Hacker News Reader

Comment by y7 | Hacker News Reader

Maybe relevant: the Netherlands is probably the country with the highest use of bicycles for transport, yet no one, except for cyclists on racing bikes/MTBs or foreign tourists, ever wears a bike helmet. This is because they're only marginally effective at preventing injury, and the disadvantage of reduced cycling use if helmets are mandated results in far worse public health outcomes. See also https://dutchreview.com/culture/cycling/5-reasons-why-the-du...

View on HN

This completely misses the forest for the trees and misattributes causality. The Dutch don't wear helmets because the traffic culture and infrastructure are completely different, not because of some questionable statistic no one has heard of. In the Netherlands you feel safe as a cyclist. Drivers look out for you because they're also all cyclists at other times. Cycling is so prevalent that it's hard to explain to anyone who hasn't experienced it.

There are also significant legal penalties for being at-fault and injuring/killing a cyclist in the Netherlands as compared to the US.

Can you elaborate? The US has such a high incarceration rate for in European eyes often benign offenses that I find that statement hard to believe even though I don't know the Dutch laws (I'm German). E.g. I can't imagine a Dutch person being incarcerated for injuring a cyclist unless it's on alcohol/drugs. I can totally imagine that for the US though. But I might be totally wrong. Would be really curious for some details.

My opinion on this might also be heavily and incorrectly influenced by popular media sprinkled with a few factual statistics that reinforce the bias.

When we lived in the Netherlands, my wife rode her bike infront of a car at an unmarked crossing where the car had every right of way. The car driver sued for repair fees, but in the end, the car driver had to pay her compensation instead. It doesn't matter that he had right of way, he was the "stronger" side and hurt someone weaker by not being cautious enough. There's obviously more nuance to the laws there, but this is a good example of the common mentality.

I love the distinction between stronger and weaker road users.

With more power comes more responsibility, put into practice.

The US is enormous, with almost no public transit outside of dense metro areas. As a result, cars hold a sacred place in society and jurisprudence. It is simply impossible to live without a car when your driveway is 10 miles long and the nearest "town" is 30 miles away.

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.

> You can get a neverending stream of OUIs and keep your license after paying fines in most cases.

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).

This is about the presumed record holder, so it’s the worst kind of citation, but a WI man was convicted of his 18th OWI (presumably operating while impaired)

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.

Cases of potential death do not count as "benign", at least in my book.

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.

I think part of the problem in the USA and Canada is that our road laws are exceedingly motorist-centric. Things that don’t seem to make sense, like drivers getting a slap on the wrist for killing cyclists, do make sense if you consider that the laws don’t expressly promote and prioritize the safety of cyclist on all road ways.

As a general rule US public policy is enormously biased towards being pro automobile. Putting drivers in jail (ie for less than extreme recklessness) impedes that goal. It was very eye opening when I lived abroad and the law was actually biased against the “stronger” party in a traffic accident (ie truck > car > motorbike > bicycle > pedestrian ). It makes sense to me to essentially require more responsibility in proportion to the damage you are able to cause.

Operators of heavier vehicles have a duty of care toward smaller vehicle rider.

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).

Cyclists are protected by law, such that even if an accident is the fault of the cyclist, the car driver is still 50% liable. This in combination with the infrastructure, which separates cyclists and cars as much as possible, makes the Netherlands very safe for cyclists.

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).

I live in a small city and have cycled to school since I was 6 years old. At first with a parent, but from about 9 years old I would cycle by myself. I have never seen anyone wear a helmet in that time.

My experience in NA was that killing a pedestrian or a cyclist with your car is actually the easiest way to get away with murder. At worst you’ll get away with a 500$ fine, at best nothing. And “wooops didn’t see them, the sun was in my eyes” is a valid defense.

Some folks call it the SMIDSY defense - as in, " Sorry Mate I Didn't See You"

Not OP, but I’d like to note that a woman in the US was convicted of vehicular manslaughter when she crossed a street on foot with her 4 year old son and they were struck by a drunk driver.

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/06/14/raquel-nelson-finally...

Aren’t the at fault vehicular manslaughter laws in the US the same for drivers who hit cars, cyclists, and pedestrians? If you kill a cyclist in the US and you’re at fault, that’s likely jail time (same for hitting a car or pedestrian).

What’s missing in US laws vs Netherlands?

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/245475107?storyId=245475107

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.

In the Netherlands and several other European countries, there is presumed/strict liability on the part of the automobile driver. Regardless of fault, a car driver has responsibility for any accident between their car and a bicycle. There is of course more nuance to this, but that's the basic overlying principle.

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."

Which sounds terrible, and goes against "innocent until proven guilty" rule. Also, in some situations it gives the driver perverse incentive to finish the cyclist off (and therefore get rid of the only witness), instead of, say, calling an ambulance.

