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But one thing you don't see in those places is huge, flat-front trucks with poor visibility and worse pedestrian impact safety. Until the US mandates pedestrian safety measures, we won't see a reversal in this trend.
Edit: I mostly bike places here in California, and I do wear a helmet 99% of the time, but I don't judge those who choose not to, because the biggest factor in bike safety is having other bikes on the road.
Do you have studies to back this up? I did a quick search, and the first study I turned up didn't agree with you.
Helmet usage is actually increasing: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00224...
We recommend it for tourists as well. Though it is rare with helmets for that group who might need it the most: https://www.visitcopenhagen.com/sites/visitcopenhagen.com/fi...
Helmets are not compulsory and interest groups works to keep it that way: https://www.cyklistforbundet.dk/english/use-of-helmet
But less scary F150s and good bike infrastructure, yes.
I highly, highly doubt that. Your skull is much more likely to hit the pavement in a car accident, and a helmet can turn that from instead death to a concussion or TBI. People, PLEASE just wear a helmet. All it takes is falling one time to realize how good it is to have one.
- Impaired Drivers (60%)
- Passengers of Impaired Drivers (12%)
- Other Vehicle Occupants (16%)
- Non-Occupants of Vehicles (12%)
In the driver category, it's dominated by young males who tend to be poor in terms of compliance. The next cohort of are frequent fliers, any age, with chronic alcohol problems. That said, my understanding is that younger people are drinking less and shifting to cannabis.
Like any problem like this, it's complex. But I'd say that in general, PPE measures turn down the impact of incidents. But PPE for cyclists and others have pretty limited ability to reduce impact, as the physics of a collision at speed are in excess of the protection that can be offered.
Behavior and engineering are what eliminate incidents.
Our overview of the literature indicates that above 2% of the traffic accidents are suicide behaviors. However, the phenomenon may be underreported, considering that suicides by car accidents may be reported as accidental in the national statistics.My relative was a fire chief in a city with a popular bridge for jumpers and was involved in the response to the overall problem. Changing the sidewalk design, fencing, funneling people to locations with emergency phones and a few other things saved a few dozen people who intended to jump.
The whole point of our profession to to look at problems and solve them. Zero is difficult, but you can attack those numbers and make progress.