely reported, so if we assume that they function correctly, and do reduce harm in impacts, we simply don't know how many near-misses there are.
You can look at hospital admission data two studies show 75 and 78% of cyclists admitted with serious-enough head/neck injuries hadn't worn a helmet. That still needs adjusting for total accidents, and proportion of helmeted riders on the road in the first place. Again, poor reporting makes this tough.
You also have to be aware that some studies and stats are polished up by people fervently for and against mandatory helmet laws. Biased reporting doesn't help anyone. There's a good selection here: https://www.helmets.org/stats.htm (domain suggests a strong bias, but I'm not sure).
Pedal Me doesn't provide a good argument here. It seems more like they're worried what their customers will think (do they need helmets too?) and nothing to do with actual safety outcomes.
American Football vs Rugby and the difference in CTE is often cited as the prime example of where this is true. Helmets and shoulder pads encourage riskier hits.
American Football is all about set plays. You line up and then charge at each other, meaning you have two lines effectively charging at each other and can focus all your effort on this one effort.
Rugby is much more fluid, so the amount of direct head-on-head collisions is much lower, and the distance someone typically runs before tackling someone is much lower as the 'engagements' are more frequent.
American Football is like going from 0-60mph every 10 minutes, whereas rugby is about sitting at 30mph constantly.
I agree linemen are a novel concept, but they’re not the only victims.
Combine that with the fact when a Rugby player makes an extended run, they aren't often tackled directly head or side-on, it's more perhaps an "anchor" tackle from the back to pull them down. In american football, the safeties and deep players have more opportunity to get head-on with a receiver while the ball is in flight, while a rugby full-back having to watch and run horizontally while the player is running means they are less likely to be directly head-on.
Further combine that with the fact that Rugby governing bodies have penalised 'high tackles', and the rate of CTE drops significalty.
Is your core argument that rugby is safer because the players are more tired at any given point so they don't hit as hard? Other than that, I am struggling to figure out the mechanism between stopping more frequently and football being more dangerous.
>Combine that with the fact when a Rugby player makes an extended run, they aren't often tackled directly head or side-on, it's more perhaps an "anchor" tackle from the back to pull them down. In american football, the safeties and deep players have more opportunity to get head-on with a receiver while the ball is in flight, while a rugby full-back having to watch and run horizontally while the player is running means they are less likely to be directly head-on.
I'd suggest you watch videos like [0] to diligence your claim that head-on tackles aren't common in rugby.
The nuance that you are missing is the power equation - American football's best tacklers focus on short-duration, high-work contact (i.e. maximizing power) to knock an offensive player off their feet [1]. Think of it like placing a nail. You can swing a metal hammer and a rubber mallet (of the same mass) against the same nail and the metal hammer will always drive it better because the dt portion of the power equation (i.e. the denominator) is smaller.
The metaphor extends: rugby players may put in the same amount of work (or more!) on a given tackle, but the dt part of their power equation is much higher than in the NFL because humans are squishy (in practice this is also why you see so much more form tackling in rugby - it's hard to generate enough power to just knock someone over without wearing pads).
Ultimately, high power hits are what cause the rapid, high energy head movements that cause CTE and those are just easier to do in pads.
[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOFO_MzZi50 [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3Bh9LHMEeY
I think a lot of people —including experienced cyclists— would be surprised how easily a silly little fall, a knock against a car, can just kill you.
So even if a helmet makes you marginally more likely to be involved in an accident, being a professional vulnerable road user, all day is no joke. I'd like to have safety equipment when my number comes up.
Some of this difference is due to the innate and insidious sense of invulnerability with protective gear. It comes naturally even the first time you don it. It's a common source of accidents and something that must be trained out of you.
Being able to get back up unscathed from bad falls also reinforces your future confidence, or lack thereof, which I can also attest from having fallen many times both with and without protective gear.
