The Hierarchy of the Bike Helmet Empire
It's all clear to us now.
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11 comments:
When NYC has a real bike infrastructure with an extensive network of separated lanes, I will gladly give up the helmet (worst "fashion" accessory ever).
While the current situation exists, where we are basically playing in traffic, the helmet will unfortunately stay.
As another US cyclist, I agree with Anne: a separate infrastructure must come first but it has not -- and may not. The oil and automobile interests are very powerful in this country so the vast majority of transportation funds are spent on roads (and not bike paths, public transit, etc).
In a cycling accident near my house a couple of years ago a car turned right, directly in front of a cyclist. When she fell, the car's rear wheel ran over her head. She had a cracked helmet but survived with neck and shoulder injuries.
Many drivers are inattentive and distracted, chatting on phones, texting, eating, drinking -- these are the drivers with whom we share the road when we cycle. I wouldn't go out there without a helmet.
I'm an American cyclist also and I never ride without a helmet. I don't know if that is sensible or not but I really like Cycleliciousness's point of view; it ought to be a matter of personal choice instead of a matter of law. My own safety might or might not be affected but public safety isn't.
I am generally opposed to having helmets be mandatory for adults. That having been said, I think anyone who rides without a helmet is being unnecessarily foolish. I wear a helmet when I ride my bike. I wear a seatbelt in the car. I look both ways before crossing a street. I don't eat things that smell wrong. These are all reasonable things that people do to stay alive.
Helmets say "cycling is dangerous". Car drivers see cyclists wearing helmets (when they don't have to, e.g. not in Australia, Lithuania or Bogota) and think "responsible cyclist" etc. and never consider driving slower than the speed limit. Media (in the USA at least) often mentions whether or not an adult cyclist is wearing a helmet in a reported bike "accident", even though this has no effect on the crash happening in the first place... well, actually I am wrong, a recent study showed that car drivers get closer to cyclists who are wearing helmets.
None of the cities/countries with high cycling modal share had anything like a "helmet phase" on the way to that.
Styrofoam is meant to live free and wild, not on your head.
Why does it bother you Europeans so much that we (Americans) wear helmets? As much as you argue against it, you end up looking like just as much of a zealot as those who argue you can't ride a bike without one.
If you want to wear a helmet, wear one. If you don't, don't.
when i was out in California, i wore a helmet a lot. as soon as i came to Austin, i saw few people wearing helmets and realized that these were really two routes that diverged in the land of the yellow jersey. I went with the route less helmeted, and that has made all the difference.
:)
If all people and animals wore helmets doing their everyday routine, a lives might be saved.
This is enough to convince me...
http://masiguy.blogspot.com/...
2008/05/wear-your-damn-helmet.html
It is obvious to me that a helmet will protect your head in crash, but how you ride is the most important bit of safety. I acknowledge that are dangers to riding a bike, however, like the majority of the world's bike riders, I believe it is pretty low on the list. Call me foolish if you like, but every once in a great while I will eat a Big Mac & fries too. Styrofoam hats are really best suited to racing.
Just a guy that rides his bike around in the US.
NEWS FLASH!! Riding a bicycle at relaxed speeds is not dangerous! It's the damned cars that make going to the grocery store by bike a blood sport in the US.
Reluctantly, I wear a helmet nearly every mile I ride because cars have stained our streets with genocidal amounts of blood and I don’t want to be a statistic in the body count. I hate my damned helmet. It is a Crown of Thorns and a Scarlet Letter that our homicidal auto culture forces us to wear because we dare to be different and not follow the lemming in their shiny metal boxes. If I'm riding for speed then I wear my helmet without complaint but I shouldn't need it to cruise 1/2 mile down the street to get my Sunday bagel.
While I was out in Davis CA for a bike planning conference, people asked the local bike planners why they didn't push for more helmet use amongst the locals. The reply was simple. They didn't want to make cycling more inconvenient or scare people from riding their bikes because they knew that it is more important for safety to have more people cycling then to push helmet use and risk lowering the numbers of cyclists. After a week of riding around town I started to realize that Davis was an exceptionally safe place to ride a bicycle, similar to some of the best bicycle towns in Europe. So I left the helmet behind and for the first time in a long time I truly felt free while riding a bike. I had none of the guilt for riding helmetless that I feel when I do so back home in New Jersey because I knew what I was doing was perfectly safe. And it was the wonderful bike culture and city planning in Davis that made it possible for me to do so.
As long as we feel compelled to wear a helmet for even the most casual bike rides, we are not free as cyclists and we will not be living in a true cycle culture.
Peace.
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