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Comment by jdavis703 | Hacker News Reader

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

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.

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.

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 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

> 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.

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.

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.

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

A 50% reduction in head injuries is very little?

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?

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 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.

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