To Encourage Biking, Cities Lose the Helmets

This article is great but it does itself a pretty big disservice by pretty much ignoring a lot of why many of the European cities which have successful programs are successful. Namely they have made significant investment into infrastructure to make bicycling safer, many times prioritizing bike traffic over auto traffic.<p>I ride quite a bit, live in Berkeley which has numerous "Bicycle Boulevards [1]" and I'm pretty comfortable riding sans helmet. I happily rented a bike in Amsterdam and never even considered using a helmet. Riding my bike to work in SF (or to the articles point NYC)? You're damn straight I'm wearing a helmet.<p>[1] Bicycle Boulevards are streets (open to bikes and cars) that tend to run parallel to primary traffic arteries that tend to have fewer Stop Signs and every 3 or 4 blocks auto traffic isn't allowed through (usually big planters in the middle of the street) so it keeps the auto traffic down.

There is no evidence that segregated cycle facilities improve cyclist safety. The majority of serious bicycle accidents are right-of-way disputes, occurring at junctions. It is just as likely that segregated facilities could increase the number of accidents, by making the movements of cyclists less predictable to motorists when they merge onto general roads. It is known that sidewalk cyclists are significantly more vulnerable than cyclists who use the roadway, possibly because their movements are more difficult for motorists to predict.<p>The evidence for the efficacy of cycle helmets is extremely poor. There are a great many people with strong opinions on helmets, but we simply do not have the evidence and it is likely that they are a relatively unimportant factor. While we know that helmets moderately reduce head injuries, we do not have good evidence that they improve rider safety overall. We do have some evidence of risk compensation, with both drivers and riders taking more risks when helmets are used, based on the belief that the helmet provides safety. Head injuries are an important class of injury, particularly in the most severe incidents, but they represent only a minority of the serious injuries suffered by cyclists.<p>The best available evidence shows that one factor completely overwhelms all others - the number of cyclists on the road. Most Americans believe that the numbers of cyclists will increase when action is taken to improve safety, but in fact the inverse is true. An increase in the number of cyclists invariably leads to a decrease in the number of accidents per km. That is the key message and everything else is just noise. Meaningful improvements in cycle safety are wholly reliant on increasing the number of cyclists and normalising cycling. Motorists cannot be blamed for struggling to predict the movements of a type of vehicle which they encounter rarely and do not understand.

To Encourage Biking, Cities should do two things, and two things only:<p>- Bike lanes. Physically separated bike lanes. This is not rocket science. Trains have rails, airplanes have a nice bit of tarmac and bikes should have a space tailored to their specific needs as well. Typically in the Netherlands, bikes are banned from roads that are 50km/h and up. And they don't need to battle it out with fast traffic, for there are bike lanes. And the limited space in this country means that something truly has to give when adding them.<p>This how the dutch design an intersection. Note the absence of the ridiculous ASL boxes, and most important, no crossing of lanes. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlApbxLz6pA" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlApbxLz6pA</a><p>- Traffic laws that protect the weaker participant in traffic. Again, case in point, the Netherlands where in a (civil) dispute after a bike-car accident the burden of proof lies with the car. Not to mention the dreaded article 5 that broadly states that endangering traffic is a felony.<p>This helmet discussion imho is just a way to deviate from arguably more costly and difficult choices when it comes to embracing the bicycle. And while we are are at it. I am convinced that making helmets, 4 point harnesses and leathers mandatory in cars for all occupants would save lives as well.<p>What perhaps surprises me the most in the car-bike entanglement is the seemingly bad engineering. Cities like Londen, Geneva, all (claim) to cater for bikes, have rental programs, paint the odd lane, but their intersections tell a different story. In the information age, it just baffles me.

