The article goes on to explain why these conclusions make cyclists less safe.
Basically, the only reason that bicycling is unsafe is cars. Cars are only a threat to cyclists when they share the same roads, which is only a problem because not enough people bike. The best way to ensure safety for cyclists is for there to be dedicated bike infrastructure that is completely separated from car infrastructure, and that's only going to happen once enough people switch to biking.
>None of them say that a cyclist wearing a helmet is just as likely, or more likely, to get injured.
That is not said or implied by the headline.
> The goal is to protect people who already ARE cycling.
If that's true, it's an idiotic and shortsighted goal. We have to do better than that- the goal should be to promote bicycling as a safe and accessible alternative to driving for everyone. 8-year-old children should be free to bike to school unsupervised without the risk of getting hit by a car. Mandatory helmet laws don't solve the problem, they make it worse.
> > I fall off my bike and hit my helmet on pavement once every couple of years or so.
> That seems extremely unusual. Are you MTBing / using skateparks / etc?
As someone who commutes exclusively by bicycle and who goes on 80+ mile rides on the weekend, I used to hit the pavement about once a year. I now ride with elbow pads in addition to a helmet, and I think I've developed a pretty good instinct for what could go sideways. I don't have control over every factor, and being a normal animal that gets tired or distracted, I expect falls to happen again in the future.
Some of the ways I've hit the ground include hitting a patch of icy road after 3 days of 50+F temps because that spot happened to be covered by shadow no matter where the sun was that time of year, hitting a small wet metal grate at the entrance to my employer's parking garage where the bike cage is, and the driver of a truck passing too close and hitting my hand which was out signaling my intention to turn.
Speaking nothing of the hundreds of times I've identified a hazard and avoided it by adjusting my road position, slowing down, bunny hopping, or sometimes even stopping and dismounting when I'm in the middle of the stroad (once when I found myself in a mess of overlapping streetcar tracks all around me). But even with a 99.9% success rate at responding to hazards correctly in the moment, I can expect to fail once every 1,000 hazards or so. That's why I wear protective gear.
Sounds like you ride pretty serious distances. Do you also ride them at serious speeds? Most people ride at a very relaxed pace, about 15 kph or so, and don't really fall off their bike except while learning or in traffic accidents. But if you go 30 kph regularly, that significantly increases the speed at which unexpected things happen, reduces your time to react, and increases the speed at which you hit the pavement if you fall.
Speed matters a lot. There's a good reason why most bike racers wear helmets, while most regular city bikers or leisurely bikers do not.
Mind you, I've fallen a couple of times too (usually in icy or otherwise slippery conditions I wasn't properly accounting for at the time). But never hit my head. Worst I think was when I scraped my hands as a kid.
There's a hill near my house where I used to regularly hit 70kph. There's a super-sketchy cross street right at the bottom of that hill with motorists always trying to white-knuckle gun it into traffic, so I've stopped doing that.
For all of my crashes I was going at or under 15kph. Which is probably why I'm still here to tell you all about it.
70 kph definitely sounds like helmet speed to me. Though I admit as a kid I was sometimes clocked (by someone with a speedometer) at 40-50 kph on my city bike on slight downward slopes, and I never wore a helmet. But those were only brief bits under fairly optimal circumstances. The last couple of times I fell (less than a handful over the past 30 years) were all extremely icy road conditions. Almost all, because I just remember one where a car brutally cut me off turning into a side street while I was barreling down the road at pretty extreme speed. I avoided a collision by making an extremely tight turn into the same side street. That was a street that really should have had a separate bike path.
(I think it was here [0], though I don't remember crossing that raised sidewalk; maybe they changed that since then, or I misremember.)
Basically, the only reason that bicycling is unsafe is cars. Cars are only a threat to cyclists when they share the same roads, which is only a problem because not enough people bike. The best way to ensure safety for cyclists is for there to be dedicated bike infrastructure that is completely separated from car infrastructure, and that's only going to happen once enough people switch to biking.
>None of them say that a cyclist wearing a helmet is just as likely, or more likely, to get injured.
That is not said or implied by the headline.
> The goal is to protect people who already ARE cycling.
If that's true, it's an idiotic and shortsighted goal. We have to do better than that- the goal should be to promote bicycling as a safe and accessible alternative to driving for everyone. 8-year-old children should be free to bike to school unsupervised without the risk of getting hit by a car. Mandatory helmet laws don't solve the problem, they make it worse.