They might be more inclined to cycle because they don’t need to wear a helmet.
After years of cycling with helmet you get so used to it and it doesn’t bother you. But how many skip the bike because they never got used to wearing a helmet?
It was only a week but it was so refreshing. I think about this experience daily when driving because I think of how much time would be saved if people just knew absolutely when to take their turn and took it; instead of processing each decision and deciding based on their current mood. People knew the damn rules and norms.
So, I think it’s a function of having a critical mass, being necessary, and being embedded already as a norm. I don’t believe a city could make riding without a helmet legal and expect any sort of increase in safety …
1. Almost everyone cycles. So all drivers are themselves cyclists. So they treat other cyclists with consideration.
2. The road/cycle infrastructure is set up to separate cars and bikes wherever possible. And where they share routes, cars are often explicitly second class users ("auto te gast" - cars, you're guests).
3. In any collision between a car and a bike, the driver will almost always be the one found at fault.
not riding a bike because a helmet is ??uncomfortable?? is ridiculous and probably self-selecting
About finding my helmet, I always attach it together with the bike with the U lock. Unless I’m parked in a secure place where I let it hang on the handlebars.
I’m not especially advocating for mandatory helmets and I’m the first to say absence of helmet shouldn’t prevent you to ride, but if you are a regular cyclist, having one at hand is not a ridiculous idea.
Come on man, I have never rode a bicycle more expensive than $100 despite riding at least 5000km annually. I bet that your helmet costs more than all of my 3 bicycles.
Back when I did bike, I'd fall off and hit my (helmeted) head once a year or so.
I was always thankful for having a helmet.
Granted it was typically doing something stupid (jumping a curb or such), but still, I was thankful for having a helmet!
I once jumped a curb and scraped off half the skin on my palms.
The down-voted comment of mine tells that gloves are far more useful than helmet for a bicycle rider. But I know I have messed with the holy cow so c'est la vie.
It might be the case that helmets are a net negative for casual riders. But whenever I've done a spontaneous unplanned dismount at 20mph I didn't find that knowing how to fall helped me much.
What was the circumstances (type of road and type of bike)? Have you touched the ground with any other parts of body except of palms, elbows and knees? If yes then consider to keep learning how to fall because your falling skill is not that proficient. If not then the helmet was not that useful.
There isn’t going to be anyone consciously thinking “I’m not gonna ride because I have to wear a helmet” but instead “eh I can’t be bothered riding” without digging too much in to why.
They do use "change on approach" lights outside of the cities way more, but in cities it's usually only for trams and buses.
I've fallen many times and not once I've hit my head. They are probably useful in high speed impacts, but then you are fucked anyways.
Gloves are much more useful on a daily basis. Saved my hand many times.
I've also seen a friend have a high-speed impact: he was airlifted to hospital, survived and has mostly recovered. Looking at the state of his helmet I have no doubt that he would have died at the scene without it.
Most biking in the US is biking shared with cars. You probably won't have a bike lane. Most likely, you aren't commuting or going to the grocery store - the grocery store might take 15 minutes of driving but 30 minutes of biking - if you can even go the most direct route legally. Longer biking sessions generally means more risk. I'll take the helmet in places that I must defend myself against automobiles on an unsafe path.
Also look at those 'old' basic bikes they use there, you don't need more on those flatlands and everybody is fine with 20-25kmh. Add tech bros or generally young folks with fast ebikes and escooters going 50kmh and things change.
That's why we point to them. The infrastructure didn't exist in Holland either, until they choose to build it.
Even Amsterdam has streets which have 0 room, but generally city center is blocked/too expensive to most car traffic to even enter so they manage.
If it would be a easy problem to solve, it would be done or at least almost done at this point. And something tells me it requires certain type of population where respect to others is way above average, that's not granted.
Many Dutch cities don't either, that's why they disallow cars entirely. Really only Rotterdam has spacious roads thanks to the bombings. Ann I understanding you correctly?
> And something tells me it requires certain type of population where respect to others is way above average, that's not granted.
I'm not sure where you are the casuality here. In my experience it's the more human centred infrastructure design that encourages a higher level of social engagement and respect for others.
But regardless I would find it tragic to condem certain cultures as being inherently incapable of these things.
> If it would be a easy problem to solve, it would be done or at least almost done at this point.
It wasn't begun that long ago in the Netherlands. The vast majority of infrastructure has been built since the turn of the century. It takes a while for other places to really realise that their current models aren't working, and even longer for them to really learn the lessons of the Dutch.
But if you look at cities like London, Leipzig, Barcelona, Paris or further afield to Montreal for example then many cities are actually beginning to successfully integrate Dutch design practices.
Amsterdam’s answer to faster vehicles is to move them to the main road with other faster traffic. Although it is now moving to slow down nearly all traffic inside the city to a 30km/h limit, which will improve cyclist safety a lot.
If you have to ride alongside cars, make sure you practice defensive riding.
https://www.eta.co.uk/2011/04/01/safest-bicycle-helmet-has-b...
In the UK.
https://drianwalker.com/overtaking/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-...
its a nice idea, but i think adults should pay for their own helmets
however, children... sure. give them one.
People do understand that with government programs, "free" means taxpayer funded. As in, almost everyone understands that. The comment isn't needed. Those comments are the reason I put things like "fare free public transport" - not because it is more realistic, but because arguing with these comments is exhausting.
Society is full of things other people helped pay for - and you most definitely use them. Your health insurance company pools money together to cover everyone's ills, for example. You don't pay individually for your infrastructure use - other people help you pay so that you can get electricity. And so on. You can't have modern society without this.
(I guess it doesn’t work if you don’t have public healthcare)
People who don't use helmets don't do it because they are too expensive. They do it because it's not convenient to carry, because it's not cool, because it messes your hair, because you need somewhere to store it. (Not) Free helmets solve zero of these problems, it's just a bad idea.
People who don't use helmets for whatever reason would be more inclined to do so if they could just go pick one up, and didn't have to pay for them in a store. Even if those reasons are not that they are expensive. It's a great idea.
All the cities maintaining a bunch of locations full of helmets for free pickup would just create more waste. You can have a similar effect without any waste by just having a class that teaches children to ride bycicles at school and tells them the benefits of helmets and keeps helmets there for that one class. This memory would be with you for life, and you'd make your own decision.
If helmets were cost prohibitive I'd be with you, I believe in using tax money for that kind of stuff, but price is not the reason people don't use helmets.
1. Redesign a 2-lane (each direction) highway into a 4-lane highway at the cost of several hundred million tax dollars, over the course of a few years.
2. Leave the highway smaller. Re-zone a city to allow small shops within residential neighborhoods, and up-zone all residential land to allow up to 4-story townhomes and condos. Spend tens of millions of tax dollars building a robust cycling highway, and make it safe for people to accomplish basic errands within a close proximity to their home.
For #2, spending of tax dollars is less and people are healthier. You still have roads, but people need to drive on them much less often.
So when the next city proposes an $840M highway revamp [1], consider how you could spend 10% of that funding to increase mobility around the city for residents ($84M could build a lot of safe separated bike highways). While at the same time allowing private development to make natural improvements to neighborhoods by opening new corner stores and shops along bike routes
There was a ted talk that said bicycle helmet laws would kill more people than save.
The reasoning was preventing people from riding would also prevent increased fitness, and more lives were lost from that than saved from accidents.
EDIT: I think this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07o-TASvIxY