Why are there no safety rules regarding children on bikes?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The vast majority of bicycling injuries and deaths under the age of 20 could be prevented by wearing a helmet. Yet I routinely see children on bikes or, even worse, ebikes with no helmets.

"An average of 247 traumatic brain injury deaths and 140,000 head injuries among children and adolescents younger than 20 years were related to bicycle crashes each year in the United States. As many as 184 deaths and 116,000 head injuries might have been prevented annually if these riders had worn helmets. An additional 19,000 mouth and chin injuries were treated each year."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8909479/

I wear a helmet and my kids wear helmets (so far). I also wonder how many of those injuries would be prevented if someone didn't drive into them.

100 percent of them would be avoided if parents didn't put their kids in harm's way.

Do you also not let your kids swim or bathe? Think of the drowning risk!

I'm confused.

I thought you said the roads of D.C. are incredibly dangerous because everyone is going 70 mph and no one obeys any traffic rules and drivers are complete sociopaths with no regard for human life and police don't enforce anything and it's all just a complete free for all.

Now, you're telling me that allowing children to venture into all of that is no more dangerous than taking a bath?

The answer is that when bicyclists want the city to radically increase congestion and spend a bajillion dollars on bike lanes, then the streets are extremely dangerous.

But when bicyclists want to take their three year old on their bike for whatever reason, then the streets are not dangerous at all.

Or, possibly, not all bicyclists think exactly alike, and different people are making different arguments in response to different situations. Personally, I always wear a helmet when I ride, as do my kids, and I'd also like the streets to be safer for them and for me. I don't find the arguments against helmet laws persuasive, though I understand that there are some, and I'm fine with increased enforcement there. But I also think you'd improve overall safety more with increased enforcement of car traffic laws.

Yeah, I wear a helmet 99.9% of the time - i.e., whenever I reasonably can. But passing a law that says I am legally required means that when I judge it's ok not to I'm dissuaded from doing so. What if it's a short/safe ride on a CaBi and I don't have a helmet available?

I can't believe bikers aren't required to wear helmets

Motorcyclists are required to wear helmets. The speed limit in the city is 25 MPH. E-bikes can go 25 MPH with the electric motor alone. The current status of law is nonsensical.

The vast majority of bicycling injuries and deaths under the age of 20 could be prevented by wearing a helmet. Yet I routinely see children on bikes or, even worse, ebikes with no helmets.

"An average of 247 traumatic brain injury deaths and 140,000 head injuries among children and adolescents younger than 20 years were related to bicycle crashes each year in the United States. As many as 184 deaths and 116,000 head injuries might have been prevented annually if these riders had worn helmets. An additional 19,000 mouth and chin injuries were treated each year."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8909479/

where do you routinely see this? DC? I almost never see bikers without helmets, of any age.

I’ve never seen a single CaBi user wearing a helmet.

CaBinis also pretty low risk. Those are slow upright bikes. It's not like they're racing with clipped in pedals.

And…? This is an irrelevant point to whether or not someone never sees someone wearing a helmet.

It's relevant if you care about the risk of head injury. Do you ask if pedestrians wear helmets?

In the Netherlands, a study found that at speeds below 15 MPH in normal traffic conditions, helmets significantly reduced the risk of traumatic brain injury. Do you have any other b.s. that you would like to peddle?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8240888/

Let's get the same level of traffic safety here that we have in the Netherlands before you try to make comparisons

So if the U.S. has even less traffic safety, then that would make the case stronger for helmets. I’m not sure that you are thinking this through chief.

Helmets are designed to mitigate injury from a fall — not being run over by a 4000 pound car.

This. They're not even designed for falling off of a bike at speed. For kids just learning to bike, who fall a lot at low speed, they provide significant protection. For experienced cyclists the benefits are way oversold. Researchers have been trying to find proof of the efficacy of bike helmets for decades and it has proven to be elusive. The statistical benefits of seatbelt use are so readily apparent that there was a great desire to find the same kind of benefit with helmets, but it's just not there.*

Note that in the study out of the Netherlands that is being bandied about researchers eliminated all cyclists from the study who were travelling faster than 25 KM/h (15 mph). They also found that among cyclists who had been hit by a car there was no correlation between helmet use and outcomes.

Helmets help slow cyclists who fall off their bike.

*(Something very similar happened with coffee. Sixty years ago, when researchers first started applying statistical methods they quickly found health risks associated with with smoking and alcohol use. They then turned their focus onto coffee, and have spent six decades trying to find the same sort of effect, fruitlessly).