Traumatic brain injury is real, completely life debilitating and can happen at very slow speeds. Many parts of your brain are protected only by soft tissue. Brains do not grow back like a broken arm/leg. Imagine permanently losing 100 IQ points by not paying attention for the wrong five seconds. Cyclists are extremely vulnerable on streets shared by cars. Think slow moving ~&#60;180lb two wheeled bean bags vs. 1500+lb high speed steel boxes. It's pretty irresponsible and absurd for the NYT to print articles like this. I suppose we shouldn't use seatbelts or car bumpers either based on mean effects? Helmet safety is totally cheap (basic, OK helmets are $20-30) and easy to use. Although I would certainly like to make everyone "healthy" and build a cycling utopia, the fitness argument this article makes is completely absurd. Obese, unhealthy people casually cycling for ten or fifteen minutes across a city are unlikely to receive any significantly health benefit (reach aerobic thresholds) and are the the most likely to experience falls and collisions since they are inexperienced.

Until there is a distinct change in driver attitudes, riding without a helmet in most of the US is just nuts. Sure, there are places like Portland with dedicated bike lanes and an overall emphasis on pro-bike culture, but it is a rare spot.<p>In the bay area, there is a very large biking community -- road, mountain, around town, etc. The problem is, the infrastructure isn't there for bikes compared to Amsterdam. We have "bike lanes" that any vehicle can enter within, say, about 150' to make a turn onto another street. Vehicles don't look for bikes. The bike ways in Amsterdam, certain parts of Munich, and other towns are often separate from the roads. When not, people expect them and are courteous to them much more than here.

Cycling is extremely appealing if you separate roads for cars from roads for bikes. Boulder is a city that gets this right. As a cyclist in Boulder, you can get almost anywhere in town with minimal riding on a normal street. The network of bike/pedestrian paths is so well integrated into the city.<p>I loved biking everywhere in Boulder. In Austin or New York I would rather walk and take public transit. NYC and the Connecticut shoreline are keeping me enthralled for now but I will move back to Boulder for the bike paths (and the general paradise vibe) at some point.<p>Nostalgia is taking hold now. Warm memories of a satisfied ride with a Flat Iron mountain backdrop. In my backpack was just a modest check, but it was a check for the sale of my first venture, and we were happy, and living in Boulder and the future was ours for the taking...

relevant study from the UK: <a href="http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1231.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1231.html</a><p>"HEAT suggests that a law making helmets compulsory for cyclists may result in an overall increase in 253 premature deaths – 265 extra deaths from reduced cycling less 12 deaths saved among the reduced pool of cyclists receiving fatal head injuries."<p>"The overall cost of a law would be between £ 304 million and £ 415 million per year. In addition, there would be a one-off cost to the remaining cyclists of £ 180 million to equip them with helmets"

So many people have turned this into a 'are helmets safe or not'.<p>That's really arguing the wrong point - of course helmets improve survivability of a bicycle accident.<p>The point here is, for bike-sharing programs, should helmet use become mandatory?<p>The answer should be : no.<p>Ultimately few people are going to climb on a bike and think it is safe riding without a helmet. They will know that they are doing a dangerous thing.<p>The idea with bike-share programs is to get people using shared bikes to move around a city instead of either public transport or private cars. If carrying your own helmet (or using a publicly shared-helmet) is a requirement, fewer people are going to use the bike-sharing.<p>This is a simple argument about the increased use of bike sharing programs against the increased number of people with head injuries from that bike sharing program. I don't know what those numbers are, but it would mean higher head injuries but also higher bicycle use. The number of head injuries can only be measured by the set of people who chose to ride the bike without a helmet, who had an accident and hit their head. Some people (regular users, for example) would choose to still use helmets when riding bike sharing, so it's not like removing the law will mean nobody wears a helmet anymore. At the margin there will be more injuries, but also more bike-miles ridden. It's up to people to make a decision which is more desirable.<p>It might sound like a tough decision, but really, this type of decision is everywhere. Speed limits are set with the balance of people who will be injured or killed in more serious accidents, balanced with the ability for more people to get to their destination more quickly.

