This post is part of ourBetter Biking lineament , a discussion of many of the way that we can engage in two - wheel transportation a small more effectively . last out tuned for more !
First of all , I should get it out of the way of life and say that I always wear a helmet . Furthermore , two geezerhood ago my answer to the dubiousness of whether one should assume a helmet would have been absolutely straightforward , and write on TreeHugger : The Bicycle Helmet Debate is Over . Really . assume a helmet .
You would n’t cogitate there would in reality be any question about it , really . But in fact it is a big debate , and the issuing is much more nuanced .
Do Helmets actually work?
There is pretty strong grounds that they do . Andrew Sullivan wrote about the bailiwick in the Atlantic :
right haggard , bike helmets are about 70 percent in effect in preventing hurt on impingement . Mary Pat McKay , film director of the Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Ronald Reagan Institute of Emergency Medicine , pronounce that with those betting odds , she does n’t understand why so many people preserve to ride without a helmet . " If I had a witching pill to prevent 70 percent of sum attacks among people with heart disease , they
In Ontario , Canada , they study the accidental injury before and after helmets became mandatory for those under 18 :
" If you just take care at that , then the average of deaths pre-[legislation ] and ordinary issue of death post-[legislation ] , there is a significant diminution . … And it turns out it ’s a 52 - per - penny reduction , " said Patricia Parkin , senior source of the study and managing director of the Paediatric Outcomes Research Team at Toronto ’s Hospital for Sick Children .
TheNew England Journal of Medicine pip in :
Riders with helmets had an 85 percentage reduction in their risk of head wound and an 88 percent reduction in their risk of brain injury . We conclude that cycle refuge helmets are highly good in preventing principal wound . Helmets are specially of import for children , since they suffer the bulk of serious head injuries from bicycling accidents .
That looks pretty convincing . But here is the problem : head teacher injuries are the major campaign of death for pedestrians , either hitting their heads on paving material or into the windshields when they are come to by cars . Many of the injury to people in cars get along from head injuries . So why are n’t pedestrian encouraged to weary helmet ? Or drivers ?
Becausethat might make people think that cars are dangerous ! Or that walk is n’t safe !
Mikael at Copenhagenize making fun of me
Mikael at Copenhagenize take me to job two age ago for promote helmet utilization alternatively of advance cycling . He feels that the constant whine that it is dangerous to ride without a helmet encourages a " refinement of veneration instead of upgrade a life - extending , safe , healthy form of exaltation that can also transform city into more livable places . "
Roger Geffen of the National Cyclists Organization in the UK put it well :
The idea that it is somehow ' dangerous ' and ' irresponsible ' to motorbike without a helmet is a total myth . It only frame people off cycling and contributes to the increase in the level of corpulency and other inactiveness - touch on sickness , which belt down decade of thousands of people every year . If we are to encourage mass to take up cycling - with all its benefits for our health , our streets , our surround and our wallet - then we need to promote it as a good and enjoyable way to get around for day - to - solar day locomotion , wearing normal apparel .
Dutch street ; note separated lane , deficiency of helmet
That is the way they think about it in the Netherlands , where they boost cycling as a safe and car as severe .
" The Dutch philosophy is : cyclist are not serious ; cars and car driver are : so car drivers should take the responsibility for invalidate collision with cyclists . This implies that car machine driver are almost always liable when a collision with a wheel occurs and should accommodate their speed when cycle divvy up the roads with cyclists . "
Nobody put on helmets , and the destruction pace is extremely low .
I wear a bicycle helmet ; I do n’t experience in a metropolis with a bike base like the Netherlands or Copenhagen . I surmise that if I experience in downtown New York , with their fabulous cycle lanes , I might not . I have come to agree with Mikael and others that our energies should be devoted to getting more cyclists on the route ( yet another study shows that there is safety in numbers ) , that we need investment in cycling infrastructure ( more and undecomposed bike lane ) , and more aggressive enforcement of the law against driver who stamp out cyclist .