I'd still never ride without (at least) a standard helmet. If helmets do factually cause more accidents, which is plausible for the reasons I just mentioned, I'd support making helmets mandatory for employees through legislation. It doesn't matter if the numbers support the opposite conclusion: maximizing individual safety in the eventuality of a crash is paramount. If you have ever had a head impact while wearing a helmet, you will understand why.
This approach is not right, the fact the bike is larger helps a bit but does not stop the driver or riders from being thrown from the bike.
The additional risk taking factor should be curbed through other means. Removing the helmet is not the right approach.
I’m fine with riders being able to choose whether to wear a helmet based on their skill, confidence and situation. But saying “wearing a helmet turns you into a psycho so don’t, or we’ll fire you” is really nonsensical and irresponsible.
Or in this case, a low-cost keep-your-brainer.
This seems insane. Even if the data supported this, anyone from the PR department should have seen how much bad press this generates from a mile away.
Sincerely, a guy who's probably alive because of a bicycle helmet.
https://lmb.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/FJKHORIVUAI799Z.j...
Don't get me wrong, I don't want to force anyone to wear a helmet. It's completely fine if one wants to take that risk. But forbidding them is just insane.
Also, helmets are not a get-out-of-jail-free-card. They increase your chances of survival in case of a crash, you will still get injured. Protecting people might be the least effective thing compared to eliminating the hazard, but splitting cars and bikes is simply not always an option.
But I stand by my original comment, even if they do think forbidding helmets avoids a few accidents, they should have smelled the shitstorm from a mile away (and people running a bike company should really be more empathetic towards bikers).
Yours seems to be based on the assumption that if it is not mandated by law, it is not a good idea that can save lives, which is the criteria by which others are evaluating this
It's also worth noting that biking in a city around cars and bikes and other people IS objectively risky, to the point where it is completely reasonable for someone to choose to wear a single piece of safety equipment over their single most important human organ
Urban biking is inherently risky, especially in countries/states/cities with lackluster or nonexistent safe cycling infrastructure.
Wearing a helmet is just trying to reduce the potential damage from unforeseen and unexpected accidents - things that may likely be 100% outside of control of the biker once they are on the road. It's not a matter of "I want to wear a helmet so that I can take more risks" and it's ridiculous that Pedal Me is peddling such an excuse.
Bicycle helmets are the kind of thing that you don't need 99,9% of the time, but you will die (or be reduced to a vegetable) if you don't have it in the few cases you do need it. While they should not be mandated, they also should not be banned, IMO.
Reads a bit like "We don't want our car drivers to use airbags, as the vehicles are heavy and dangerous and as such we require them to feel confident without such a safety device, so they don't drive recklessly", IMO.
Is there any data to substantiate this?
Risk compensation is a known theory in psychology. But as is normal for psychology, arguments fly back and forth, and there is no settled consensus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation#Bicycle_helm...
The thing I'm afraid of is a car hitting me at high speed cause they didn't see me, that would probably kill me.
AFAIK, in the Netherlands helmets are considered to slightly reduce safety in the general case (but this is not a strong effect).
The general objective is to make infrastructure sufficiently safe so that helmets become redundant.
Even experienced cyclists take the occasional fall :)
“A major cause of head injuries is going over the handlebars, which is not possible with a 3 metre long bike.
Helmets protect against falls. They don't protect against cars.
Also look at the amount of car vs. bike accidents where the cyclists head smashes against the windshield. A helmet protects in that case too.
As an example of one of the more funny&misleading statistics: People who wear bicycle helmets in the Netherlands actually end up in hospital more often. https://waronthemotorist.wordpress.com/2012/06/28/who-are-al...
I looked around a bit to see if I could find a paper that takes a balanced view. This particular paper seems to be a bit more from your perspective where wearing helmets might be of some utility. However it does leave the impression that it is would actually be somewhat hard to break even on wearing helmets in the Netherlands. https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s...
