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June 8, 2015
The Great Debate Around Cycling Helmet Laws
Nothing has been more hotly debated or more polarizing than the debate about the merits of mandatory bike helmet laws.
Photo courtesy of Mission Bicycle Company
In the global cycling community, nothing has been more hotly debated or more polarizing than the debate about the merits of mandatory helmet laws.
Carla Danley is a former emergency room nurse who has seen her fair share of head injuries. She has also been a daily bicycle rider since 2009 when, at age 50, she moved to Portland, OR, and launched headlong into the city’s vibrant bike scene. In Portland, bicycling verges on the mainstream.
Danley is one of many who choose to wear a helmet every time they ride. “It’s in my marriage contract,” she said. Her husband lost his teenage sister after she was struck by a car while on a cross-Canada bike trip. “One of the things I give him credit for is: when we moved to Oregon, I was like, ‘I’m going to get rid of my car and ride a bike’, and he has always been behind me 100 percent,” she said. “But he is really clear that he wants me to use bike lights at night and have a helmet on all the time. And I’m good with that.”
Across the globe, in Western Australia, Sue Abbott, a 50-year-old mother of four who has cycled for transportation for 46 years, has never worn a bike helmet. Even after 1991 when Australia became the first country to pass a mandatory helmet law for both adults and children, she rode helmet-free, an act that soon earned her a stiff ticket.
Abbott emerged victorious last August from a string of court battles over her right to cycle bare-headed in her town of Scone, New South Wales. Aiding her suit was the embattled and contradictory state of scientific research on the efficacy of bike helmets for safety.
Since the bike helmet question is one of the most fiercely debated and polarized issues in transportation bicycling, the question is, which is more important: personal freedom or a precautionary approach that mandates defensive cycling? Should the government step in to enforce head protection or should the onus be on the individual? The science around bike helmets is murky, but the political philosophies in question are sharply delineated.
A Brief History of Helmets and Cycling Laws
For much of the history of the bicycle there were no helmets, only protective leather caps occasionally worn by bike racers, motorists, aeronauts, rugby players, and mountaineers.
Helmets, as we know them today, did not exist until 1975, when Bell Sports introduced the first polystyrene model to the United States market. First constructed to protect the skull by crushing on impact, there has been little aesthetic or material innovation in their design until recent years.
Now, in North America, fanciful or sleek helmet shells with minimal venting, such as those made by Nutcase and Bern, are becoming popular among everyday cyclists. In Europe, the Ribcap – a knit hat with soft inserts that harden on impact – is all the rage for bicycling and skiing.
The first mandatory bicycle helmet laws that went into effect in California in 1987 and New York in 1989 applied only to young children who were passengers on a bike. Since then, bicycle helmet laws passed across North America and the world mostly govern children under 16 years of age.
These laws are increasingly contentious. In Tel Aviv, an attempt to repeal existing helmet laws is being fought as fiercely as successful attempts to impose them in Vancouver, WA, which passed an all-ages helmet law last year. Northern Ireland, Chicago, IL, and Minneapolis, MN, are all considering instituting mandatory helmet laws for children under the age of 16. Mexico City may have had the shortest-lived helmet law – it was passed in 2009 and repealed a year later in the face of intense opposition.
Cycling helmet-clad and helmet-less in Oxford, UK. Photo by Tejvan Pettinger.
The Great Bike Helmet Debate
Pro-helmet advocates compare helmets to seat belts – a common sense response to a known safety problem. They have at their service a wealth of data. In the US, head trauma is the cause of over half of bicycle-related fatalities, with survival of serious crashes strongly linked to helmet use.
Also to the point, helmet laws have been shown to be more effective than education campaigns at getting helmets on heads.
Opponents of helmet laws see them as a barometer of a society’s regard for personal freedom. They point to research finding that helmets do not in fact protect wearers in the most common types of bicycle crashes, which result in scrapes and other injuries to the arms and legs. In some cases, research shows that helmets might even cause brain injuries as a result of the mechanical twisting effect that occurs upon impact.
Others insist that helmet laws lead to more dangerous bicycling conditions. A British traffic psychologist used sensors to discover that when he biked to work without a helmet, passing drivers gave him more room on the road – though not as much room as when he wore a flowing wig!
Australia experienced a drop in bicycle use after its helmet law came into effect. Common sense might lead one to believe that this is a good thing, that fewer bicyclists would mean fewer injuries. But studies worldwide have repeatedly shown the opposite to be true: the more people ride bikes, the safer bicycling becomes.
This phenomenon is called “Safety in Numbers.” Its core principle is that people on bikes rely largely on the kindness of strangers for their safety – the ones whizzing past them in their cars. As more people ride, drivers become more skilled, tolerant and aware of the presence of cyclists, making roads safer for people on bikes – and for everyone else, too, for that matter.
The popularity of public bike sharing systems raises another issue around mandatory bicycle helmet laws: how to have both at the same time?
City leaders worldwide are discovering the appeal of self-service kiosks where bicycles can be rented cheaply for short trips. Bike share systems are an affordable way to boost bicycle mode share and safety nearly overnight. But no feasible means has yet been found to incorporate helmets into such schemes, leaving all-ages helmet law cities, such as Vancouver, BC, struggling to find a way to reap the rewards of a public bike system.
The Anti-Helmet League
It isn’t just cycling helmet laws that face growing opposition. Increasingly, helmets themselves have come under fire.
Mikael Colville-Andersen, a cycling advocate and marketing consultant in Denmark, took the cultural battle to the next level in a highly publicized speech called “Why we shouldn’t wear bike helmets.”
In his TEDx talk, viewable on YouTube, Colville-Andersen associates helmets with what he calls a “culture of fear.” Helmet use, he said, sends the message that bicycling is dangerous. We’d laugh at wearing helmets for other daily activities that carry a significant risk of head injury, such as walking, driving, bathing and using stairs. Why, he asked, is bicycling singled out as dangerous?
Debra Rolfe, an American-British urban planning master’s student in Vancouver, BC, agreed. North America’s helmet culture is the worst, she said. “It’s like complete strangers walking up to you and lecturing you about how what you’re eating for lunch is going to kill you.”
“Most societies in the developed world spend far more money on inactivity-related illnesses than they do on trauma care,” she added. “We should be doing everything we possibly can to save lives by getting people to exercise.”
Ultimately, Rolfe calls helmets “an unfortunate distraction from the real major safety issue affecting cyclists: Cars. Whether or not individuals choose to wear bike helmets is irrelevant, but the cycling community in North America spends a huge amount of time debating it, when it could be doing so much more to improve conditions.”
But Should I Wear a Bike Helmet, Seriously?
When it comes down to it, the decision about whether or not to don a helmet is often less about scientific studies, political philosophies or even laws, and more about one’s beliefs and sense of safety, or lack thereof, on the road.
Elena Findley-de Regt, 29, a Dutch-American citizen who has lived and cycled in the Netherlands, the US, Spain and, now, the UK, has observed a wide range of helmet customs.
“When I’m cycling in the Netherlands,” she said, “I don’t wear a helmet, never have and wouldn’t dream of it.”
There, she feels that riding is safe, thanks to “very minimal interaction with motor vehicles due to separated bike paths” and a “critical mass of cyclists with generally low overall riding speeds.” And there’s a cultural element. “The Dutch tend to have a pragmatic approach to most things in life – the simplest answer is most likely the best. Fussing with a helmet is an extra, unnecessary step.”
“Philosophically,” she said, “I believe that cycling should be such a normal, integrated part of transportation infrastructure that no special equipment is required.”
But when riding in any other country, she wears a helmet. “This has a lot to do with my confidence in the riding conditions, and especially my trust in other road users to behave appropriately.”