This article is asinine.<p>Not once does the "journalist" mention the absurd price of NYC's program (up to $77 for 4 hours) vs. the $2 she pays in Paris.<p>Further, let's not forget the safer bike lanes or areas in European cities. Getting hit while riding in NYC is not an 'if', it's a 'when.' The number of cycling deaths here are absurd. I'd hate to see the figures if we actively discouraged helmet use.<p>The NYT should be embarrassed they ran this piece.

As a keen cyclist (I'm building <a href="http://www.cyclinganalytics.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.cyclinganalytics.com/</a>), I wish we didn't have mandatory helmet laws, but there are a lot of points on both sides of the argument worth pondering.<p>* Making helmets mandatory makes cycling look dangerous. What other things do you wear a helmet while doing? Between this, ruining peoples' hair, not looking as chic, and the inconvenience of it, helmets discourage people from cycling.<p>* Although it is possible to get seriously injured on a bicycle, the research that I've seen suggests that the health benefits of cycling outweigh the risk of injury considerably (even when not wearing helmets), so, from a public health point of view, it makes sense to encourage cycling, and even cycling without wearing a helmet.<p>* Therefore, it seems that helmets directly save lives (in crashes, although, for my own anecdotal evidence, they haven't helped me in any of the crashes I've had), but they cost lives indirectly by discouraging people from cycling in the first place. This makes it harder to sell.<p>* Laws are not about making things as safe as humanly possible. It would save more lives to have people in cars wearing helmets, but we don't do that (yes, I know more people travel by car). For that matter, it's legal to drive cars that would be considered death-traps by modern safety standards. Even if helmet laws did save lives, that doesn't automatically mean they should become laws.<p>* The drivers in different countries have different attitudes towards cyclists. In Australia (and probably America), we have a strong driving culture, and a very "us vs. them" view of the whole thing. Earlier this year, Shane Warne (one of the most famous Australian sportsmen of the last decade) had an altercation with a cyclist on a busy Melbourne road which led him to comment on Twitter about how cyclists should pay registration and show license plates. Views like that are very common amongst the general public, and often stem from the view that "bikes are okay for a gentle Sunday ride with the family to the park, but they shouldn't be used as serious transportation devices". Compare that with the attitude of the average driver in many European countries (from what I've heard), and you might be able to make a case that we aren't ready for scrapping mandatory helmet laws, because cycling really is more dangerous.

One thing to remember is that Copenhagen had many bikers before it had many bike lanes. Bike lanes on the main traffic arteries of Copenhagen is pretty much a thing of the last 10-15 years or so. Before that bikers in central Copenhagen rode their bikes on the streets (with a few exceptions).<p>Now, many of the suburbs of Copenhagen were designed with biking in mind and have had extensive networks of bike lanes for the last 30-40 years. Of course, people moving from there and into Copenhagen took their biking habits with them.<p>Copenhagen has other incentives that makes biking the choice: Huge taxes on cars (first a 25 percent VAT, then 105 percent fee for the first roughly 14,000 dollars of the value of the car (incl. the VAT), then 180 percent on the exceeding value of the car), huge taxes on gasoline (the gasoline tax alone is around 3.5 dollars per gallon, then there is the 25 percent VAT, bringing the total price per gallon up around 8 dollars). Further, in many parts of Copenhagen the daily fee for parking exceeds 20 dollars.<p>Also, Copenhagen is relatively dense, compared to many American cities, and many families living in the suburbs have at least one parent working locally (typically in public sector jobs such as teaching, day care, elderly care, the local municipality etc.). Biking is only a realistic means of transportation if distances are small. It may work for New York City one day, but probably not for Houston or LA...

As a kid in the 1970s, I rode my bike everywhere, never wore a helmet (nobody did), and here I am today. Of course helmets can help avoid head injury, not riding bikes probably helps even more. I mean where do you draw the line on the fear vs. the actual chance of something happening.<p>On the subject of community shared bicycles, our town tried that about 10 years ago, all the bicycles were stolen within the first month (or maybe it was the first week) and it basically died at that point.

