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this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
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Fuck Cars
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Citibikes are just bike share bikes that anyone can use.
I doubt it's any different anywhere else.
I don't know about local laws regarding bike helmets in NYC, but the reason they're not mandatory in most places is that they don't save lives. In fact, wearing a helmet in a car is statistically more likely to prevent you from getting a head injury than it is on a bike. Most cycling fatalities and serious injuries are a result of being crushed, not hit in the head, whereas, in the UK, anyway, most head injuries happen inside cars.
@gowan @frankPodmore Why aren't helmets mandatory in cars? If it saves just one life surely it would be worth it?
Bikes dont have airbags, restraints, or a large cage of structural metal surrounding them. If you are on a bike, your only protection is what you are wearing. With that in mind, wouldn't you want to wear something to protect yourself when moving at higher speeds? Even a speed of 10mph can be fatal if you fall off and hit your head on the ground. You cannot fall off or out of a car if you are properly wearing your seatbelt, and the airbags and structure of the vehicle are your immediate protections.
Basically, helmets in cars aren't mandatory and don't make sense to make mandatory, because there are already safety precautions in cars. Bikes, whether manual or motorized, do not offer these or any protections.
But the safety precautions in cars are clearly inadequte, because many people still die. We didn't look at cars and say, 'No need for airbags, we already have a safety precaution in the form of seatbelts'.
Please tell me what exactly a helmet in a car will do for you, unless you are travelling well over 200 miles per hour? Seatbelts already hold the torso in place, preventing one from slamming their head into the steering wheel, dashboard, or windshield, and the airbags already absorb the energy and arrest the unrestrained body parts, such as the head.
You would have to be travelling fast enough to outpace the airbags, which typically deploy at around 200 miles per hour. You wanna know why professional race car drivers wear helmets? Because they don't have airbags.
Because all those safety features don't prevent cars from being the place you're most likely to get a traumatic brain injury.
It's quite illustrative how furious you are about this. If you read what I'm saying properly, you'd see that I don't think people in cars should wear helmets. My point is that the arguments for doing so are just as good as they are for cyclists, i.e., not at all.
I once read an article about a kid who was killed by falling masonry while sitting on a bench. Clearly, we should require bench-sitters to wear helmets in case of falling masonry!
@frankPodmore That rather depends on whether your objective is to deter beach sitting or not. Of course, if the real objective is to protect life and health, the place to start is removing the source of harm ๐
You're right! Time to ban masonry!
@gowan Really? Or has it just been misinterpreted?
But it is a logically sound reason to ask, if they're required for cyclists, why not in cars?
And hey, why stop at transportation? I'm sure wearing a bike helmet makes it less likely that I'll suffer a serious head injury if I fall down the stairs at home, so I'd better start wearing one inside, too. It's the socially responsible thing to do.
@frankPodmore @gowan
"Promoting the use of bicycle helmets runs counter to ... policies that are aimed at the primary prevention of crashes (as opposed to secondary prevention [of injuries])"
"Attempts to promote bicycle helmets should not have the negative effect of incorrectly linking cycling and danger."
https://road-safety.transport.ec.europa.eu/eu-road-safety-policy/priorities/safe-road-use/cyclists/pros-and-cons-regarding-bicycle-helmet-legislation_en
@frankPodmore @gowan I guess the idea is that if you mandate helmets it will reduce bicycle use (which may be part of the reason you'll seeess deaths). Less cyclists in an area raises the risks for those cyclists that remain. Drivers feel more comfortable with helmeted cyclists, and studies show they drive closer to those cyclists that wear helmets compared with those that don't (see 'risk compensation')
I wear a helmet cycling kids to school fwiw.