Paradoxically, wearing a helemt makes people feel safer doing more dangerous things, so it increases the actual risk. However, the existence of cars without sufficient infrastructure makes biking significantly more dangerous, reguarless of everything anything the bike rider is doing. So in countries with functional bike infrastructure, like the Netherlands, people don’t wear helmets because it’s safer not to. In dysfunctional countries, like the US, people have to wear helmets.
Faster biking without a helmet is obviously dangerous, I don’t know if this is also related to cars. In the Netherlands, eBikes with acceleators are considered motorcycles and require helmets but eBikes that are just pedal assist are considered regular bikes and people generally use the assist to go farther not faster.
If you’re cruising along on a road bike at 20 mph, hit a rock, and get thrown forward onto your head, you definitely want a good helmet to absorb the blow. Studies have shown that wearing helmets while cycling reduces the risk of head and brain injuries by about 70 percent, and regular bike commuters should make the decision to wear a helmet, no question. Helmet law proponents argue that these benefits would carry over to bike-share riders, but in fact, the safety picture is more complicated.
Do we need to require that you carry your helmet all day in case you decide to hop on a clunky 40-pound bike-share cruiser to go two blocks from office to lunch? The risk of severe injuries on these short jaunts is low, and in the rare cases where riders are killed, it is most often in devastating collisions with cars and trucks where, as New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson bluntly put it, “a helmet wouldn’t even help them because of the sheer scope of the accident.” The biggest threat to city cyclists is motor vehicles who don’t see them and don’t respect their space on the road and wearing a helmet is unlikely to mitigate the danger of these bike vs car collisions.
Dutchies wear no helmets because we’re stubborn that way. There’s more injuries compared to our neighbor Denmark where more than half of people wear helmets.
With the advent of eBikes there’s been a huge upsurge in cycling related injury, certainly among the elderly. However the mental ownership of bikes makes us as unwilling to wear a helmet as stereotypical southern us state males were unwilling to adapt the seatbelt.
Inverse survivorship bias ‘i never needed one’ prevails. Only one in ten wears a helmet and if you bring up this topic in conversation it gets really uncomfortable soon…
I think our boomers would rather elect literally Hitler instead of submitting to bike helmet law (something national identity). It’ll darwinise itself out in the long run.
Wearing a helmet increases your risk of injury: https://road.cc/content/news/268605-wearing-cycle-helmet-may-increase-risk-injury-says-new-research
Paradoxically, wearing a helemt makes people feel safer doing more dangerous things, so it increases the actual risk. However, the existence of cars without sufficient infrastructure makes biking significantly more dangerous, reguarless of everything anything the bike rider is doing. So in countries with functional bike infrastructure, like the Netherlands, people don’t wear helmets because it’s safer not to. In dysfunctional countries, like the US, people have to wear helmets.
Faster biking without a helmet is obviously dangerous, I don’t know if this is also related to cars. In the Netherlands, eBikes with acceleators are considered motorcycles and require helmets but eBikes that are just pedal assist are considered regular bikes and people generally use the assist to go farther not faster.
People who wear helmets bike more and therefore have a greater risk of getting hit by a car.
They’re more likely to bike more dangerously. Folks in the Netherlands don’t wear helmets and it has the highest bike usage in the world.
That also means there are fewer cars for people to get hit by.
Wat? Helmet mandates reduce cycling numbers.
https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/news/counterintuitive-argument-against-bicycle-helmet-laws#:~:text=And evidence backs up the,for uneven and discriminatory enforcement.
This is about bike shares and the author states:
Dutchies wear no helmets because we’re stubborn that way. There’s more injuries compared to our neighbor Denmark where more than half of people wear helmets.
With the advent of eBikes there’s been a huge upsurge in cycling related injury, certainly among the elderly. However the mental ownership of bikes makes us as unwilling to wear a helmet as stereotypical southern us state males were unwilling to adapt the seatbelt.
Inverse survivorship bias ‘i never needed one’ prevails. Only one in ten wears a helmet and if you bring up this topic in conversation it gets really uncomfortable soon…
Helmets are going to be required for older cyclists pretty soon though, yeah? I wonder how much that will impact things.
I think our boomers would rather elect literally Hitler instead of submitting to bike helmet law (something national identity). It’ll darwinise itself out in the long run.
Oh, is Geert Wilders against helmets? Heh.
Well any helmets outside of intensity hairsprayed blond domes
According to one study it takes about 2300 Newtons to fracture a skull.
For example, drivers will give unhelmeted cyclists more room while passing, on average.