From Next City:
There’s now even more data to suggest that building out bike infrastructure is central to increasing bike ridership and equity. A new survey of seven cities highlights the municipal policies that helped them make bicycling safer for all, including low-income riders and riders of color. The resulting report, “Equitable Bike Share Means Building Better Places for People to Ride,” released Wednesday by the National Association of City Transportation Officials, makes the case for a “safety in numbers” approach to biking: The more people out on bikes, the better. …
Adding protected bike lanes caused a noticeable spike in ridership for cities. Streets with protected bike lanes saw a ridership boost of anywhere between 21 percent and 171 percent. This particularly impacts the 60 percent of the total population who describe themselves as “interested but concerned” about biking. Of those, 80 percent would be willing to ride on streets with a separated or protected bike lane.
Interesting conclusion on what does NOT help:
“One policy that does not help? Mandatory adult helmet laws. Research finds that they reduce bike ridership while failing to increase safety. These laws have had hurt bike advocacy efforts in Australia and hampered bike-share in Seattle and other cities, and research suggests they are disproportionately enforced against people of color.”
It’s shocking how many people are more concerned about their hair than their lives.
Are you thinking of people who drive cars without wearing a helmet? If so, you may be on to something. After all, professional racing drivers all wear them.
Ditto for people walking. Head injuries among pedestrians are way higher than for those cycling on a total number basis and about the same on a per km traveled basis. So why aren’t pedestrians forced to wear helmets?
It’s more shocking that people still believe that cycling is some dangerous activity that requires a helmet. Cycling crashes account for 0.5% of serious head injuries in Canada. It’s shocking that people drive cars, go to bars, climb ladders, play golf, go hiking, walk down stairs, cross the street, sail or change a light bulb without putting on the plastic hat.
Bike share systems have proven to be even safer than riding in general.
Enough with the condescending attitude that paints cyclists as brainless for doing what most cyclists in the world do without a second thought.
Many people agree that helmets don’t help much. But, they won’t ride without one simply because most people are law-abiding.
If I’m cycling or walking and light is red and I know I can make it across without getting hit, I still wait for the green. It’s not really any safer. It’s just the law, and I don’t go flagrantly disobeying it.
So, I can see why mandatory helmet laws reduce ridership. People don’t like helmets, but they don’t like breaking laws either. If you can’t see that, then you probably don’t obey some other laws either. Not judging (because I agree a lot of laws are overkill and stupid), just making a point.
I don’t always wear a helmet. But, I know Joe Driver doesn’t look at me and think, “Gee, that cyclist is smart and realizes that helmets don’t help much.” Instead, they just think, “Gee, that cyclist thinks he’s above the law. Probably blows through stop signs too. Douche.”
“If you can’t see that…”
I can see that!
It’s why I’ve spent so much energy fighting the law. But repealing the law can only happen if the government thinks most people think that helmet laws are a bad idea.
Unfortunately most people still think it’s a good idea. They are swayed by simplistic notions, faulty anecdotes and a refusal to acknowledge the superior safety improvements of jurisdictions that don’t have helmets laws.
In the meantime I always ride without a helmet (having stopped mountain biking some time ago) as an ambassador of the safety of cycling, and I continue to challenge the majority to think about how little has been accomplished with our laws. I’m not holding out for the enlightenment of motorists. But riding without a helmet has allowed me to engage many people and tell another side of the story.
If you wear a helmet you’re really just part of the problem: nothing will change and we’ll have reduced ridership and an underperforming bike share system.
Getting rid of the law is the best solution overall. Anyone who has studied it with an evidence based approach soon discovers how false the little bit of “information” was procured and what a lie we’ve been fed.
I think even after removing the law and educating people about reality there will still be people who hang onto a belief. There are still people who believe that circumcision prevents penile cancer a good century after the bogus study was done and been proven wrong countless times over. People get an idea stuck in their heads and it can take years to stop the wrong idea.
Fortunately the idea that head injury can happen while cycling is more recent. The fraudulent study was done in the late ’80s so there hasn’t been that much time for the belief to spread so maybe the idea can be corrected.
Still I now see kids wearing helmets while walking on a sidewalk. Crazy world we live in nowadays.