Are they really safer? Mikael Colville-Andersen gives a TED talk on the subject:
Sarah, December 3rd, 2010 at 10:45 am:
That’s why I don’t wear one…
crazycommutingcyclist, December 6th, 2010 at 9:48 am:
I understand that we live in a society that promotes fear. Look at all we have added to the automobile since the 1950; seatbelts , airbags, plastic parts that absorb impacts and disperse the energy by shattering . All that in the name of safety of the driver and passengers. Bicycle helmets are also apart of placing fear in the rider to wear on because it is dangerous, and it is working. Now a days most of the club outing require helmets in order to participate on the ride. With my Ride of Silence I too have a helmet clause in order to participate in the event. But is cycling that dangerous?
I remember riding my bike around the streets as a kid without a helmet, now that has changed. Back then there were no helmets to wear except for the motorcycle helmet which were too costly and heavy. But today you have a large array of inexpensive helmets to choose from. So why do I choose to wear a helmet. With all the static’s that I have seen split down the middle on weather the helmet lives up to the expectation? I guess I would rather take the chance that the helmet does help in saving lives than it doesn’t.
And what about the stat that you are 14% more at risk of a head injury with a helmet than without? Consider this; if you perceive that you are invincible would you take more risks than would as a normal human? For most the answer is yes. So I would guess that those who wear helmets are more likely to take an additional risk in their bicycling than those who don’t. There for they tend to get in bigger crashes that result in more head injuries than the non-helmeted people.
Helmets are a choice for rider and should always be a choice. I just chose to wear a helmet. Beside it is a great place to put an extra light on as well as Christmas lights for the season.
Eric Larsson, December 6th, 2010 at 10:40 am:
It’s an argument- but it’s a logically flawed argument. Of course logically flawed arguments are very persuasive when nicely presented.
Dan McGarvey, May 13th, 2011 at 9:15 am:
Here’s a related message that I just sent to PeopleForBikes.org.
To Whom It May Concern:
The new People for Bikes video is enjoyable and very well produced. You are doing good work and I thank you for that.
I was surprised and disappointed that none of the riders in the video were wearing helmets. Given the high production value of the video, I’m sure this was a conscious decision. I wonder what your logic is/was? Does it have anything to do with Mikael Colville-Andersen (the famous TED lecture)? I sincerely hope not. Here’s a little food for thought.
I ride >5000 miles every year, and every one of them is with a helmet on my head. Last year I was in a very ugly bike crash. It was by my own hand: riding at 35+ mph in a race group on a flat, open road. No cars were involved (though many did pull over to assist after the crash). I shattered teeth, broke my nose, and ripped enough skin off my face that a plastic surgeon had to put me back together. I also crushed my helmet and sustained a mild concussion. Clearly, without
my helmet, my injuries may have been worse – perhaps fatal.
Now, most cyclists do not ride in such risky environments. The sorts of commuters that Colville-Andersen talks about are at much less risk of an injury. Nevertheless, anytime someone gets on a bike, they are exposing themselves to elevated risk (that has nothing to do with cars and everything to do with physics) and they should understand that. Here are (some of) the key flaws in Colville-Andersen’s logic.
1.) Colville-Andersen suggests that wearing helmets (or any type of safety gear) is the proverbial “slippery slope”. Yes, placing helmets on children who are playing in their yard or living room is silly. Similarly, placing helmets on pedestrians, or even joggers, would be silly. The reason stems from simple, basic physics. If you are walking and you trip, you cannot generate enough force in the fall to seriously hurt yourself. Yes, you may sprain your wrist and if you are very unlucky, you may strike your head on a hard object, such as a curb or rock. But keep in mind that when you fall, your body will become a simple lever: your feet will be the fulcrum (i.e., pivot
point) and most of the force of your fall will be at your head. Because a walker isn’t moving very fast (velocity is one part of the
equation in calculating force) and he/she is probably no more than 5.5-6.5 feet tall (height determines the radius of the arc that you will fall in and therefore affects the centrifugal force that you can generate), they aren’t really at risk of hitting the ground all that hard. If you are sprinting and fall, the force of impact will be greater, but it’s still not going to be enough to put you in a
dramatically higher risk category – not even if you’re Jesse Owens.
