- Funny how we’ve been assured for the last century or so that fingerprints are infallible evidence. (Tip o’ hat to Jim Bovard)
- Do bike helmet laws indirectly do more harm than good?
- Handy Helpful Hints … on growing cannabis. (Via Brad Spangler’s Twitter feed)
- Are you doing your bit to be sufficiently “suspicious” to the homeland (achtung!) security state? C’mon, it isn’t that difficult (as John Silveira predicted years ago). (H/T O)
- Hm. Wonder if this’ll worry that pack of paranoids? Slave ants rebel and destroy the young of their oppressors. (Via the very nice and mild-mannered JG)
- Hey, at least the TSA is hiring people with experience.
- “Innocence of Mormons.” A lovely cultural contrast.
- Another from JB. And the winnah (of the Bibi Netanyahu bomb caption contest) is …
I wear a helmet while out riding my bike(well, most of the time), because I busted my head in an accident. Granted, it was unusual(a *new* chain broke”under boost”, and I fell onto a newspaper machine), but I try to be fairly consistent about it. The accident cost me $410, some stitches, and a two-week headache. Technically, you have to wear a bike helmet here(but not on a motorcycle), but it’s seldom, if ever, enforced. I wiped out many times as a child, have been hit three or four times by cars, all without any serious injury. But that’s just my experiences, which has nothing to do with anyone else..
Wearing a helmet should be entirely your choice; the state has no business mandating it. I live in one of the few states (SC) without helmet laws for motorcyclists, and most of the riders I see don’t wear one. Personally, I think they’re nuts (because a motorcycle drives much faster than a bicycle), but that’s their perogative. (Interestingly, we do have a mandatory seat belt law. Go figure.)
I’ve often wondered whether bike helmets _directly_ do more harm than good. They look like neck-breaking levers to me. I’ve read that the things are tested using 11-pound weights…which also makes me wonder this: how much does it matter that the helmet might help protect your head, once your body is no longer attached? Though I suppose it makes it easier to do the open-casket thing.
Oh, and heat may be a problem too.
And then there’s the likelihood that people wearing helmets feel free to be just a little more stupid than they otherwise might…
And then there’s my real objection to this stuff: who sez I hafta, again?
Lots of controversy, for those who get excited about bicycles. Uh…I guess I outed myself there.
It should absolutely be your choice. David, my bike helmet-and I take it the rest are as well-is just styrofoam with a thin plastic shell, real uncomfortable in summer(which is when I tend to “forget” it). How much good does it do you in the real world? I really don’t know. There’s a mandatory seatbelt law here as well, but it’s randomly enforced. The truck where I work doesn’t have functioning seatbelts,and no one’s been pulled over in it. it’s out and about a lot. No one I know has been pulled over for not wearing seatbelts. Maybe it’s more of a scare tactic than anything.
I don’t ride anymore, and never wore one when I did (because they hadn’t been invented yet, oh those were the days) but I always thought the purpose of bicycle helmets was more protection from debris kicked up by cars and other bikes than actual impact protection, like equestrian helmets.
Proper equestrians wear horsey hats that are supposed to prevent flying rocks from hitting them in the head. They don’t do much good if you fall 6′ from the top of your horse and land on your head. Bicycle helmets seem more of a shield like that than actual impact protection.
Oh, come on. Safety comes automatically if you do the right kind of rain dance…doesn’t it?
Yeah, that didn’t make much sense on its own. Here’s my argument: bicycle helmets == the TSA confiscating nail clippers. Maybe that’s better? This kind of thing used to piss me off, until I thought about the rain dance interpretation & realized it’s just magical thinking plus group identification. Now I get to feel all anthropologistical and superiorlike instead.
But the real reason I’m commenting again? ‘Cause I just had to tell you guys this: one of the primary reasons my wife and I moved out of Alaska was that she was pulled over, twice, for excessive window tinting. Not that it matters, but that law was supposed to apply only to aftermarket tinting & this was my grandfather’s truck–came that way from the factory. So, instead of “fixing” it, we took it with us when we left.
It’s not just the tinting, of course. There aren’t many roads up there, and there are a lot of cops, with a lot of “oh look, fines double for the summer!” areas…and it just somehow doesn’t seem worth it to be there any more (I used to love it). So we’re going to sell our cabin & land next summer.
Meanwhile, here in the close vicinity of Washington DC, apparently nobody cares about seatbelts. Or window tinting. Or running lights.
Weird.
In my area Bike Helmets are required for those under 18 years of age. None of the kids in my neighborhood wear them. The local PD decided years ago it wasn’t worth their effort to enforce that particular law. To much time and effort with no profit in the fine.
I’m firmly in the camp that, as an adult, you should be free to engage in any activity as long as you do no direct harm to another.
I don’t think that helmet laws should exist – except for those under the age of majority, who are legally incapable of making such decisions for themselves.
What it looks like the study implies is that more cyclists on the road eventually reach the point of critical mass, where there are enough cyclists that it’s both economical for municipalities to devote traffic space exclusively to cyclists, and that drivers of automobiles will pay attention to cyclists because they are a common sight in traffic.
OK, sure. Fine. We all know that items that make sense on the microeconomic scale don’t make sense if everybody does it on the macroeconomic scale. And this is one of them.
YOU wearing a helmet is better for YOU – if you’ve already decided you’re going to ride. But mandates that require EVERYBODY to wear a helmet end up discouraging casual cyclists who are worried about their hairstyle or don’t weigh the risks inherent in playing in traffic on a 20 lb bike riding next to 1 1/2 ton SUVs.
So… what does this mean for you? if wearing the helmet won’t make you cycle less, then wearing the helmet is going to decrease your chances of serious brain injury in the event of an accident. But ultimately is should be your choice.
What does it mean for the population at large? Not passing helmet laws should increase ridership, at least theoretically. I fear that Americans’ love of the automobile will come into play here in a way that such love never came into play in the european cities mentioned in the study.
CCC’s point about the number of bicyclists on the roads reaching “critical mass” is interesting, and it’s precisely what I do NOT want to see. Cyclists, as a group, are the most inconsiderate of all users of the roads. These slow-moving vehicles often ride two- or even three-abreast, impeding traffic flow and causing tempers to flare. Even the ones riding single file sometimes weave in an out, making passing them a nerve-wracking experience. They also tend to ignore traffic laws (running stop signs and even red lights, not signalling for turns, riding after dark without lights, etc.). They are a traffic hazard. (The same is true for mopeds, which are becoming much more popular where I live.)
Paved roads exist solely because of automobiles. Gasoline taxes paid for them. Bicyclists are guests on those roads, unintended beneficiaries of them, but they tend to act otherwise. They should be limited to riding in parks, on bike paths, or in special bike lanes (and staying strictly within those lanes). And they should be ticketed for moving violations just as cars are, which I have never seen.
I’ve seen cyclists ticketed, but that was several years ago.
Cyclists frequently don’t know which side of the road to ride on, or don’t care, and cross over the street (seemingly) at random; that is disconcerting to a car driver. For that reason, I’m inclined to think they should drive facing traffic, so the driver can be sure the cyclist sees and hears the car. But that only works when he pays attention to traffic; during the past year I saw two different cyclists with cell phones to their ears while biking – and while wobbling one-handed on a bumpy road shoulder. Not safe! – but then common sense can’t be mandated.
I was never sure how much can be heard (or seen) while wearing a helmet. Some of them look pretty head-encasing.