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Comment by analog31 | Hacker News Reader

As a bicyclist, I've observed some interesting parallels: It's become virtually impossible to have a civil discussion about helmets or stop signs.

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As someone that doesn't know what you're talking about, can you elaborate?

For instance, web forum threads about the necessity of wearing helmets will almost instantly turn into flame wars. Likewise, if you admit to rolling through stop signs, you will get attacked, even though most cyclists and car drivers roll through stop signs.

I am a car enthusiast. Rolling through a stop sign is a serious offense for us, and outright dangerous, and can only happen out of negligence. But cyclists seem to do it routinely, as well as passing on red, and don't think it is a big deal.

I am nervous about cyclists both as driver and as pedestrian. When I walk, they can turn out of nowhere where a car is not expected, and they are silent. I can suddenly turn or stop, and a cyclist can happily bump into me, as it has happened more than once.

On the road, cyclists are much more vulnerable than pedestrians (it takes just a light touch to tip over the bike), and they often ignore the basic safety rules like "never pass on red". I mean, I respect your mode of transportation, but please respect ours! I don't want to go to jail, and most cyclists probably wouldn't want to be dead, so it is better to play it safe.

I think you're proving the point, but I'm not going to fan the cyclist/driver flames.

> Rolling through a stop sign is a serious offense for us, and outright dangerous.

It's not outright dangerous, assuming you're in North America. The US has so many stop signs that the safety message is lost, the vast majority are pointless.

In Europe [1], small junctions in residential areas don't have any signs at all. Where they meet larger roads, they just have yield signs. If there's a lot of traffic, there could be a mini roundabout (painted roundabout), which just changes the way people yield -- to the left, rather than to the larger road. In all these cases, it's not required to stop. The driver/cyclist uses their judgement, based on traffic, visibility, and so on.

Stop signs are used sparingly, and show there's a real danger. For example, in the UK "stop signs may be placed only at sites with severely restricted visibility, and each must be individually approved by the Secretary of State for Transport" [2]. Where I grew up in England, I know of only one stop sign out of all the routes we took to visit places. It was where an overhanging mediæval building obscured the view of traffic at a junction.

[1] the parts with roads at least as safe as the USA

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_sign#United_Kingdom

Like you say, stop signs are everywhere in the US. They are the default traffic control. In my view, they provide three functions:

1. Providing a simple, general purpose traffic control. Going through every town and re-thinking every intersection on a case by case basis would be quite costly, and the amount of public controversy might make it prohibitive.

2. Limiting speed. My house is on a stretch of street that has no stop signs for a few blocks, and cars get going pretty fast, typically 10 to 20 mph above the speed limit of 30 mph.

3. Encouraging drivers to use the main roads instead of neighborhood streets.

You're right about respect. As a car enthusiast, do you ever drive faster than the speed limit? Speeding significantly increases the odds of fatalities in pedestrians and cyclists.

It took becoming a parent to get me to slow down.

No, not on purpose at least. If I want to drive fast and legal, Germany is not far away from where I live. And if it weren't, there are racing tracks in the area.

Speeding in the city limits is of course nuts. I can understand people who test their cars at night on empty highways, though it is still dangerous (you don't know if another car will attempt to take the in-ramp really slow). But in a the city it is madness, pedestrians and cyclists can jump from everywhere. Lives can be ruined.

Cars are dangerous, let's respect that.

> Rolling through a stop sign is a serious offense for us, and outright dangerous, and can only happen out of negligence.

This is not true. It depends on the location, traffic conditions, and your knowledge of the area.

You can't predict if another driver will drive at full speed right through, while not looking in your direction. If you don't stop, you are screwed. There are other people on the road, and you can neither control nor predict their actions.

True, but stopping and then starting again doesn't make the other drivers any more predictable.

It gives you time to see one approaching and don't go.

> Rolling through a stop sign is a serious offense for us, and outright dangerous, and can only happen out of negligence.

I regularly get frustrated on my (.4 mile) bike commute home when 1-5 cars in a row don't pay attention to 2 of my 3 stop signs. Likely, all in an effort to save 30 seconds on their 50 minute 1 way commute.

So, it seems that negligence is common and it's not so serious of an offense. We can agree on it being dangerous though.

Location: Atlanta, GA.

I assume people are freaking out if you take the position that wearing a flimsy Styrofoam and plastic shell over your noggin is about as useful as taking sugar pills, since that challenges the conventional wisdom we we told in all the school PSAs?

I get the stop sign anger, but helmets? Drivers really think bikers should be required to wear helmets?

I think it might be more other bicyclists, some people are extremely vehement that everyone needs to be wearing a helmet, while others consider that a gross infringement on their rights.

Oh yeah come to think of it I've gotten the same. But it's usually people trying to sell "used" helmets. I just assumed it was part of the hard sell and ignored it.

I'm of two minds about it. On the one hand, I wear a helmet myself, most of the time, and using one seems to make sense. I don't bother with a helmet if it's a short trip on tame roads, such as the 1/2 mile from my house to the grocery store. On the other hand, I can't point you to supporting evidence for a benefit to making helmets mandatory.