Absolutely... Just visit Amsterdam, Copenhagen, or Paris and see all the cyclists... What a joy. Instead of helmets the US cities should try to implement cycling lanes for a change.

Folks in the US need to start demanding bike lanes from their elected officials. They're super cheap to build and so it's more of an issue of simply having the political will to remove a lane of traffic from exclusive car use.<p>Such political bravery can pay off. Vancouver BC's Gregor Robertson (and his councillor slate) has been elected twice with strong mandates in large part because of his commitment to bike lanes.

Related TED talk "Why We Shouldn't Bike with a Helmet": <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07o-TASvIxY" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07o-TASvIxY</a>

This article is rampant with dishonest usage of statistics and anecdotes:<p><i>“Statistically, if we wear helmets for cycling, maybe we should wear helmets when we climb ladders or get into a bath, because there are lots more injuries during those activities.”</i><p>Ok, but how about the severity of the injuries? This is like saying that most car collisions in the US happen in parking lots. Also, there are lots more injuries per instance, or absolute numbers?<p><i>"The European Cyclists’ Federation says that bicyclists in its domain have the same risk of serious injury as pedestrians per mile traveled."</i><p>Of course, but bicyclists travel many more miles. That's the point of riding a bicycle. It would be more fair to compare against people who ride buses.<p><i>“Nobody wears helmets, and bicycling is regarded as a completely normal, safe activity. You never hear that ‘helmet saved my life’ thing.”</i><p>Of course not. If you don't wear a helmet and you have a fatal accident in which a helmet could have saved your life, you're dead. The dead don't speak.<p>EDIT: who downvoted my comment and why? I'm just stating obvious flaws in the article. Answer instead of downvoting, please.

<i>A two-year-old bike-sharing program in Melbourne, Australia — where helmet use in mandatory — has only about 150 rides a day, despite the fact that Melbourne is flat, with broad roads and a temperate climate. On the other hand, helmet-lax Dublin — cold, cobbled and hilly — has more than 5,000 daily rides in its young bike-sharing scheme.</i><p>As for the Melbourne part of that sentence: the city is spread out vastly over 8,694 km² (acc. to Wikipedia). Some of my co-workers ride their bikes to work, but unless you happen to live in a close-by suburb, you cannot really get anywhere by bike. Besides, Melbourne really is a car city, and made to be one, with 8-lane highways cutting through its geography. There are a few bike lanes, but parking is permitted on them, so in practice they don't exist.<p>But from all that you cannot deduce that Melburnians are fat and lazy people at the risk of a heart disease. In fact, like most Australians, people here love sport. Hardly ever seen so many joggers ever before. And yet there's rumour that people South of the Yarra river, that divides the city from East to West, run while people North of it ride bikes.<p>I guess they don't participate in the bike sharing program because if you ride a bike on a regular basis, you own one.

There is an association in France that is lobbying against helmets for bike commuters (and advocating them for competitive cyclist) and they have collected a pretty large amount of data on the issue:<p><a href="http://www.fubicy.org/spip.php?article191" rel="nofollow">http://www.fubicy.org/spip.php?article191</a><p>it turns out that head injuries are not very common when riding at slow speed. An helmet would actually be more useful for a pedestrian.

I've ridden bike thousands of times. And I've never worn, owned, or even touched a helmet. Like nobody else my age ever does in my country. It started to become a trend to let children wear a helmet here since the last 5 years or so though, and of course those coureurs with their flashy bicycle clothing have been doing it forever already...

What's so wrong with helmets?

