ADRM
Senior Member
Actually, there are a host of good reasons why laws mandating bicycle helmet use are a terrible idea.
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- Thread starter rp07
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Actually, there are a host of good reasons why laws mandating bicycle helmet use are a terrible idea.
amnesiajune
Senior Member
And they are...?
ADRM
Senior Member
Off of the top of my head, though surely others on this thread can supplement, mandatory helmet laws are bad because they:
- Undermine significant government investments made in bike share infrastructure by discouraging usage
- Punish tourists for choosing bikes as a form of transport
- Some studies have shown that helmet laws actually decrease public safety because motorists give helmet-clad cyclists less room and consideration
- And, by far most importantly, they broadly make it harder to cycle when the city should be doing everything in its power to make cycling easier, safer, and much more prevalent. They also create another barrier for lower income people to choose cycling as their mode of choice.
Here's a good Guardian roundup of an Aussie Senate expert panel explaining to Australian lawmakers that their mandatory helmet laws are terrible.
amnesiajune
Senior Member
Perhaps, but is more usage worth foregoing massive safety improvements? Bike helmet usage reduces serious head injuries by 70% and fatal injuries by 65%. According to the CDC, universal helmet usage from 1984 - 1988 would've prevented 2,500 biking deaths and more than 750,000 biking injuries in the US.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...-serious-head-injury-by-nearly-70-study-finds
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00036941.htm
Easy fix... Require bike rental shops to give out helmets and create an exception for Toronto Bike Share as long as it's used on bike lanes, cycle tracks and multi-use trails.
Got a link to those studies?
I don't think there's any argument to be made that biking without a helmet is safer. As far as easier and more prevalent goes, you could say the same about motorcycles and power-assisted bikes - they're a lot more efficient (for both energy and space) than cars, and yet we have mandatory helmet laws for them. Biking would be a lot more prevalent if kids and teenagers grew up riding bikes, but they're also required by law to wear a helmet. And if the price of a helmet is really a barrier, the city can subsidize them and/or give them for free to low-income residents.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
I'd say this true. Even myself, when driving I'll give an non-helmeted rider more space, even more so if they have a child in a carrier. I consider myself a good driver, but I subconsciously do this. So, if you want to ride safe, skip the helmet and buy a doll for the rear carrier.
As for visibility, I'm always amazed that those guys on the reclined bikes aren't killed.
Zach6668
Active Member
LOLOLOLOL. So, essentially you're proposing to rending BikeShare entirely useless? Have you seen the hodgepodge of bike lanes in this city? They don't connect to one another, they end abruptly, and they don't go to anyone's final destionation because we insist on building them on side streets, as opposed to commercial main streets. And what about all the cars parked in the bike lanes? Am I allowed to enter the mixed traffic lane to get around them without a helmet?
ADRM
Senior Member
Literally every one of your responses is pretty much straight out of the playbook of conservative, anti-cyclist lobbyists.
1. As the very article you cite points out, focusing solely on head injuries represents an incomplete picture of the story, as other longitudinal studies point out that the overall, long-term health benefits of cycling may outweigh the risks associated with only serious head injuries. And if you actually cared about safety, first and foremost, you should be advocating for the much more rapid and widespread construction of protected cycle infrastructure, which make cycling safer for everyone without imposing new restrictions on them.
2. "Require bike rental shops to give out helmets" is a cost-offloading measure that businesses surely would reject (and rightly so); "create an exception for bike share" is, oddly, undermining the basis of your own argument, and also just makes no sense because the vast majority of bike share docking stations aren't along protected cycle tracks, which is unsurprising given the embarrassing dearth of protected cycle tracks we have in the city.
3. Here's a link to a study that does a good job of explaining the often spurious claims by mandatory helmet law proponents, homing in on the difficulty of independent, isolated variables, explaining that "whether such legislation is effective has remained uncertain and studies examining this issue have been small, hampered by flawed methodology, and limited to young people." And here are a nice few lines from a Sydney-based doctor testifying at the Senate committee hearing against mandatory helmet laws:
"...there is 'evidence of wider harm to population health resulting from the reduction in cycling. It does seem odd that we, as a community, should have a law about something that reduces population health'", and another good one from that same debate:
"...mandatory laws have proved 'inefficient. They have discouraged large proportions of the community from using their bicycles and most probably have caused a much worse impact on our nation’s health by keeping people away from this kind of exercise than they have given benefit by reducing head injuries”, and another from a professor who testified:
“Helmets are utterly useless in collisions with motor vehicles. Worse, they give both the cyclist and the motorist a false sense of security. It is well established, for example, that motorists give a helmeted cyclist less passing room.”
