Bike riders wear helmets and high-vis vests to reduce their vulnerability on the road. Problem is a new study finds this dehumanises cyclists, putting them more at risk of aggression from drivers.
I’ve never understood why people get so upset about being forced to wear helmets. Why take a risk when it comes to what is arguably the most important part of your body? Even if you’re a perfect cyclist who will never fall over (and will never suffer any kind of mechanical failure, like the seat on my bike that broke off while I was riding down a hill) it’s still a sensible precaution and worth some minor inconvenience like having to bring a helmet with you or leave it attached to the bike.
As a cyclist, I rarely wear a helmet because there is enough data out there to show it may be more dangerous to do so. As a motorcyclist, I wear all the gear all the time, and won’t even get on the bike without a helmet. Personally, I’m really following data and research as much as I can. Low relationship between helmet use and bike safety, high relationship between helmet use and motorcycle safety
Can confirm I fell off my bike in my own Street, going about 15kph after a night at the pub. Didn’t even notice I’d smashed my helmet until the next day. Glad I had it on.
This may be the case, but may also not. Concussions are pretty tricky… If we look at common causes, many are activities done without helmets, and people do survive them, and conversely, many of them happen in spite of the presence of the helmet.
So it’s harder to link concussion safety to helmet use, and as the summary mentions, head injuries are currently more common in walking and driving than in cycling, so, again, it’s quite difficult to study and most conclusions have quite a bit of uncertainty.
I slammed my head into the concrete really hard. Hard enough to destroy the helmet. Hard enough I could have died even wearing a helmet.
It was a totally unexpected freak accident, did something I’d done a thousand times before, only this time I fell over. You just can’t predict some accidents.
I’ve probably crashed a bicycle or motorbike 50 times in my life. The only people who haven’t crashed are people who don’t ride often.
I get what you’re saying, people take more risks when they are wearing a helmet. But at the same time, not all crashes are the rider’s fault. Sometimes it’s another vehicle. Sometimes it’s an unexpectedly slippery surface. Sometimes it’s a mechanical failure (have you ever had a tyre rapidly defalte suddenly at speed and then come off the wheel rim before you could stop? I have. Twice. It’s not fun). Sometimes you just get hit in the face by a rock or a large bird.
Cycling is inherently dangerous. Protection is appropriate.
… also … if the statistics say wearing a helmet may protect you… then fuck, I’ll take those odds. Imperfect protection is better than no protection at all. If you cycle regularly, you will crash. There’s no uncertainty in that - everyone who has cycled regularly for any period of time has crashed more than once. And head injuries are the most common cycling injury according to Australian hospital statistics (among serious injuries anyway - hospitals obviously don’t collect data on minor bruises).
I actually think you’ve misinterpreted what I’m saying, unfortunately. The data consistently shows that head injuries are the most common form of injury for all forms of individual transport, that present in hospital. That includes modes where helmets are common like cycling and motorcycling, and modes where they are not common such as walking and driving.
The data further show that out of all modes of individual transport, cycling results in the least hospital visits per unit distance traveled.
Further, various studies suggest but can not conclude, that various policies which increase helmet use also contribute to higher rates of hospitalization for cyclists. The data also shows an inverse correlation with unknown cause in populations with lower habitual helmet use and bicycle hospitalization.
The actual point I would like to make is that the study of bicycle injury and helmet effectiveness is young, and the data are inconclusive at best.
I certainly don’t want you to not wear a helmet while cycling, but when we talk about public policy, that might be another question entirely. Unfortunately, the received wisdom based on emergency ward studies on the early 80s was itself not comprehensive, and has only become less clear over time.
The data further show that out of all modes of individual transport, cycling results in the least hospital visits per unit distance traveled.
If we put aside the requirement that, to be meaningfully compared, the different modes of transport would need to be normalised to the number of people participating in each mode of transport, wouldn’t this support the statement that helmets prevent hospitalisation?
Well, it shows that either all places in the data set have universal helmet use (they don’t) or that helmet use is not the dominating factor. Further, informing policy, is suggests that it would be better to mandate helmet use for the more dangerous modes such as walking and driving, and focus enforcement there
The article linked at the beginning of this thread lays out a good overview of the available research. This includes causes of head injury hospital visits, over half of which were from driving.
All I can say is I’ve hit my head hard enough to get a concussion while wearing a helmet. Pretty sure I would’ve died without the helmet.