It's incredible how intent you are on giving yourselves brain damage.

"wearing a helmet can reduce the force of a head impact during an accident occurring at 30 miles per hour to the force of a head impact occurring at 7 miles per hour"
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121002101532.htm

Contrary to your odd beliefs, wearing helmets are safer than not wearing helmets. It's funny that you mention tobacco, because the types of bizarre psuedo-scientific contrarianism you promote is exactly what the kinds of research the tobacco companies would fund to demonstrate that cigarettes are safe.

Science Daily isn't peer reviewed. If you dig into the literature on bike helmets you find that the more breathlessly a study promotes the benefits of helmet use, the more likely it is to be junk science.

The statement that a bike helmet "can reduce the force of a head impact during an accident occurring at 30 miles per hour to the fource of a head impact occurring at 7 miles per hour" just doesn't pass the laugh test when you look at the actual construction standards for bike helmets. All bicycle helmets sold in the US have to meet standards set by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. You can see them here:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/part-1203/subpart-A

The test standard is here:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/1203.12
The peak acceleration of any impact shall not exceed 300 g when the helmet is tested in accordance with § 1203.17 of this standard.

The test procedure is here:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/1203.17

Briefly, an 11-pound weight is strapped into the helmet and it is dropped from a height of 4.5 feet onto an anvil. This simulates the impact of a stationary cyclist falling over and hitting his head on the pavement or curbstone. In order to pass, the helmet has to limit the impact of the weight to 300g -- or 3300 pounds of force.

An impact at 300g is potentially fatal. To put that into perspective, race cars now have what are called "crash violence recording systems." The highest impact ever recorded that the driver survived is 214g, by Kenny Brock in 2003. "He suffered multiple fractures, breaking his sternum, femur, shattering a vertebra in his spine and crushing his ankles. He spent 18 months recovering from his injuries."


Look, I wear a helmet when I bike. But I don't delude myself into thinking that it provides a meaningful level of protection.

You don’t believe that helmets provide meaning protection? Yet you understand that you have no data or evidence to substantiate that? Even what you just posted indicates that helmets provide meaningful protection from head injuries and death. Your logic is missing a lot of steps, I recommend walking through it more times.

I wear a helmet when I bike, too, but I don't believe it'll make much difference if I'm hit by a car going 30 or 40 mph. But anyway, now you're arguing with someone who AGREES WITH YOUR POSITION ON HELMETS and wears them. Why do you care if they think it's pointless as long as they're doing it?

I don’t care about you personally or your safety. The general problem seems to be that you think everything is about you.

I take issue with what you are doing, which is spreading misinformation to confuse people on the efficacy of helmet use. It’s amoral and wrong.

(a) I'm a different poster than the other one (or two?)
(b) The poster you were replying to before wears a helmet. Surely seeing people out wearing helmets while they ride a bike has more influence than posting anything on an anonymous message board. Do people actually take life advice from threads about urban politics?

You apparently cannot read. Again, I don’t care about whether you personally or some other person wears a helmet. I care about the intentional and harmful spreading of misinformation about the efficacy of helmet use. You want to model good practice while encourage others to risk their own and their kids safety anonymously online? That makes you a pretty sick person.

No, I don't personally encourage anyone to risk their safety anonymously online. Obviously, there's no way to prove this, but I have posted here in favor of helmet mandates and questioned the existing research that shows they aren't effective or that helmets aren't effective. The two most recent cyclists killed in accidents near here were both run over by trucks; if I ever get run over by a truck, I'll be wearing a helmet, but I don't know that I'd expect to survive that crash. I will have better odds with a helmet on that without, though! If you think worrying about being killed on my bike even with a helmet on means I'm spreading misinformation, I don't know what to tell you. It's also misinformation to suggest that helmets prevent all injuries or deaths.

But yes, I do think that what people actually do is more important than whatever they say on an anonymous message board.

Thanks for confirming that you are a sick person.

I'm a sick person because I think that a truck could kill me even though I wear a helmet? OK.

No. You are a sick person for knowingly spreading misinformation anonymously online about the efficacy of helmet use.

[Anonymous]

Still repeatedly ignoring that street safety isn't just about kids on bikes.

