We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

Re:We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes by justin66 on Wednesday October 23, 2019 @11:19AM (#21335515)

> The chance of a healthy adult cycling in the Netherlands getting a head injury that would have been prevent by a helmet are so incredibly low, that making it a requirement would have a detrimental effect on the collective health of Dutch society due to slightly lower uptake in cycling.

That's an easy thing to assert and a difficult thing to prove. I just assume the rules are the way they are because the Netherlands is a democracy and they want things that way, not because they're especially great at risk assessment (what population of people really is?).

I gather this is still a rather active topic of discussion and research in the Netherlands?

https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2019/03/top-hat-bike-helmets-w...

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Re:We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes by Kim_Bruning on Wednesday October 23, 2019 @12:19PM (#21336138)

Not a particularly active topic.

Combining your two sources suggests that making helmets mandatory would have a large negative effect on public health. (the downtick in injuries would be overshadowed by the reduction in biking)

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Re:We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes by justin66 on Wednesday October 23, 2019 @01:48PM (#21337028)

I only offered one source, and the research it quotes suggests no such thing, so your comment seems a bit odd. The closest it comes to saying what you suggest, is not very close at all:

But a spokesman for the SWOV acknowledged that the protective head wear might be a hard sell in the Netherlands. ‘Helmets aren’t often worn in the Netherlands and we are aware of the arguments [that cycling could decrease if they were obligatory],’ he said.

I'm not invested in what happens in the Netherlands at all, but I wonder if a lot of people are just taking "the downtick in injuries would be overshadowed by the reduction in biking" for granted.

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