Doored! Jon rants about bike helmets… again…
About a year ago I blogged a bit about not wearing a cycle helmet while on my bike, in the UK it tends to be car drivers who say I should be wearing one but here in the US it seems to be the other cyclists who berate me about it.
Now wearing a helmet is a good thing, you want to wear one then be my guest, I choose not to. However if you want to tell me I should be wearing one then please read the links in this post first, there is very little evidence, often none whatsoever, to back up what you are saying.
Anecdotal evidence seems to rule on this subject – we all know the guy who fell off his bike and the doctor said to him that if the had not warn his helmet then he would be dead – but do the facts concur with this assumption? Well no they don’t seem to, while the statistics can be fudged to support your point of view, there is a tone of quality information, all backed up by facts, studies and statistics, on the Cyclehelmets.org site to suggest the counter-intuitive idea that cycle helmets don’t help much at all.
Much better than a helmet is education; the Bicycle Safe website has some truly excellent advice on how to avoid getting hit, following this advice will cut your risk of being hurt much more than wearing / not wearing a helmet.
Doored!
What prompted me to revisit this subject? Well today my whole afternoon was lost because some idiot doored me. It is a new word to me but not a new experience; “dooring”, to be “doored” or “the door prize” is probably the most common near-accident I experience… and this time he was so fast at opening his door that he got me. I’m mostly OK, he is OK, my bike is OK but his car door is totally fucked up. Not to worry, here the law is very clear on the subject, dooring is always the motorist’s fault:
No person shall open the door of a vehicle on the side available to moving traffic unless it is reasonably safe to do so and can be done without interfering with the movement of such traffic (CVC 22517).
Back to helmets, some links
- Michael Bluejay has an excelent page on “What’s wrong with bicycle helmets?” which is well thought out, well argued and full of counter-intuitive facts.
- Great article from the New York Times about why, with increasing use of helmets, are the numbers of head injuries also rising?
- Cyclehelmets.org has a ton of great information about the risks of cycling, helmets, the law, FAQs… all backed up by real data!
- Cycling is much safer than not cycling
- More Dangerous to Not Ride a Bike