Is there a fundamental difference between making seat belts mandatory and making helmets necessary?

I think there is. Bike helmets add very little to the overall safety compared to belts in car. They distract from the fact that biker should be treated as pedestrians and cars need to stay away from them (meaning separate bike lanes, etc.). In the end, the cars are the invaders, the endangerers, not the bikers.

Also: This is a tangent discussion and has almost nothing to do anymore with the original topic.

If the bikers are to be treated as pedestrians, they better behave as pedestrians. Like, for example, never crossing three lanes at once at heavy traffic, forgetting to hand-signal the turn.

The worst part of these discussions is that both sides pretend that they've never seen a bad driver do whatever bonkers thing they think all cyclists do. I see drivers do this on the freeway all the time.

Can we move past our resentment, please?

A 50% reduction in head injuries is very little?

Requiring cars to have seat belts is a distraction from the fact that drivers should stop having accidents.

A few years ago there was a discussion about making bike helmets mandatory in Germany. At least one scientist [1] did a cost-benefit analysis and argued against such a law. For example, while fewer people would die of head injuries, many more people would stop riding bikes (or do it less often), leading to an increase in cardiovascular diseases.

[1] http://www.cycle-helmets.com/germany-helmet-law-cost-analysi...

> I don't bother with a helmet if it's a short trip on tame roads

You have to remember it's not you who will cause a serious crash, it's the other idiots on the road.

I was rolling home from work a few years ago and a car blew a stop sign and T-Boned me and a good rate of speed. I bounced off the front of the car and hit the ground, more or less head (helmet) first.

I'm quit certain it saved my life, and the accident was entirely not my fault.

I can.

> Wearing a helmet reduced the risk of head injury by 63% (95% confidence interval 34% to 80%) and of loss of consciousness by 86% (62% to 95%).

http://www.bmj.com/content/308/6922/173?linkType=FULL&ck=nck...

> Bike helmet use increased significantly during the first 4 years of the campaign and again after the helmet law was implemented. The total number of bike-related head injury admissions declined by more than 50%.

http://www.jpedsurg.org/article/S0022-3468(00)15165-6/abstra...

And a paper that speaks directly on your topic, the effects of legislation mandating helmet use:

> The rate of helmet use rose dramatically after legislation was enacted, from 36% in 1995 and 38% in 1996, to 75% in 1997, 86% in 1998 and 84% in 1999. The proportion of injured cyclists with head injuries in 1998/99 was half that in 1995/96 (7/443 [1.6%] v. 15/416 [3.6%]) (p = 0.06).

http://www.cmaj.ca/content/166/5/592.short

Those numbers are great and all, if you ignore human behaviour. Nobody's saying that wearing a helmet doesn't make you safer if you are in an accident, that's just a strawman.

The real issue is such things as driver behaviour changing around people with helmets making accidents more likely, or mandated helmet usage leading to fewer people choosing the bicycle as their mode of transportation, making things more dangerous in two ways: people choosing other options that are more dangerous than bicycling, and the fact that more bicycles on the road means less danger because 1. people get used to interacting with bicycles in traffic, and 2. there are fewer cars on the road.

You need to look at the broader picture. You can't just look at a fire escape where people gets injured because they trip down the stairs and conclude that the solution should be to remove the fire exit. Sure, it will definitely decrease the number of injuries in that fire exit but that's not really helpful, is it?

I'd bet you could find similar improvements to occupant safety if car drivers and passengers wore helmets, and racing style harnesses. Would it be reasonable to mandate them?

Bikes don't have airbags, crumple zones, and seatbelts already in place. Helmets are likely to move the needle a lot more there than in a car.

If this is a new topic to you (I don't mean, you, SturgeonsLaw, as you are clearly familiar with it :) -- I mean the reader), you would do well to consider both sides. I personally find the arguments that bike helmets cause more harm than good persuasive, and a good and thorough introduction may be found here:

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1139.html

If you would rather watch than read, there's this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07o-TASvIxY

There are studies and talks that would suggest the opposite is true. For example:-

For example: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/01/05/095679761562...

TED talk discussing the issues:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07o-TASvIxY

Common sense would dictate that the helmet is safer, but we could argue the science leaves a lot to be desired.

Anecdote: when my uncle died in an accident he didn't have a helmet and was with-in a mile of his house.

Cops told us that there are more fatal accidents closer to home/in short runs because people don't pay as much attention and don't have as much gear on.

> Cops told us that there are more fatal accidents closer to home/in short runs

Evidently, "cops" aren't statisticians: base rates matter.

I used to be pretty neutral on this subject, I personally wear the helmet and religiously follow signs on the bike, and can't care less if someone wants to kill themselves against my car. Until I witnessed the so-called "gold standard" bay area cyclist, which run the red light against traffic, without a light, in the dark and not wearing a helmet. He ended up in a pretty bad shape, though okay overall. The one who needed help was the lady in the car in front of me who hit this idiot and sent him flying. And then I changed my mind about helmets and stop signs and everything. It's not just your business if you want to commit suicide using somebody's else's car. The person behind the wheel of this car might not be prepared to kill the idiot today. Because even the idiots are human beings, or so these people think.

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