Habitual use and cultural norms, as well as compelling personal stories, influence helmet beliefs. Ellen Jacobson said that her husband, also a fervent helmet advocate, began wearing one only when they became mainstream in the 1980s. She doesn’t recall exactly when he made the transition, but does remember that he began wearing a ski helmet after the highly publicized skiing death of Sunny Bono in 1998.
The 800-pound Gorilla
One perspective that seems capable of bringing about agreement across the fiery lines of the helmet debate is equity.
Ellen Jacobson, who coordinates the Kiwanis Club’s bicycle program in Sparks, NV, is a true helmet believer, having devoted much of the past decade to bicycle safety programs for kids. But she wants to make one thing clear: “I am against having a helmet law in Nevada. Most of the kids who don’t wear helmets are extremely low income. If you fine them, what you’re really doing is taking food off the table. And the fine doesn’t put a helmet on their heads.”
Carla Danley, the former ER nurse, leans instinctively towards supporting an all-ages helmet law. “I think it almost has to be something that’s legislated so that people are fined,” she mused, quickly adding the caveat, “but I’d be concerned about certain populations being targeted more than others.”
Conclusion
It seems we have reached a decisive moment in the history of urban cycling. If the pro helmet faction wins, it’s likely that we will see mandatory helmet laws sweeping across Canada and the US. If, on the other hand, the pro-choice group wins, existing helmet laws will soon be abolished, potentially changing the face of cycling in those cities that currently require helmet use by law.
There is a lot riding on this debate, and it’s unlikely to fade into the distance anytime soon.
This article was originally published in 2011 and has been updated.
85 Comments
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Kids will be less likely to ride as much and make riding a habit due.to helmet laws.
Your article is riddled with rumors, misstatements and untruths. There is NOT a SINGLE study showing bike helmets protect from trauma. Bike helmets are not designed to protect from trauma. Bike helmets are designed to protect your head from minor injuries due to contact with other items while riding. This statement is an outright fabrication. “In the US, head trauma is the cause of over half of bicycle-related fatalities, with survival of serious crashes strongly linked to helmet use.” No recognized scientific study has ever supported this.
Want better proof, no bicycle helmet manufacturer would say this. In fact, look at all the marketing for bicycle helmets. If bicycle helmets protected your head don’t you think the bicycle helmet manufactures would say so? Don’t you think they would advertise that fact. NO BICYCLE HELMET MANUFACTURER STATES A HELMET WILL PROTECT YOU HEAD. Why, because they don’t want to be sued when the bicycle helmet wont, can’t and will not protect your head.
I know. I am a member of ASTM F08.53 Headgear and Helmets committee. I am the US representative to the UIAA which creates standards for helmets in outdoor sports in Europe. Bike helmets are not designed and do not protect from trauma.
For many years now, I have worn a helmet, and sworn by them. About ten years or so ago, I crashed my bike on black ice. Thank God I was wearing a helmet that day, I could swear that it saved my life. If I am going anywhere by bike, I always, without fail, put on my helmet!
Yeah, sure the helmets are safer for kids but 12 and up I don’t feel it is nessassary.
I bet its better to wear one but I feel higher without one like I make my 6 year old but I force my 13 not to one we feel the same way
I believe you failed to fairly treat the scientific evidence question of this matter seriously. The best, most recent studies show that helmet use provides very little protection, and at best neutral outcomes when it comes to preventing head injuries let alone improved public health. Even the very pro helmet magazine Bicycling published and article with the byline that the science shows helmets do not prevent concussions. Can’t link directly but it seems the CBC interviewed the author here:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/bike-helmets-should-address-concussion-risk-scientists-say-1.1367454
Hope Hedy Fry reads this. In my opinion we have to build better roads and severely punish the driver of any vehicle, mostly cars, that operate said vehicle in a manner where they might endanger others.
Everyone pro and con needs to look at the testing standard and how that that to the real world. 150 Joules of energy against a flat surface, the current CPSC’s current testing criteria is a very nominal blow to absorb before failing. The standard when helmets first appeared was over 300 Joules but the helmet manufactures fought to lower the standard so that they could sell more product. Yeah unfettered capitalism. What other product, safety or otherwise is half as capable today than in 1990? As for Carla Danley’s sister in law I’m sorry for her and her husbands loss, I don’t know the circumstances of that accident but if it’s like virtually all car caused bike fatalities a helmet would not have zero difference, to use that as reasoning to enforce their preferred pieces of safety equipment when there is no evidence to support its efficacy has no place in a free and moral society.
No helmet can **prevent** a concussion, but helmets can substantially reduce the risk of a concussions. Yes, there are improvements to be made (such as improved handling of rotational forces), but that does not mean they are useless.
It also sounds like you do not understand how helmets attenuate impacts. They don’t reduce the total energy, just the peak force experienced by the brain. Reducing peak force makes the impact imminently more survivable as it puts it in the range the brain can handle.
Finally, what is right for an individual may not make sense at the population level, but just because a general effect is not observed at the population level does not mean there isn’t a benefit for the individual. This is called an ecological fallacy and it really muddies the water when people talk about the efficacy of helmets.
Well I don’t know what your credentials are but this quote from the CBC link above from renowned neurosurgeon Charles Tator who treats individuals with major head trauma should clear things up for you; “Current bike helmets, Tator says, “are pretty well useless in attenuating rotational acceleration” in the previous paragraph he explains that it is rotational forces that cause major brain injuries so yeah the thing that you call a bike helmet which is really just 50 cents of Styrofoam formed into a sporty hat can only provide minimal protection again bruises, contusion and minor skull fractures and is of no help, and can (actually has in Australian and New Zealand but I’ll save that for later) very well worsen brain injury by either not mitigating and or magnifying rotational forces or leading people to behave more recklessly through the phenomena of “risk compensation” and getting into accidents that they would not have otherwise.
See here for evidence on the rotational force issue http://www.trl.co.uk/online_store/reports_publications/trl_reports/cat_road_user_safety/report_assessment_of_current_bicycle_helmets_for_the_potential_to_cause_rotational_injury.htm
So that’s how helmets work, if you want to actually be informed the next time you post on this topic you should read “The efficacy of bicycle helmets against brain injury” by WJ Curnow published here;
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12504149 and elsewhere online google it.
As for helmet functionality and capacity here is an excellent overview by Brian Walker one of the leading experts on the mechanics of helmets, and whose company Head Protection Evaluations is the principal UK test laboratory for helmets and head protection systems of all kinds.
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1081.html
The linked pdfs from the defunct magazine Cycle are an excellent read and will explain bicycle helmets in simple terms that you should be able to understand. You can believe the available science or you can believe what your amygdala tells you but if it’s fear that you choose to base your decisions on you have no right to expect or worse demand that others also act irrationally on unfounded fear with no supporting evidence.
Well I don’t know what your credentials are but this quote from the CBC link above from renowned neurosurgeon Charles Tator who treats individuals with major head trauma should clear things up for you; “Current bike helmets, Tator says, “are pretty well useless in attenuating rotational acceleration” in the previous paragraph he explains that it is rotational forces that cause major brain injuries so yeah the thing that you call a bike helmet which is really just 50 cents of Styrofoam formed into a sporty hat can only provide minimal protection again bruises, contusion and minor skull fractures and is of no help, and can (actually has in Australian and New Zealand but I’ll save that for later) very well worsen brain injury by either not mitigating and or magnifying rotational forces or leading people to behave more recklessly through the phenomena of “risk compensation” and getting into accidents that they would not have otherwise.
See here for evidence on the rotational force issue http://www.trl.co.uk/online_store/reports_publications/trl_reports/cat_road_user_safety/report_assessment_of_current_bicycle_helmets_for_the_potential_to_cause_rotational_injury.htm
So that’s how helmets work, if you want to actually be informed the next time you post on this topic you should read “The efficacy of bicycle helmets against brain injury” by WJ Curnow published here;
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12504149 and elsewhere online google it.