So I’m glad I was wearing one, and I will continue to do so every time I ride.
I’ve never understood why people get so upset about being forced to wear helmets. Why take a risk when it comes to what is arguably the most important part of your body? Even if you’re a perfect cyclist who will never fall over (and will never suffer any kind of mechanical failure, like the seat on my bike that broke off while I was riding down a hill) it’s still a sensible precaution and worth some minor inconvenience like having to bring a helmet with you or leave it attached to the bike.
Unfortunately for the perfect cyclists out there, cars don’t actually care about your bike handling skills.
As a cyclist, I rarely wear a helmet because there is enough data out there to show it may be more dangerous to do so. As a motorcyclist, I wear all the gear all the time, and won’t even get on the bike without a helmet. Personally, I’m really following data and research as much as I can. Low relationship between helmet use and bike safety, high relationship between helmet use and motorcycle safety
Can confirm I fell off my bike in my own Street, going about 15kph after a night at the pub. Didn’t even notice I’d smashed my helmet until the next day. Glad I had it on.
This may be the case, but may also not. Concussions are pretty tricky… If we look at common causes, many are activities done without helmets, and people do survive them, and conversely, many of them happen in spite of the presence of the helmet.
So it’s harder to link concussion safety to helmet use, and as the summary mentions, head injuries are currently more common in walking and driving than in cycling, so, again, it’s quite difficult to study and most conclusions have quite a bit of uncertainty.
I slammed my head into the concrete really hard. Hard enough to destroy the helmet. Hard enough I could have died even wearing a helmet.
It was a totally unexpected freak accident, did something I’d done a thousand times before, only this time I fell over. You just can’t predict some accidents.
I’ve probably crashed a bicycle or motorbike 50 times in my life. The only people who haven’t crashed are people who don’t ride often.
I get what you’re saying, people take more risks when they are wearing a helmet. But at the same time, not all crashes are the rider’s fault. Sometimes it’s another vehicle. Sometimes it’s an unexpectedly slippery surface. Sometimes it’s a mechanical failure (have you ever had a tyre rapidly defalte suddenly at speed and then come off the wheel rim before you could stop? I have. Twice. It’s not fun). Sometimes you just get hit in the face by a rock or a large bird.
Cycling is inherently dangerous. Protection is appropriate.
… also … if the statistics say wearing a helmet may protect you… then fuck, I’ll take those odds. Imperfect protection is better than no protection at all. If you cycle regularly, you will crash. There’s no uncertainty in that - everyone who has cycled regularly for any period of time has crashed more than once. And head injuries are the most common cycling injury according to Australian hospital statistics (among serious injuries anyway - hospitals obviously don’t collect data on minor bruises).
I actually think you’ve misinterpreted what I’m saying, unfortunately. The data consistently shows that head injuries are the most common form of injury for all forms of individual transport, that present in hospital. That includes modes where helmets are common like cycling and motorcycling, and modes where they are not common such as walking and driving.
The data further show that out of all modes of individual transport, cycling results in the least hospital visits per unit distance traveled.
Further, various studies suggest but can not conclude, that various policies which increase helmet use also contribute to higher rates of hospitalization for cyclists. The data also shows an inverse correlation with unknown cause in populations with lower habitual helmet use and bicycle hospitalization.
The actual point I would like to make is that the study of bicycle injury and helmet effectiveness is young, and the data are inconclusive at best.
I certainly don’t want you to not wear a helmet while cycling, but when we talk about public policy, that might be another question entirely. Unfortunately, the received wisdom based on emergency ward studies on the early 80s was itself not comprehensive, and has only become less clear over time.
If we put aside the requirement that, to be meaningfully compared, the different modes of transport would need to be normalised to the number of people participating in each mode of transport, wouldn’t this support the statement that helmets prevent hospitalisation?
Well, it shows that either all places in the data set have universal helmet use (they don’t) or that helmet use is not the dominating factor. Further, informing policy, is suggests that it would be better to mandate helmet use for the more dangerous modes such as walking and driving, and focus enforcement there
How do you conclude that walking and driving are more dangerous in terms of head injuries?
The article linked at the beginning of this thread lays out a good overview of the available research. This includes causes of head injury hospital visits, over half of which were from driving.
So if activity X has a 1 in 50 chance of injury, and activity Y has a 1 in 500 chance, which would you say is more dangerous?