RE: Hug your kids; remind them to wear helmets

[kathybrj]

 DiW
We all wear helmets in our family, regardless of age. This is an extremely important message that everybody should really listen to.
 
 Too many of us think, " well, I didn t wear one as a kid and I m ok....." . Yeah, and those of us still around are the lucky ones. There were far too many that weren t that lucky.
 
 It s an inexpensive piece of insurance.

[AustinBoston]

 DiW
Every major study on helmets (except one) has shown that they make very little difference.
 
 The one study (which supposedly showed the oft-quoted 85% number) was so flawed and so harshly criticized that the team that conducted the study repeated it, while adressing many of the concerns of the critics.  Their conclusion was that bicycle helmets reduce cosmetic injuries, but do little or nothing for serious head injuries.  Whatever they do to reduce serious head injuries is likely offset by the increase in serious neck injuries aparrently caused by the helmets.
 
 The real problem with bicycle helmets is they create a false impression that bicycling is unsafe.  Bike riding, when done properly, has about half the rate of serious head injury as riding in a car.  Cars are twice as dangerous as bikes, but no one is suggesting that we need helmets for our kids while in cars, where they would do more good.
 
 If you really want to improve bicycle safety, try these:
 
 Almost all cyclists injured in car-bike accidents were doing something illegal.
 
 72% of bicyclists that are injured were riding after dark without lights.  Since 85%-90% of riding is done in the daytime, it is clear that riding at night without lights really is dangerous.  Reflectors don t work because 1) they get lost in the sea of reflectors and headlights at night and 2) the placement of the cyclist and the headlights of the car insure they are invisible at the most important point, when a cyclist is approaching an intersection.  All states require cyclists to use a headligt at night, and many require a tail light as well.  Headlights of less than 15 watts are generally considered inadequate by most serious riders.  The headlights you can get at Wallmart or Target are on the order of 1-3 watts, so you need 5 to 15 of them to be bright enough.  If you or your child must ride at night, it is far more important for them to have a $75 headlight than a $20 helmet.
 
 Ride WITH traffic.  Wrong-way riders think they are safer being able to see approaching traffic, and/or because they are afraid of a rear-end collision.  But very few bike-car accidents involve a car hitting a bike from behind (something like 2-3%).  The rest (97-98%) involve intersections (or swiping accidents...more on this later).  The problem with wrong-way riding is that the bike is ALWAYS in a place where no one is looking for it when approaching an intersection.  Think about it...when turning left, do you look back over your left shoulder in case a bike is coming the wrong way (behind you)?  When turning right, do you watch for traffic on the left, or on the right?  That glance to the right is to check for a pedestrian 5-6 feet from your car, not a cyclist 30-50 feet from your car.  In every case, the wrong-way cyclist is in the place where no one will see him...until it s too late.
 
 An additional problem with wrong-way riding is closing speed.  If the cyclist is travelling 15 MPH and traffic is travelling 35 MPH, then a wrong-way cyclist is approaching traffic at 50 MPH!  At this point, the foam hat is worthless.  When riding on the correct side of the street, the approach speed would be 20 MPH.  The car driver has several times as long to react, and only needs to slow by 20 MPH to avoid collision.  In a wrong-way situation, even if the car comes to a complete stop, there could still be a collision because the bike is still moving (bikes take longer to stop than cars)!
 
 Ride in the street.  Riders who are faster than about 10 MPH (which includes almost all riders over about 10 years old) are safer riding in the street than on a sidewalk.  Car drivers perceive everything in the sidewalk (including cyclists) to be travelling at pedestrian speed.  They will cut in front of a cyclist only to discover that the cyclist is in front of them.  In addition, cars backing out of driveways don t look more than 5-10 feet down the sidewalk.  Their attention is on the road, not on a bicycle 30 feet down the sidewalk.  But a cyclist travelling 15 MPH will cover that distance in less than two seconds.  Result? A broken body and a motorist saying " I never even saw him."
 
 A word of caution...riding in the street does take some training.  Children (who do not understand basic rules of the road) should not be just " turned loose"  on the street.  A well-known and widely available reference on this is " Effective Cycling"  by John Forrester.  I believe it is out of print, but it should be available at your local library.  Another resource is to take (with your kids) a RideSafe course.  They will go through proper techniques for riding on the road, and can help you decide whether your child is ready for road riding or not.
 