It's apparently not very clear whether bike helmets increase or decrease biker safety: <a href="http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/09/bike-helmet-doubts.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/09/bike-helmet-doubts.htm...</a>

As someone who commutes to work via bike 2-3 times a week, the thing I would appreciate the most would be if highways had walled-off bike lanes. The reason I say this is because surface streets having bike lanes is not enough. The thing with highways is that they are able to run diagonally to the surface streets, which often times reduces distances drastically. With bike lanes though, often times I feel like I'm <i>zig-zagging</i> to get from point A to point B, which feels terribly inefficient.

As a daily Vélib' user from day one, I'll add some insights a one-time user may have missed:<p>* It's often the fastest way to get to another point less than ~5km away.<p>* You quickly notice how most of the traffic regulation is only designed for cars.<p>* You have a much better visibility of the traffic (with a correctly adjusted saddle) than a car driver.<p>* Maneuverability and standing start acceleration (the first seconds) are also way above the average car, so if you're used to it, you'll easily make your way in the congested traffic.<p>* It's common practice to run red lights or stop signs (hence the first point). There's some debate about allowing the "turn right" but we're still waiting. Still, we're not crazy but you quickly notice it makes no sense at all to stop &#38; start a 20kg bike every 100 meters at a pedestrian crossing with obviously no pedestrians waiting or at road junction with no incoming traffic.<p>* Most bike lanes are overrun by clueless pedestrians.<p>* European cities like Paris predate cars and are more dense with smaller streets which feel much safer than higway-like american streets.<p>Crossing the place de l'étoile ain't for every vélib user - <a href="http://youtu.be/lay8aZlsbB0" rel="nofollow">http://youtu.be/lay8aZlsbB0</a> - but it's funny to do it.

So i had one single bike accident in my life so far.<p>Happened to be in a urban area. Happened that a car cut the way and i hit it, and the ground with the head. I have a permanent scar (its not so bad) on the side of my face.<p>Without helmet it'd have something much worse (yeah i broke other body parts, the hit was rather violent - i can avoid a car going at regular speed, but if i'm going fast <i>and</i> the car is speeding, sometimes it's though luck). So you know what? As long as I'm not going down at 60mph in the forest I don't care if I've a helmet or not. Ground is soft, and I'm probably not gonna fall. The chance to hurt my head is low, and the skull is strong.<p>Now in a urban area, 60mph isn't unheard of. Specially from cars, even if you're at "only" 20mph on the bike. Thats <i>exactly</i> where a helmet is a good idea.<p>For sure I'm ok with people choosing to wear a helmet or not (as long as if a biker gets hurt by it's own fault, the car driver doesn't have to pay for it, which I fear ain't the case in the US). But I don't think that's a very good idea in a urban environment.<p>You'd need bike-only lanes that are fully respected, proper visibility, etc. That's not the case in Paris (velib) and that's not the case in the US. In both cities bikers also pass at red light, in both cities non-bicycles use the bicycle lane (in Paris scooters take it all day long to avoid traffic, at high speed). In some other EU countries, or some other French cities it's (much) better than in Paris, though, safety-wise.<p>Also in the EU (Minus Paris and probably a few other big cities), cars will not attempt to kill bikes if there's no bike lane, and bikes will generally respect the road signs. Makes a world of a difference.

I recently moved to Tulsa, OK. I bought a condo on Riverside Drive because the area, atmosphere, people, places, etc. all reminded me of being in Palo Alto to a degree.<p>Every day, since I got here, I have been biking to work. However, I would still get things like groceries and little trinkets with my car.<p>Go to last Friday/Saturday (sometime during the night or early morning). I went outside, to get in my car, to go visit my friends about 75 miles away in another city (Stillwater, OK).<p>My car was gone.<p>I immediately called the police and my insurance provider (I have full coverage). The insurance company gave me a rental and is processing my claim right now. I have not used the rental car yet. It's still at the rental company. They said to call whenever I'm ready to pick it up. I ended up biking to get my groceries and instead of drudging it like I thought. I enjoy it and look forward to 30-60 minutes I nonchalantly bike down Riverside Drive on the bike path to the store and back every day. I wonder what Winters will be like now? I'll replace the car if and when insurance finishes with my claim.<p>For the Midwest, the area of Tulsa that I live in it is extremely bike friendly. Relatively anyway.<p>Edit: Grammar, clarity.