[Anonymous]

I'm not interested in advancing the 'cause of biking', whatever that is. I am concerned that pushing helmet use for bicycling will result in less biking for kids.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The vast majority of bicycling injuries and deaths under the age of 20 could be prevented by wearing a helmet. Yet I routinely see children on bikes or, even worse, ebikes with no helmets.

"An average of 247 traumatic brain injury deaths and 140,000 head injuries among children and adolescents younger than 20 years were related to bicycle crashes each year in the United States. As many as 184 deaths and 116,000 head injuries might have been prevented annually if these riders had worn helmets. An additional 19,000 mouth and chin injuries were treated each year."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8909479/

I wear a helmet and my kids wear helmets (so far). I also wonder how many of those injuries would be prevented if someone didn't drive into them.

100 percent of them would be avoided if parents didn't put their kids in harm's way.

Do you also not let your kids swim or bathe? Think of the drowning risk!

I'm confused.

I thought you said the roads of D.C. are incredibly dangerous because everyone is going 70 mph and no one obeys any traffic rules and drivers are complete sociopaths with no regard for human life and police don't enforce anything and it's all just a complete free for all.

Now, you're telling me that allowing children to venture into all of that is no more dangerous than taking a bath?

The answer is that when bicyclists want the city to radically increase congestion and spend a bajillion dollars on bike lanes, then the streets are extremely dangerous.

But when bicyclists want to take their three year old on their bike for whatever reason, then the streets are not dangerous at all.

Addendum: The streets are also not dangerous when cyclists are asked why they aren't required to wear helmets.

So basically the fact that some bicyclists don't want to wear helmets or don't want to be required to wear helmets means there can be no road safety improvements for any bicyclists, even those of us who always wear helmets and always make sure our kids are wearing helmets. Got it.

+1

I’m a cyclist who ALSO judges people who don’t make their kids wear helmets (if an adult doesn’t want to wear one, that is their bad choice to make fir themselves).

I worry about kids who aren’t being protected while biking but since my own child wears a helmet and is very closely supervised while biking, the danger of cars doing illegal things is a much bigger deal to me. I see cars doing things that would kill a child on a bike who is wearing a helmet, every day. Driving 10-20 mph over the speed limit through residential neighborhoods. Making illegal turns without signaling. Blowing through lights and stop signs. Veering into other lanes or even into oncoming traffic suddenly and aggressively. These are behaviors I see from drivers DAILY in my residential neighborhood in NE DC that is full of families with kids on foot, scooters, bikes, and in cars.

I think all kids should wear helmets but when it comes to keeping kids safe, it’s clear to me that poorly enforced traffic laws and roads that support or encourage dangerous driving pose a much bigger threat, so that’s my focus. People on this board who concern troll about kids wearing helmets but then throw a giant fit when we suggest reducing traffic lanes or or installing traffic calming measures, or cutting into available parking or traffic lanes to widen sidewalks for pedestrians or installing protected bike lanes are playing a little game and I’m not interested.

If you actually care about child safety, you’d support measures to protect kids from being hit by cars, full stop. Not selectively get upset about the things parents could do to protect their kids while blowing down Florida Avenue doing 55mph and changing lanes and getting mad about the suggestion that we widen the currently narrow sidewalk and improve the bike lanes that are *terrifying* to ride down because you want to treat an urban street like a highway and have an allergy to using public transportation for your commute.

If the streets are that dangerous, why on earth are you allowing a child on a bike to venture into that?

"If we can't solve the whole problem all at once, why on earth are you trying to make it even slightly better?"

Person 1 (hyperventilating): The streets are death traps! They're soaked in blood!

Person 2: Ok, then why do you let your kids ride bikes there?

Person 1 (still hyperventilating): We're trying to make them eventually less death trap-y! We're pushing for changes that over time we hope will reduce the blood soakedness!

Person 2: Ok, well, in the meantime, why do you let your kids ride bikes there?

Person 1: (stops biking completely)

Person 2: "See! There's no demand!"

Person 2: Ok, so you deliberately put your children in life threatening situations because you think that will advance the cause of biking?

Everything has to be an absolute binary with you, apparently?

The streets can be both (a) far more dangerous than they should be and (b) still safe enough to let kids ride on them. I don't let my kids ride in the street on Connecticut or Wisconsin, but I do let them ride in the street or on the sidewalk, whichever they feel more comfortable on, in our neighborhood. It's not that cars don't run stop signs and speed in the neighborhood, but it's still significantly safer on the side streets than on the bigger ones.

