Headcase
The other day I was relaxing at a cafe when I found myself eavesdropping.
Why did he feel the need to speak to the bicyclist and why did he assume the cyclist was somehow ignorant? Would this guy similarly attack other people doing things that he viewed as poor judgement? Or is it just bicyclists?
I’m sick of the helmet hype. It’s time to hype up infrastructure until “cycle track” is in everyone’s vocabulary. I dream of the day this guy will ask the city what’s up with the street design that makes cyclists feel like they need to wear helmets.
In my city there is a bylaw about how cyclists must wear helmets. Which makes every person feel EXTRA entitled to share their views about how I’m breaking the law if I bike 1.5km to the farmers market on a cycle track. It’s amazing to me how much people feel like they can just comment, out loud, on my life.
Although as a fat woman who exercises, bikes, and eats in public it shouldn’t be a suprise anymore when people comment on my body or decisions, it is still surprising every time.
To the “safety equipment” and “I’ve seen” crowd, here’s one thing you have not seen (in this country) — someone riding a bike share bike, with or without a helmet, killed in a crash. 23 million trips, zero fatalities. Car safety stats would predict two fatalities in that many trips, and a 65% chance at least one of those auto deaths involved a severe head injury.
So are we talking risk and safety here, or just innumerate tribal norms? It takes a finely tuned risk tolerance to declare that bicycles are so unsafe as to certainly require a helmet, yet cars are so safe that it’s silly to even suggest it (per-trip risks are within a factor of two overall, thus it is no surprise that a safe subpopulation of cyclists is safer than cars in general).
And motorcycles are something else entirely. 25x the per-trip fatality risk, relative to bicycles.
Y’all who have opinions on this, you DO try to follow research and news on risk, don’t you?
I. Will make a small disagreement with you about the motorcycle death rate. It’s a complex issue. My thought is that the vast majority of motorcyclmany wayses are “toys” rather than transportation. And they ate not ridden regularly in the same way that commuter bicycles or commuter cyclists operate. I spoke to a guy I who spoke lovingly about his Harley. ..I put 500 miles on her this year. …uh..I have a 250cc yamaha scooter that was driven 10,000 miles. It’s kinda like when my health allowed more bicycling. I rode a bicycle every day nearly. Then you get the people who ride on the trails once a month.
I ride a motor scooter for transportation and work because I have had all the driving I can stand. Over 1 million miles of professional driving. In some ways a small scooter has the advantage
Mark, it’s just the nationwide stats — they count all the trips in all the modes (using census data, I think), and all the reported crashes with fatalities and injuries, and do the math. I have no doubt that there are much safer motorcycle riders, in the same way that bike share users are much safer bicycle riders (at least 4x safer than the cycling average). But the stats say that overall the per-trip risk ratios, car:bike:motorbike, are 1:2:50. One of these things is not like the others — but we have some upstream commenter remarking on the head injuries she’s seen from motorcycle accidents, therefore cyclists should wear helmets. (Why is bike share so safe? My guess is it is a combo of a selected population in an urban area riding bikes with running lights that are not geared for the highest speeds.)
And we can’t *all* be above average. Someone is having those fatal crashes.
“You’re not wearing a helmet!!!”
“Very observant of you, my new friend… I’m not wearing depends either… And neither is your problem… Have a great day!!!”
It’s allways people who don’t bike that’s talk about that I MUST wear a helmet (I’m 49 and still bike every day). If I stop at red lights, use bicycle lights also on daytime and use my arms and look drivers in the eyes nothing will happen. 80% of all bicycle accidents (in Sweden) are single accidents and then it’s not the head that is the issue. It’s your wrist or your shoulder thats got to give you pain. I have german quality tires from Scwabble wich is better then helmet. No single accident for me – ever.