My experience of the bike-hire scheme in Brisbane (Australia) is that helmet laws are <i>a</i> problem, but not <i>the</i> problem. The legal requirement to wear a helmet is a bit tiresome, and the communal helmets they supply to get around it are a figleaf at best, but helmet law or no, riding a bicycle in Brisbane is harder than it has to be.<p>The problem, as others have pointed out, is road design and driver attitudes. Going any significant distance involves either riding (legally) on footpaths, or riding in traffic. There's a nice bicycle path along the river, plus some pictures of bikes in doorzones. That's about it for central Brisbane. It's not <i>that</i> hilly but it's definitely not flat. I don't mind riding in traffic, but I say that as a bike racer (albeit an old, fat bike racer) who used to be a courier. Driver attitudes, well, 95% of them are fine, maybe more. There's a small minority who are deranged and vicious and it's socially acceptable to behave that way in a car. It's all do-able, but it needs some unintuitive techniques (ride in the <i>middle</i> of the road in some situations, for example) and, ideally, a bit of fitness. I don't know as I'd recommend it to neophytes.<p>That helmet laws are the problem is an appealing conclusion, because it's a quick fix: repeal the helmet law. Changing infrastructure OTOH is hard and changing attitudes in harder still. I'd like it to be as simple as repealing a law, especially one where the benefits are so unclear. I just don't think it is.<p>In terms of the popularity of the bike hire scheme, I can only say that there are a couple of dozen hire bikes out the front of my workplace at the start of the day and it's down to a couple by day's end. I'm not aware of the official figures, but my highly subjective impression is that they're getting used more than when it started. A less convoluted signup process probably has something to do with it, plus the fact that it's a pleasant time of year to cycle.

I think when assessing personal risks people often don't realize that they have to 1/1000 or higher risk of dying next year of whatever.<p>Yes. Making yourself a bit safer is good if it doesn't bother you much but you should realize that life is just slow decay in hazardous environment and you have to balance your risks with what you want to do during your life and with your convenience.<p>As for helmets. Drivers tend to pass closer to bikers that wear helmets (UK study) and unsurprisingly bikers that wear helmets have more accidents. Success stories that tell "helmet saved my life after being hit by a car" are often failure stories because of your helmet you and the guy that hit you felt confident enough to share same space.<p>I never wore a bike helmet although if I owned one I'd probably wear it as additional safeguard. Even if I did I would relay mostly on sharing space with pedestrians not cars wherever possible.

Helmets are important for inexperienced cyclists and mountain biking, because you have a high risk of falling. But riding around town is a low risk activity and a helmet is unnecessary. We need to learn to distinguish between these scenarios instead of lumping all cyclists into one group.

My experiences growing up in the USA contradict the author's sentiment that helmet-wearing is taken as a given and that there's social stigma against going helmetless. As a kid, my parents had me wear a helmet, but once I was comfortable riding, the helmet was never an issue. The only people I knew that wore helmets were those who regularly commuted on their bikes (and thus rode on busier and faster roads). This was in my small hometown (12k people) in Missouri, but the experience continued in my larger college town (100k people). A lot of students biked to, from, and around campus, not to mention riding downtown for the nightlife. Again, helmets were the exception, not the rule.

I ride 100 miles a week or so for fitness. Always wear a helmut. I recently moved to a new town. It has a college nearby (US) and was immediately struck by how many 20 somethings weren't wearing helmuts. It irritated me at first. Then I realized something else. Just how many people were riding period. And how free and happy they look riding around with the wind in their hair.<p>I've really come around over two years and now don't wear one when I ride recreationally. I'm sure it's riskier than not but nearly all physical activity is riskier than sitting on a couch - in the short run.