 Ride in the lane.  This is, in part, an extension of " ride in the street."   Riders who hug the curb do not have the same level of visibility as one that rides 2-3 feet out from the curb (in the regular travel lane), and are actually more likely to be sideswiped by a car.  Passing car drivers tend to give a cyclist as much room as he gives himself.  If he gives himself 6 inches, they will squeeze by 6 inches from his handlebar...whithout slowing down.  But if he gives himself 2-3 feet, the car driver is likely to change lanes to pass, providing 3-6 feet of clearance.  I did not believe this until I tried it.  Now I am shocked at how much risk I accepted because I thought riding as far to the right as possible was safer.
 
 Wear a helmet if you want.  Wear one if it s the law.  But don t delude yourself into thinking the helmet makes bicycling safe.  Bicycle safety is much, much more dependent on proper technique and obeying the law than on a styrofoam hat.
 
 Austin

[Viking99]

 DiW
As a person who bike commutes to work and rides in excess of over 150 miles per week, I agree with all that Austin has said.
 
  I would just like to add that riding a bike tends to become routine for many people. You always need to be aware of your surroundings. Never assume a person in a car sees you. I have looked directly in the eyes of a driver to only have that driver pull right out in front of me.
 
 One other note, I could go either way on the helmet thing. I wear one. I know that in a serious accident it will probably not do much to help me. I wear it for those little bumps and wrecks that may cause me to fall over or wipe out. In that case having a cracked helmet is better then a cracked head.

[Camperroo]

 DiW
Yes to helmets at all times.  
 
 Our town had built the kids a beautiful skateboard park because they were griping all the time that there was no place to do it and the older people were yelling at them for skating on stairs and rails downtown!!  gee go figure!....Anyway, town spent a small fortune building a beautiful skateboard park for them...the one big rule was helmets at all times as it was built with concrete ramps, etc.  Well here went the kids, wore them for awhile, then started with this lovely " you re taking away my rights"  by forcing me to wear a helmet talk.  Well the town said no helmets, no skateboarding.  Then they decided there should be someone to monitor the park to enforce the helmet rule and only allow the kids in who had them...but all of a sudden all those kids whose parents were screaming for " a safe place for the kids to skateboard"  were suddenly invisible when asked to volunteer a few hours a day at the park to monitor the kids for safety and helmets.  The park has sat closed and empty for at leave 4 months now because the town will not be held responsible for some child ruining their life by cracking their head open because they refused to wear a helmet!   These kids have ruined it for themselves by not realizing that enforcing a helmet rule is not to take away their rights but rather to protect their future.  Head injuries are serious business.
 
 I m so sorry for that family s loss.

[AustinBoston]

 Camperroo
I meant to add one thing.
 
 Helmets may not do any good, but probably don t do any harm either, except in very specific circumstances.
 
 However, helmet laws will kill far more people than helmets will ever save.
 
 WHAT?
 
 Yes.
 
 Everywhere helmet laws are enforced, bicycle ridership decreases significantly.  Even if helmets were 100% effective, they would only save 1 in 1,000 cyclists, because the other 999 would never have recieved a serious head injury in their entire lives.  But because people stop riding, they gain weight, reduce cardiovascular fitness, increase their risk of diabetes, and a host of other weight related problems.
 
 At least one on three cyclists who stops riding because of a helmet law will die of a disease where regular excercise could have reduced the risk.
 
 One saved head, 333 dead non-cyclists.  Not good odds.
 
 Austin

[Giffster]

 AustinBoston
Times have changed for sure.  I remember tearing through the woods on my bike...no helmet and no worries.  Bummer about the kid and the family loss.  Seems kids are abit sheltered these days.  Not sure if the helmet would have prevented the injury.
 
 Guess it s a good thing I never had kids.

[B-flat]

 DiW
Wow! My head is getting sore from reading all the statistics on bike helmets.  We didn t have those things when I was growing up.[: (]

[kathybrj]

 DiW
" At least one on three cyclists who stops riding because of a helmet law will die of a disease where regular excercise could have reduced the risk. "
 
 Ok, sorry, but that, right there is a matter of personal responsibility. Seems like, if they stop riding just because of a helmet law, they weren t really going to be commited to keep riding and doing themselves any good anyway.
 
 Maybe their coffee from McDonald s was too hot too.....
 

[birol]

 kathybrj

 

ORIGINAL:  kathybrj
 
 " At least one on three cyclists who stops riding because of a helmet law will die of a disease where regular excercise could have reduced the risk. "
 
 Ok, sorry, but that, right there is a matter of personal responsibility. Seems like, if they stop riding just because of a helmet law, they weren t really going to be commited to keep riding and doing themselves any good anyway.
 
 Maybe their coffee from McDonald s was too hot too.....
 
 

 I agree with AB, but I also agree with Kathy ....... Are you guys becoming a nation of living with excuses ? What happened to Commen sense ?