Helmets are for any activity that has an impact risk to your head which includes cycling not just sports.
I live in Austria where few cyclists wear helmets yet my girlfriend who works in the local hospital sees patients coming in with serious head injuries on a daily basis from biking accidents that could have easily been prevented by wearing a helmet. Since then we both wear our helmets religiously.
You don't even have to get hit by a car. An unfortunate collision with a texting pedestrian, some dog on a leash jumping in front of you or another cyclist could be enough to smack your melon on the asphalt.
Just because you hear Europeans aren't wearing helmets doesn't mean it's the model to follow. I see wearing a helmet the same as wearing a seatbelt.
Sure I never needed it since I never had an accident and it feels slightly uncomfortable but I know it could save my life.
It's up to you how much you value your head.
I highly doubt ebikes have a 50% share in Belgium. Do you have any references on that claim? Last year I visited Belgium's 4 major cities and almost every cyclist I saw was on some old half broken bicycle.
I think the biggest reason people don't see a bicycle helmet as necessary is from personal experience. I grew up on the 70's, long before kids helmets were in vogue. And I had several bicycle accidents.
Once I hit a curb, went over the handlebars, and skinned up my hands/knees and my wrists hurt pretty bad for a week or so after. Another time I wiped out at the bottom of a hill, tore a huge gash in the side of my knee. Then there was the time I chipped a tooth on a curb when trying to ride no-handed.
In all the falls I experienced, none of them involved a head injury that a helmet would have prevented (the chipped tooth incident could have been prevented by wearing a mouth guard, or by not being stupid). So based on that, it feels like helmets are useless.
Of course, in reality there is a huge difference between a kid riding a bicycle at single-digit MPH on neighborhood streets and back-woods trails, vs. going 15 - 20 MPH on roads or paved trails. At those speeds, it would probably be impossible for me to break my fall using just hands and feet, not to mention the possibility of getting distracted hand running into a street sign or tree branch. Logically I'm aware of all this, but still I have trouble with maintaining proper helmet discipline.
Does this logic extend to showering, pedestrians, and automobile passengers and drivers? All suffer as many or more head injuries per year than cyclists.
They may have more head injuries than cyclists(citation?) but unlike cyclists you're not at risk of being run over by a car after a fall in your shower and also you're probably not showering at 25km/h when you fall so the potential damage is much lower.
A head injury that results from speed or post-strike collisions is still recorded as a "cyclist head injury" so I don't think your points change the numbers.
Please note, I'm not trying to argue against helmets. The point is that arguments over helmets deflect the conversation away from the people sailing around recklessly in two ton metal boxes. Every time there’s a collision involving a cyclist, the question is "was he wearing a helmet?", not, "was the driver paying attention?"
The safest places to bicycle are in the nations where there's the lowest rates of cyclists wearing helmets. This is a car problem, not a bicycle problem.
Austrians use bicycles a lot more rigorously, but there is still a resistance to 'being told to wear a helmet' .. alas, it only takes one fall to demonstrate convincing evidence for why one should always, always, always wear a helmet.
Does anyone have head injury statistics? I know falls are a major cause of preventable death in the US, but I don’t even know how those break down between someone on a bike vs an old person falling over.
It's not just about death, it's also about brain damage. A broken bone is NBD compared to a TBI with often permanent damage.
You can lock helmets with bikes if you want. I used to lock my helmet with my u-lock on my bike, so if they cut off the helmet, then it isn't a very useful helmet. I now bring it with me in my bag mostly for hygenic reasons although.
Personally I would avoid locking a helmet up like that.
Expanded foam helmets are fragile by design. They are design to be disposable with even small knocks. So even accidentally banging them against your frame, dlock or solid post is a bad idea even if you can’t visibly see any damage.
You’re recommended to replace them at regular intervals also due to sweat damage.
That isn't much of a solution in practice. No helmet manufacturer puts best after dates, other than in fine print nobody reads and practically nobody replaces helmets unless they see visible damage.
Then again 3cm of expanded polystyrene foam vs a metal box with a engine in it... probably like a surfer forgetting to replace their “anti-shark bite” medallion anyway.
I hate that HN is a place where the ignorant simply flaunt their ignorance instead of trying to inform themselves.
"According to the Velofollies survey as well as other sources last year’s [2018] e-bike sales stood at slightly over a quarter million units; some 251,500 to be more precise. This accounts for a big 14.3 percent growth compared to the total of the year before. It makes electric bicycles by far the biggest category of the Belgian market with a market share that stands at close to 50 percent."
Cultural differences in traffic management. In the US, bicycle infrastructure is sparse outside of dense urban cores (and even then, it can be spotty). That leaves many cyclists sharing roads with higher speed auto traffic.
Also, the style of bicycle is often different. Hybrid and town bikes are far less common the US than Europe. I suspect that an easy-step over, big tire, upright town bicycle is easier (and this safer) to use.
You don’t need cars in order for a helmet to be important.
An acquaintance of mine was killed running into a slightly raised piece of ground that he didn’t see... wasn’t wearing a helmet and was thrown over his handlebars. Doctors say he would have walked away if he had been wearing a helmet.
