We all know the dilemma. Ride less but with a helmet or ride more without.
This has been an interesting year for me - a year where I've been up
close an personal to a number of crashes. One was on the Fat Tire Tour
in June in Milwaukee. Lots of people road without a helmet.
Fortunately, the one person who had a fall had one on. We had four
crashes and three cracked helmets on our multi-day tour. in July, and a
number of others that I can think of. My daughter had a major crash
about six weeks ago and suffered a mild concussion - with a helmet on!
Thanks to helmets, everyone got to ride home. Without them, we could
have had at least one death and several major head injuries.
What's going on here?
> American roads are less safe.
> American drivers are less considerate.
> American cyclists are more aggressive. A recreational rider at 12
mph is a fast rider in Vienna or Amsterdam.
This is a bad combination. These conditions are not going away.
I'm very much opposed to helmet laws, but I'm a major fan of helmets.
There's a growing trend toward "the cool kids" to not wear helmets,
because they're want the lifestyle of Belgium but still get to live here
in the USA. This isn't Europe.
In the US, helmets are an unfortunate necessity, but a necessity
nonetheless. Many bigger things need to change before we can rethink this.
In my dream world, the bike organizations like BFW work out a deal with
the forces for regulation: BFW promote helmets, but helmet people back
off on legislation. Then maybe we work together make the roads and
routes safer. Who knows what might happen then.
Richard
On 10/2/2012 4:02 PM, S. Morris Rose wrote:
High-visibility article about the impact of mandatory helmet laws on
bike-share programs. Vancouver BC is about to step off this cliff, and
it makes me want to cry.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/sunday-review/to-encourage-biking-cities-forget-about-helmets.html
--
Scott M. Rose
West Point Grey, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
_______________________________________________
Bikies mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
_______________________________________________
Bikies mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
