In a world without health insurance, fine. Otherwise the system will try to minimize the costs - by forcing the people contribute at minimizing the risks. This is how it works now (in Germany, maybe also other places?) if you have a bike or ski accident without wearing a helmet, if it was self caused you'll probably get reduced payments.

Where does it end?

Do you get reduced payments for orthopedic rehab if you play sports and get injured?

Do you get reduced payments for diabetes treatments if you're overweight?

It doesn’t have to be a slippery slope. People who take on more risk or have higher protection pay higher premiums.

> But, it's your head man and as an adult you should be able to go helmetless if you so choose

The reasoning behind wearing an helmet on motorbikes is two fold:

- there are a lot more chances of being left disabled by the accident than dying, which is something you might not have thought about, but when you're disabled suddenly it's not your head anymore, you depend on other people to take care of your head and the rest of your body. There's a cost involved in severe head traumas and the monetary one is by far the less important.

- your head splattered on the asphalt is something other people might not want to watch. Some people might be even traumatized by that view. So please if you really want to risk it, do it when you're alone, in the middle of nowhere. Because you can still do it, you won't get arrested if you do it, simply fined.

but the real reason why I do not understand this "easy rider" alle cozze argument is: helmets are super cool! If professional bikers wear it, then why not?

As someone who lives in a country with socialised healthcare, who has occasionally done lightly reckless things in the past, I am happy to pay for other people's recklessness.

Or, rather, I am happy that if you end up in hospital for any reason at all, the only thing on everyone's mind is treating you as best they can, and helping you to get better. No matter how you ended up there, or whether it was your fault or not, or how much money you have - if you're hurt, people will take care of you.

It's what I'd want to happen to me, it's what I'd want to happen to my family, it's what I'd want to happen to some of my friends who have somewhat more reckless hobbies than I do. And so I'm happy to have my tax money do the same thing for complete strangers, because they're somebody else's family or good friends. (And even if they're not, being alone is not a reason to deny someone healthcare.)

I trust people not to "take advantage" of this and be stupidly reckless simply because the healthcare is there, because... even with great healthcare that's available for free at the point of use, serious injuries suck. Having great healthcare doesn't make pain less painful, or physiotherapy to come back from injury less time-consuming, or less of a crimp in your whole goddamn life.

While I totally agree with you on the payments side, I still like to see the message being sent out that reckless has consequences outside my own little head. Even those family members can suffer from my reckless behaviour. Right now, in case of a self caused accident without precaution measures (like, no helmet) the insurance will shorten the payments yes, but the system also won't let me default on the treatments - social support will kick in. So I have both the support and the threat and I think it works fine like that.

Except if they wreck and are on medicare you and I are footing that bill. Or if you bump them with a car and then they die because they're not wearing a helmet it's going to really fuck up your life too.

Or if they just don't have insurance, the hospital passes on the cost to recoup their care in the form of high rates for everyone.

You don't ride a bicycle in a vacuum.

Isn't that argument easily extendible to anything optional that is also dangerous..? Also this is an argument from a US perspective. As someone who lives in Canada, where healthcare is in large part paid by taxes, I have no interest in restricting what people do because "it'll cost me more". Leads down a road I don't like

It's a very small step from there to saying that activities like above treeline winter hiking, ice climbing, motorcycle riding, playing football, etc. should be prohibited (or at least require expensive private insurance) because some number of people consider them unreasonably dangerous.

You know that if something is paid by taxes, and you pay taxes, you are footing the bill for it? Yes you aren't going to get an itemized bill with a line item for Jim's cracked skull, but that's still money that could have gone to things like schools or infrastructure or cancer treatments or what have you.

That is what I meant yes, I am okay with paying for stupid things that people do, else we end up with an insane system where are prevented from doing anything even mildly dangerous or disrupted, as it'll cost the taxpayers money.

I'm infinitely more concerned with the insane amount of government waste that happens where that money could go to schools or infrastructure or cancer treatments. I imagine that government waste is orders of magnitude more expensive than cyclists damaging themselves because they weren't wearing helmets, for example.

Then why is anyone allowed to drink, smoke, or be fat? Why draw the line at helmets at not even more expensive choices?

We do put restrictions on drinking and smoking, such as limiting consumption to certain times, places and age groups, and many places have things like taxes on soda and other such tactics to reduce obesity. We have even heavier restrictions on other activities that don't pose much threat to anyone but the person doing it, such as hard drugs. We don't want to stop people from having fun, we're all willing to bear some cost for our fellow man, but minor inconveniences which lead to big cost savings make sense. Helmets are incredibly beneficial and the burden is pretty light - even when not required by law most people voluntarily wear helmets. Mandatory helmet laws allow cyclists to keep doing what they love while dramatically reducing the number of severe injuries that society at large needs to deal with, it's a happy medium.

