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Comment by float4 | Hacker News Reader

> The Netherlands did a study on bike helmets

This was a British study

> and found that cars tend to be more dangerous with cyclists if the cyclists are wearing a helmet

Re-analysis showed that there actually was no significant effect. Source: https://swov.nl/en/fact-sheet/bicycle-helmets (under: "Do bicycle helmets also have adverse effects?")

> which is why there are no mandatory bicycle helmet laws in the Netherlands

We (the Netherlands) don't have helmet laws because we hate helmets, not because we did research and concluded they'd have significant adverse effects.

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because we hate helmets, not because we did research

Actually, we did. From [0] (the link to the study itself is on that page too):

> A recent Dutch study (2021) concludes that many people expect to make fewer bike rides when mandatory helmet laws are introduced. These findings suggest that such a law would have a negative effect both on bike usage and on public health in general.

In addition to the standard arguments already posted here about safety in numbers, efficacy of a helmet, and infrastructure design, they also mention a few practical problems with helmets:

- What to do with the helmet when you're not wearing it? A good helmet is too big to just store in a coat pocket or a handbag.

- What to do if you lose your helmet or it gets stolen? How will you make it home then?

[0] https://www.fietsersbond.nl/de-fiets/accessoires/fietshelmen...

I experience the same delema's when I ride a motorcycle and have to lug around an even bigger/heavier/more expensive helmet. I sometimes will opt for a car over motorcycle simply because of the PPE element. However, my solution to that problem is not to skip wearing my PPE. I am not sure it should be the same for cycling either. In places like the Netherlands I guess it can make more sense for PPE to not have as much importance as you're going to have far less risk of an head injury compared to a rider in many North American cities.

The "re-analysis" just does a bunch of ad-hoc adjustments to make the study underpowered. You could make literally any scientific paper show no effect by doing the same thing.

I believe that re-analysis was refuted by Dr Ian Walker: https://psyarxiv.com/nxw2k

> because we hate helmets

I mean yeah helmets for commuting at a snail's pace in areas without cars are an annoyance at best.

> and found that cars tend to be more dangerous with cyclists if the cyclists are wearing a helmet

I know that when I'm driving a car, I specifically behave differently when I see a bicyclist with a helmet vs without. /s

This just sounds so preposterous. First off, I doubt the average driver notices bicyclists at all. Of those that do, I'd seriously doubt if they even consider that they are wearing a helmet or not and just express frustration at the bicycle being there in the first place. The suggestion that a driver notices a helmet and acts more aggressively towards the rider or that they give a wider berth to the rider when not wearing a helmet is just "trying too hard" for lack of better words to describe my incredulity.

> I doubt the average driver notices bicyclists at all.

This seems like an issue. The average driver should absolutely notice the environment they're operating in.

This includes noticing those around them. This should be especially true for the more vulnerable road users.

Um, that's the point of it being THE issue.

If you are riding a bicycle in an area (like mine) where biking is just not at all that common in the majority of areas, then the drivers of motor vehicles are just out of practice of noticing bicycles. It is not in their muscle memory of needing to look out for them. Other cars, sure. Pedestrians, maybe (but that's probably pretty low as well).

I do behave differently with some bicyclists than others and it might be correlated with helmet use.

If I see a bicyclist that looks like a bicyclist I tend to drive closer to them because I expect they are going to stay in their lane. Conversely, people who look like they aren't regular bike riders or teenagers just screwing around -- I will give a much wider berth... in some cases even going a completely different route to avoid them.

> If I see a bicyclist that looks like a bicyclist

I recall a coworker explaining the duality of cycling in full kit vs. cycling in "street" clothes with his children. In the former case, he appears as a pro or semi-pro cyclist and in the latter, as a dad spending time with his children.

It's not hard to guess which get-up gets him honked at, coal rolled[0], etc. It's also not hard speculate that a driver is more likely to give the dad spending time with his children more room on the road. (Of course, in either case the cyclists should all be wearing helmets, but we're only even having this discussion because not all are so responsible.)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal

Yeah, I know someone who has no issue seeing people biking who look like they are going somewhere, but he absolutely hates people who look like they are biking for exercise. His logic is that roads are built for transportation, and people shouldn’t be blocking parts of the road to get a workout in.

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