"Helmets not even in top 10 of things that keep cycling safe"

[consularrider]

@Steve O 78139 wrote:

+1
APS already requires … driver’s education, even though it is now quite possible to live in a city like DC or NY and not need to know how to drive …

Actually no drivers ed is required in APS, it is a summer elective that families pay extra for (hope I didn’t snip too much out of your post). I would love to see learning to ride a bike be part of the grade school curriculum. I think it would be much more useful than the Wednesday early release.

[scorchedearth]

@consularrider 78153 wrote:

Actually no drivers ed is required in APS, it is a summer elective that families pay extra for (hope I didn’t snip too much out of your post). I would love to see learning to ride a bike be part of the grade school curriculum. I think it would be much more useful than the Wednesday early release.

Cycling education was provided at my elementary school in my hometown as it should be everywhere.

[mstone]

@Geoff 78080 wrote:

I don’t know about changing the culture, but maybe we could change this conversation. What are the issues we should focus on? What are the local laws on helmets? Are they at all controversial?

There was an effort to pass a mandatory helmet law in Maryland within the past year. Legislators actually get confused about why that’s a problem if it’s impossible to have a conversation about bike safety without talking about how everyone needs a helmet OR THEY WILL DIE.

Other things to talk about: lights are a big one. Or, just talking about how cycling is actually NOT all that dangerous. Continually focusing on wearing a helmet OR YOU WILL DIE does tend to make people fret that there’s an inherent risk to cycling. In fact, for low-intensity cyclists, there does not seem to be a really high risk to the activity. Is it no risk? Of course not–but the level of risk isn’t much different than any other form of human-powered mobility. (Walking, etc.) Where there is a much greater degree of risk of serious injury or death is when cars conflict with bikes. And it is an open question as to how much protection a helmet provides if you’ve been hit by a car at high speed. We simply do not have reliable data on cyclist injuries. Full stop. So the rhetoric surrounding helmets occurs basically in a vacuum of hard data–we really don’t know how much benefit helmets provide, so we cannot do any kind of cost/benefit analysis either on the helmets or on any helmet campaign. (At this stage someone usually introduces an anecdote, missing the point.)

The lack of data has a lot of ramifications: for example, it means that there isn’t much actual science going into helmet design. (What speed accident should a helmet protect against? Current standard tests an impact at 13MPH. Is that reasonable? Who knows.) So what’s something else we could focus on? Demanding reliable data on cycling related injuries, including rigorous accident investigations when cars hit cyclists (or pedestrians). With real data in hand, we could actually determine how useful helmets are, and give people real information to inform their choices. We may find that in open-road collisions helmets don’t add much real value because trauma to the rest of the body is significant enough that the helmet is irrelevant. We may find that there’s some sort of lightweight body armor that’s more important than helmets. We might find that helmets are critical. Who knows. We’re entering an era where decisions like this can actually be made on a factual basis, and it’s a hell of thing. This isn’t unique to bike helmets–just look at the evolving science on vitamins, for example. Something can be really intuitive, and still be wrong.

@lordofthemark 78116 wrote:

Given that we are, on this issue of bike helmet campaigns, as far as I can tell, limited to a priori logic and anecdotes, my own a priori logic (informed heavily by what I have read here and similar places) suggests we should not prioritize helmet campaigns, but leaves me skeptical that their impact (that is the impact of helmet PR campaigns, NOT mandates) on ridership and safety in numbers effects is large enough to offset the likely positives of increased helmet usage.

“likely positives” — tens of millions of dollars in awareness campaigns and legislation over decades, and all there is, is “likely positives”. Why not try a few campaigns that don’t mention helmets? What’s the harm? Is it likely that the next campaign will reach a bunch of people who have been asleep for the past couple of decades? That’s, in my opinion, the real issue–this topic has gotten so tied up with cycling safety that it’s impossible to talk about cycling safety without talking about bike helmets, which dilutes any other message.

And remember, none of this is about whether you should wear a helmet. It’s about whether our limited advocacy and public dollars should go into repeatedly telling people to wear helmets, or whether we should spend time & money on other things. If you decide that wearing a helmet is quick and easy and useful, great–keep wearing one, just like I do most of the time.