This is basically what I mean. If we go down the road of preventing people from doing things based on medical expenses, where does it end

So carry it or tie it to your bike. There are folding helmets and pretty light helmets. I crashed recently. It made a difference to my skull.

I had a motorcycle for well over a decade. We have helmet laws here and I carried that heavier helmet or placed it on my bike. It was fine. Part of the cost of having a bike.

It's one thing to decide that a helmet is a good idea and choose to wear one.

It's another thing to make a law forcing everyone to agree with you, or else.

The paradoxical result shown in this article, which has been seen repeatedly, is that forcing people to wear helmets does more harm, by discouraging people from riding bicycles, than the benefit it creates by pushing some small number of the bicyclists who remain to take safety precautions they would otherwise have neglected.

This is a libertarian talking point. I strongly disagree but I doubt I can change your mind here (or vice versa).

The reasons for requiring this for the "greater good" are:

* Younger people are easily influenced and without such a law wouldn't use a helmet, seatbelt, etc.

* Costs of healthcare after a bad crash can be serious. Yes, my country like pretty much everyone outside the US, has single payer. We would foot the bill, regardless.

* It's proven that regulation and legislation can help. Regulation for seat-belts, airbags, crash testing, etc. has saved many lives. IMO this is what government is about, saving people. Sometimes from their stupidity and ignorance.

> Younger people are easily influenced and without such a law wouldn't use a helmet, seatbelt, etc.

I did feel this aspect of the effect of regulation was not well addressed in the article at least. I think there's an implication that the effect of regulation has been to reduce cycling, and therefore the effect on youth has been more to discourage cycling altogether than to encourage cycling with helmets, but I don't think that's well established. IIRC, the positive effects of seat belt laws are generally much more pronounced after a generation or two.

> It's proven that regulation and legislation can help. Regulation for seat-belts, airbags, crash testing, etc. has saved many lives. IMO this is what government is about, saving people. Sometimes from their stupidity and ignorance.

There's also plenty of evidence of cases where regulation and legislation has harmed, or had no effect. Arguments that regulation & legislation intrinsically help or harm are, at best, specious. Regulation & legislation are tools that obviously can be helpful; the debate should always be about whether a particular regulatory/legislative approach is helpful.

All of those arguments would also support mandating the use of helmets for all passengers in a car.

So why not do that too?

> would also support mandating the use of helmets for all passengers in a car.

We do also do that too.

Every car is built with a fancy headrests and seatbelts and airbags -- the entire car is literally a helmet, and we require this on every new vehicle sold for decades. (And we require the seatbelt be worn too, legally enforceable by law in most areas)

We even check every single car sold to make sure the Helmet-worthiness of it is safe for the general public (see https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/2019/CHEVROLET/VOLT/5%252520HB... as an example of a vehicle results)

When an occupant of the car is small enough such that the built-in helmet-worthiness of the car might be rendered insufficient, we also require they get extra helmet-like protections wrapped around their head/neck/body - see https://www.dmv.com/car-seats for specifics -- and even these are also legally enforceable by law in most areas

I understand the point being made and certainly there are very many safety devices mandated for cars, but the fact remains, that the vast majority of cars do not have airbags for rear seat passengers for example, and given the volume of auto accidents, it would be hard to imagine that mandating helmet usage would not significantly reduce injuries and fatalities.

Of course all of this is simply to say, that there is a line, where the marginal safety gain is outweighed by the cost, both economic and otherwise. Different people and organizations are going to have differing opinions on where this line should be, but arguing purely on the side of harm reduction misses a great deal. This is aside from personal responsibility, liberty, etc.

No they won't. You can argue they would do that for walking around everywhere but there's a cost/benefit ratio that's recommended by experts and backed by statistics. You can take anything to an extreme and I agree that some regulation does.

It's not a libertarian talking point; it is a summary of the research presented in the article that we are nominally discussing.

It may be proven that regulation can help, in general, but it has also been proven that this specific type of regulation does more harm than good.

It shows correlation not causation and not "research". There's no such proof.

The key sentence in the article is: " Financial struggle for popular bike sharing systems"...

That's where the money is and that's who made up that nonsense. Lots of people die because of those terrible motorized bikes and scooters. They're trying to get cyclists to fight their regulatory requirements by making up fake science.

Good eye. I bet you're right about the PR origins of this specific article, and I can see why that would make you skeptical.

For me, however, this idea is old news. People have been investigating this issue for years and the results seem to be generally consistent. I have been reading reports about the link between helmet laws, reduced cycling rates, and reduced overall safety for at least five years now.

I live in Seattle, where the surrounding county passed a mandatory helmet law back in 1993. After decades of experience, this law was seen to do more harm than good, and the Board of Health decided earlier this year to repeal it.

