Mandatory helmets for cyclist?

[Justin Thyme]

Let me start this off by saying that I advocate the use of a helmet while cycling. I am convinced that helmet use by cyclist reduces the number and severity of injury when there is a bike crash and that many lives have been saved by helmet use. Having said that I believe that many more lives have been saved by people just getting on a bicycle and riding. Cycling improves health period.

So the question is, should helmet use be mandatory? It seems this article gives us some very good reasons why helmet use should not only not be mandatory but helmet use should not be advocated quite as strongly as it is in the US.

In the United States the notion that bike helmets promote health and safety by preventing head injuries is taken as pretty near God’s truth. Un-helmeted cyclists are regarded as irresponsible, like people who smoke. Cities are aggressive in helmet promotion.

But many European health experts have taken a very different view: Yes, there are studies that show that if you fall off a bicycle at a certain speed and hit your head, a helmet can reduce your risk of serious head injury. But such falls off bikes are rare — exceedingly so in mature urban cycling systems.

On the other hand, many researchers say, if you force or pressure people to wear helmets, you discourage them from riding bicycles. That means more obesity, heart disease and diabetes. And — Catch-22 — a result is fewer ordinary cyclists on the road, which makes it harder to develop a safe bicycling network. The safest biking cities are places like Amsterdam and Copenhagen, where middle-aged commuters are mainstay riders and the fraction of adults in helmets is minuscule.

I have a friend who is in his fifties, as I am, who started riding a few years ago. He dropped weight and has gotten himself in fairly decent shape. He refuses to wear a helmet. A group he was riding with tried to get him to wear one but because these guys were a good bit younger than him they felt a little weird trying to make him wear a helmet. The leader of that group asked me the other day if I worried about my friend because he doesn't wear a helmet. Yeah, I do, but I'd worry more about him if he wasn't riding.

[Warkitty]

It's a fine line I guess. I mean, to me wearing a helmet is a no-brainer and doesn't make me feel less safe or discouraged from riding, but I also wear a helmet riding my horse and many people refuse to do that (I think they're nuts), a helmet on my motorcycle and have had to wear one for multiple other entertaining things I've done, like climbing walls.

I guess it comes down to perceived risk for each individual.

[joedog]

I just got me a bike to ride along with my wife. We both don't have helmets, yet. For right now we just putt around the track down at the ball park below the house. They go down on a rack and come back up the same way.

We will get brain buckets but tell us we have to wear them and I will have two nice 3 speed bikes for sale.

[Warkitty]

I think most of the time no helmet is required, especially places like the Riverwalk or the park track. On a mountain bike I think it gets a little more important as those trees do love to jump in front of you if you're not careful, and if riding in traffic? Well.... I don't trust motorists to not try to kill me. Doesn't stop me from riding, but it does make me want that helmet.

Then again, I do tend to average closer to 20mph. A wreck at that speed that includes hitting my head is a bit more dangerous.

[BlackFox]

Oct 8, 2012 17:33:21 GMT -5 joedog said:

I just got me a bike to ride along with my wife.

Hopefully not at the same time!

[Babs]

On the street, I think a helmet is needed. All the crazy car drivers,. some of whom take delight in driving closely to a runner or biker.

[Bob]

I live with a brain injury survivor and know several bike related brain injury victims. My opinion is skewed.

[Tsavodiner]

They're already mandatory for kids and it's the most unenforceable law on the books; I don't need any more undoable tasks.

Low falls from any height or any speed can kill you

[Bob]

Oct 8, 2012 20:11:37 GMT -5 Tsavodiner said:

They're already mandatory for kids and it's the most unenforceable law on the books; I don't need any more undoable tasks.

Low falls from any height or any speed can kill you

I don't know, at least in the parks it should be pretty easy for a ranger to figure out what camp site the kid is at and then site whoever registered the camper with a couple hundred dollar fine would help.

if an officer told the kid to go home, then site parent the same way shouldn't take much time depending on how far the kid was from home. Yeah I know you guys are busy, but if you site parent, word would get around pretty quick in that neighborhood. And could indirectly protect dozens of kids.

[Warkitty]

Oooh, my inner English teacher is itching to tell you it's "cite" not "site."

Anyway, it IS unenforceable and I wouldn't want to see it enforced. If I were to ask for an enforcement on bikes, it would be more geared towards educating what I call "dude on a bike" into riding WITH traffic instead of against. THAT drives me far nuttier than helmetless riding, and is actually a whole lot more dangerous all around.

[Bob]

Oct 9, 2012 6:28:32 GMT -5 Warkitty said:

Oooh, my inner English teacher is itching to tell you it's "cite" not "site."

**hangs head**

Oct 9, 2012 6:28:32 GMT -5 Warkitty said:

Anyway, it IS unenforceable and I wouldn't want to see it enforced. If I were to ask for an enforcement on bikes, it would be more geared towards educating what I call "dude on a bike" into riding WITH traffic instead of against. THAT drives me far nuttier than helmetless riding, and is actually a whole lot more dangerous all around.

yeah I agree with "wrong way" being bad if not worse.

[LimitedRecourse]

Obamacare will cover all trauma, so what's the big deal?