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Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

>>I am a bike rider hit by a car and still not seen a penny. But if I had a giant bureaucratic insurance company on my side it would have been sorted already.

....cyclist insurance is a thing though? You could have bought one if this is an important consideration for you. And either way, if you have personal liability coverage on your home policy then it covers that kind of thing - so you most likely already have a "giant insurance company" on your side.

Also as much as I agree with you, we need to put up as few barriers to cycling as possible so that people actually cycle.

Like, to give a different example - I think that helmets while cycling should be absolutely mandatory, and they have saved my life at least once. But the Dutch have figured out that making helmets mandatory puts people off cycling enough that it's a net disadvantage - so I'm willing to trust the data on this.

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My rule of thumb about helmets:

- Is my ride 100% in segregated bike lane: no need for helmet unless you want to be extra safe.

- Is there a chance I'm crossing paths with a car: helmet

(I'm lucky enough to live in a city that has bike lanes that cover most my needs)

Use a helmet all the time anyway. Something might happen and you fly over the handlebars, like when my front splash guard broke off, jammed between the wheel and the fork, and sent me flying at 20mph. Glad I wore a helmet.

Yes, but that means having a helmet on yourself all the time, which will limit how much you take a bike. (Majority of my biking is done through shared bikes)

Also in the city center it is very rare that you'd go faster than 12/15 mph.

I rode original 2T internal combustion scooters half of my life, all the way from '72 Vespa and up to ~20hp tuned Italjets. And the other half I rode motorcycles.

The saying goes - you ride for a season, you fall at least once, no exceptions.

I can't understand people whooshing about at 15, well, 10 mph without any sort of protective gear on 4-inch wheels. This is dangerous as hell, it's basically guaranteed hospitalization if you hit so much as a pile of pigeon shit, not to mention a pothole.

I've been riding long enough to have ended up on the bonnet of two cars, and I've rapped my helmet against the ground once. Encourage anyone to wear them.

The reason I've never had a serious concussion, broken wrist, etc. has nothing to do with protective equipment, however. It's entirely fall training, from Aikido as a preteen, then Judo as an adult.

BJJ is another way to learn this but I'm serious: this is the one thing which is the most likely to downgrade an accident from dire to serious, or serious to okay. Helmets can keep your skull from cracking, but they do very little to prevent the brain from shaking around, what does, is tucking your chin.

> Is my ride 100% in segregated bike lane: no need for helmet unless you want to be extra safe.

The security of helmets is largely linked to the speed the cyclist bikes at. Lane segregation has little to do with it - on busy cyclist lanes in London, where people go at insane speeds, you really want to have a helmet.

Makes sense, and I had some close encounters with pedestrians crossing bike lanes behind a corner and without looking (disk breaks saved me a couple of times there).

And if you're going around fast bikes, I agree 100%. However in my city center, bike speeds are fairly slow. You can speed but you'll hit a red-light or a crossing tramway so frequently that it doesn't matter.

I’ve been hit by slow moving cars as a kid and fallen off dirt jumps. A helmet has saved my head many times. Including a recent accident where I slipped on a wet curb in a bike lane and fell backwards. The back of my head slapped the pavement and if I didn’t have my helmet I would’ve been unconscious for sure.

The only time I ride without my helmet is on my street when I ride slow with my kids.

Presumably with cyclists insurance, you get penalised (with higher premiums in the future) for someone else hitting you, rather than (hopefully) the other drivers' insurance taking the brunt of it. Moreso as cyclists aren't a large proportion of most cities (and I say this as a cyclist who commutes every day including city traffic, except when the road is fully icy).

>>Presumably with cyclists insurance, you get penalised (with higher premiums in the future) for someone else hitting you, rather than (hopefully) the other drivers' insurance taking the brunt of it.

It works the same as your car insurance - your insurer will pursue the other party and make their insurance pay.

Regardless, even your own car insurance will go up in premiums if you have ever been in an accident, even if it 100% wasn't your fault. It's just how it works, sadly.

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