> That's where the money is and that's who made up that nonsense. Lots of people die because of those terrible motorized bikes and scooters. They're trying to get cyclists to fight their regulatory requirements by making up fake science.

I think it's entirely plausible that the article was written by a PR company, and that is one possible reason (though not the only) they were paid to do it.

I'll quibble with you on a few points though:

Much research only find correlation. Just because it's not conclusive about causation doesn't mean it's not research.

As much "those terrible motorized bikes and scooters" might have lead to people dying (I've heard the anecdotal horror stories, I've just not looked at the data, so I'm ignorant to the overall effect), there have been plenty of attempts (some successful) at non-motorized bike sharing systems. One could reasonably imagine that when those systems are successful, it is likely there's a net increase in cycling within the community, thereby increasing overall safety of cycling via the "safety In Numbers" effect cited in the article, not to mention a possible reduction in the amount of driving. It therefore follows that one could make an argument that improving the success rate of such systems helps improve bike riding safety (though I'd like to see THAT data). It might even be true (and again, I have not seen any data on this) that for all the terrible deaths from motorized bikes & scooters, that adoption of them still increases the safety for cyclists, because if the alternative is the same person being in a car/truck/SUV, then a cyclist being hit by a motorized bike or scooter, even if they get hit more often, might be far less dangerous.

I think we shouldn't presume any particular PR motive for the article necessarily means it is not in line with the interests of cyclists. Ad hominems aren't don't really undermine the arguments presented in the article.

> So carry it or tie it to your bike.

Or do what happened in Australia and just don't bother riding a bike and drive your car instead.

I sound flippant but I'm just reflecting _what actually happened_, which is where conversations need to be grounded.

"Carry it or tie it to your bike" ... wouldn't it be possibly stolen if you left it on your bike that you chained up on the street? And carrying it doesn't sound comfortable at all -- where do you put it?

The amount of discomfort (psychological fear of theft or physical nuisance of carrying it) is very likely going to discourage its use. But then you're liable for a fine for not having a helmet, so you choose to not ride the bike.

Just don't require helmets for bike riders over some age.

I tie it to my bag. I've seen ones that fold to a size of a banana. If someone breaks the chain then they take my bike, the helmet is the least of my concerns.

The idea that use would be discouraged because of that is ridiculous when you consider the alternative: cars or public transport. Both are terrible options. Parking, traffic, etc.

I'm 47 and had a crash recently. How does my age have to do anything if someone suddenly jumps in my lane or a car runs into me?

If anything my healthcare bill will be higher.

I think they're arguing that children should be made to wear helmets because won't somebody think of the children.

The same argument applies to children of course - where do you put your helmet after you've cycled to school? Attach it to the bike loosely and someone will steal it, it's too big to carry in your rucksack all day, and you don't want to have to go back and forth to your locker potentially on the other side of school if you have one at all.

There are foldable helmets, even smaller than this one: https://www.amazon.com/Bicycle-Foldable-Closca-Electric-Pate...

Also if it's locked to the bike you would break the lock and steal the bike. The helmet is the cheaper part. Helmets are often designed so locks can go through them.

> If someone breaks the chain then they take my bike, the helmet is the least of my concerns.

Why not? A good bike helmet is several hundred dollars. That's not life-altering money of course, but it adds a decent percentage to the cost of replacing the stolen bike.

I've had hundreds of crashes on a bike and hundreds of others crashes and wipeouts doing other activities. A helmet has never once come in handy. So I've come to believe that knowing how to wipe out, as a reflexive skill, is far more critical to safety than strapping some styrofoam to your head.

Unfortunately you can't glance at a cyclist and decide affirmatively that they're an idiot for riding without wipeout skills.

You're very lucky. The worst wipeout I ever had was on the side of a small town street. I was accelerating, the chain popped of my gears, and I basically flipped the bike over and ground to a stop on my helmet. My reactions and training absolutely helped me; I knew how to roll into it and how to not break my wrists. But without that helmet, I would have ground a hole into my skull.

You don't need that helmet until you do.

This is survivorship fallacy. You don’t hear from the thousands of people who weren’t so lucky because they’re dead.

I hear from 1000s of internet people who are totally triggered by my occasional lack of a helmet. My ability to avoid hitting my head using reflexive skill cultivated over many years of practice never gets the credit it deserves. It has come in handy on so many occasions.

Let me assure you, if you've decided cycling safety is a binary contingent on whether or not you're wearing a helmet, you're doing it wrong. It's no better than superstition. There are so many other variables.

Safety in depth:

* Avoiding the crash in the first place

* Knowing how to fall if you crash

* Helmet, and potentially other protection, when unable to execute crashing properly.

(Edit: Changed ’security’ to ’safety’)

My wipeout: I heard a chink behind me, and thought I had dropped my keys, so I looked over my shoulder. I lost control, and my face hit the road. Not my head, my chin.