The second is a recent paper that applies evenly to people who ride a bike "normally", [From experience: at low speeds on segregated infrastructure at around 15 km/h or so]. My interpretation is that it concludes that wearing a helmet would improve safety for cyclists somewhat; however it would not (currently) be risk-cost-effective according to their measure; and would require intervention to break even.
If zero people rode bikes without helmets, you'd see 0 cyclists without helmets in the hospital. All those injured will be wearing helmets. It's a terrible measure.
Commuters actually make up the majority of cyclists in the Netherlands, there are a lot of them (cycle commuting is heavily encouraged for all kinds of people at all ages), and they don't wear helmets. Despite the large number of commuters on bicycles, commuting is (apparently) so safe that the commuters are heavily outnumbered by the sports cyclists in the hospital statistics.
It is still a somewhat misleading measure of course. You probably should not conclude that wearing a helmet is highly unsafe. ;-)
And... that's the point I'm making. Take measures from the Netherlands with a few grains of salt, because the situation is atypical. On the one hand it's really cool that it's atypical, but then you do need to watch out. The numbers don't line up with the intuition of someone from a typical cars-are-more-important-than-safety country at all; so it's easy to make funny assumptions and draw wrong conclusions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD-uImSUlPo <- eg. arbitrary busy cycle crossing(s?) in Utrecht. Seems to be mostly commuters and university students.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAKMNr0P5r4 <- or eg here on dedicated paths, Nieuwegein. A lot of school children at that particular point in time by the look of it.
What I see in those videos looks just like my university, a bunch of people on what we call beach cruisers going a very short distance. Their speed indicates they aren't going far and aren't in much of a rush. Are people in the Netherlands strict about arrival times? Do they usually move at a slower pace?
In my city commuters go fast. We're going a few miles on a commute at least.
The time culture is similar to Germany: you have to be punctual. This means you need to leave on time in order to arrive on time. As a general rule in real-world traffic: Speeding might not actually help you arrive all that much quicker, you just feel like you do. An objective instrument (such as a GPS) may well inform you otherwise.
Also, on a bike: if you're traveling longer distances, you need to pace yourself, lest you run out of steam half-way.
The infrastructure is good though, in municipal zones the cycle distance (and time!) can often be shorter than the car-distance; because bikes can take more short-cuts and are easier to park. And for longer distances it's possible to eg. park your bike at a station and continue by bus or train.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3-tUMgwCt8 <- bike parking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDXB0CY2tSQ <- start of video narrates a commuting trip (bike+train) to a business park near Amsterdam.
[edit] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UxCbmT9elk <- a commute with more biking in it
In my country (Australia), helmet wearing is mandatory and the vast, vast majority seem to follow this rule. I've never felt "more protected" wearing a helmet, as I wouldn't ride without one. It's a default state.
> Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
Pedal Me has done the math on what the average settlement for a traumatic brain injury to it's staff is going to be, multiplied by the probability of such an event, and has decided that they'll make more money without helmets.
It ignores that much of the risk comes from outside of the drivers control. It ignores that driver behavior could otherwise be monitored to ensure safety.
It would just be nice if it was honest- a driver with a helmet on doesn't match the sexy appeal they're going for. That people might say "if the driver needs a helmet why don't I, the rider?".
Edit: this was a tongue in cheek reference to the follow-up line in Fight Club (after the scene alluded to by OP).
I live in their target area and I can't ever recall a time where I wanted to combine the risks & downsides of biking and ordering a cab.
If I want to bike (note: I wouldn't recommend it in Central London), I'd get the Santander bikes or the various bike-for-hire ones littering the streets and just do it myself.
If I wanted to spend time fiddling with my phone, I may as well just order an Uber instead of this thing? The prices would be similar considering they both have to pay drivers and driver wages represent a significant chunk of the sticker price of any manned transport-for-hire service so I really don't see why anyone would get this thing instead of a good old Uber.
If a cyclist have a helmet he and everyone around him behaves dumber. This was researched.