Absolutely. But, there's a risk analysis - if there's good bike infrastructure, and I'm riding townie bike (slow and can put feet down vs a road racing bike), the risk is much lower.
There's also evidence that requiring helmets reduces cycling among the general population. Partially because it's an extra thing to buy/maintain, but it also creates more work for commuters - they have to redo their hair at the office.
Residents of Amsterdam don't seem to wear helmets at all, except for high-speed training rides/racing. And they seem to do ok like that.
1)Most cities suck at biking infrastructure, including Europe if you exclude the poster childs like Amsterdam or Copenhagen.
2)It's not wearing a helmet that reduces cycling throughout the population it's the lack of infrastructure. Helmet necessity is a direct effect of that not the cause.
3)You can't make helmets a requirement, it's up to you if you can live(pun not intended) with the consequences of an accident without a helmet or not.
Bummer, but at the same time it's hard to argue with a measure designed to save lives. If seatbelts wouldn't have been compulsory for decades I think people would have a hard time accepting them as mandatory.
By that logic, shouldn't all cyclists wear a DOT rated motorcycle helmet? I'm pretty sure those flimsy bicycle helmets most people wear aren't rated for vehicular strikes.
Probably? And leathers too. But, pedaling in August heat in a closed helmet and heavy armored suit isn't easy.
Mostly, I'm suggesting better bicycle infrastructure is one reason people may be less likely to wear helmets in Europe vs the US. And not making any claims about how safe a helmet in the US actually is or is not.
Yes and there’s an analogy here between car commuters and car racers. We don’t expect “normal” car drivers to wear helmets. But professional racers absolutely wear helmets. Even in the case of commuters, a helmet could save your life in an accident. For any drivers who thinks bike commuters need helmets, I would encourage you to also get car helmets for you and your loved ones: https://www.amazon.com/RaceQuip-253116-X-Large-Helmet-SA-201...
This is a terrible argument it is not a one to one comparison.
If you are shunted in the rear on the way to work in your car you might have a inconvenient morning and an insurance claim. If the same thing happens on your bike you could quite literally die from a head injury.
I skated for a long time and didn't wear a helmet because of comfort/looks. I've become a bit more wise since and won't share the road with cars without my helmet when I'm cycling
If you get “shunted” from behind by an SUV, 3cm of expanded polystyrene foam is going to make FA difference to the outcome.
Bike helmets are designed for low speed crashes NOT involving vehicles.
Now I still wear one myself but I don’t fool myself that doing so brings me any protection from someone driving an SUV who thinks they’ll be late getting to a 24 supermarket if don’t just squeeze by me.
It’s like putting an oven glove on an egg and hitting it with a hammer.
Just incase anyone wonders why I wear a helmet when I think they’re as useless as “anti-volcano spray”, it’s because they make my head a more aerodynamic shape.
A quick look a Strava’s stats will show you that even weak club cyclists like me, living somewhere pretty flattish, can already cruise about at over 20mph pretty easily.
Pedal assist ebikes just expand that ability to a wider number of people.
Just look at the number of people who regularly crash in amateur crit races.
We generally survive non-vehicle related crashes at these speeds pretty well and people on ebikes will too.
Ironically these are the same dangers bike poses to pedestrians
And with the boom of food delivery,mostly done by bike, the situation got a lot worse
Just two hours ago a guy working for glovo merged on the sidewalk while I was trying to cross on the zebra walks and almost hit me.
He was using one hand, wasn't looking, with the other hand was speaking at the phone and didn't stop at the red light
No need to specify they are not allowed on sidewalks, but who's gonna fine them?
It happens constantly, but bikers usually think that cars are to blame, when cars usually let me cross when the light is green, they usually stop at the red light and they usually don't ride on the sidewalk
Give people bikes that can go at 30km/h and you have the recipe for a disaster
We already have regular and e-mopeds but at least they are heavy regulated and need a mandatory insurance (at least in Italy)
I regularly call out bikes who don’t give the right of way to pedestrians in the crosswalk.
That said, unless someone is already frail being hit by a bike is nothing like being hit by a car. I’ve had two red-light running bicyclists crash in to me (once while biking, once while skateboarding). I’ve also been in three separate cars that got rear-ended (none of those times was I driving). The level of pain is an order of magnitude different.
E-bikes can go at very high speeds (30km/h is more than enough to be deadly) and can do it effortlessly, which means the even bikers that aren't expert can go at such high speeds, increasing the risk of hurting someone else or themselves.
Add to that the fact that a car can break or avoid obstacles in a much more efficient way than a bike could ever do (think about heavy breaking with a bike at 25 km/h under heavy rain on the pavet and then think about it on a car).
I'm not a supporter of cars, I've been car free for a few years now, but I don't think bikes are less dangerous for pedestrians.
There are simply less of them around.
> The level of pain is an order of magnitude different
The maximum level of pain I suffered was because of my bad teeth
I was in a very bad car accident (a tire detached from my car while driving on the highway and I lost control), the pain was a joke compared to that.
Pain is not a strong indicator of dangerous physical damage.