You make similar risk judgements, I suspect: You drive your kids in the car, even though the risk of an accident is higher than it should be, and you probably let them swim in swimming pools, even though they could drown.

What most bike advocates here are saying is that there are steps we should take that would lower the risk -- not eliminate it. You seem to think that if we don't eliminate all risk, we're endangering our children by letting them use the streets at all. And yet you also oppose any steps to mitigate the risk short of "keep your kids off bikes."

If what you're really saying is "the current level of risk is acceptable because the tradeoff in convenience for drivers is not worth the proposed changes," that's a fine position to take (though one I disagree with). But then it seems a little much to also accuse anyone who wants to use the streets in the current, risk-unmitigated status quo of playing Russian roulette with their children's lives.

Person 2 here. The difference is that I don't go around trying to spread hysteria about the dangers of swimming and then turn around and ask my kids, "hey wanna go to the pool?"

People asking for bike lanes and traffic-calming measures aren't "trying to spread hysteria" about the dangers of biking. In this analogy, they'd be trying to make sure there are lifeguards before taking their kids to the pool.

If you've read any of this thread, you'll see cyclists make some pretty comical assertions, including:

1. Drivers routinely go 70 mph in the city (ha! i know -- it's literally impossible).
2. Drivers never stop at stop signs (wouldn't that be interesting, were it true?)
3. Drivers are crazed sociopaths who care nothing about human life (uh, what?)
4. Apparently drivers from Maryland and Virginia are even more crazed sociopaths (no clue)
5. No traffic laws are enforced, despite D.C.'s massive police force and ubiquitous traffic cameras, so it's a complete free for all out there.

AND YET:

Despite these Mad Max like conditions, cyclists have no problem allowing their children to bike on Fury Road. And despite these apparently desperate conditions, and the recommendations of doctors notwithstanding, they also don't think they should have to wear a helmet. Oh, and they don't want to have to stop at any stop signs either.

So you try to square that circle.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The vast majority of bicycling injuries and deaths under the age of 20 could be prevented by wearing a helmet. Yet I routinely see children on bikes or, even worse, ebikes with no helmets.

"An average of 247 traumatic brain injury deaths and 140,000 head injuries among children and adolescents younger than 20 years were related to bicycle crashes each year in the United States. As many as 184 deaths and 116,000 head injuries might have been prevented annually if these riders had worn helmets. An additional 19,000 mouth and chin injuries were treated each year."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8909479/

I wear a helmet and my kids wear helmets (so far). I also wonder how many of those injuries would be prevented if someone didn't drive into them.

100 percent of them would be avoided if parents didn't put their kids in harm's way.

Do you also not let your kids swim or bathe? Think of the drowning risk!

I'm confused.

I thought you said the roads of D.C. are incredibly dangerous because everyone is going 70 mph and no one obeys any traffic rules and drivers are complete sociopaths with no regard for human life and police don't enforce anything and it's all just a complete free for all.

Now, you're telling me that allowing children to venture into all of that is no more dangerous than taking a bath?

The answer is that when bicyclists want the city to radically increase congestion and spend a bajillion dollars on bike lanes, then the streets are extremely dangerous.

But when bicyclists want to take their three year old on their bike for whatever reason, then the streets are not dangerous at all.

Or, possibly, not all bicyclists think exactly alike, and different people are making different arguments in response to different situations. Personally, I always wear a helmet when I ride, as do my kids, and I'd also like the streets to be safer for them and for me. I don't find the arguments against helmet laws persuasive, though I understand that there are some, and I'm fine with increased enforcement there. But I also think you'd improve overall safety more with increased enforcement of car traffic laws.

Yeah, I wear a helmet 99.9% of the time - i.e., whenever I reasonably can. But passing a law that says I am legally required means that when I judge it's ok not to I'm dissuaded from doing so. What if it's a short/safe ride on a CaBi and I don't have a helmet available?

I can't believe bikers aren't required to wear helmets

Motorcyclists are required to wear helmets. The speed limit in the city is 25 MPH. E-bikes can go 25 MPH with the electric motor alone. The current status of law is nonsensical.

The vast majority of bicycling injuries and deaths under the age of 20 could be prevented by wearing a helmet. Yet I routinely see children on bikes or, even worse, ebikes with no helmets.