I got three stiches in my chin. I lost two teeth; one was driven through my lip, and I had 13 stiches in that lip (there are three layers in a lip: outer skin, muscle, inner skin). I needed two root-canals. I fractured my mandible, which is now joined to the maxilla on only one side. I was concussed, and wound up sleeping about 15 hours a day for the next 3 months. I couldn't chew for ages.

A motorbike helmet might have helped; but not a bicycle helmet.

This is as naive as drivers refusing to wear seatbelts. In serious crashes, you cannot control your body in the first place.

Of course, the helmet is only 10% of cycling safety. But it's for that important 10% when your head crashes into the ground. Suggesting that it would never come in handy is naive.

Since you seem to believe in the power of personal anecdote, I am an experienced cyclist and have crashed directly on to my head before. It was just once, but it prevented a serious head injury.

If I had been in hundreds of car crashes without ever needing a seatbelt then they would be roughly equivalent, I suppose.

It only takes one crash where the helmet was needed for you to never need one again...if you didn't wear one.

We went through this same nonsense with motorcycles. Stop acting like it's the end of the world to put a piece of foam and plastic on your head for a little bit.

I’m surprised at all the comments comparing this to motorcycle helmets. To me, the big difference with a bicycle and a motorcycle is that I can run as fast or faster than I ride by bicycle around my local neighbourhood.

If someone asked me to wear a helmet while running, I would find that ridiculous. Same thing when riding my (non-road) bike.

How often do you sprint over uneven terrain? Or do you just ride your bike very slowly?

Bike speeds > 20km/h are normal and easily achievable for the untrained on flat ground. Downhill, you'll quickly go past 30km/h. This isn't something that you're doing while running for longer periods of time while you're still half-asleep.

Helmets annoy me too, but "the fastest runners can peak at speeds higher than what I reach every other day on my bike and they don't wear helmets" is a weird argument.

I ride my bike slowly around my local neighbourhood, often on shared paths with pedestrians. This is usually under 20 km/h, probably under 15, or even less when it’s busy.

For rides where I go faster, I will take my road bike and wear a helmet.

For rides where I go slower, I would prefer not to wear a helmet, but mandatory helmet laws don’t make that distinction.

I agree- it does feel like “biking” encompasses an awfully wide range of riskiness.

As you alluded, even between bike trips, I weigh the risks differently when I think about a casual spin down a protected lane or a recreational trail as compared to an aggressive commute inches apart from vehicle traffic.

My local bike share program has started blurring things even more for me lately as they introduce progressively zippier e-bikes. Any more, it’s trivial for me to move with traffic on these huge heavy clunkers of bikes, while to my impulses it still feels like the low-effort casual kind of ride I’d instinctively rate as not warranting a helmet.

Still, I’m glad to be judging for myself how to mitigate the specific risks of a specific ride.

In cities with bike shares, a significant number of short distance bike trips are on the bike share (like, 50% plus range). Requiring a bike helmet eliminates those people that are walking around and decide to use a bike share to go 2 miles.

Tying a helmet to a bike can result in theft and weathering (rain).

The article goes to describe that it is the secondary effects that are important. Ie, it's better to have 100 cyclists on a road with 50% helmet usage, than it is to have 3 with 100% usage.

I've seen campaigns and memorial stickers asking drivers to watch for motorcycles. So it is not dissimilar for pedal bikes, except the safety effect for driver awareness is even more important for non-motorized bikes. Which is essentially the non-intuitice conclusion of the article.

> It was fine. Part of the cost of having a bike.

Yes, but that additional cost does discourage people to use a bike. And many countries want to encourage rather than discourage bike use, for several reasons:

* bikes don't endanger other road users the way cars do

* bikes pollute less

* bikes take up less space

* bikes put less strain on the road

* bikers get more exercise and are therefore healthier

All of these are important positive effects, so a lot of countries would prefer to stimulate bike use rather than discourage it. They don't have the same reason to encourage car or motorbike use, so having the extra cost there is fine. The alternative for a car is likely to be better for society, so it's fine to discourage their use. The alternative for a bike is likely to be worse.

> you have to carry the helmet, have it with you at all times, before and after riding.

You need it when you're on your bike, riding it. I commuted by bicycle for 19 years and biked (or walked) almost everywhere (Arlington, VA - Washington, DC). When I rode to the store or to meet someone or to get something to eat, the helmet usually stayed with the bike. I never thought someone would steal just my helmet. I didn't bother to lock it up, although you can get a wire to pass through the helmet and lock it up with the bike.

It seems my post was unclear and sounds like I'm against helmets. If so, sorry about that. It's quite the opposite. I ride a bike every day and use a helmet at all times, and would recommend everybody should do the same.

But I agree that making it mandatory will do more harm than good, for the reasons stated in the article.