A bike is an entirely different story. This is a critical point that Colville-Andersen leaves out. When you are a riding a bike, you are using a machine (albeit a simple, non-carbon emitting one) that was created for the express purpose of transporting people between locations more quickly than they can walk or run. The bike is a wonderfully efficient tool for this. But it also changes the physics of a fall. On a bike, you are moving faster than you possibly could on foot. Your velocity is therefore greater and, consequently, the force that you will generate in a fall is greater. You are also slightly elevated and your fulcrum has shifted (it is now between your abdomen and your tush, instead of your feet). Together, these factors
mean that you can hit the ground MUCH FASTER and MUCH HARDER than you ever could on foot. You don’t have to be racing to seriously hurt yourself on a bike. Again, this is basic middle-school physics – no rhetoric necessary.
If the issue here revolved around cyclists wearing the full body armor that some BMX and technical mountain bikers wear, I would concede that Colville-Andersen has a point. But a bike helmet is (as Colville-Andersen points out) a minimal investment in safety. It may not save your ass in bad crash. (Just look at poor Wouter Weyland, killed three days ago in the Giro d’Italia.) But given that most of the force in a crash will be transmitted to your head, a helmet really
strikes me as a sensible “minimal investment” in your own safety. Importantly, I felt this way long before one of my helmets actually
had to do its job and give up its ghost for me.
2.) Mikael Colville-Anderse cites some scientific data to show that bike helmets may not actually be all that effective (e.g., they don’t protect from a side-impact and they’re tested in “pedestrian” circumstances, rather than real cycling simulations/environments). He may or may not be correct here – I haven’t seen the data. But regardless, it’s illogical to go from the observation that bike helmets have design flaws to the proposition that cyclists would be better off without them. I mean illogical in the most literal sense here (if you ever took a philosophy class in Logic and Critical Reasoning). It’s a “red herring”. Total rhetoric. Pure hogwash.
The only way Mikael Colville-Anderse’s argument could be logically correct is if helmet manufacturers GUARANTEED that wearing a helmet would prevent head injury. . .and they famously do no such thing.
3.) Mikael Colville-Anderse suggests that if helmets are so wonderful, why don’t car drivers have to wear them? This gets back to
the slippery slope. Yes, I’m sure drivers would be safer if they wore helmets. And I suppose there are any myriad number of reasons why they don’t. But that’s really not relevant here. To say that “they
(car drivers) don’t have to wear helmets so why should we (cyclists) have to?” is worse than bad rhetoric – it’s downright infantile.
Consider power tools: drills, saws, etc. They make life easier in sooo many ways. And for a long time, it has been a generally accepted
practice to wear the appropriate safety equipment when using them. Notably, this does not entail anything akin to body armor. Usually just plastic safety goggles and gloves. In a bad accident, these basic protection devices cannot guarantee that you won’t be hurt. But what rationale person would cite that as a reason why they are not
going to wear/use them? Drivers do all sorts of stupid or irrational things while they are in their cars. So why on Earth would cyclists
knowingly choose to adopt their safety habits (or lack thereof)?
4.) Mikael Colville-Anderse claims that bike helmets are part of a malicious auto industry scheme to keep people from riding bikes. I
can’t really speak to this. Like all good conspiracy theories, it is hard to imagine a fair, level playing field for debating the pros and cons of this argument. Even so, Mikael Colville-Anderse bases most of
his argument on some gross abuses of statistics. (Yes, almost everybody manipulates statistics to further their argument, but that doesn’t make it right.) For example, he cites a correlation between
increased promotion of bike helmets and decreasing use or sales of bikes. As a mechanism to explain this, he asserts that bike helmets induce fear and as a result, people turn away from bikes. Importantly, he doesn’t claim to have any real data to prove that his interpretation is correct. So it’s nothing more than that: his own personal interpretation. Rattling off a few books (he kicks around a few quotes on one slide) on the topic of “fear” in no way proves that his own interpretation is correct. Perhaps it is plausible (though I doubt it). But it is not proven, and I hope that you can see this.
