Yes, it's called reality. It's only a paradox for obsessive right brains, pushing their glasses up their noses, pointing their fingers in the skys, grunting smacking noises, semantics!
Multiple things can be true at once. MHL hurt cyclists, and having a helmet on makes your head hurt less when you fall.
Cyclist safety is _not_ an individual responsibility. It's a collective one. Mandatory helmets promote a state of affairs where cycling is considered a leisure opt-in activity, a fig leaf for shameless victim blaming when drivers do run into a cyclist (should have worn a helmet har har). The collective psychology of drivers,
- reckless, inconsiderate, entitled - combined with a street design that actively encourages speeding and reptile-brain fueled jostling for position is what is hurting cyclists. This is why mandatory helmet laws are harmful, they are actively nurture a deadly collective mindset.
Plus, we are not making drivers where helmets. In a crash, having their head packaged inside a helmet will benefit drivers too. So maybe let's start there.
I agree with your collective argument - but safety is _also_ an individual responsibility. People should still wear helmets for their own safety, if they determine that it makes sense for them.
Yeah you're right, it's an individual responsibility as well, I was writing a little too cavalier. The true danger, death and mutilation, the one that is scaring people of riding altogether, is coming from drivers mostly though.
1) Everybody SHOULD, for their own benefit, wear a helmet.
2) Nobody should be REQUIRED BY LAW to wear a helmet
There is no paradox, unless you assume that every good thing thing should be mandated by law and every bad thing regulated. I was actually surprised to read this article and discover the arguments against the helmet law mandates. Usually the argument is something like: "yes mandates save lives, but freedom is more import." But this argument was different -- do to complex system interactions removing the mandate saves lives on net. So, with or without laws most regular riders are going to wear helmets. However, just one example from the article, with the laws there are fewer people riding which makes the roads less safe for bikers. Lots of bikers promotes awareness of bikers by drivers, and encourages infrastructure investment, and prevents thus prevents accidents. We have data that shows this happens in practice. It also encourages both helmet and non-helmet wearing bikeshare adoptees, which in-turn also creates ridership, and a culture of bikeriders, which in turn reduces accidents. So even while you have more non-helmet wearing riders (which is a small fraction of riders) it reduces the _conditions_ that cause accidents sufficiently that there are on-net fewer accidents.
