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Comment by gwillz | Hacker News Reader

Could it be argued that enforcing helmets, and its effect of decreasing riding numbers, has helped reduce accident numbers? Because perhaps people who refuse to wear helmets shouldn't be on the road. If you were to still include the numbers of those people leaving bike riding, would numbers be in favour of helmets?

It's hard for me to face stats like these. I can't imagine a world without helmets, much like cars without seatbelts.

Why are people trying so hard to kill mandatory helmets, can they honestly do that much damage?

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> Why are people trying so hard to kill mandatory helmets?

From the article it implies that helmet laws discourage casual cyclists or those wanting to use a hire bike. It seems silly to many people to have to don PPE just to pootle down the road to the shops.

No-one is trying to take away people's decision whether or not to wear a helmet, just the obligation.

You could also argue that if you're enforcing helmets for riding bicycles then you should also enforce it for other activities that suffer from the same or higher incidences of head-injury. E.g. being an occupant in a motor vehicle.

> Because perhaps people who refuse to wear helmets shouldn't be on the road.

Why shouldn't they be on the road? What danger to they present to anyone (expect, debatably, themselves) by not wearing one?

> You could also argue that if you're enforcing helmets for riding bicycles then you should also enforce it for [...] being an occupant in a motor vehicle.

Funny you mention that, because in my country a motocycle passenger is required to wear a helmet (the driver is required too, obviously). I cannot think of any sane reason why helmet would be required for the driver but not for the passenger (other than unintended omission in the law).

Because the benefits of the extra people cycling without a helmet outweigh the safety benefits of the fewer cyclings all wearing helmets.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/aug/12/mandato... there are more sources from more countries.

Helmets do not reduce accident numbers; they potentially reduce the injuries caused by accidents. We know that cyclists are safer when there are more of them around (drivers are more aware of them). Helmet laws reduce the number of cyclists on the roads, making cyclists more likely to be in an accident.

This doesn't even touch on other benefits (e.g. reduced heart disease, greater Vitamin D, less traffic) of more cyclists on the road.

The only effect in reducing the number of accidents that helmet laws make is in reducing the total number of cyclists that are on the roads; the proportion of cyclists in accidents doesn't go down with helmet laws.

Helmets good; helmet laws bad.

I like that distinction between accident and injury. It can be hard to seperate effects of helmets from helmet laws but that certainly helps. Thanks!

In countries with decent, segregated bike tracks (Denmark, the Netherlands) cyclists don’t wear helmets because they rarely come into contact with cars.

The best way to encourage cycling is to build segregated infrastructure, not to mandate helmets.

Yeah, I don't know why they want to marry both ideas.

More bike activity increases exposure to cars who in turn might expect bikes by default so drive with that in mind.

On the other hand unexpected events [accidents] can still happen solo [sudden mechanical failure], other bikes, cars, pedestrians. I've personally witnessed a couple of cases bikes not stopping at a two-way and striking a vehicles [which had right of way]. Without those helmets the results would have been graver than warped rims and scraped quarter panels.

Because helmet laws and bike share schemes don't mix well. Very few people carry a helmet with them on the off chance that they might want to use a hire bike. Fewer still like the idea of being the nth person that day to use a shared helmet, and providing disposable helmets is likely to significantly increase the cost and environmental impact of a bike hire scheme.

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