The target audience may be slightly different. In London, the people I see wearing helmets while cycling tend to be that particular young male demographic, whereas people partaking in the bicycle sharing program tend to be commuters. As such, the speed at which both travel, and the roads that they take, tend to be completely different. If you're doing a high-speed bicycle-only commute into Central London then I'd say wear a helmet, but if you're doing a short-distance trip on a shared bike, there's really no need since you'll be travelling slower anyway.

Helmets aren't as cut-and-dried as even this article makes out: Studies have shown that wearing a helmet increases your chance of having an accident in the first place:<p><a href="http://psychcentral.com/news/archives/2006-09/uob-wah091106.html" rel="nofollow">http://psychcentral.com/news/archives/2006-09/uob-wah091106....</a><p>So you may improve your chances of not getting injured, but you also increase your chances of an accident in the first place.<p>It's nice to think it's as simple as "X is safer than Y" but matters are rarely that cut &#38; dried..

In California, I would never ride a bike or ski without a helmet. The roads and slopes are now too crowded with people not paying attention to their surroundings.<p>Somehow, the skiing (and boarding) industry has made helmets a fashion statement. Almost everyone wears one.<p>The cycling industry just needs to make wearing a helmet cool.

A friend of mine died a couple years ago from a bicycle accident with a car. He suffered a head injury and was not wearing a helmet. There is no logical argument that would ever make me support riding without a helmet, despite how much fun it is.

while, I totally agree with jdietrich's fact based approach to the discussion, I have ton's of personal experience in the area. Helmets were optional for me growing up, though I often deferred to wear one riding on city streets, racing mountain/XC, riding downhill in Vail and the Olympic Mountains, and riding biketrials extensively. Separately, but also connected had many years of interstate motorcycle riding experience.<p>I commute by bicycle to work in NYC daily. I feel safer riding here than any other city I have ridden in, because the traffic knows how to deal with bicyclists. (This backs jdietrich's claim that 'more cyclist on the road' == 'safer riding conditions for cyclists in traffic'.) Personally, bicycle dedicated lanes and separate bike lanes, increase my already overwhelming comfort riding in this city, because they eliminate a major variable that is out of my control, being hit from behind.<p>I have been in dozens of really bad crashes on trails, closed courses and even streets, and only hit my head once. It is my experience that while a helmet won't save you from a car going 50mph, you stand a better chance of surviving when your head makes a 'light tap' on the pavement below you. That one time I hit my head is when I realized the human skull moving at <i>any</i> speed is the equivalent of cantaloupe; soft and rip, waiting to be cracked open to reveal it's juicy insides. From that point forth, I unconditionally wear a helmet. There is no question bicyclist wearing helmets in particular types of collisions will fair better than their helmet-less counter part. Also I have done some really crazy stupid stuff on a bike, but I am not more inclined to do so with a helmet on versus off. In fact, I usually forget I have it on at all. I should add, no amount of safety gear will save you if you or someone else who makes contact with you does something really stupid.<p><a href="http://www.helmets.org/stats.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.helmets.org/stats.htm</a><p>Also, there is also no question motorcyclists fair better with a helmet.<p>TL;DR I don't ride more boldly with a helmet on. Helmets are a safer way to ride, and cities with lots of bicyclist are better at dealing with cyclist in traffic.

I, for one, would like at least the possibility to get a helmet when short-renting a Velib in Paris, even if I would probably not wear it.<p>Oh and using headphones on bike should be forbidden (if it's already the case, people do not seem to know or care).

I am a physician, and was surprised by the NY Times article. Here is a review of older literature you might find helpful:<p><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=10796827" rel="nofollow">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=10796827</a>

What would make sense is making helmets mandatory for road bikes, cyclocross bikes, mountain bikes and touring bikes. All other bikes aren't really designed for speed or unsafe maneuvers and therefore shouldn't require helmets.

good points raised in there, instead of promoting the use of helmets city officials should establish more lanes for cyclists. and just on a side note, taking the bike to work everyday is arguably the best workout available.

