Comments on: Free Bike Helmets for Delivery Workers Today

By: Gelston

Gelston — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 04:20:01 +0000

They should also offer them face masks, since pollution is a constant and unambiguous health hazard. The sight of all these cyclists with masks and helmets should send a message about the state of our streets that can only help reverse the tide.

By: Ian Turner

Ian Turner — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 02:08:31 +0000

Dan,

The main thing is that reducing the number of cyclists makes the road less safe for all cyclists. This “safety in numbers” phenomenon has been well documented (*) and even measured — doubling the number of cyclists on the road decreases the chance of an individual cyclist getting in an accident by around 30%.

Since it has likewise been well documented that mandatory helmet laws reduce cycling by as much as a third, the overall safety benefits of such laws are highly questionable. Furthermore, the health benefits of cycling outweigh the safety risks by as much as 20 to 1 (***), so any policy that reduces the number of cyclists in the name of health is clearly misguided.

Mandatory helmets make some sense in the context of people who will cycle in any case, such as delivery workers and bike messengers. But the public health implications of widespread mandatory helmet use appear to be negative and indefensible. (***) Finally, bicycling is in fact safer than driving and walking (****), so it’s not at all clear why it should get special treatment as a mode with respect to helmet use.

(*) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=retrieve&db=pubmed&list_uids=10868762&dopt=Abstract
(**) http://ip.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/7/4/343-a
(***) http://ip.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/7/4/343-a
(****) http://www.magma.ca/~ocbc/comparat.html/ped

By: Steve

Steve — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 23:41:19 +0000

Giving these guys helmets like giving condoms to prostitutes. We call it public health. DoT is giving out free helmets to people who bicycle for a living and often get paid dirt, and who in many cases are at risk while bicycling because they never received any formal driving or bicycling instruction and can’t understand English. Who can oppose that?

By: Dan

Dan — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 22:08:08 +0000

Wow. Sorry to leave a negative post and clash with the fuck the man attitude, but I have to say, the comments to this post are a tad ridiculous. To the argument that having to wear a helmet will discourage people from riding, I say good, keep the idiots off the roads. I thought it was incredibly stupid when motorcyclists refused to wear helmets, and I think it’s just silly that so many cyclists don’t. But I guess maybe it is be worth it to look cool on a bike 364 days of the year if you only have to die once.

I also really disagree with arguments that amount to ‘This isn’t the best thing to do, so lets argue against anything else at all getting done.’ That results in nothing getting done. Fritz’s point is the most sensible. I say go for it! make it an issue. Unfortunately I couldn’t ever see it going anywhere, but requiring cyclists to wear helmets isn’t such a bad idea.

Last: This isn’t the only thing the city’s trying to do. Not saying the city’s run by angels, but I support any measures toward greater bicycle safety in NYC.

By: Fritz

Fritz — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 18:31:04 +0000

Seems like a similar poster should be created for motorists.

Given that head injuries inside motor vehicles vastly outnumbers head injuries among cyclists, I think we should mandate helmet use for car drivers.

By: v

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 16:19:21 +0000

check out that poster – welcome to the police state. what with the employer id etc, looks like dot is getting kickbacks from the minutemen.

By: Zam

Zam — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 15:09:10 +0000

To me, this looks like city government saying: “Sorry, NYC cyclists. We’re not going to do much of anything to protect you with physically-separated bicycling infrastructure (a la Copenhagen), so here, take this helmet. Protect yourself.”

Sorry to bust up the feel-good vibes around the bike helmet give-away but I think it’s utterly lame. I doubt that Bogota, Amsterdam, Copenhagen , Berlin or any other great biking cities have ever done helmet give-aways.

Armor up, folks!

By: cmu

cmu — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 14:32:14 +0000

Just as with the proliferation of draconian anti-smoking laws, guess it’ll only be a matter of time before helmets are mandated for all of us.

Getting the average person to use a cycle is hard enough; as experience in Australia and other countries shows, cycling drops when helmets are compulsory.