And still other studies have focused on the question of whether a link can even be drawn between mandatory helmet legislation and a resulting decrease in the number of serious head injuries, where "the researchers concluded that head injuries were decreasing across the country at a rate that wasn't 'appreciably altered' by the new helmet laws. Other rider health initiatives — namely, public safety campaigns and the introduction of better bike infrastructure — rendered the contribution of helmet laws "minimal."
Personally, my opinion is to err on the side of caution; I wear a helmet whenever I'm riding a non-bike share bike. But it is undoubtedly true and obvious that imposing a mandatory helmet law would decrease the prevalence of cycling and unduly punish people. And that's a terrible combination of policy outcomes.
amnesiajune
Senior Member
Have you seen that the entire downtown core (between Dovercourt, St. Clair, Avenue, Bloor and the Don Valley) is within a five minute walk of the city's bike lane network?
I bike in Toronto. I have nothing against biking. I'm just tired of all the smug, whiny "advocates" who will go on and on and on about any minor grievance with road design, cars or pedestrians, but oppose taking any personal responsibility, whether it's wearing a helmet or not putting themselves in risky-but-technically-legal situations.
I'm all for more bike infrastructure where it makes sense to build (i.e. not on every single street just for the sake of it). But if you want to make biking safer, there are three components to it - the first is better infrastructure, the second is better understanding by everyone of the rules of the road, and the third is common-sense safety measures, which includes wearing a helmet.
The location of bike stations is something the city can work on. If you look at other cities with Bike Share systems, they do put them on roads where there are bike lanes/cycle tracks, or where it's legal to bike on the sidewalk (blanket bans like the one Toronto has are rare, cities usually allow it where sidewalks aren't busy)
"There was a "steep" decrease in rate of head injuries in cyclists between 1994 and 2003 in the provinces with helmet laws, from 15.9 to 7.3 per 100,000 person-years, the researchers reported. But there also was a 33.2% (95% CI 23.3-43) decrease in the other areas of the country, from 19.1 to 12.9 per 100,000."
So helmet laws result in a much greater decrease in the rate of head injuries
"Rates of hospitalizations for any cycling-related injury decreased by 28% (95% CI 22.8-33.2) among individuals younger than 18 in provinces with helmet laws and by 22.3% (95% CI 15-29.6) in areas without the laws"
The rate of overall cycling injuries for kids also has a larger drop in places with helmet laws
ADRM
Senior Member
I, and I'm sure others, would find it way less offensive and aggravating if you just said "I hate bikes and cyclists and wish our city to look like 1992 Phoenix forever" and left it at that.
amnesiajune
Senior Member
Great reading skills there, bud.
ADRM
Senior Member
You're a true inspiration and this forum is so lucky to have you.
flyinggoats
New Member
Construction of the Peter Street bike lane started last night. The section from Queen to Richmond is now painted.
Zach6668
Active Member
So we have to walk to the bike lanes now, if we don't have a helmet?
And please, I think you'll find the vast majority of points in your "downtown core" which is significantly more than a 5-minute walk from a bike lane. And even if you do find one, there's no promise that it goes in the direction you want it to (NS vs EW), and there's certainly a slim chance that it even bothers to connect to anywhere you want to go in a remotely direct fashion, if we're forced to stay in the bike lanes once we find them. The whole point is that the network is only a network in the loosest sense right now, which is why many cyclists advocate for that "minimum grid" which is literally the least we can ask for.
Also, why do other people give any care at all about whether OTHER people wear helmets or not? It's insane. If you want to wear a helmet, go for it. Don't tell me I have to because... ? Well there's really no good reason for you to be able to tell me what to do with my body when I'm partaking in transportation or recreation on a bicycle.
amnesiajune
Senior Member
Why do you have to wear a seatbelt when you drive your car? Why do you have to wear a helmet when you ride a motorcycle? Why do you have to wear a helmet when your bike is power-assisted? Why does a 15-year-old have to wear a helmet when they ride a bike, but not a 16-year-old?
Zach6668
Active Member
Because seatbelts prevent a huge amount of wasted money in the form of externalities - to the health care system and lost productivity, etc. So many studies have been done showing that bicycle helmets don't necessarily increase the safety of the rider that this can't possible be used as an example. It's a false equivalency. Likewise with motorcycles, which are significantly more dangerous than any other form of transportation. 15/16 year old... well, the line has to be somewhere if we think kids should wear helmets. Helmets are good in the kind of crashes kids have on bicycles... like just falling over... but when you get hit by a car, a helmet doesn't do a whole lot, according to the studies.