[B’ Spokes: Is The Atlantic chiming in on our mandatory helmet bill? While they don’t come out and say it, it sure is timely on our issue. I’ll note the pro-helmet embedded video cracked me up, it basically says "I play a sport and I wear a helmet so you should too." Well all our bike clubs (those that do bicycling as a sport) require a helmet, so we have that covered. But then comes a (sport) car driver that wears a helmet and says you should wear one too. ROFLMAO our point exactly, helmets can make car drivers safer, so wear a helmet when you drive. 😉 ]
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By James Hamblin, MD, is The Atlantic’s Health editor.
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Cities like Washington, D.C., have great bike-share systems, where bicylces are everywhere for the taking. Decisions to hop on a bike are often impromptu. Who among us is never without a helmet? Or wants to carry one all day after a one-way ride — which is a common use of bike shares. Guilt, and safety concerns that surround helmet-less biking, make many in that situation choose to drive instead. Is that better?
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On that note, imagine we had to wear helmets while jogging. We would be safer. The helmets would inevitably save some lives, even if only by deflecting an occasional errant meteorite. But if we started ticketing all un-helmeted joggers, or giving stern looks to people running without helmets, what would that do for public health on the whole?
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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.
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Manfred Neun, president of the European Cyclists Federation and outspoken helmet law detractor, made a similar point in The West Australian newspaper last spring, arguing that dedicated bike lanes and reducing car speeds in urban areas would do more to protect cyclists than helmets.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/03/the-bike-helmet-paradox/273555/
Biking in Baltimore