Nice to see some data-driven policy making!

I have a strong opinion on this issue: I see mandatory helmet laws as an example of democratic discrimination. Helmet legislation is driven and either directly or tacitly supported/ignored by non-cyclist politicians and voters, with little if any polling of cyclist preferences. While mandatory helmet laws are widely disliked by cyclists, their minority position makes resistance difficult. And your average car-driving helmet-law-supporting/ignoring citizen is dismissive of the right to autonomy of cyclists. As a counterexample, there are many things that could be done to improve the safety of cars - helmets, four-point harnesses, backwards-facing seats, engine speed-limiters, alcohol-sensing engine locks, and of course (possible soon) a mandatory full switch to self-driving cars. However, any attempts to introduce such sensible measures will be shot down immediately by a ferocious counter-reaction. The basic logic is that car drivers will not accept intrusive safety measures simply because a) they do not feel or wish to be made to feel unsafe (regardless of statistics) and b) they do not wish to compromise their "feeling of driving." But car drivers are perfectly happy dictating to cyclists that they have no choice in accepting an intrusive safety measure which compromises their "feeling of riding" - anyone who has tried it knows that biking is not biking without the feeling of wind blowing through your hair. It sounds trivial but it makes a massive difference - the typical reaction of car drivers to this point is to snort and say "yeah right" - the hypocrisy is revealed if you make any suggestions about implementing the previous safety measures.<p>This democratic bullying seems to go hand in hand with a more nasty attitude of drivers to cyclists in general. In my town in New Zealand, if I ride without a helmet for even a short distance I can expect to be verbally abused by car-driving members of the public. In particular, young men will shout random abuse at me - that's not all that bad, the worst is older baby boomer generation men, who will actually slow down beside me and, bristling with anger, yell at me asking where my helmet is. These reactions confuse me. I do not roam around on my bike looking for drivers not wearing seatbelts and try and ride up to them and hammer their windows and yell abuse. Even if this was possible, I wouldn't have any interest in doing so. If you want to wear a seatbelt or not is up to you. You can do so with full knowledge of the risks of a police fine or injury in an accident if you wish. Similarly, why should drivers feel upset and compelled to accost me if I choose not to wear a helmet? I do so in the full knowledge of the risk of a police fine and an injury in an accident. That is my business, so why do they feel the need to confront me? And why do my personal choices seem to make them so angry?<p>The answer is simple. Our road culture is aggressive, impatient and me vs. them. I am sure the drivers in my town are by no means the worst in the world, but still, there is an atmosphere of confrontation that permeates driving here. People are in a hurry to get where they are going, and everyone else on the roads is an enemy. Unsurprisingly men are the worst offenders. And cyclists are the easiest targets: fragile, wobbly, slow, unable to protect themselves, uninsulated from abuse, unable to outmaneuever or escape an angry car-driver, above all out of place, they become a focal point, the easy targets, for all the aggression of an aggressive road culture. The helmet law is in my mind just a manifestation of this power-imbalance and a focus for the tension it generates. It does not surprise me that most helmet laws seem to have arisen as urbanisation and car use and speeds intensified, i.e. as the dominance of a break-neck pace car culture became cemented. Instead of trying to soften road culture and build cities which work for all different modes of transport, we have a helmet law and some glass and gravel-strewn cycleways wedged between parked cars and roaring traffic flows. How anyone would feel comfortable and happy cycling in this environment is anyone's guess, but what is for sure is that the helmet law at best accomplishes little to nothing and at worst is a dangerous red herring, distracting energy and attention from addressing much harder and more critical problems of culture and infrastructure.<p>I have nothing against helmets as safety devices and I think they should be worn. However I think making it a law, and making adult cyclists who wish to ride bare-headed the free subject of assault from members of the public (not to mention the police) accomplishes nothing more than aggravating a combative cyclists vs car-driver culture.