"An average of 247 traumatic brain injury deaths and 140,000 head injuries among children and adolescents younger than 20 years were related to bicycle crashes each year in the United States. As many as 184 deaths and 116,000 head injuries might have been prevented annually if these riders had worn helmets. An additional 19,000 mouth and chin injuries were treated each year."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8909479/

where do you routinely see this? DC? I almost never see bikers without helmets, of any age.

I’ve never seen a single CaBi user wearing a helmet.

CaBinis also pretty low risk. Those are slow upright bikes. It's not like they're racing with clipped in pedals.

And…? This is an irrelevant point to whether or not someone never sees someone wearing a helmet.

It's relevant if you care about the risk of head injury. Do you ask if pedestrians wear helmets?

In the Netherlands, a study found that at speeds below 15 MPH in normal traffic conditions, helmets significantly reduced the risk of traumatic brain injury. Do you have any other b.s. that you would like to peddle?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8240888/

Let's get the same level of traffic safety here that we have in the Netherlands before you try to make comparisons

So if the U.S. has even less traffic safety, then that would make the case stronger for helmets. I’m not sure that you are thinking this through chief.

Helmets are designed to mitigate injury from a fall — not being run over by a 4000 pound car.

This. They're not even designed for falling off of a bike at speed. For kids just learning to bike, who fall a lot at low speed, they provide significant protection. For experienced cyclists the benefits are way oversold. Researchers have been trying to find proof of the efficacy of bike helmets for decades and it has proven to be elusive. The statistical benefits of seatbelt use are so readily apparent that there was a great desire to find the same kind of benefit with helmets, but it's just not there.*

Note that in the study out of the Netherlands that is being bandied about researchers eliminated all cyclists from the study who were travelling faster than 25 KM/h (15 mph). They also found that among cyclists who had been hit by a car there was no correlation between helmet use and outcomes.

Helmets help slow cyclists who fall off their bike.

*(Something very similar happened with coffee. Sixty years ago, when researchers first started applying statistical methods they quickly found health risks associated with with smoking and alcohol use. They then turned their focus onto coffee, and have spent six decades trying to find the same sort of effect, fruitlessly).

It's incredible how intent you are on giving yourselves brain damage.

"wearing a helmet can reduce the force of a head impact during an accident occurring at 30 miles per hour to the force of a head impact occurring at 7 miles per hour"
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121002101532.htm

Contrary to your odd beliefs, wearing helmets are safer than not wearing helmets. It's funny that you mention tobacco, because the types of bizarre psuedo-scientific contrarianism you promote is exactly what the kinds of research the tobacco companies would fund to demonstrate that cigarettes are safe.

Science Daily isn't peer reviewed. If you dig into the literature on bike helmets you find that the more breathlessly a study promotes the benefits of helmet use, the more likely it is to be junk science.

The statement that a bike helmet "can reduce the force of a head impact during an accident occurring at 30 miles per hour to the fource of a head impact occurring at 7 miles per hour" just doesn't pass the laugh test when you look at the actual construction standards for bike helmets. All bicycle helmets sold in the US have to meet standards set by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. You can see them here:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/part-1203/subpart-A

The test standard is here:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/1203.12
The peak acceleration of any impact shall not exceed 300 g when the helmet is tested in accordance with § 1203.17 of this standard.

The test procedure is here:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/1203.17

Briefly, an 11-pound weight is strapped into the helmet and it is dropped from a height of 4.5 feet onto an anvil. This simulates the impact of a stationary cyclist falling over and hitting his head on the pavement or curbstone. In order to pass, the helmet has to limit the impact of the weight to 300g -- or 3300 pounds of force.

An impact at 300g is potentially fatal. To put that into perspective, race cars now have what are called "crash violence recording systems." The highest impact ever recorded that the driver survived is 214g, by Kenny Brock in 2003. "He suffered multiple fractures, breaking his sternum, femur, shattering a vertebra in his spine and crushing his ankles. He spent 18 months recovering from his injuries."


Look, I wear a helmet when I bike. But I don't delude myself into thinking that it provides a meaningful level of protection.

You don’t believe that helmets provide meaning protection? Yet you understand that you have no data or evidence to substantiate that? Even what you just posted indicates that helmets provide meaningful protection from head injuries and death. Your logic is missing a lot of steps, I recommend walking through it more times.

I wear a helmet when I bike, too, but I don't believe it'll make much difference if I'm hit by a car going 30 or 40 mph. But anyway, now you're arguing with someone who AGREES WITH YOUR POSITION ON HELMETS and wears them. Why do you care if they think it's pointless as long as they're doing it?

