
Bike-share schemes improve safety; helmet laws do not - fanf2
http://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k94/rr-2
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garrettlarson
> There was a substantially greater increase in bicycle commuting in the bike-
> share cities, yet the total number of injuries decreased in bike-share (but
> not control) cities, again showing that more cycling means safer cycling
> [7].

... or that the cities built bike lanes next to the bike share stations.

> Individuals with documented helmet use had 2.2 times the odds of non–helmet
> users of being involved in an injury-related accident

... perhaps because cyclists are more likely to wear helmets in areas with
unsafe biking conditions.

~~~
lucideer
Bike lanes (or, rather, just generally improved attitudes to municipal biking
infrastructure) in cities that have adopted bike share schemes seems the most
likely cause if safety gains in your first quote.

Helmet-wearing cyclists being more likely to cycle in unsafe areas seems far
less plausible. Do you really believe this is the case. At least anecdotally,
I would say the opposite.

~~~
nullp0tr
I don't necessarily agree with op, but you rarely see cyclists with helmets in
amsterdam and other dutch cities where a lot of people use cycling as their
default transportation method, and where as a cyclist you have a priority over
car drivers, whereas in places like berlin you have much more cyclists wearing
helmets, and rightly so. Though I have to say that I myself only wore the
helmet while working as a bike messenger, and rarely while not. So obviously
on a day where I'll be biking for 6-8 hours I'm more likely to get into an
accident, helmet or not.

~~~
lucideer
Ah, ok, I'm starting to see a different perspective on helmet use: comparing
cities rather than individuals in a city.

Perhaps the studies should differentiate these: i.e. comparing accident rates
of helmets against non-helmets within each city individually, vs comparing
e.g. non-helmet-users in Amsterdam against helmet-users in Berlin.

I live in Dublin which, as mentioned in the article, has recently seen marked
improvements in cycle safety. Helmet usage here is high but under 50% and
seems evenly distributed. I'd be curious to see the stats on what the means
for accident rates local to here.

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atcole
The statistics shown on how helmet laws actually lead to an increase in
cycling accidents is very interesting. I wonder what the correlation is on
this? Is it because cyclists not wearing helmets generally bike in a safer
manner? Or maybe if there are no helmet laws, then streets designed for bikes
are designed with more safety in mind?

An interesting note about bike shares usage. I have seen some very effective
bike sharing programs but also some very ineffective ones. In San Jose, there
is a bike share program, but the bikes themselves cost $9 to ride, while in
London the bike share cost 2p (~3-4$). The price point made all the difference
to me.

~~~
fulafel
Potential reasons for the surprising helmet-accident correlation:

(edit: inserted 0'th reason)

0) It could be true but irrelevant: We mainly want to reduce severe injuries,
accident rate only peripherally interesting in relation to this.

1) Is the direction of causality estabilished? Is it possible that a trend of
increasing accident rates results in lawmakers passing helmet laws?

2) But generally it stands to reason that cycling helmets can't actually
reduce accidents, just reduce their impact. And it also sounds reasonable that
helmets would give bikers a small amount of additional risk appetite.

3) Maybe helmet laws encourage casual or impaired cyclists (uncoordinated
people, children, people with bad awareness, etc) to get on bikes, and/or
repel the confident types who choose to do other exercise rather than wear
sweaty and dorky looking helmets. So the bicycling acuity of the bicycler
population is reduced.

4) Is there data picking at play? This cites only 2 studies reporting
increased accident rates, and both of them were in USA, so the data is not
very good for drawing general conclusions. Is there something in the local
circumstances or bicyclist demography? How many studies can you find where
this increased accident rate doesn't show?

~~~
fjsolwmv
Helmetless scares _car drivers_ into keeping a safe distance.

A helmet law wouldn't encourage a new biker who already had a helmet option.

~~~
anfilt
It's not the first some time some one has thought this. Probably, one of
earlier studies regarding that point:
[http://www.drianwalker.com/overtaking/overtakingprobrief.pdf](http://www.drianwalker.com/overtaking/overtakingprobrief.pdf)

I think it would be interesting if conducted with multiple riders, and
different areas. Combine this with the fact there are studies showing increase
car and bicycle crashes with helmet wearers. It definitely plausible.

There is also an other study I remember seeing that noticed helmet wearers
took more risks. So there could be more variables at play.

[http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797615620784](http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797615620784)

------
gwillz
Could it be argued that enforcing helmets, and its effect of decreasing riding
numbers, has helped reduce accident numbers? Because perhaps people who refuse
to wear helmets shouldn't be on the road. If you were to still include the
numbers of those people leaving bike riding, would numbers be in favour of
helmets?

It's hard for me to face stats like these. I can't imagine a world without
helmets, much like cars without seatbelts.

Why are people trying so hard to kill mandatory helmets, can they honestly do
that much damage?

~~~
harg
> Why are people trying so hard to kill mandatory helmets?

From the article it implies that helmet laws discourage casual cyclists or
those wanting to use a hire bike. It seems silly to many people to have to don
PPE just to pootle down the road to the shops.

No-one is trying to take away people's decision whether or not to wear a
helmet, just the obligation.

You could also argue that if you're enforcing helmets for riding bicycles then
you should also enforce it for other activities that suffer from the same or
higher incidences of head-injury. E.g. being an occupant in a motor vehicle.

> Because perhaps people who refuse to wear helmets shouldn't be on the road.

Why shouldn't they be on the road? What danger to they present to anyone
(expect, debatably, themselves) by not wearing one?

~~~
dozzie
> You could also argue that if you're enforcing helmets for riding bicycles
> then you should also enforce it for [...] being an occupant in a motor
> vehicle.

Funny you mention that, because in my country a motocycle passenger is
required to wear a helmet (the driver is required too, obviously). I cannot
think of any sane reason why helmet would be required for the driver but not
for the passenger (other than unintended omission in the law).