As for helmet functionality and capacity here is an excellent overview by Brian Walker one of the leading experts on the mechanics of helmets, and whose company Head Protection Evaluations is the principal UK test laboratory for helmets and head protection systems of all kinds.
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1081.html
The linked pdfs from the defunct magazine Cycle are an excellent read and will explain bicycle helmets in simple terms that you should be able to understand. You can believe the available science or you can believe what your amygdala tells you but if it’s fear that you choose to base your decisions on you have no right to expect or worse demand that others also act irrationally on unfounded fear with no supporting evidence.
There is data to show that helmets do NOT prevent concussion. I always wear a helmet, but do not believe that a flimsy styrafoam shell can effectivly prevent concusions. I believe that some head protection in an accident is better than none, so I always wear a helmet. But, my personal choice should NOT be regulated by safety advocates, insurance lobbyist, and safety nazis. The day that the make helmets mandatory in my city or state is when I will burn my helmet in front of city hall.
Despite support from the Spanish government, the Spanish parliament rejected mandatory helmets for adults two years ago after hearing evidence on the negative effects in Australia and listening to testimony strongly criticising mandatory helmet laws from a representative of the World Health Organisation.
Bravo. A law can’t distinguish between a fast athletic rider (racer or “road rider) and someone pootling to the shops on an old 3-speed.
. . . There is no difference between the fast racer and the slow recreational cyclist …
both fall at the same speed and hit the pavement just as hard. The laws of Nature (gravity vertical acceleration) cannot be disobeyed.
You are not invincible. You’re a human being that can fall by yourself without anyone around. No car around. I’ve fallen 8 times off my bike in the last 25 years of regular cycling. I’m car-free. 7 times on black ice/snow in winter and there were no cars around.
8th time, latest…I was knocked down this past New Year’s DAy, while cycling because another cyclist who was cycling too fast when he crashed into after I turned a corner on the Vancouver Seaside-Seawall path. (in Yaletown) I have no memory of the accident, cyclist, his bike, nor being transported by ambulance to the hospital. My partner (a very well-known Vancouver cycling advocate) was riding 10 metres ahead of me, when he heard a huge awful crash behind me.
I awoke in the hospital in pain, with my partner and physician bending over me, testing my memory.
I lost my memory for about 4-5 hrs. after the accident/injury. I was tested for my memory for another 3 times over a 24 hr. period. This how much vigilance must occur.
Then after Jan. 1, 2015, day of my crash, I spent 2 months on disability leave from work, lying in bed at home, for my brain to heal. During this time, I needed to walk with someone outside. My family physician and sister-emergency medicine doctor (who practices in Ontario and sees concussion often enough) instructed me on no computer screen time since computer screen movement/flickering is tiring on brain.
I was too dizzy..so my partner (Jack) did 90% of all the cooking, housework and 100% of all grocery shopping during those 2 months. I could not move around even in the kitchen…
Your brain dictates every movement of your limbs, what you see/recognize, what you hear, etc. Otherwise your body is a vegetable. Please remember this.
Do NOT be caveliar, brash about cycling style, pay attention to traffic signals..
If you consult the medical literature, please remember if you have several concussions in a lifetime…it is cumulative. You don’t get “stronger”.
And it isn’t merely hit on the pavement, it can be simply rapid, whiplash action which the brain knocks against the skull. A friend of mine has a concussion from a car accident when her car was rear-ended.
That all said: I have returned to cycling..it’s been a slow process. One has to just rebuild some confidence. And why not? If a driver was in an accident, do a lot of them stop driving?
One factor of danger, that is super real that never existed 25 years ago, is now problem of distracted car drivers on their cell phones, etc. Pay attention to all drivers. Don’t trust them completely. I don’t anymore. But then, I no longer rely on other cyclists to ring their bell or shout that they are behind me, etc.
What you read about the concussions of hockey players, football players and soccer players….it’s the same thing..but sometimes worse.
I was lucky my vision, etc. was not affected at all.
The back of head, could have hit the pavement but it was my helmet that blunted it….although the tightening disc dug abit into my scalp that I bled abit on the hospital pillow.
Thanks for your anecdote, but that is all it is, an anecdote, and as we all know, the plural of anecdote is not data.
Sure. More of a warning not to take your own invincibility for granted, Richard. My partner also had a mild concussion in 2010, when another cyclist crashed into him about half km. west of same area where I had my crash.
His helmet was destroyed. He was examined in emergency services at hospital. Cyclist bought him a new helmet.
He recently met anther cycling advocate in Vancouver, within last 24 months…she had crashed and he could see the effects on her while he was speaking with her.
I am currently working on realigning my sleep with help of a sleep doctor-specialist.
It’s not worth wasting our effort trying to convince people not to wear helmets. Car lovers love this type of distraction …where more needs to spent on cycling infrastructure for safety.
Jean, you sure do seem to fall off your bike quite a bit. Have you thought of maybe taking a bicycle skills class? Seven times you hit the pavement on ice, you’d think an “experienced” rider would learn after the first fall to change your gear, ie studded tires, or take public transportation seeing as you feel no need for an automobile. It seems in your case you may be safer driving in winter than risking that smart brain of yours to a flimsy piece of plastic. Good riding skills and following traffic laws, we cyclists are by law a legal vehicle, equals safer riding. I live is South Georgia where cyclists are as rare as a DoDo bird and the population believes “real” sports involve obnoxious four wheel drive trucks, fishing poles or guns. Come down here and ride, you quickly realize that a bicycle helmet will be the least of your worries. And for the record I’ve been cycling for 27 years and have been hit once by a motor vehicle while stationed in Germany. The Polizei treat car/bike crashes like a crime scene and it was swiftly determined that the driver of the motor vehicle that hit me was at fault 100%. The danger is drivers not bicycles. Unless you fall down frequently.
“Helmets, as we know them today, did not exist until 1975, when Bell Sports introduced the first polystyrene model to the United States market. First constructed to protect the skull by crushing on impact, there has been little aesthetic or material innovation in their design until recent years.”
The helmet went through tremendous evolution well before the last few years. Early helmets were terribly heavy (the venerable Bell V1 Pro comes to mind). In the late ’80s they cut the weight of helmets by more than half. By the mid ’90s they’d dramatically improved the ventilation. Then they introduced the adjustable retention system (such as the dial you see on the back of so many helmets) by the early 2000s. Massive innovation began well before the halfway mark of the helmet and continues to this day. Whatever one’s opinion on helmets, it’s factually incorrect to say that they have evolved little until recently.
“In some cases, research shows that helmets might even cause brain injuries as a result of the mechanical twisting effect that occurs upon impact.”
Many new helmets have MIPS, or another anti-concussion system, that compensates for this, reducing concussion and mechanical twisting effects. I have one myself for this very concern. As prices come down, this argument becomes increasingly irrelevant.
“Others insist that helmet laws lead to more dangerous bicycling conditions. A British traffic psychologist used sensors to discover that when he biked to work without a helmet, passing drivers gave him more room on the road – though not as much room as when he wore a flowing wig!”
What “sensors”? The only study along these lines that I found had a British psychologist doing what you discussed, and then recording his *perception* of the birth he was given, which is hardly scientific. Do you have a link to this study? I couldn’t find it. And the related one I found is in disrepute.
“In his TEDx talk, viewable on YouTube, Colville-Andersen associates helmets with what he calls a “culture of fear.” Helmet use, he said, sends the message that bicycling is dangerous.”
This seems like an spurious argument when car companies spend millions of dollars every year bragging about the safety features they add (air bags, ABS, crumple zones, you name it), all without the average person seeming to be concerned that all cars are deathtraps.
I recommend updating the article as some of the above quotes are misleading, or straight-out incorrect.