Less accidents overall? I can believe that, maybe. But you'll need to back up "less severe ones".
If a new driver who's phone distracted them for a split second is going to hit me on my bike, I feel like it's going to be more severe if I don't have a helmet on.
Without the helmet you die on the road. With the helmet you die at the hospital.
This seems like an extraordinary claim, given that safety systems in all other places have no such effects (or at least, not as significant). I would very much like to see this research, and even then I would be very wary of it.
Either way, it's irrelevant given the levels of training that they are claiming they demand of their drivers. Given those claims, it's obvious that they helmets + training would be safer than just the training, if the training is good enough to protect the drivers at all.
There are examples where safety systems cause increased risk.
Football helmets are one. The helmet doesn't protect very well against concussions and the presence of the helmet makes it more likely for players to use their heads as a weapon.
I don't know about this bike helmet example since the actual data isn't available, but there are definitely times when counterintuitively having a safety feature is riskier.
[1] https://philosophia.uncg.edu/phi361-matteson/module-1-why-do...
True; on the other hand I remember (I don't have a handy reference, sorry) a study showing that car drivers were leaving less space around cyclists wearing a helmet (hence increasing the probability of a collision) than around those without...
Some people have suggested even that:
I can imagine how somebody could have thought risk compensation might be a thing in the short term - such as when seatbelts were a new invention. I've seen the kind of thing like people demonstrating how their active cruise control won't let their new car crash into the car in front, which is a pretty dumb idea (even if it will almost certainly work). But that seems to wear off pretty quickly, and then having it just becomes the default and you don't think of it anymore, so I imagine any risk compensation would quickly evaporate.
With bicycle helmets, they're mandatory here for riding out on the street, so it was just always the default. Anecdotally, putting on a helmet was and is just something we always did, and never changed the perception of risk because it was just the normal default. I don't even think about it, just like how I always put on the seatbelt and then don't think about it anymore.
Guilty as charged lol (though in my case it's to better understand how ACC behaved in various situations, given my unfamiliarity with it.
It's funny that could assume a totally different posture here: if helmets increase risks, we will use our great training system to make sure our drivers won't put themselves in dangerous situations even when wearing helmets. That would reduce dangerous driving and keep drivers' heads safer, instead of just reducing dangerous driving (which allegedly is the reason behind this decision).
- the author was the only person studied
- the difference wasn't that big
?
Interestingly, bare handed boxing often results in far less head trauma - and while it tends to result in more cuts it has far less of an effect on fighters long term health.
Risk compensation ( the reason they give for the decision ) is incredible hard to measure, since it involves causality. We suck at detecting causality in observational data. Basing a decision on ( most likely ) bad statistics is madness.
Anecdotally I bought a very fast electric scooter last year, but initially I didn't have a helmet. It took about two weeks to finally receive a helmet that fit me, and I didn't take it at top speed until then. I definitely feel much more secure riding with the helmet on...and take more risks than I would without it.
D% = A% * F%
A% = Chance of getting into an accident
F% = Chance of a given accident being fatal
D% = Chance of cyclist dying in a given time period
There is a possibility that the increase in A% caused by wearing a helmet is greater than the corresponding decrease in F%, in this case it is indeed safer not to wear helmets. To justify this there would have to be some VERY conclusive statistical evidence support both sides of the calculation, or the company will open itself up to a massive lawsuit the first time someone has an accident.
If pedal me indeed is spending resources on education and training of their employees, which they claimed allow them to maintain high standard of safety. Then, it's self evident that wearing helmet will be better, as the same training can help them overcome the tendance to be riskier wearing helmet.
There is no reason to claim that training for wearing helmet and not wearing helmet would not result into equally effective results.
I'd expect something more solid than "seem to be" as evidence from someone demanding I not wear a cycle helmet.
There is evidence that some drivers are less careful around cyclists wearing helmets meaning there are more accidents, but if you look deeper into to those stats most of the extra incidents are relatively minor and on the major ones significant head injuries are more common. So more a few more incidents, but the survivability rate is still better overall with a helmet.