I’ll end on this point: riding a bike does entail risk. Even in a 100% car-free environment. People will occasionally fall or crash, and they will sometimes be hurt. Wearing a helmet gives you some measure of protection against severe head injury. We don’t need to be able to quantify that measure of protection to at least acknowledge that in a fall, you’re better off with a helmet on your head. It is irresponsible to tell cyclists and/or potential cyclists otherwise.
Clearly, many cyclists acknowledge the risks and choose to ride anyway. I am only one of many.
Mikael Colville-Anderse is a wonderful advocate for cycling and cyclists, but he does cyclists a disservice when he spreads the notion that cycling can ever be a truly RISK-FREE activity. For the basic
reasons I have discussed above, this is impossible. Mikael Colville-Anderse is prepared to place cyclists at greater risk in
order to advance his own interests, and therein lies the great and unfortunate irony. Yes, I happen to share most of his long-term
goals, but I can argue for my rights as a cyclist without invoking flawed, sensationalistic arguments. I acknowledge the risks of riding. I have rationally decided that those risks are acceptable,
given the benefits I receive from cycling. And this is the healthiest, most informed position that any rider can have.
Of course, your decision not to use helmets in the video may have nothing to do with Mikael Colville-Anderse. A lot of my “hipster”
friends love to cite Mikael Colville-Anderse as the reason why they don’t wear helmets. But we all know this is bullshit; these folks
were not wearing helmets long before Mikael Colville-Anderse began to spread his message. In a few instances, these same friends have
admitted that their choice not to wear a helmet really has more to do with image and vanity. Helmets don’t look so good with trendy
outfits. I really hope this wasn’t the root of your decision when filming the video. . .
You folks keep up the good work. But please don’t take the helmet issue lightly.
Sarah Rain, May 13th, 2011 at 4:53 pm:
Dan: As you said, many cyclists don’t ride in such risky environments as you. I commute by bike at slow speeds and it’s incredibly unlikely that I’d fall due to a skid or road conditions. (And if I were hit by a car a helmet would be unlikely to do me much good.) Wearing a helmet that is tightened properly (many riders leave the straps so loose that the helmet would be worthless in a crash) is extremely uncomfortable to me and when I can feel the straps on my neck, it makes me hesitate to turn my head as much, probably making an accident more likely. Plus there’s the small but believable research that shows that cars give helmet-less cyclists a wider berth, and the even more compelling safety-in-numbers research that suggests that getting more people to consider biking a normal, everyday way to go about their business is the best way to increase all of our safety.
I, personally, feel safer without a helmet. Other people ride in different circumstances or make different risk assessments, and that’s fine. (I’d wear a helmet if I were racing.) But I do wish the helmet zealots would keep their opinions to themselves unless asked about their choice. Unlike motorcycle helmets, bike helmet statistics are not so compelling that their utility is proven. I wish they’d accept that there are different ways to interpret the research and stop hassling those of us who choose to go without.
Issiyo, June 14th, 2011 at 4:14 pm:
I’m 6’4″. I always wear a helmet, if for no other reason than that I frequently will hit tree branches.
jessica, July 29th, 2011 at 5:37 am:
I think bike helmets are important and should be worn at all times when cycling, I found a great website called http://www.cyclexpress.co.uk and they hold a fantastic range of bike helmets for adults and kids!
Brian, August 2nd, 2011 at 4:38 pm:
Two people died in the Rochester area this summer from being hit by a vehicle while riding bikes.
Both of those people were not wearing helmets. They died from Traumatic Brain Injuries.
Would a helmet help? I think that the data for supporting that helmets work is out there, but it is just not being collected properly.
As the other people have commented, you have to think about branches too. When I bike I wear sunglasses and a helmet…I know for a fact that the helmet (and glasses) have protected me from scratches.
Thanks for posting the video though!
Brian and BikeRoch.com
8 comments to “A TED talk on bicycle helmets”