15 seconds of googleing took me to this article in the BBC;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/somerset/5334208.stm
Furthermore here is a long list of peer reviewed science in respected academic journals that might, if you’re open to a reasoned argument, lead you to question your sacrosanct belief in the efficacy of bike helmets.
http://cyclehelmets.org/1146.html
At lot of the links no longer connect but 15 seconds max of googling the study title and author will take you to the journal page where these studies are published.
I’m totally against helmet laws and bicycle helmets.
My head still hurts 2.5 years after being hit by a car. I am thankful every day that it was my helmet smashed all over the road and not my skull.
One elementary aspect is omitted in this piece; Risk compensation. People who wear a helmet will tend to feel safer in traffic. This feeling of relative increased safety will reduce their vigilance in traffic, they will go faster, read others in traffic less attentively, look over their shoulders a little less etc.
All in all someone who wears a helmet, will be more likely to get in an accident in the first place. That would be okay, if the helmet provided extraordinary increased safety, like the seatbelt does for car drivers, it does not. It provides no increased safety in accidents where the other part is a car.
Helmets are only beneficial at speeds below 20 km/h and in collisions with other cyclists, pedestrians and individual accidents.
Risk compensation are scientifically researched and well documented on many issues, from motor sports, ordinary car drivers to helmet use in American football. The safer you feel the higher risks you take.
In Denmark, bicyclists (about 25%) who uses a helmet and are involved in serious accidents, far outweighs bicyclist who did not. Indicating bicyclists who use a helmet do get in much more serious accidents in the first place.
The countries with the least helmet use The Netherlands and Denmark, who also both have the best infrastructure for bikes, also have the least serious accidents per million km driven. And we are remarkably better than any other country. Infrastructure saves lifes, helmets does not.
In Denmark the risk of getting killed per trip, per hour in traffic and per km driven is on par with car drivers/passengers, whereas motorcyclists and pedestrians have many times higher risks.
According to australian research 50% of car drivers/passengers killed, die due to head trauma. The total number of killed are dominated by car drivers/passengers. Cyclists who are killed, die due to full body trauma, getting hit by a car at high speeds (50 km/h+) and slow driving trucks, primarily accidents, where a plastic coveres styrofoam helmet would mitigate nothing.
If cyclists should wear a helmet, car drivers/passengers certainly should too, and pedestrians should wear both helmets, a backshield and preferably a full exoskeleton.
“Risk compensation. People who wear a helmet will tend to feel safer in traffic. This feeling of relative increased safety will reduce their vigilance in traffic, they will go faster, read others in traffic less attentively, look over their shoulders a little less etc.”
If you’re right, then wouldn’t this argue against the idea that promoting helmet use suggests bikes are unsafe? Wouldn’t people who wear helmets be the ones buying in most deeply to the idea that bikes are incredibly unsafe? Wouldn’t that make them the most vigilant drivers on the road?
You can’t have it both ways. One of those anti-helmet arguments is likely incorrect.
As for: “This feeling of relative increased safety will reduce their vigilance in traffic, they will go faster, read others in traffic less attentively, look over their shoulders a little less etc.” Please take the word “will” out of each sentence and replace with “may”. I wear a helmet, and I ride as if *no one on the road can see me*. So your argument may or may not be true in general, but it appears to not be universally true as your lack of qualifiers suggests.
“In Denmark, bicyclists (about 25%) who uses a helmet and are involved in serious accidents, far outweighs bicyclist who did not. Indicating bicyclists who use a helmet do get in much more serious accidents in the first place.”
It may or may not mean that. Perhaps people who use helmets are disproportionately likely to be new cyclists, as opposed to seasoned veterans, as one of dozens of possible alternate explanations.
“Infrastructure saves lifes, helmets does not.”
Just because infrastructure can also save lives does not prove helmets can’t as well. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. If even one life was saved with a helmet in the history of the world, then you can’t say helmets don’t save life. And I am one of many people who believe a helmet saved my life once.
“where a plastic coveres styrofoam helmet would mitigate nothing.”
Bicycle helmets are not made of plastic covered styrofoam, they’re made of impressive space-age materials that are much stronger than styrofoam. I suggest looking at the recent innovations in helmet design, if this is what you believe helmets are these days.
“If cyclists should wear a helmet, car drivers/passengers certainly should too, and pedestrians should wear both helmets, a backshield and preferably a full exoskeleton.”
Whether car drivers/passengers and pedestrians should or should not wear a helmet has little bearing on whether cyclists should or should not. Each should be discussed on their own merits, or lack thereof, IMO.
. . . I’m a 69-ear-old male, lifetime athlete, living near the center of a heavily trafficked city (Houston) of few cyclists and massively violated speed limits. 1975-12-03, age 28, one night (two weeks after buying my first hardshell cycling helmet, a Skid Lid II), in spite of having a front light and wearing bright clothing, I was proceeding at ten meters a second when the last thing I remember was suddenly seeing two pairs of cars’ headlights approaching me, as a drunk driver who was speeding at twenty meters a second had decided to pass a car and pulled out into my side of the two-lane street half a second before impacting me. The crumpled bicycle, with front fork bent back to the crankset and road-style handlebars flattened from below (maybe bent from my holding on to them), landed about 60 meters behind me. After-crash evidence was that I was pitched forward, the back of my head broke his passenger-side windshield, and with broken bones (my right fibula, talus, and ulna, and later surgical removal of a crushed medial meniscus in my right knee), I was thrown off the top of his car and struck the street several times. Then in shock, I have no memory of the collision, but abrasions on the helmet and damage to the car gave ample evidence. After two weeks in the hospital, I was sent home with a full leg cast and a right wrist cast; by March I was down to a lower-leg cast and began cycling again. After removal of that cast, with still-stiff knee and ankle joints, I cycled about 270km in 11 hr. to Austin, Texas, then in April 1976 won a 40-km time trial race in exactly 60 minutes. About 20 years later I was impacted from the side at 18 meters a second (broken ribs), and in a third life-threatening accident in 2002 was hit from behind at 25 meters a second minus my 10 meters a second forward speed, throwing me in a forward summersault (no serious injury, bruised calf muscles from strap-on egg-shaped red blinkers when my legs slapped the pavement). But in spite of these accidents averaging once per decade of nearly daily cycling averaging half an hour a day, I emphasize to others it’s vertical speed, not horizontal, that is more likely to cause concussion. Even at slow forward speeds, cracked pavement hidden in a puddle, sand or wet leaves in a turn, a dog under the front wheel — you never know when you’ll fall. I visited the Skid Lid’s inventor in San Diego in 1978, but since then under Bell Helmets’ domination, qualifying rules for helmets were written so only their type of helmet (solid styrofoam liner) would qualify, driving the Skid Lid out of business. I agree with others that rotational flexibility is needed to dissipate the moment of shearing impacts; the ultimate helmet has yet to be built. I write to overcome the falsehood that helmets are useless in high-speed impacts, since even in those cases the impact is seldom a straight-on deceleration, that would likely cause a broken neck. Lighter-weight helmets are less neck strain (g-forces can make one’s head momentarily weigh fifty kilos, so even a half-kilo helmet becomes four more kilos on neck-strain). I also disagree with those who claim helmet-wearers are categorically more complacent; I am ever-vigilant, never wear headphones, and thanks to newly available LED options, my frame and wheel spokes have more red and green blinkers than a Christmas tree! My headlight or flashlight is never less than 2000 lumens and a couple ones I have exceed 5,000 lumens (you could read a newspaper at 100m distance). Be visible, and ride assertively in traffic (it helps to be able to maintain 8-10 meters a second, a.k.a. 20mph)!
Wearing a helmet is good. Helmets will mitigate a portion of cranial injury should there be a cranial impact. It may mitigate cranial injury from “100” to “99” (generic injury rating) for severe impacts and it may mitigate injury from 25 to 0. It may save a life, it may save a piece of scalp, and it may only prevent someone from dying only for the person to fall into a persistent vegetative state. What’s important is that it makes cranial impacts less bad.