I don’t care about you personally or your safety. The general problem seems to be that you think everything is about you.

I take issue with what you are doing, which is spreading misinformation to confuse people on the efficacy of helmet use. It’s amoral and wrong.

(a) I'm a different poster than the other one (or two?)
(b) The poster you were replying to before wears a helmet. Surely seeing people out wearing helmets while they ride a bike has more influence than posting anything on an anonymous message board. Do people actually take life advice from threads about urban politics?

You apparently cannot read. Again, I don’t care about whether you personally or some other person wears a helmet. I care about the intentional and harmful spreading of misinformation about the efficacy of helmet use. You want to model good practice while encourage others to risk their own and their kids safety anonymously online? That makes you a pretty sick person.

No, I don't personally encourage anyone to risk their safety anonymously online. Obviously, there's no way to prove this, but I have posted here in favor of helmet mandates and questioned the existing research that shows they aren't effective or that helmets aren't effective. The two most recent cyclists killed in accidents near here were both run over by trucks; if I ever get run over by a truck, I'll be wearing a helmet, but I don't know that I'd expect to survive that crash. I will have better odds with a helmet on that without, though! If you think worrying about being killed on my bike even with a helmet on means I'm spreading misinformation, I don't know what to tell you. It's also misinformation to suggest that helmets prevent all injuries or deaths.

But yes, I do think that what people actually do is more important than whatever they say on an anonymous message board.

Thanks for confirming that you are a sick person.

I'm a sick person because I think that a truck could kill me even though I wear a helmet? OK.

No. You are a sick person for knowingly spreading misinformation anonymously online about the efficacy of helmet use.

I'm not doing that. I post anonymously in favor of helmet mandates, and I post anonymously in opposition to claims that helmets are ineffective or unnecessary. But unfortunately, it's not misinformation to say that you can still be killed even while wearing a helmet.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The vast majority of bicycling injuries and deaths under the age of 20 could be prevented by wearing a helmet. Yet I routinely see children on bikes or, even worse, ebikes with no helmets.

"An average of 247 traumatic brain injury deaths and 140,000 head injuries among children and adolescents younger than 20 years were related to bicycle crashes each year in the United States. As many as 184 deaths and 116,000 head injuries might have been prevented annually if these riders had worn helmets. An additional 19,000 mouth and chin injuries were treated each year."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8909479/

I wear a helmet and my kids wear helmets (so far). I also wonder how many of those injuries would be prevented if someone didn't drive into them.

100 percent of them would be avoided if parents didn't put their kids in harm's way.

Do you also not let your kids swim or bathe? Think of the drowning risk!

I'm confused.

I thought you said the roads of D.C. are incredibly dangerous because everyone is going 70 mph and no one obeys any traffic rules and drivers are complete sociopaths with no regard for human life and police don't enforce anything and it's all just a complete free for all.

Now, you're telling me that allowing children to venture into all of that is no more dangerous than taking a bath?

The answer is that when bicyclists want the city to radically increase congestion and spend a bajillion dollars on bike lanes, then the streets are extremely dangerous.

But when bicyclists want to take their three year old on their bike for whatever reason, then the streets are not dangerous at all.

Addendum: The streets are also not dangerous when cyclists are asked why they aren't required to wear helmets.

So basically the fact that some bicyclists don't want to wear helmets or don't want to be required to wear helmets means there can be no road safety improvements for any bicyclists, even those of us who always wear helmets and always make sure our kids are wearing helmets. Got it.

+1

I’m a cyclist who ALSO judges people who don’t make their kids wear helmets (if an adult doesn’t want to wear one, that is their bad choice to make fir themselves).

I worry about kids who aren’t being protected while biking but since my own child wears a helmet and is very closely supervised while biking, the danger of cars doing illegal things is a much bigger deal to me. I see cars doing things that would kill a child on a bike who is wearing a helmet, every day. Driving 10-20 mph over the speed limit through residential neighborhoods. Making illegal turns without signaling. Blowing through lights and stop signs. Veering into other lanes or even into oncoming traffic suddenly and aggressively. These are behaviors I see from drivers DAILY in my residential neighborhood in NE DC that is full of families with kids on foot, scooters, bikes, and in cars.

