IIRC it is studied that cars behave more dangerously around bikers with helmets while they give a wide berth to unhelmeted bikers.
When I was at uni and was cycling to a 10am lecture, a small van pulled out of a side road across my path. I was in a cycle lane and had right of way. He simply didn't look in my direction until he had already started to pull out. I was unable to stop or avoid him, so hit the front of his van head on, was briefly airborne, and landed on the road on the other side. Miraculously only scuffs and bruises, although my bike was a write-off. At that point I started wearing a helmet(!!!)
The next year, one of my friends went over the handlebars of her bike during a collision, except she landed head-first on the road, thankfully she was wearing a helmet. The helmet was split, she walked away with nothing other than mild concussion. Another friend and I walked out to rescue her bike later from the accident location, it also was a write-off.
Once you've seen a bike accident up-close there is simply no justification for not wearing a helmet. Even if you haven't seen an accident, wear a helmet!
To be clear, I am not saying that it is safer to ride without a helmet, just an interesting study of behavior.
I get that you know people who are harmed by cars (as do I), but your appeal to pathos & anecdote should not have a bearing here.
> The distribution of overtaking events shifted just over one-fifth of a standard deviation closer to the rider – a potentially important behaviour if, as theoretical frameworks suggest, near-misses and collisions lie on a continuum.
Looking at the graph in figure 1, "one-fifth of a standard" looks as unimpressive as expected. The distance from the kerb looks much more relevant.
IIUC all the analysis is based on 2355 data gathered by Walker riding a bike himself a few years ago between two cities. It's not a mix of data from different persons or a mix of city and countryside rides. The most interesting part is that Walker published 5 articles about the same data, and he got a different result in each one.
You're right that perhaps it is a big difference between cyclists, my guess would be the number of cars matters more than the number of cyclists. The study has been replicated elsewhere.
> Walker published 5 articles about the same data, and he got a different result in each one.
Uh, no? The 8.5 cm result has been consistent.
At the margin, these things make a difference, especially given that collisions are rare as a fraction for rides taken.
The study is disputed by one researcher, the paper I linked contains a rebuttal and I think it is convincing.
I have been T-boned by a driver approaching from the opposite direction, in full daylight with no visual disruptions, when they failed to "look bike" and turned across my lane. They totally did not see me - so they fact I was wearing a helmet did not factor at all into the situation.
I was flipped through the air and landed 10m down the side road on my back. My backpack took the brunt of of the impact but my head still snapped back and hit the ground. The helmet protected my head and prevented what would have at least been a concussion and possibly a fractured skull.
In my 30+ years of regularly cycling on roads, I'd say the majority of close calls I've had have happened in with cars turning out of side streets of with cars turning across my lane from the opposite direction. Those are due to a combination of the following in my perceived order of likelihood:
- the driver checking for cars/buses/trucks and not looking for motorcycles or bicycles - the driver seeing the cyclist but totally misjudging their speed and assuming they have time to complete their turn in front of the bike - the driver being as asshole and cutting off the cyclist.
_Maybe_ the cyclist wearing helmet could affect the second scenario. It doesn't affect the first scenario and assholes are assholes regardless of helmet wearing.
I've had less trouble with close/reckless overtaking. It does happen, but it is highly unlike the car driver completely fails to see a cyclist they are overtaking.
Saying helmets reduce rider safety due to one scenario, where the car driver has to see the helmet and thus the cyclist in order to make a more risky overtaking gap judgement call, seems like a massive stretch to me.
As a regular biker, close passes are also a smaller of my concerns compared to most of the other hazards on the road.
Here is another study, where they measured the distance to overtaking cars with a distance sensor:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00014...
"A Trek hybrid bicycle was fitted with a Massa M-5000/95 temperature-compensated ultrasonic distance sensor with its centre 0.77 m from the ground, facing perpendicularly to the direction of travel and feeding into a laptop computer running MultiLab software via a MultiLog Pro data-logger sampling from the sensor at 50 Hz."
Here is a study investigating this methodology of studying car behavior and ultimately concluding it is useful: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00014...
Not sure about the time or season though.
Unless I'm misunderstanding what's meant by "self-reporting", it sounds like regardless of how many riders they got data from, it would say that there are 0 fatalities to bikers because people who are dead don't respond to surveys.
Individual studies are on average fairly useless.
I'll be waiting :)