Also, helmets must be fitted, adjusted, and worn appropriately for helmet-based cranial injury mitigation to reliably occur.
However, helmets do not prevent cranial impacts. Only good cycling and a cooperative cycling environment do that.
If you want to minimize the risk of cranial impact (and thus cranial injury), be an educated cyclist. (Visible, predictable, and prepared.) The cheapest and most equitable way to reduce the risk of cranial injury is to help people become better cyclists and drivers while holding both groups accountable for their actions.
Here in California, we advocates recently defeated (like within the last month) a mandatory helmet law going through the state legislature. There was very little hullabaloo made about it because it’s so hard to fight something enrobed in “safety”.
The general argument against the law was this:
Mandatory bicycle helmet laws would be bad for the effort to increase the number of people bicycling regularly. If helmet use goes mandatory, it would allow for cycling risk to be compared to motorcycle risk thus vastly exaggerating the risk of cycling more than it already is. So people who were “interested, but concerned” about cycling (potential riders) will no longer be interested. Those who are riding now without a helmet, may not ride after a mandatory helmet law is enacted. California has made a commitment to reduce GHG emissions from vehicle trips and increase physical activity. This law would work against those commitments.
I have been wearing a helmet since the ’80s. In that time helmets have gone from being miserably uncomfortable, to more comfortable than wearing nothing at all due to improvements in fit and ventilation. Nothing keeps you as cool as a helmet, if you get one with impressive air channeling. My alternative is to wear a cycling cap which will significantly hinder ventilation and do less than I wish to keep the sun off, or to wear a helmet that will both be fantastic at keeping the sun off and will channel the air around my head almost as impressively as if the head were naked. Perhaps we need to start educating people as to how comfortable modern helmets are in concert with helmet law discussions.
This is going to kill you to learn this but that uncomfortable helmet you had 30+ years ago was at least twice the capacity to protect your head and as it probably wasn’t aero with fins and vent many times less likely to cause a rotational brain injury or neck injury.
Statistically, it is drivers who ought to wear helmets, they’re at the highest risk of brain injury.
Helmet laws are victim-blaming cop-outs for municipalities who lack the will and common sense to invest in bike infrastructure
I had a road accident last Sunday, helmet protected me from a serius head injury and now I’m at home writting this comment, no doubt, we must use it!
@Jaime, I too have hit the deck – more than once over the years. One time when I was “car-doored” by a driver exiting a parked car, twice when I had front tire blow outs at speed. A fourth time when a truck forced me into trolly tracks. All kinds of situations, only half had anything to do with an altercation with a vehicle.
Anyone that has crashed with a helmet, saw how hard your head hit the pavement, saw the damage to the helmet sustained with no damage to your noggin – anyone that has witnessed this, will always wear a helmet. I view people that don’t wear helmets as just inexperienced.
I ride everyday to work (Vancouver) and willingly wear my helmet because of the length of my ride, the speeds at which I ride (downhill on a HUGE bridge) and the areas I will end up riding (industrial marina). I know these factors add up to a potentially dangerous situation so I take my safety into my own hands and wear my helmet. However, I don’t want to be ticketed when my partner and I are just heading out for a nice slow and leisurely ride to dinner without our helmets on. Luckily I haven’t had any tickets so far, but it shouldn’t be mandatory.
I think it should be up to the individual to know when they need to be wearing a helmet and when they will be fine without one. We are also lucky to have separated bike lanes here in Vancouver, unlike many other cities.
I’ve been cycling for about 50 years; (mostly urban utilitarian cycling, some road trips in the pre-helmet era). It would be rather strange to refer to me as “inexperienced”.
The other odd thing is why on earth is Momentum mag recycling this old article: to sell helmet ads?
What we must be fighting for is dedicated bicycle lanes and safer infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists in general, including legal infrastructure (onus on more powerful vehicle). The helmet crap is a distraction.
In the Netherlands cyclists wear helmets if they are riding fast to race or train, not to commute to work or university, or to do the shopping. Duh.
Can you prove without a doubt that the helmet did in fact save your life? I didn’t think so. Anecdotal evidence is just heresay.
Can you prove without a doubt that the helmet did in fact save you from “serious” injury? I didn’t think so. Anecdotal evidence is just heresay. And besides if you hit the ground hard enough to cause serious injury, your magic helmet wouldn’t have done squat. At best it saved you from some bumps and bruises.
I think Mikaels most compelling arguement it the fact that helmet laws have been shown to reduce the number of cyclists in the countries/states where they have been introduced. People who don’t want to wear a helmet simply choose to stop riding, going against what it is that we all in here want which is more people cycling. I live in Denmark but come from New Zealand (Helmet law) I was home recently on holiday and hated having it dictated to me whether I wore a helmet or not. In Denmark I work as a messsenger and wear a helmet, I race in a helmet, and ride in the forest with one on too, but I like the fact that when I am not riding like a madman that I can choose not to wear one. I also like the fact that I can go to the pub in the evening and not have to drag a helmet along with me. I guess in this debate you could say that I am pro choice ;o)
Yes, the research on brain injury is there and reveals helmet popularity is based more on perception than reality.
This review on the efficacy of bicycle helmets against brain injury
http://people.aapt.net.au/~theyan/cycling/Accident%20Analysis%20Prevention%202.pdf
describes this research and shows,
“The testing and design of standard helmets reflect the discredited theory that linear acceleration is the dominant cause of brain injury and to neglect rotation.”
Focusing on helmets doesn’t make cyclists safer, it results in increased danger to cyclists
The question needs to be addressed…..”Will the polystyrene prevent the brain’s sloshing back and forth in the skull…breaking precious neural pathways that we spend our schooldays, careers and lifetimes to form? The parietal, occipital lobes and the corpus callosum are priceless. Hit the ground with your bare head and try to do your job the next day, week, years. It’s been bloody hard.
Good luck, Eric
it should be upto me to assess my own risk about wearing or not wearing a helmet. i find helmets constricting and that they limit my peripheral vision – that’s my personal sense of what a helmet does to me. i would never fine you for wearing a helmet if that’s what makes you feel more secure.
I am going to go out on a limb here and say that I am pleased to see more and more people out for casual rides (not racing) without helmets. It tells me that they feel safe (or at least safer) when they ride. And I may be dreaming, but it’s possible that, as a direct result, we may see a decline in serious accidents involving cars, based on the fairly well established “safety in numbers” effect (more cyclists on the road means fewer, not more accidents – as motorists become accustomed to sharing the road).
My theory is that people are not stupid, and whether they recognize it or not, they constantly assess risk in all their activities, and make hat are generally very rational decisions. That’s why, for example, no one feels vulnerable going to a bar without a helmet, even though walking home from the bar poses a greater risk of traumatic brain injury than cycling in general. Same thing for pedestrians, and even, dare I say, DRIVERS> The reason is that most of the key causative factors in accidents in all these activities are within the control of the individual. The individual can rationally decide, based on their own behavior while cycling, drinking, walking, swimming, whatever, whether or not additional protection is worthwhile.
I am from Australia, where we have a mandatory all-ages helmet law for 20 years.
It has been an unexpected failure at many levels.
1. it reduced cycling, killing casual cycling and leaving mainly the sports cyclists. Cycling is not popular and seen mostly as week-end activity, not a mode of transport. Cyclists are not popular, they are seen as freaks.
2. It has made cycling safety worse. The risk of serious death and injuries increased by 50%. http://www.cyclehelmets.org/papers/c2022.pdf This is mainly because helmets increase the risk of accidents, through safety in numbers and risk compensation. http://www.damninteresting.com/the-balance-of-risk. Essentially, a 50% increase in accidents cannot be compensated by a thin layer of polystyrene.
