Bicycle ridership increases when helmets not mandatory
By Elisabeth Rosenthal, New York Times
One spectacular Sunday in Paris last month, I decided to skip museums and shopping to partake of something even more captivating for an environment reporter: Vélib, arguably the most successful bike-sharing program in the world. In their short lives, Europe’s bike-sharing systems have delivered myriad benefits, notably reducing traffic and its carbon emissions.
A number of American cities — including New York, where a bike-sharing program is to open next year — want to replicate that success.
So I bought a day pass online for about $2, entered my login information at one of the hundreds of docking stations that are scattered every few blocks around the city and selected one of Vélib’s nearly 20,000 stodgy gray bikes, with their basic gears, upright handlebars and practical baskets.
Then I did something extraordinary, something I’ve not done in a quarter-century of regular bike riding in the United States: I rode off without a helmet.
I rode all day at a modest clip, on both sides of the Seine, in the Latin Quarter, past the Louvre and along the Champs-Élysées, feeling exhilarated, not fearful. And I had tons of bareheaded bicycling company amid the Parisian traffic. One common denominator of successful bike programs around the world — from Paris to Barcelona to Guangzhou — is that almost no one wears a helmet, and there is no pressure to do so.
In the United States the notion that bike helmets promote health and safety by preventing head injuries is taken as pretty near God’s truth. Un-helmeted cyclists are regarded as irresponsible, like people who smoke. Cities are aggressive in helmet promotion.
But many European health experts have taken a very different view: Yes, there are studies that show that if you fall off a bicycle at a certain speed and hit your head, a helmet can reduce your risk of serious head injury. But such falls off bikes are rare — exceedingly so in mature urban cycling systems.
On the other hand, many researchers say, if you force or pressure people to wear helmets, you discourage them from riding bicycles. That means more obesity, heart disease and diabetes. And — Catch-22 — a result is fewer ordinary cyclists on the road, which makes it harder to develop a safe bicycling network. The safest biking cities are places like Amsterdam and Copenhagen, where middle-aged commuters are mainstay riders and the fraction of adults in helmets is minuscule.
Bicycle Helmut laws are government intrusion in your life where they don’t belong.
There is a definite decrease in available
body parts when states force motorcyclists to wear helmuts. Haven’t seen stats on bicyclists not wearing helmuts and body part procurement.
Getting rid of the helmet has a big effect on increasing ridership. Interesting article.
In making SLT bike friendly, the bike lanes need to be separated from traffic lanes. I won’t ride on Hwy 50–I don’t want to ride in a bicycle lane that is next to fast traffic, especially when the driver is often distracted by oogling at the beautiful mountain scenery.
jenny is right to be concerned about riding next to fast moving traffic…even in a designated bicycle lane. While it would be highly impractical (especially for snow removal) to physically separate a bicycle “lane” from the rest of the roadway, there IS something that can help make our bike lanes safer. When the annual or even bi-annual re-striping of our roadways occurs, I’ve proposed that a different color paint besides the ubiquitous white be used for bike lanes. This would clearly differentiate the bike lane from the rest of the roadway for both motorists and cyclists. A vibrant color..day-glow yellow for example..would catch the motorists eye and alert them to the fact that there is something special about that section of roadway. Bright colors have been used in crosswalks and designated bicycle lanes in other communities and I believe that this would be a very low cost way to make our bike lanes stand out and thus safer.
As for helmet use, I personally always wear one..on or off road. Riding in Europe is a totally different experience and should not be used as an example of why people should eschew helmets in the U.S. As the article pointed out, there are many more cyclists there, most European drivers are also cyclists and sharing the road is the norm there….not so much here. I can see how people might feel helmets are unnecessary when using Class 1 bike paths that are separated from the roadway, but this is a false sense of security as anything from pavement cracks to loose gravel to inattentive riders can cause a fall. In the end it’s about personal responsibility. If wearing a stylish sun hat or avoiding helmet hair is more important to you than protecting your brain, then be sure you have a good insurance policy.
Do the people who resent the government intrusion of helmet laws use government insurance for their brain and other injuries? Of course. I have never seen a patient or family refuse to let the government pay their massive medical bills after disabling brain injuries. Helmets are good protection, whether worn in Europe or not.
Those kinds of accidents rarely happen!!! Exceedingly so in mature urban cycling systems?? Really. Sure would love to see the stats on that. As you go down any any speed I guess all you have to do is say, Oh gee I am going down now, let’s make sure my shoulder takes all the fall… ok get ready here I go”. No.. when you go down at any speed, it is more likely to have your shoulder hit first then back hips and finally your head.Doesn’t take much to get a head trauma and Tom is right,French drivers are far more polite to cyclists.
Tom Cal-Trans has painted our Hy Way 5 times this year
they were out painting cross walks today
that makes #6
around here the paint doesn’t last very long
in the valley the same paint last’s 5 years
what we realy needed was 8’wide multi use sidewalks
wearing a helmet is a good thing
especially with our piss poor bike trail system