Bicycle helmets
Recently I rediscovered cycling, I have been off my bike too long but I am back in the saddle (and motorised-vehicle-less) now trying to do an hour a day on the streets of San Francisco.
The law here in California with regard to cycle helmets is similar to the law elsewhere, if you are a child then you have to wear a helmet but if you are an adult you can choose for yourself. In countries where compulsory helmet wearing for cyclists has been introduced (Australia for example) cycling reduced, people became less likely to use bikes at all.
I don’t wear a helmet because I hate them, I hate wearing them and I hate having this extra thing to worry about when i am not on the bike. The chances are if I had to worry about a helmet i’d probably not take my bike. It is my choice and, like everything else in life, it is a calculated (well, estimated) risk.
Here in the US it is other cyclists that tell me I should be wearing a helmet, in the UK it is almost always non-cycling car drivers. There is no one way of looking at the figures, you can fudge them both ways by looking at injuries-per-hour-traveled or per-mile-traveled, or count hospitalisations or whatever, there is a statistic to suit your cause. The truth is that car drivers and walkers suffer fatal head injuries too, lots of them, and people dies in airplane crashes and skiing accidents and from just being alive in the first palce (after all, we all die sooner or later).
Hidden in all the cycling deaths and injuries is what I presume to be the majority of the data, the dangerous cyclist. This video shows one type in NYC and I see these guys in SF every day (and I am in truth kind of envious of them).
And what about all the people who live here in San Francisco? there is a 60% chance of there being a massive earthquake in the next 30 years; check out todays probability here.
I have never ridden a bike in place where drivers, with exceptions, are more cautious than here in SF. I am a relatively cautious cyclist, but i am trying to get some excercise in too so I am not so slow either.
Which brings me to my final point, just how likely am I to die from NOT cycling?
Do the health benefits of cycling out weigh the risks? Obesity, heart desiease and the like are far more likely to finishg me off before my time than an hour a day on my bike; in fact an hour a day on my bike, in all probiblity, is likey to save me.
Now I am off out for today’s hour, if i write no more you will know what killed me.
Great articles and more (better?) info here and here and here .