I think all kids should wear helmets but when it comes to keeping kids safe, it’s clear to me that poorly enforced traffic laws and roads that support or encourage dangerous driving pose a much bigger threat, so that’s my focus. People on this board who concern troll about kids wearing helmets but then throw a giant fit when we suggest reducing traffic lanes or or installing traffic calming measures, or cutting into available parking or traffic lanes to widen sidewalks for pedestrians or installing protected bike lanes are playing a little game and I’m not interested.

If you actually care about child safety, you’d support measures to protect kids from being hit by cars, full stop. Not selectively get upset about the things parents could do to protect their kids while blowing down Florida Avenue doing 55mph and changing lanes and getting mad about the suggestion that we widen the currently narrow sidewalk and improve the bike lanes that are *terrifying* to ride down because you want to treat an urban street like a highway and have an allergy to using public transportation for your commute.

If the streets are that dangerous, why on earth are you allowing a child on a bike to venture into that?

"If we can't solve the whole problem all at once, why on earth are you trying to make it even slightly better?"

Person 1 (hyperventilating): The streets are death traps! They're soaked in blood!

Person 2: Ok, then why do you let your kids ride bikes there?

Person 1 (still hyperventilating): We're trying to make them eventually less death trap-y! We're pushing for changes that over time we hope will reduce the blood soakedness!

Person 2: Ok, well, in the meantime, why do you let your kids ride bikes there?

Person 1: (stops biking completely)

Person 2: "See! There's no demand!"

Person 2: Ok, so you deliberately put your children in life threatening situations because you think that will advance the cause of biking?

Everything has to be an absolute binary with you, apparently?

The streets can be both (a) far more dangerous than they should be and (b) still safe enough to let kids ride on them. I don't let my kids ride in the street on Connecticut or Wisconsin, but I do let them ride in the street or on the sidewalk, whichever they feel more comfortable on, in our neighborhood. It's not that cars don't run stop signs and speed in the neighborhood, but it's still significantly safer on the side streets than on the bigger ones.

You make similar risk judgements, I suspect: You drive your kids in the car, even though the risk of an accident is higher than it should be, and you probably let them swim in swimming pools, even though they could drown.

What most bike advocates here are saying is that there are steps we should take that would lower the risk -- not eliminate it. You seem to think that if we don't eliminate all risk, we're endangering our children by letting them use the streets at all. And yet you also oppose any steps to mitigate the risk short of "keep your kids off bikes."

If what you're really saying is "the current level of risk is acceptable because the tradeoff in convenience for drivers is not worth the proposed changes," that's a fine position to take (though one I disagree with). But then it seems a little much to also accuse anyone who wants to use the streets in the current, risk-unmitigated status quo of playing Russian roulette with their children's lives.

Person 2 here. The difference is that I don't go around trying to spread hysteria about the dangers of swimming and then turn around and ask my kids, "hey wanna go to the pool?"

People asking for bike lanes and traffic-calming measures aren't "trying to spread hysteria" about the dangers of biking. In this analogy, they'd be trying to make sure there are lifeguards before taking their kids to the pool.

If you've read any of this thread, you'll see cyclists make some pretty comical assertions, including:

1. Drivers routinely go 70 mph in the city (ha! i know -- it's literally impossible).
2. Drivers never stop at stop signs (wouldn't that be interesting, were it true?)
3. Drivers are crazed sociopaths who care nothing about human life (uh, what?)
4. Apparently drivers from Maryland and Virginia are even more crazed sociopaths (no clue)
5. No traffic laws are enforced, despite D.C.'s massive police force and ubiquitous traffic cameras, so it's a complete free for all out there.

AND YET:

Despite these Mad Max like conditions, cyclists have no problem allowing their children to bike on Fury Road. And despite these apparently desperate conditions, and the recommendations of doctors notwithstanding, they also don't think they should have to wear a helmet. Oh, and they don't want to have to stop at any stop signs either.

So you try to square that circle.

Sure, if every person who wants some changes in road design has to answer for every single opinion held by every person on a bike, that circle is impossible to square. You win.

[Anonymous]

These people from some outfit called the CDC seem to think helmets are pretty important.

"An average of 247 traumatic brain injury deaths and 140,000 head injuries among children and adolescents younger than 20 years were related to bicycle crashes each year in the United States. As many as 184 deaths and 116,000 head injuries might have been prevented annually if these riders had worn helmets. An additional 19,000 mouth and chin injuries were treated each year."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8909479/

[Anonymous]

Still repeatedly, deliberately, ignoring that street safety isn't just about kids on bikes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Still repeatedly, deliberately, ignoring that street safety isn't just about kids on bikes.