3. It has created a huge animosity among the cyclists, with some sport cyclists who believe that the helmet law vindicates their intolerance of cyclists who prefer not to wear a helmet. The polystyrene hat has become almost a religious fetish, with few people questioning what less than one inch of polystyrene can really do to prevent serious injuries.
4. This obsession with helmets has taken away the focus from measures that are far more important for cycling safety, like separation from car traffic, motorists behaviour, cyclists skill training, and reducing the risk of accident. Australia is a far more dangerous place to cycle than in Europe where they don’t wear helmets. So why not focus on what works instead?
The helmet hasn’t worked. It is an embarrassing failure. I would encourage anyone considering supporting to have a good look at what actually happened in real life, rather than relying on theories that seem “obvious”. This topic is far from obvious .
It wasn’t an unexpected failure for me, but I confess I did nothing about the proposed laws at the time, as I didn’t believe government could possibly be that stupid. I now know better.
Removing the MHL would be the easiest and best solution to cycling participation in Australia. The Imams of the plastic hat are as useful as those who tell us burkas are the solution to sexual assualt.
Yes, indeed. And like forcing women to wear burkas, tchadors or even headscarves by law or pressure from males, it tends to “disappear” the potential victims, rather than controlling aggression from the potential perpetrators, while overlooking measures to ensure safety and respect for cyclists – or women in macho societies.
I want to make it clear that I have no problem with devout women wearing headscarves or people who believe in magic hats wearing helmets; it is none of my business. The problem is when it is a red herring to avoid struggling to create safe envrionments for all; in this case not only for cyclists but also for pedestrians, especially vulnerable ones such as the very young, the very old and the disabled.
I think the larger problem is that statistics can be so misleading. Frequently you see the claim that in 90% of bicycle fatalities, the rider was not wearing a helmet. This proves nothing. We do not know, for example, what number or percentage would have died anyway from their internal injuries. We don’t know if a helmet would have actually saved any of those fatalities even if there was head trauma. Helmets are physically the equivalent of wearing a bag of popcorn and a tupperware bowl on your head. if that makes you feel safer, be my guest.
Where statistics fail is when they are used to make individual decisions, or worse, to force decisions on individuals. Remember the hue and cry when the FDA said that breast exams were not useful for women of a certain age? That may have been true statistically, but it was not a solid basis for an individual deciding not to have an exam. Unfortunately, proclamations like that one tend to influence policy and regulation. For example, It’s not hard to imagine insurance companies refusing to cover exams based on such a statistic. But it should be an individual decision.
Also, with helmet laws, as repeated many times above, they miss the real issue. Safety begins with the rider’s exercise of care. I have not seen any analysis, but I would not be surprised if a cross-tabulation or a regression analysis showed that helmet use was not the dominant variable in crashes and fatalities. Your chance of a fatal or disabling accident is overwhelmingly dominated by how and where you ride.
So – Thanks to the author for this balanced perspective, and to all the comments, which were for the most part, civil and thoughtful. Sadly, these discussions too often degenerate into name calling and condescending one liners.
Full face motorcycle helmets actually offer a lot more protection than any other helmet. You can strap them on properly and they stay on your head in a crash. The beanie style motorcycle helmets are illegal. Yet, they are better built than a bicycle helmet. It is impossible to strap on a bicycle helmet properly without choking yourself. So, it will give way in a crash. If you put them on children as explained by the experts, kids tend to slip their fingers underneath the strap and pull on it to make it more comfortable. Then it becomes really loose and ineffective.
Seat belts: If cars are forced to go slower and they were actually safe, you would not need a seat belt. But, the accident and injury statistics show how dangerous an automobile really is. Not to mention the detrimental effects caused by pollution and sedentary lifestyle that goes along with the auto culture.
To make an argument about refusing to wear a helmet and not get medical coverage;
shall we deny treatment to people who smoke, consume alcohol, drugs or unhealthy foods, or refuses to excercise?
in spite of the fear that is promoted along with helmets (after all, there has to be a perceived need to wear a helmet) cyclists live longer, and healthier lives than the general population.
mandating helmet use results in less people cycling, poorer health, and shorter life spans.
mandating helmet use has also resulted in no less injury or fatalities to cyclists to boot
After witnessing what happened to my friend Len on Friday cyclists should always wear helmets. It really doesn’t matter if you are going slow or fast either. I for one am totally in favour of mandatory helmet compliance.
We have mandatory Seat belt laws, motorcycle helmets, mandatory auto insurance, look it would be great if the goverment wasn’t all of our business, but sometimes it is a necessity and we are the government! Oh yes, and mandatory Medical Insurance. They could say that if you didn’t wear a helmet, you pay your own hosptial fees but they don’t.
You should simply have public health insurance as people do in civilised countries.
Sure there are good reasons not to wear a helmet.
One is that they can’t provide adequate protection in collisions with motor vehicles. Many people think they can, but they can’t.
Another is wearing a helmet is a sign that cycling is dangerous. It’s not.
Another reason is that this perception that cycling is risky, discourages people from riding bikes.
It’s not that wearing helmets is wrong, it’s more that the attitude about helmets is wrong.
Wear one if you like but don’t think cycling is more dangerous than it is and don’t think a helmet can do more than it can, and by no means should you disrespect anothers choice to go without a helmet. The safest cyclists in the world don’t use them.
There is simply no good reason NOT to wear a helmet- especially in the US where the car is the unfortunate king. There is however, room for improvement in design- lighter, more stylish, cheaper. Were a bloody helmet and save yourself and your kids!
No, fight against ecocide and carcentric society. Accidents aren’t the only way cars kill us. I’m a boomer and have never owned or driven one of the bloody things.
if bicycle helmets did prevent deaths or brain damage, that would be a different story, but the sad fact is that reductions of deaths or brain damage to cyclists wearing helmets have not been recorded in spite of the increased use of helmets.
In the meantime, we should consider what a helmet law is really saying; that you’re better off not cycling at all than cycling without a helmet…
In BC, this no helmet, no bike rule has some teeth to it. A police officer can not only fine a cyclist for not wearing a helmet, they can seize a bike of a cyclist not wearing a helmet.
No helmet, no bike. Is this good public policy?
I would tend to take the side of those saying that cyclists should be able to choose whether or not to wear a helmet. Personaly,however, I would choose to wear a helmet always. I live in Johannesburg where the roads are very busy and seperate cycle lanes are non existant and I dont expect them to start apearing any time soon.
Yes accidents may be just that, accidents. But if I am ever in an accident I want the highest chance possible of coming out of that accident alive or not brain damaged. If this means wearing a helmet then thats what I’ll do.
There is little to add to insight of the many comments already posted.
I think it’s always worth asking “who benefits?”, when it come to these types of laws. The question is equivalent to “follow the money”. Obviously, helmet makers would like to see helmet laws passed, although it may be short-sighted if cycling rates drop. Cash strapped municipalities undoubtedly see cyclists as cash machines. Politicians love helmet laws! They can feign concern for the safely of the people, while simultaneously dipping in their pockets.
We do not need new barriers to entry to cycling.
Road safety is a complex topic, and it is very difficult to establish cause and effect. An accident is just that, an accident: there usually are many related factors contributing to it. On the other hand, it is clear who will be injured in any collision between a car and a person.
The problem with mandatory helmet laws is that they permit people to claim that they are doing something to protect cyclists, when in fact they are avoiding the larger issues: how to design safe and convenient facilities for non-motorized travel. Pedestrians and cyclists want the same things as cars: to have quick, safe, and convenient access to their chosen destinations.
Gas prices are going up for good. We will all need to rethink how much we travel, and how. It is time that we start seriously considering how to invest in a better and more sustainable future.