It tries to maximize expected utility based on dubious analysis while denying people the privilege of making the vastly simpler and actually maximum choice of riding safely and wearing a helmet.
Privileging complicated nonsense over straightforward analysis and the companies analysis of net utility over individual freedom to protect themselves is nuts.
This is important to all but likely more so to people who would experience a larger than average risk and thus likely to be denied the ability to work in a profession they could do sufficient safety if not denied safety gear.
It is thus inherently biased against many riders who have a higher risk of injury than average but not unacceptably so.
It also keeps users from responding to increased risk driven by changing road conditions by substituting the companies policy for individuals judgement.
For example riders cannot respond to icy road conditions or known dangerous areas.
I see this as ripe for inevitable claims as far as bias against classes of individuals and injury claims.
People are going to be injured in situations where they can trivially argue that a helmet would have mitigated the damage. With the rate of injury everyone who would prefer to wear a helmet ought to send a certified letter to that effect to the company.
The ones that have the misfortune to be seriously injured will at least have the comfort of owning whatever is left of the company in 2023/24
That said, id never force someone else to eschew wearing a helmet. You have zero guarantee that what applies for one person applies to another rider in this context
Despite that, there are actually a few good examples of safety equipment causing more injury. Off the top of my head, striking combat sports have a similar opinion of headgear in sparring, it causes the participants to throw harder resulting in more head trauma. Similar sentiments with helmets & padding in football.
A bit apples and oranges with cycling as these are more example of mutually assured self destruction vs a car pulling out in front of you.
*I have no memory of it.
WTAF kind of statistics-twisting garbage is that?
1) The theory that this change reduces overall injury rate is true, therefore this is a good change.
2) The theory is false because of some mistake, or intentionally false, therefor this is a bad change.
3) The theory is true, but nonetheless this is a bad change because there are other factors more important than the injury rate.
If you're a worker that is injured on the job there are plenty of laws and torts in place to receive compensation. My favorite catastrophic injury attorney, Attorney Tom has a YouTube channel that goes into details.
But no. If your driving style is such that you feel the need of seatbelt or helmet, then it is too aggressive. Otherwise said, if your biking story is "helmet saved my life 5 times" then your crash rate is super high and the common determinant is you.
Likewise, safe driving style never ends with anyone saying "I am so glad I has seatbelts". It ends with people unbuckling without thinking about seatbelts at all.
It was a negligent homicide suit waiting to happen.
However, banning staff from wearing bike helmets is idiotic.
Before commenting understand that :
Research studies show bike helmets increase number of injuries, due to complex reasons NOT attributed to the vehicle type or whether it was the riders fault.
It is why they are not legally required in bike heavy countries like the Netherlands.
I recommend you DONT comment unless you’ve done your research.
Google the studies.
They create more accidents with varying severities including death while wearing said helmet hence they are more dangerous and so aren’t made mandatory.
1. […] wearing helmets because it is less safe to wear helmets
2. […] wearing helmets if such helmet-wearing is motivated by safety concerns
I’m guessing that only the first one makes sense now that I think about it. But I first thought that the riders had said, hey we want to wear helmets because we have safety concerns. And then the management said no.
I always wondered why I'm such a slow cyclist. Turns out it was because I was riding shared bikes, which have a total of three gears, all of them relatively low.
To reach 16km/h or 10mph in such a vehicle one would have to pedal like a maniac.
KE = 1/2 m v^2
I don't think barring Uber eats driver from wearing helmet would be safe. I don't know about this company, though I hope they don't absolutely ban helmet so much as not mandating them.
About the story behind this harmful myth https://slate.com/technology/2021/11/risk-compensation-debun...
My guess is it is going to be related to PrEP and HIV rates. PrEP is extremely effective and yet stigmatized due to the worry that it will decrease condom wearing.
Why can't our prejudices on this be just our own? We don't have to mandate them for others.
