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This isn’t some pro-car blame shifting conspiracy to report on how someone died unnecessarily when easy safety measures are available or were bypassed. The car driver can still be at fault for the accident, but the pedestrian/cyclist/one-wheeler/whatever can still assume risk exists when near traffic and take easy and reasonable precautions. I wear a helmet when riding on bike paths away from cars because you can still get bumped or make a mistake or have mechanical failures and fall and die if you hit your head wrong.
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2016/06/02/why-helmets-arent-the...
I mean, go ahead, wear one, they aren't going to hurt for sure, and probably make a lot of sense at an individual level, but at a macro, systemic level, helmet wearing is not really the answer.
Is "they don't hurt" really the best you'll say in defense of helmets?
Correct me if I'm way off the mark, but from what I understand the argument against mandatory helmet laws goes something like this: Helmets aren't stylish/comfortable/convenient, therefore people don't like to wear them, therefore people are less inclined to bike if doing so would require a helmet, therefore people are more likely to die from being fat or in a car accident.
This argument seems rational to me. It may or may not be correct, the devil is in the numbers, but at the very least there's a rational chain of argument here. Let's suppose that argument is correct, the rational response is to simultaneously oppose mandatory helmet laws and wear a helmet anyway. Helmets break so your skull doesn't, on an individual basis you are safer if you choose to wear a helmet. Helmets aren't designed to solve "macro, systemic" problems with society, they address the problem of you getting your skull cracked open and they do that very effectively. You should be willing to admit that wearing a helmet not only doesn't hurt, it absolutely helps you. If you're not willing to concede that helmets help on an individual level even if systemic social issues remain, that's madness.
I see room for debate over the value of mandatory helmet laws, but there's no rational debate about helmets on an individual level. Biking with a helmet is safer than biking without one.
Clearly the risk of catching a viral load outdoors in summer at 20mph is multiple orders of magnitude lower than smashing your head on cement while moving on a city street..
what I mean to say is that perhaps it wasn't poor risk management, just behavior driven by mandatory obeying of laws and regulations. no one told them that they need to wear a helmet by law, so they didn't.
(please keep in mind that I don't know anything about your local regulations, just sort of talking in ambiguous terms.)
If someone died in a car accident, would you consider it relevant if they were wearing their seatbelt or not?
Also, the exact same logic applies when a pedestrian is hit by a car. How many articles do you see where an article about a pedestrian being hit by a car talks about the pedestrian not wearing a helmet.
Why not?
Helmets save lives, and isn’t it literally their job to inform us of such facts?
In my eyes, it’s the same as a journalist talking about how a sexual assault victim wouldn’t have been assaulted if they simply hadn’t gotten drunk that night.