Edit to add: and if someone does want a helmet campaign, how ’bout one focused on helping people get them fitted properly? An improperly fitted helmet is just a fashion statement (or lucky rabbit’s foot), and it seems like there are a heck of a lot of those on the road–I read one study that put the bad fit figure at 96%. (Another problem with the “just wear a helmet SO YOU WON’T DIE” messaging?)

[dasgeh]

@lordofthemark 78143 wrote:

On the other hand, it means involving another bureaucracy, the public school systems. The County DOTs at least mostly see increasing cycling as part of their mission and helpful to their other goals. The school systems are large entities with many other major competing priorities. My wife is on the FCDC education committee, and I can just imagine the response to such a proposal “how will this help address the achievement gap?” “will it improve test scores?” “will it address overcrowding and the budget deficit?” Granted SRTS is already something the school systems are doing, but that doesn’t implicate the curriculum the same way. Look at Prince William, which is making up snow days in part by decreasing recess. I wish you well in advancing this, but I’m not sure I want the heartache of fighting for change in FCPS (beyond the issues my wife is already focused on) (APS maybe would be more receptive)

So APS already has a community committee on transportation (I’m on it), and I think it’s coming around to understanding the importance of transportation generally. The beauty of the getting transportation into the curriculum is that it often can be worked in without adding separate courses, etc. Early elementary classes already talk about telling time — base some lesson plans off of reading a bus schedule. Geography classes already need to fill time after tests — talk about transportation and geography. Map classes love real world examples — use transportation (either simple, like is it faster to walk or bike, or complicated, like velocities and acceleration).

And for when it does compete for resources, the answers to your questions are easy:
“how will this help address the achievement gap?” transportation is critical for all, and teaching kids how to utilize cheap transportation (walking, biking, transit) is most useful for low income.
“will it improve test scores?” Get kids to school safely using active transportation, and you’ll improve their mental and physical health, making them that much more ready to learn
“will it address overcrowding and the budget deficit?” Having kids walk, bike and use transit to get to school is by far the cheapest option for the school system.

@scorchedearth 78155 wrote:

Cycling education was provided at my elementary school in my hometown as it should be everywhere.

Awesome. Where are you from?

[lordofthemark]

@mstone 78157 wrote:

“likely positives” — tens of millions of dollars in awareness campaigns and legislation over decades, and all there is, is “likely positives”.

Yup, AFAICT thats where we stand. We do have data that suggests most (but less than was previously thought) head injuries benefit from helmet usage. We don’t have real good data on many other related issues, and so its hard to say what the total safety benefit of helmet usage is. We have a few studies suggesting a positive safety benefit from more riders. We have indications, from Australia, I believe, that mandatory helmet laws lead to less ridership, and obvious conflicts between such laws and bike sharing. But no such studies for helmet PR campaings. So AFAICT, all we can say is that its LIKELY that Direct Safety Benefits of Helmet Usage relating to PR campaigns (but as you ask, how many people actually haven’t already heard about helmets?) > Safety costs due to loss of safety in numbers due to Helmet PR campaigns.

So if someone donated money usable only for a helmet PR campaign (say a helmet manufacturer) I would accept it, despite concern about safety in numbers.

Given a choice between a helmet PR campaign, and a PR campaign directed towards lights, or toward making proper turns, or toward riding in the correct direction, I would not choose the helmet campaign (and a fortiori I would do more for share the road campaigns directed at drivers). But I fear that the knowledge and attitudes of the non-biking public, which does not follow these issues, almost requires bike helmet campaigns as a quid pro quo for share the road campaigns (“why should I yield to them when they don’t even care enough to wear a helmet?”) Again I would love to be shown I am wrong about this last.

[mstone]

@lordofthemark 78171 wrote:

Yup, AFAICT thats where we stand. We do have data that suggests most (but less than was previously thought) head injuries benefit from helmet usage.[/quote]

I don’t even think we have that; the data are really bad, and not able to say anything about “benefit”. There’s correlation of head injury and helmet wearing, but there are all sorts of issues with running too far with that. What you really want to show is a difference in outcome based on helmet use (that is, less death or long term disability attributable to head injury–not deaths where someone is completely mangled and also has a head injury). You also probably want to have bicycle miles or hours as a factor to help normalize the data. It doesn’t help that we’re talking about really really small numbers, (which doesn’t get enough mention) so any problems with the data can have a really large effect.