I guess this is my roundabout way of saying that I don't think this discussion is very rational. We accept a ton of risk in everyday life, but people get up in arms over this one thing. I guess one reason for this is that it's not viewed as a normal activity, which is a shame. And personally I view it as an instrument in preventing it ever becoming one.
Quote: "People most commonly get TBIs from a fall, firearm-related injury, motor vehicle crash, or an assault"
https://www.cdc.gov/traumaticbraininjury/get_the_facts.html#...
Because if not, they might have another problem.
Like motorcycles, you never see a "just a scratch" collision bike vs car.
Maybe solves the cost of hospitalization if they are dead instead.
> Pedal Me has explained the reasons why it has banned staff riders from wearing helmets.
> In a Twitter thread, the pedal-powered passenger and cargo service said people that are taking risks that are sufficient that they feel they need to wear helmets are 'not welcome to work for us' – because its vehicles are heavy and could cause harm, and because they carry small children on the bikes.
> Instead, it said it systematically works to reduce risk at the source– by thorough risk assessment, a high level of training, and near-miss reporting.
> “We know that increasing helmet wearing rates make cycling more dangerous per mile – although there are confounding factors here, this indicates that overall they do not provide a strong protective effect in the round – otherwise the opposite effect,” said the company. “Extensive reading of the literature suggests that this is because while helmets definitely help in the event of a crash, that risk compensation results in more collisions. So riders wearing helmets take greater risks, and those driving around them take greater risks too.
> “A major cause of head injuries is going over the handlebars, which is not possible with a 3 metre long bike. Another thing that makes us unique is our training systems, maintenance systems, and ability to track poor rider behaviour.”
> [photo of twitter thread, the official place where all important things are said and done]
> Pedal me: People that are taking risks that are sufficient that they feel they need to wear helmets are not welcome to work for us - because our vehicles are heavy and could cause harm, and because we carry small children on our bikes.
> Clive Andrews: That would indeed be interesting to know. Compulsion is a bad idea - in either direction. What's the score, @pedalmeapp?
Instead - we systematically work to reduce risk.(1/n)
> Pedal Me said it observes that companies that use helmets while wearing cargo bikes seem to be ‘much more likely’ to jump red lights and take greater risks. The company said the majority of injuries to its riders occur off the bike, which it knows because of its near miss and incident reporting, and that’s its focus for tackling danger.
Not sure if sharing articles here is against the rules, please let me know.
They can then tell customers that the helmets are there to improve visibility and therefore safety of their passengers.
I've never bought into it.
> The distribution of overtaking events shifted just over one-fifth of a standard deviation closer to the rider – a potentially important behaviour if, as theoretical frameworks suggest, near-misses and collisions lie on a continuum.
Looking at the graph in figure 1, "one-fifth of a standard" looks as unimpressive as expected. The distance from the kerb looks much more relevant.
IIUC all the analysis is based on 2355 data gathered by Walker riding a bike himself a few years ago between two cities. It's not a mix of data from different persons or a mix of city and countryside rides. The most interesting part is that Walker published 5 articles about the same data, and he got a different result in each one.
You're right that perhaps it is a big difference between cyclists, my guess would be the number of cars matters more than the number of cyclists. The study has been replicated elsewhere.
> Walker published 5 articles about the same data, and he got a different result in each one.
Uh, no? The 8.5 cm result has been consistent.
At the margin, these things make a difference, especially given that collisions are rare as a fraction for rides taken.
To be clear, I am not saying that it is safer to ride without a helmet, just an interesting study of behavior.
I get that you know people who are harmed by cars (as do I), but your appeal to pathos & anecdote should not have a bearing here.
When I was at uni and was cycling to a 10am lecture, a small van pulled out of a side road across my path. I was in a cycle lane and had right of way. He simply didn't look in my direction until he had already started to pull out. I was unable to stop or avoid him, so hit the front of his van head on, was briefly airborne, and landed on the road on the other side. Miraculously only scuffs and bruises, although my bike was a write-off. At that point I started wearing a helmet(!!!)