From Brad’s comments it seems that the research used and real reasons to enact helmet laws in BC was done in mora, so how can we ask for it to be repealed? It would also be nice to place the onus on the Govt to ensure road safety and proper infrastructure that will make road safe for ALL users. Like Denmark and Holland. Helmets don’t prevent accidents, safe roads does.
Choice is important and when discussing helmet laws, it’s important to remember that it is an adults right of choice that is being taken away.
Few, if any pro-choice advocates are arguing that cyclists must remove their helmets but what they are saying is that their right of choice being taken away is wrong.
For this right to be removed there must be a justified need and effective solution for the designated problem. Short of this, cyclists should be left to their own discretion as to what action they wish to take and not have smothers will forced upon them.
I Choose to wear a helmet whenever I ride my bike because it is PROVEN fact that a helmet will protect me fromthe MOST frequent types of crashes. Is it going to save me 100%? NO! Just like smoking is no guarantee of getting lung cancer (my GP’s lived to their early 90’s and both were heavy smokers for 70+ years).
The argument is that a helmet will not save you from a serious crash. Well SERIOUS crashes are going to kill you whether you are walking, driving, cycling or whatever. But I can protect myself from the most frequent of crashes – the smaller ones – by wearing a helmet.
AND using the Dutch example if not quite fair. In Holland, Denmark etc. the Bike is #1 on the roads. Cars and pedestrians give way to the bike. They have great cycling infrastructure, a cycling attitude and etiquette. Something sorely lacking in N. America.
The point is to fight for that in other places. Le Monde à bicyclette was doing that here in Montréal, 40 years ago this year. Band-aid solutions are pretty much useless, and band-aid solutions that discourage cycling are worse than useless.
Re-reading John’s comments, I was struck by his observations of “questionable helmet research” that negates his perception of the benefits of helmets.
Having had seen the advance press preceding BCs helmet law, read the bills debate in the legislature, speaking to several key individuals that brought forth the law and now finally reading the minutes, reports, correspondences of the organization formed to lobby for the law, I would say that is the promoters of the helmet law that were exploiting questionable research.
The only research presented by the group was a single study of questionable validity and the numbers presented by the group were admitted to by the authors to be incorrect. In fact this only study has been admitted by the Snell Foundation to be used as promotion for sales of helmets, not for independent analysis of a helmets effectiveness.
It seems helmet skeptics base their skepticism on quality research and helmet promotors base their faith in helmets on questionable research
IMO it’s quite simple. Make it optional. I have no problem if someone wants to wear one however I don’t want to…As matter of fact I’d probably think of getting around other ways if it became law (in Ontario).
Many I know in BC would wear a helmet whether it was law or not, however they are strongly against it being mandated.
Also, my not wanting to wear a helmet has nothing to do with civil liberties. I just see little use in them. Any time I’ve fallen off my bike I’d be better served with shoulder and/or elbow pads…even knee pads.
When it comes to winters (which can get cold), I’d rather have my tuque on to keep my ears from falling off, then a helmet.
Getting people to wear a piece of expanded foam on their heads requires them to be convinced of two falsehoods: (1) cycling is dangerous, and (2) the piece of foam will protect them in a serious crash.
Lie #1 scares potential cyclists off their bikes, thus increasing the risk to those who remain, and lie #2 leads to cyclists taking more risks in the mistaken belief that they are well protected.
It is therefore not ethically defensible to promote either of these perceptions, let alone enshrine them in law.
Oh, and has the purpose of BCs legislation been achieved?
No. Even with the reduction of people cycling, and more people wearing helmets than ever before, deaths in fact, increased for the first 3 years following legislation.
Helmet legislators hedged their bets though. They predicted if legislation would not pass, there would be a reverse of the historical trend of downward fatalities for cyclists; that deaths should increase in the future.
It would have been good had BC followed trough on the promised funding for a detailed count of cyclists post law, but like the education courses that was a part of the legislation, this funding was pulled after the law was passed, so no counts were available.
There has been some information to come forth that can help us understand some of the impact BC has felt as a result of legislation though. ICBC shows an immediate, and unprecedented drop of 35% in the amounts of motor vehicle – bicycle collisions immediately after the passing of the law. So unless helmet use has prevented collisions from occurring, there was a drop in cyclists immediately following the implementation of the law.
There has been a notable increase that has been documented several years post law however, and this may have more to do with police not enforcing the law with as much vigor as it was when the law was first introduced. Stats Canada completed a study that pegged BCs helmet use at 60%, a drop when compared to the study funded by the government post law that showed BCs helmet use at 76% overall. ICBC hold records that show helmet use even lower, at 55%.
One of the most contentious issues with our legislation involved the stated purpose of the legislation which was to reduce death and serious injury to cyclists. It was reasoned that helmet could help acheive this goal because one, just one study claimed helmet use reduces the chances of head injury by 85%. What few knew at the time was that the 85% figure only applied to children under 5 years old (10 – 14 year olds had a reduction of only 23%) and that the study did not include a single collision with a motor vehicle, and nearly every death or serious injury to a cyclist came from a collision with a motor vehicle.
So yes, statistics and studies do matter in BC. If police enforced our helmet law today, there would be a significant reduction in the amount of people cycling, just as there was when the law was first passed.
The helemt debate has little to do with cycling, more to do with civil liberties. I could live without helmet legislation, but I’m not expending any energy to repeal the laws we have here, and I don’t ride without a helmet.
Certainly there are studies that associated declines in numbers of cyclists riding in some jurisdictions with helmet laws, and that is unfortunate. I think in some of those places, bicycle use rebounded from the initial drop and I think a more useful analysis would have been, in any event, to assess the change in miles ridden, not just the numbers of cyclists. It is not a positive development to lose the casual cyclists, but most who make a positive choice for cycling will not be dissauded by helmet laws.
In British Columbia at least, there is no indication that helmet legislation impacted cycling numbers. Participation continues to grow and helmet laws are almost certainly here to stay, notwithstanding the wishful thinking of those who believe the challenges those laws face in other jurisdictions will lead to a repeal in B.C.
The threats to an unprotected head often may be elevated by speed, but the real damage is the distance of the fall. You can do significant damage falling from a bike at low speed. The acceleration forces on your head can be fatal, and unlike most other activities mentioned in various comments, bicycles are inherently unstable. They do not stand on their own without the gyroscopic effects of forward motion (unless you are good at track stands), so it is more dangerous than walking.
There are good reasons, many cited, for being skeptical of helmet laws – the health benefits of riding far outweigh the risks and there are certainly problems with helmet laws that will frustrate bike share programs. Fair comment. Still, I find the reliance on questionable health research to bolster the argument is about as credible as the quacks who dismiss links between smoking and cancers. The distinction between fatalities or not is also a little simplistic. You don’t have to die to render yourself impotent in the debate. Hard to argue that your civil liberties have been enhanced by reducing your IQ to the low 20s after a head injury.
Argue your point on the issue of civil liberties, but the misuse of statistics or the clutching at studies to claim that helmets don’t provide protection will, for the most part, alienate decison makers and others in the community who presumably you want to listen to you. You have to decide whether you want to rant against injustice or advance your cause.
I’ve had my own crashes and can only contemplate what might have happened to my head without a helmet; I’ve known a few who have died while riding for whom a helmet may have made a difference. I also have known a few cyclists who have had life altering crashes.
Stick to the civil liberties argument, on most other issues the debate is over.
John Luton, Victoria, BC
Northern European cyclists have significantly better safety records the the US because safe cycling has little do do with wearing helmets.
Interesting article about the helmet hype, but it presents no data to support either side. Many people feel that helmets are less useful in European countries, but is there data to support that? Are head injury rates (per mile or per bicyclist) really lower in Europe than the US?
In the Netherlands and Denmark, they are MUCH lower. Not all European countries have good cycling infrastructure.