Quote:

So if someone donated money usable only for a helmet PR campaign (say a helmet manufacturer) I would accept it, despite concern about safety in numbers.

If all our helmet safety campaigns were paid for by helmet manufacturers I’d chalk it up to advertising and not worry about it. I don’t think that’s the case.

Quote:

But I fear that the knowledge and attitudes of the non-biking public, which does not follow these issues, almost requires bike helmet campaigns as a quid pro quo for share the road campaigns (“why should I yield to them when they don’t even care enough to wear a helmet?”) Again I would love to be shown I am wrong about this last.

I think your right–and that’s an unfortunate side effect of this helmet-specific safety culture we’ve developed. There is no demonstrable positive correlation between not being hit by a car and wearing a helmet (though there are some odd suggestions that the opposite may be true) so we shouldn’t even have to talk about the two together. But if we always let the conversation run “well, why wouldn’t you wear a helmet, it just stands to reason that it’s essential so if you don’t wear one you don’t care if you get hurt” then we end up having this same stupid conversation over and over again at a policy making level. And regardless of whether you personally want to wear a helmet, most would agree that 1) you will never get helmet use to 100% and 2) motorists should not be able to run over cyclists who aren’t (or might not be) wearing a helmet. So at what point do we decide that we’ve gotten enough bang for the buck on helmet advocacy and try something new?

[PotomacCyclist]

I think the usual example of the problems with mandatory helmet laws comes from Australia, where one such law apparently led to significant declines in cycling in one city. I think a council member in Maryland tried to get a helmet law passed last year (in connection with CaBi, I believe), but after WABA and other groups spoke to her, she decided that it wasn’t such a great idea.

CaBi provides a great example for everyone (cyclists and non-cylists) about the relative importance of helmet use. We have an awful lot of data now, after almost 3.5 years of widespread use of the system. There have been millions of total bike trips among all CaBi users but almost no head injuries. (Actually, the last time I heard about the numbers, there hadn’t been a single reported head injury.) It’s well-known that a significant percentage of CaBi users do not wear helmets. Surveys suggest this, and frequent observation on local streets confirm this. And even with the low rate of helmet usage, CaBi users aren’t getting head injuries.

Bike infrastructure and safety education for everyone (including car drivers as well as cyclists and pedestrians) are very important. The bike equipment is important too. CaBi bikes seem to be safer than road or hybrid bikes. The heavy, low-centered bikes are very stable. And slow. The slower speeds help to provide extra reaction time, for the cyclist and for nearby car drivers. It’s much easier to avoid an accident when the cyclist is travelling so slowly. I’ve personally observed the benefits of the stable structure of the bikes, once when I ran over a screw and a couple other occasions when I ran into unmarked ditches (not too deep) on a road and a sidewalk. It’s very difficult, if not impossible, to do a header on a CaBi bike. The bikes don’t seem to tip over to the side that easily either. If I had been riding on a road bike in those incidents, I think I would probably have tumbled over the front or off to the side. On CaBi, I just experience an unpleasant thud at the bottom of the shallow ditch.

One ongoing problem with helmets is perception, mostly the opinion that a significant minority of non-cyclists have, that if a cyclist isn’t wearing a helmet, then they almost deserve to get hit and injured. It’s also a problem when a police officer or prosecutor investigates a case and is swayed by the fact that the cyclist wasn’t wearing a helmet. Even if the car driver caused a collision, some officers or investigators might assign some of the blame to the cyclists merely because he or she wasn’t wearing a helmet. That may not make sense to most of us, but that’s how some people think. Unfortunately, that attitude can have an effect on a cyclist who gets hit by a car driver, in terms of the outcome of the investigation.

As for the article, I’ve never heard of Chris Boardman.

[scorchedearth]

@dasgeh 78167 wrote:

Awesome. Where are you from?

Toronto.

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