The next year, one of my friends went over the handlebars of her bike during a collision, except she landed head-first on the road, thankfully she was wearing a helmet. The helmet was split, she walked away with nothing other than mild concussion. Another friend and I walked out to rescue her bike later from the accident location, it also was a write-off.
Once you've seen a bike accident up-close there is simply no justification for not wearing a helmet. Even if you haven't seen an accident, wear a helmet!
The study is disputed by one researcher, the paper I linked contains a rebuttal and I think it is convincing.
Here is a study investigating this methodology of studying car behavior and ultimately concluding it is useful: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00014...
Not sure about the time or season though.
Unless I'm misunderstanding what's meant by "self-reporting", it sounds like regardless of how many riders they got data from, it would say that there are 0 fatalities to bikers because people who are dead don't respond to surveys.
Individual studies are on average fairly useless.
I'll be waiting :)
Here is another study, where they measured the distance to overtaking cars with a distance sensor:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00014...
"A Trek hybrid bicycle was fitted with a Massa M-5000/95 temperature-compensated ultrasonic distance sensor with its centre 0.77 m from the ground, facing perpendicularly to the direction of travel and feeding into a laptop computer running MultiLab software via a MultiLog Pro data-logger sampling from the sensor at 50 Hz."
I have been T-boned by a driver approaching from the opposite direction, in full daylight with no visual disruptions, when they failed to "look bike" and turned across my lane. They totally did not see me - so they fact I was wearing a helmet did not factor at all into the situation.
I was flipped through the air and landed 10m down the side road on my back. My backpack took the brunt of of the impact but my head still snapped back and hit the ground. The helmet protected my head and prevented what would have at least been a concussion and possibly a fractured skull.
In my 30+ years of regularly cycling on roads, I'd say the majority of close calls I've had have happened in with cars turning out of side streets of with cars turning across my lane from the opposite direction. Those are due to a combination of the following in my perceived order of likelihood:
- the driver checking for cars/buses/trucks and not looking for motorcycles or bicycles - the driver seeing the cyclist but totally misjudging their speed and assuming they have time to complete their turn in front of the bike - the driver being as asshole and cutting off the cyclist.
_Maybe_ the cyclist wearing helmet could affect the second scenario. It doesn't affect the first scenario and assholes are assholes regardless of helmet wearing.
I've had less trouble with close/reckless overtaking. It does happen, but it is highly unlike the car driver completely fails to see a cyclist they are overtaking.
Saying helmets reduce rider safety due to one scenario, where the car driver has to see the helmet and thus the cyclist in order to make a more risky overtaking gap judgement call, seems like a massive stretch to me.
As a regular biker, close passes are also a smaller of my concerns compared to most of the other hazards on the road.
We live in a world of safety fanaticism.
Which reminds me I need to get a helmet for my youngest, even though she's only a rider.
Because several family members and I have experienced head injuries riding bicycles, none of us have been shot at or attacked with a knife. That said, I'm down for making all private gun possession illegal.
There's like 27000 bicycle head injuries in the US.
I'm surprised you haven't googled it.
Here's the head injury source. You can easily Google shooting and stabbings per year and add them together. https://www.nsc.org/safety-first-blog/bicycle-safety-statist...
Its pretty clear you should pick up some Kevlar and chain mail for your kids.
A natural experiment may require comparing similar communities with and with helmet laws.
Shootings and stabbings on the other had are difficult to not report. And can happen regardless of proximity to bicycles.
Ultimately let's do both: get helmets for kids and get rid of so many guns.
Statistically 'in real life' extremely rare for this to happen.
Just like most forms of harm; most of the time that you take some form of insurance against a negative event, it's not necessarily because of the likelihood of that event, but the sheer totality of the harm that will occur if that extremely rare event comes to pass.