I disagree with the authors conclusions. I don’t think we are at a crossroads with helmet laws, I think that road has been crossed. There was a surge of helmet laws passed mostly in the 90’s and that surge has slowed to a trickle largely to the documented results in those areas that enacted them.
I do agree with idea that perception, rather than fact, is what drives the desire to place a helmet upon a head.
If people understood that cycling is safe, and if they understood the limitations of a helmet, fewer people would wear them. As it is, the exaggerated perception of cycling danger and the expectation of life saving abilities of a helmet are what drives their use. False assumptions, both
Most utilitarian cyclists would be better off spending their money on better lights, or better tires for that matter.
Do not fall into the trap of letting the supposed perfect be the enemy of the good. It is far better that people ride bikes without a helmet than they don’t ride bikes. If helmet laws dissuade people from cycling then they are a bad thing. It doesn’t matter that helmets are more totem than protection for any kind of serious crash – if the laws stop people riding bikes then they are bad laws.
Helmet laws are a product of life-style zealots who can’t resist the opportunity to interfere in the lives and habits of others.
Well done Colin Clarke. This proves why Holland and Denmark DON’T have helmet laws!
I recently started biking in San Francisco after a long time living in less bike-friendly places. I assumed that, as in most college towns, helmets would be unpopular with the experienced cyclists but in fact it’s the other way around: as one veteran cyclist explained, “no one wants to be the person that gets killed or injured without a helmet and results in a mandatory helmet law.” I was surprised that nearly everyone seems to wear a helmet, even in parks and on streets closed to auto traffic (!).
Also, some have pointed out that not wearing a helmet (especially with a nicer bike) might signify that you are riding a stolen bike…
T
The assessment of Australian helmet law shows the outcome was negative for both health and safety. http://www.cla.asn.au/Article/081125BikesHelmetPolicy.pdf
The result for New Zealand is very similar. For the USA there are also concerns.
The UK’s National Children’s Bureau (NCB) provided a detailed review in 2005 stating “the case for helmets is far from sound”, “the benefits of helmets need further investigation before even a policy supporting promotion can be unequivocally supported” and “the case has not yet been convincingly made for compulsory use or promotion of cycle helmets.”
The ECF (European Cycling Federation) stated “the evidence from Australia and New Zealand suggests that the wearing of helmets might even make cycling more dangerous,” indicating safety was actually reduced. Erke and Elvik (Norwegian researchers) 2007 stated: “There is evidence of increased accident risk per cycling-km for cyclists wearing a helmet. In Australia and New Zealand, the increase is estimated to be around 14 per cent.”
Data for children shows their safety has been reduced. Robinson 1996 report, Table 5 shows data for children in Victoria. The equivalent number of injuries for pre law level of number of cyclists increased from 897 in 1990 to 1035 in 1992. The increased injury rate was 15%.
For New South Wales their survey data also showed reduced cycling following legislation in 1991.
Children counted
1991 – 6788
1992 – 4234
1993 – 3798
A reduction of 44% occurred.
Robinson 1996 report, Table 2 shows data for children in NSW. The equivalent number of injuries for pre law level of number of cyclists increased from 1310 in 1991 to 2083 in 1993. Their helmet laws discouraged cycling and reduced children’s safety. The increased injury rate was 59%.
For New Zealand it was reported “Of particular concern are children and adolescents who have experienced the greatest increase in the risk of cycling injuries despite a substantial decline in the amount of cycling over the past two decades’.
Police figures for NZ show 9618 tickets were issued in 2010 for not wearing a helmet. In Victoria, Australia they issued more than 19000 in the first 12 months of their law .
Curnow reporting on Australia concluded, “Compulsion to wear a bicycle helmet is detrimental to public health”.
Accidental hanging is still occurring among young children who wear bicycle helmets while engaging in activities other than bicycle riding. Worldwide, the toll of deaths has now reached at least 14, with examples in the USA, Canada, Australia and Scandinavia.
Helmet laws for bicyclists are a mistake.
Refs
Clarke CF, The Case against bicycle helmets and legislation, VeloCity, Munich 2007.. http://www.ta.org.br/site/Banco/7manuais/colin_clarke_cycle_helmet.pdf
Curnow WJ, Bicycle helmets and public health in Australia, Health Promotion Journal of Australia, 2008 Apr;19(1):10-15.
http://www.cycle-helmets.com/cyclingreport_timgill.pdf Gill T, Cycling and Children and Young People – A review, National Children’s Bureau, 2005
European Cycling Federation. ‘Improving bicycle safety without making helmet use compulsory;
Brussels, Belgium. 1998. http://www.fiab-onlus.it/andare/helm_gb.doc
Erke A, Elvik R, Making Vision Zero real: Preventing Pedestrian Accidents And Making Them Less Severe, Oslo June 2007. page 28
http://www.toi.no/getfile.php/Publikasj … 7-nett.pdf
Robinson DL; Head injuries and bicycle helmet laws; Accid Anal Prev, 28, 4: p 463-475, 1996 http://www.cycle-helmets.com/robinson-head-injuries.pdf
The author gives too little attention to the most important point, and completely ignores the second most important point in this debate.
The first? Bicycling does NOT cause significant risk of serious head injuries. In the U.S. it causes fewer than 1% of HI fatalties, whereas motoring causes about 50% and walking around the home causes about 40%. And it’s not just because there are few bicyclists. Pedestrians die at more than triple the rate of bicyclists, per mile. (And BTW, head trauma is the cause of over half of _all_ accidental fatalities, not just those of bicyclists.) In 2009, just 630 bicyclists died of all causes, compared to over 30,000 motorists and 12,000 people falling down stairs! Bicycling is simply not very dangerous, despite the fear mongering. It is safer than many other common no-helmet activities, and its benefits (exercise, pollution reduction, etc.) greatly outweigh any tiny risks.
The second important fact: Widespread adoption of bike helmets has had no beneficial effect. As explained in a July 29, 2001 article in the New York Times (based on data posted at http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1041.html ) head injuries per cyclist did not fall when helmets became heavily promoted and their use soared. Instead, head injuries actually rose significantly. This is probably because bike helmets are certified to protect only gentle impacts less than 13 mph, and then only if the impact is perfectly centered. They cannot work for most serious crashes, and they have not worked in any population that has adopted them widely, even though every person who dents their helmet seems to believe it has saved their life!
To summarize: Don’t assume bicycling is dangerous, and don’t assume helmets are wonderfully effective. Bicycling is NOT dangerous enough to require helmets, even in non-cycling countries like the U.S. And bike helmets have NOT proven to be effective. They are an ineffective solution to an imaginary problem.
Promotion of helmets has scared people away from this benign mode of transport. We should let bike helmets and their promotion die the same death as the tall bicycle flippy-flags of the 1970s.
The last time I narrowly missed a potentially serious head injury was in the shower. Hard to wear a helmet in the shower, especially if one is washing one’s hair.
I wear a helmet, having one saved me in more than one car/bike accident, as my head hit the pavement. I’ve ridden motorcycles for years also, and have been saved by the helmet, in fact the helmet was ground through the shell and into the padding after a 50 mph slide. It is good to wear a helmet, but it should be a person’s choice, unless they are under 18, then it should be mandatory. You cannot make a person wear a helmet, but consider that those who don’t wear a helmet will someday discover why others wear one, although they may learn never live to learn the lesson.
Well, I’ve been cycling for 50 years. Chances are extremely good that I’ll die of something else.
Helmet laws in New Zealand have been a health and safety disaster.
Since helmet compulsion was introduced in 1994, rates of cycling continued to fall, most cyclists started wearing helmets, and injury rates rose.
Is that what we want more of?
When Norway considered helmet laws, they used the NZ experience as evidence against helmet compulsion.
If you want more people cycling, resist helmet laws. They are hard to get ride of, so beware.
Also, in Norway, as here, we want to be able to wear our woolly hats in the cold!
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