For example internal bleeding is usually painless.
If you stop a moment and think carefully, you'll realize that normal car drivers should wear helmets, and passengers too.
It's just that piloting multi-ton metal vehicles at bone-shattering velocities has been normalized. It's always been insane and deadly, but there was an actual concerted effort to normalize it and that worked. I'm not even joking. "Speed demons" were replaced by "Jay walkers" and people have been getting maimed and killed ever since.
Helmets in cars aren't without issue, though. They restrict your vision and situational awareness via hearing. I was a rally driver for about 10 years, and the MSA (UK Motorsport body) banned drivers on road sections from wearing helmets - both because it was a PR nightmare, but also because of the issues with vision (in full face helmets) and hearing (although I appreciate many people have loud music on in cars, or wear headphones, etc).
Also, you really -want- to have a helmet on in a race car - you'll typically have an unpadded roll cage right by your head, and the FIA-approved padding for roll cages is designed to work well with helmets, not with heads. I used to dread long road sections on rallies as I knew that an accident would be a real mess if there was any contact with the cage. There's more room in a road car, and there's padding / airbags etc to cushion you from impact on hard structures.
As a dutchman who spend some time working and commuting in the SF bay area: Commuting on a bike without a bright yellow helmet and a combination of flashing lights that rival an emergency vehicle is basically suicidal behavior.
And that's why it's disingenuous to frame cycling safety as a binary that's contingent on whether or not a particular cyclist is wearing a helmet. The risk equation for you is vastly different from someone who hops on their cruiser bike to go 10 blocks on a protected bike trail to the grocery store.
Once you factor in all the variables, the helmet is only a small part of the equation, and probably not going to do you much good should you find yourself under the wheels of a semi-truck. Yet having that piece of styrofoam strapped to your head has given you the (possibly misplaced) confidence to go fast with semi-trucks.
That's classified as an electric motorbike in the EU, if it's a legal, registered vehicle. You need the appropriate driving license and insurance to drive one.
Alternatively, if it's a modified bicycle, it's simply illegal on public roads.
The helmet isn't going to protect you from semis, unfortunately. Here in NYC most cyclist deaths are caused by being run over by larger vehicles, which can easily be fatal even at slow speeds regardless of whether you're wearing a helmet or not. No helmet is going to support the weight of a truck.
Now I do wear a bike helmet when biking for other reasons, but I give trucks wide leeway.
You seem very defensive in your position of advocating people be less safe on their bikes. Quite odd. Anyway, good day. "There is good evidence that bicycle helmets are effective in reducing head and facial injury in the event of a crash [...]" [0]
The evidence in favor of wearing a helmet while in a car is just as strong, but nobody is up here advocating for that.
By the way, helmets on bicyclists tend to make car drivers behave like even bigger jackholes than usual. https://psyarxiv.com/nxw2k "... public health research might be best served by shifting focus to risk elimination rather than harm mitigation."
The argument could be just as strong, but since very few people wear helmets in cars (only Formula 1 etc.), I think it's unlikely "the evidence" is just as strong; however, by all means provide us a reference.
I think ebikes are limited to 25km/h (15mph) across the EU. That's a speed a commuter might reach on a regular bike on flat terrain, the motor just helps making it effortless and terrain-independent. It's still advisable to wear a helmet since cars drive faster than that.
There are eBikes which can go up to 45km/h. For those wearing a helmet is mandatory. They also have number plates and you have to have a dedicated insurance.
Not exactly. Electric assist should stop above 25km/h for the ebike to still be considered a bicycle (and be allowed on bike lanes, etc.); but it's not hard to go above that speed when going downhill for example, and not against the law (provided you still respect the speed limit for the road you're on).
I don't think there are specific speed limits for bike lanes, or bikes, anywhere in the EU (but of course I could be wrong).
I commute to work with my regular, non-e bicycle, sharing the road with cars. I wouldn't dream of not wearing a helmet, even at "just" 25 km/h, though for most of my commute I keep speeds above that (up to 50km/h).
My 18 miles commute is 2 miles of sleepy suburban traffic and 16 miles on the SF Bay Trail (IOW: flat dirt track with no cars allowed.) Even if it were all dirt track, I'd still be wearing my helmet.
I live in Austria where few cyclists wear helmets yet my girlfriend who works in the local hospital sees patients coming in with serious head injuries on a daily basis from biking accidents that could have easily been prevented by wearing a helmet. Since then we both wear our helmets religiously.
You don't even have to get hit by a car. An unfortunate collision with a texting pedestrian, some dog on a leash jumping in front of you or another cyclist could be enough to smack your melon on the asphalt.
Just because you hear Europeans aren't wearing helmets doesn't mean it's the model to follow. I see wearing a helmet the same as wearing a seatbelt. Sure I never needed it since I never had an accident and it feels slightly uncomfortable but I know it could save my life.
It's up to you how much you value your head.
I highly doubt ebikes have a 50% share in Belgium. Do you have any references on that claim? Last year I visited Belgium's 4 major cities and almost every cyclist I saw was on some old half broken bicycle.