What is the COST of wearing a helmet? $60 purchase and 5 seconds every time you ride. Essentially nothing.
Compare to, e.g. TSA, which has a cost of billions of dollars and millions of person-hours. Unlike helmets, which are known to actually prevent some injuries, TSA is also effectively useless at its intended goal.
There's more gunshots and stabbings than people injuring their head on bicycles.
You can buy a suit of chainmail for the same price as a modern bicycle.
Its minimal cost.
In most countries, the risk of shootings or stabbings are orders of magnitude lower than having a fall or accident on a bike on the road with other types of vehicles.
In certain parts of the US, though? Yeah, wearing body armor would probably be a good idea. I think people just generally try to avoid going to those places as their strategy of risk avoidance, which negates the need for any body armor.
to be absolutely safe you should wear both full body chainmail and a bicycle helmet.
For me the main cost is having to carry around a bulky helmet when I'm off the bike and ugly indentations on my hair and forehead.
I have seen experienced ice skaters go from not wearing a helmet to being fanatical about wearing one, simply because they had an accident and had to deal with the consequences. I have also seen experienced cyclists who would have likely lost their life if they weren't wearing a helmet.
As for the company in question, which (incidently) was insisting that employees not wear helmets, it sounds more like a decision based upon the perceptions of customers. If they were truly interested in hiring people who are safety conscious, they would hire people who are safety conscious rather than those who are willing to ride without a helmet. There are more than a few people who don't wear helmets who have an astronomically high tollerance of risk.
Driving is high risk activity that can lead to severe head injuries. It is even easier to keep a helmet with your car than with your bike. The cost to risk profile here is extremely similar but the resultant behavior is quite different.
People rarely approach risks rationally and risk avoidance behavior is highly influenced by social acceptability.
During my lifetime of skiing, I have seen the shift from nobody wearing helmets to most people wearing them. The ski patrols worked hard to make helmet wearing first socially acceptable and then socially expected (at least in some groups.) The risks didn't changed, there was some rise in awareness, but the biggest change (from my perspective) is social.
This I see the vehement support for helmet wearing as predominantly cultural alignment enforcement rather than reasoned risk avoidance analysis.
Personally, I always wear a helmet skiing because it is more comfortable, plus I ski FAST sometimes. I rarely wear a helmet on a bicycle because I bike slow and strongly try to avoid situations where my safety is in the hands of other drivers. Instead I stick to mostly quiet residential streets, bike paths, or separated bike lines. The helmet has a much larger impact on my risk profile when skiing than biking because of my behaviors.
All that said, I don't think that the company should ban standard safety gear for their riders. Especially since they claim to have good incident tracking, they should be able to find and let go any riders who act recklessly with a helmet.
Just FTR, don't wear a helmet while driving a car. It will massively increase the strain on your spine in the case of a crash and your airbags are not built with helmets in mind. Additionally, car helmets are usually of the full-size kind and reduce your field of vision quite a bit. There's a reason helmets are not recommended for normal driving.
The only reason why we are asking these questions is because things that are legally required for automakers is left, at best, as a responsibility to the consumer when it comes to bicycles.
[1] To be specific, any department store should be regarded as a death trap prior to a knowledgeable person verifying that it has been assembled properly. Even then one has to be careful since the components are typically intended for very light use.
I know I've done incredibly risky things with equipment like wood chippers because I felt like their designs would let me stop them fast enough. I've hung off the back of boats at high speed because I had a GPS tracking radio collar on and felt confident if I fell off they'd find me. These things seemed to make sense at the time.
I've thought for a while that the best safety gear is training. Rail yards to this day show some unbelievably gory videos to inculcate people to the inherent risks present there. High vis gear, helmets, etc all are important but actually knowing the risks and owning them personally is essential.
Little of that seems applicable to this case though. I think wzdd's thinking is most accurate, unhelmeted passengers probably don't feel great looking ahead and seeing their driver's helmeted head.