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A comment on We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes. Parent comment

Re:We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes by willis936 on Wednesday October 23, 2019 @10:28AM (#21334961)
From the re-analysis cited in the wikipedia article:

"Do bicycle helmets reduce the risk of injury to the head, face or neck? With respect to head injury, the answer is clearly yes, and the re-analysis of the meta-analysis reported by Attewell et al.(2001) in this paper has not changed this answer."

https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.aap.2012.12.003

If it's behavior that's being targeted by policies around helmets, then why would a more care-free attitude towards biking make it safer?

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Re:We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes by ogre_codes on Wednesday October 23, 2019 @11:36AM (#21335697)
It doesn't make cycling safer for the individual, it makes society safer and people healthier. Individually riding with a helmet is safer than riding while not wearing a helmet, but if everyone rides a bike without a helmet, fewer people die and people live longer because there are far fewer cars on the road.

Fewer people are driving cars which are much more lethal to non-drivers, so fewer people get killed. People are more active and live longer because of increased physical activity.

Making bikes more appealing/ easier to access by not requiring helmets makes people collectively safer and healthier.

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