There a lot of cultural bias against bicyclists already. While leaving the scene of an injury accident is a crime, murder is an extreme escalation.

No. The maximum prison sentence in such a case would be 8, 6, or 2 months in the Netherlands, depending on how reckless the driver was (and up to 4 years if drunk). If you then kill the cyclist you're looking at a maximum of 25 years.

There’s a morbid joke in the U.S.: if you want to kill someone, do it while they’re riding a bicycle.

Certainly the perception is that drivers don’t face jail time in such a situation.

It’s not a matter of what’s actually written in the laws but of police/prosecutorial discretion.

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.

The last time I did jury duty the judge and staff made sure everyone knew how to use the free parking. A jury of motorists isn't going to judge a fellow motorist harshly.

“Jury of their peers” indeed…

> that’s likely jail time

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.

I roughly agree with you but this hypothesis would suggest:

- 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.

The "must wear helmets" advocacy is never focused on conditions or nuanced ideas about when it is OK not to wear helmets.

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.

To me, that seems like a clear difference in infrastructure. If a biker shares a stretch of asphalt with a car, that's a risk for the biker and they need a helmet. In the Netherlands, this is widely understood and bikes get their own infrastructure everywhere. Only then you don't need helmets anymore at all.

while there is a lot, bikes do not get their own infrastructure everywhere. most likely the street you live on has no bike path. many city streets have bike lanes but not separated from the road

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

One flaw in this logic: helmets don't protect against cars ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Maybe not if a car hits you head on, but if a car cuts you off or clips one of your wheels a helmet will be useful.

A bike helmet has literally saved my life in multiple such occasions.

You swerve to miss a car, dog, obstacle, person and take a spill…

You T-bone a car.

It helps.

They don't protect from the part where the car directly hits the rest of your body straight on, or the bike itself. Every single part that happens immediately after that - such as the fall, flying through the air, or what have you, the parts that always come afterwards - is where the helmet can provide life-saving protection.

There is a HUGE difference between NOT REQUIRING helmets and PROHIBITING helmets.

The Netherlands probably also have some of the safest roads for cyclists.

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.

Read what the Dutch cycling union has to say about helmets.

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.

https://shop.thuisbezorgd.nl/nl/helmen

That page is about the idea of helmet mandates, not about the safety of an individual decision to wear one.

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.

No doubt Pedal Me contractors operating in Dutch cities might choose to not wear a helmet. That'd be fine. But that choice should be left to the contractor, not the company.

It's worse, they are not contractors but employees. The company should have a book thrown at them.

Helmets, even the light helmets bicyclist wear, are very effective at reducing the severity of head injuries. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24686160/

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 is junk science. The authors simply did the ANSI drop-test in a lab test. In the real-world, 99% of bike crashes with death/severe injury are the result of car-crashes -- which the ANSI drop-test does not model correctly at all.

It's usually a junk comment to call something junk science.

They are claiming 90% risk reduction based on a laboratory model. That model obviously does not track with reality (show me any country where bike helmets reduced death/injury by that amount). If a model does not correlate with the real world, then it is by definition...junk.

I'd bet a Dutch cyclist would wear a helmet when riding on American roads, with American drivers in American cars.

As a Dutch cyclist I would certainly use a helmet on American roads (or not use a bicycle at all). Furthermore, in the Netherlands the delivery drivers that use bicycles are asked to wear a helmet by their employer. Riders of E-bikes that are able to accelerate without pedalling and those that are able to accelerate above 25 km/h are required to wear a helmet by law. I'm certain that the majority of the Dutch would think it is completely insane that a delivery company is prohibiting the use of helmets on their E-bikes, even if it was in the Netherlands.

I am a Dutch cyclist and almost got a ticket for not wearing a helmet while under 18 (I was 16 or 17) in San Francisco. The policewoman was nice, though, and let me go.

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.

They're marginally effective on Dutch roads, which were overhauled to be cyclist-safe decades ago, with new roads being safe by default. The Dutch approach unfortunately does not reflect even remotely on North American cities. You need a helmet, because stroads[1] guarantee accidents.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM

If you ever visit Amsterdam you'll see there are hardly any cars on the road and those that are have to drive at something like 5 miles an hour to avoid all the pedestrians and bicycles.

It's nothing like riding a bike in the U. S.

The Dutch don't actively prohibt you from wearing a helmet though...

The Dutch have separate lanes for bicycles and a lot bicycle traffic goes through areas where cars don't even go.

Hey now, don't bring reason here. We reject effective technology to stop speeding, phone use, distracted driving and regulations to make cars and trucks have no more than necessary power, weight and effective sightlines but since cyclists wear a styrofoam hat they are safe. Except those pedestrians are dying at an accelerated rate, I think they should get a helmet too.

The response here are hilarious, like "they also have better infrastructure" - wow, you are soo close to getting it!

It's not reasonable and it's not relevant to point that lack of helmet use out.

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com