Right -- even if helmets prevented all injuries or deaths (which, unfortunately, they don't, though they certainly do prevent some), they still don't prevent accidents in the first place.

Although I guess I wouldn't care about being in an accident if I was guaranteed to walk away from it with absolutely no injuries, but that's a bit of a digression.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The vast majority of bicycling injuries and deaths under the age of 20 could be prevented by wearing a helmet. Yet I routinely see children on bikes or, even worse, ebikes with no helmets.

"An average of 247 traumatic brain injury deaths and 140,000 head injuries among children and adolescents younger than 20 years were related to bicycle crashes each year in the United States. As many as 184 deaths and 116,000 head injuries might have been prevented annually if these riders had worn helmets. An additional 19,000 mouth and chin injuries were treated each year."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8909479/

I wear a helmet and my kids wear helmets (so far). I also wonder how many of those injuries would be prevented if someone didn't drive into them.

100 percent of them would be avoided if parents didn't put their kids in harm's way.

Do you also not let your kids swim or bathe? Think of the drowning risk!

I'm confused.

I thought you said the roads of D.C. are incredibly dangerous because everyone is going 70 mph and no one obeys any traffic rules and drivers are complete sociopaths with no regard for human life and police don't enforce anything and it's all just a complete free for all.

Now, you're telling me that allowing children to venture into all of that is no more dangerous than taking a bath?

The answer is that when bicyclists want the city to radically increase congestion and spend a bajillion dollars on bike lanes, then the streets are extremely dangerous.

But when bicyclists want to take their three year old on their bike for whatever reason, then the streets are not dangerous at all.

Addendum: The streets are also not dangerous when cyclists are asked why they aren't required to wear helmets.

So basically the fact that some bicyclists don't want to wear helmets or don't want to be required to wear helmets means there can be no road safety improvements for any bicyclists, even those of us who always wear helmets and always make sure our kids are wearing helmets. Got it.

+1

I’m a cyclist who ALSO judges people who don’t make their kids wear helmets (if an adult doesn’t want to wear one, that is their bad choice to make fir themselves).

I worry about kids who aren’t being protected while biking but since my own child wears a helmet and is very closely supervised while biking, the danger of cars doing illegal things is a much bigger deal to me. I see cars doing things that would kill a child on a bike who is wearing a helmet, every day. Driving 10-20 mph over the speed limit through residential neighborhoods. Making illegal turns without signaling. Blowing through lights and stop signs. Veering into other lanes or even into oncoming traffic suddenly and aggressively. These are behaviors I see from drivers DAILY in my residential neighborhood in NE DC that is full of families with kids on foot, scooters, bikes, and in cars.

I think all kids should wear helmets but when it comes to keeping kids safe, it’s clear to me that poorly enforced traffic laws and roads that support or encourage dangerous driving pose a much bigger threat, so that’s my focus. People on this board who concern troll about kids wearing helmets but then throw a giant fit when we suggest reducing traffic lanes or or installing traffic calming measures, or cutting into available parking or traffic lanes to widen sidewalks for pedestrians or installing protected bike lanes are playing a little game and I’m not interested.

If you actually care about child safety, you’d support measures to protect kids from being hit by cars, full stop. Not selectively get upset about the things parents could do to protect their kids while blowing down Florida Avenue doing 55mph and changing lanes and getting mad about the suggestion that we widen the currently narrow sidewalk and improve the bike lanes that are *terrifying* to ride down because you want to treat an urban street like a highway and have an allergy to using public transportation for your commute.

If the streets are that dangerous, why on earth are you allowing a child on a bike to venture into that?

"If we can't solve the whole problem all at once, why on earth are you trying to make it even slightly better?"

Person 1 (hyperventilating): The streets are death traps! They're soaked in blood!

Person 2: Ok, then why do you let your kids ride bikes there?

Person 1 (still hyperventilating): We're trying to make them eventually less death trap-y! We're pushing for changes that over time we hope will reduce the blood soakedness!

Person 2: Ok, well, in the meantime, why do you let your kids ride bikes there?

Person 1: (stops biking completely)

Person 2: "See! There's no demand!"

Person 2: Ok, so you deliberately put your children in life threatening situations because you think that will advance the cause of biking?

Everything has to be an absolute binary with you, apparently?

The streets can be both (a) far more dangerous than they should be and (b) still safe enough to let kids ride on them. I don't let my kids ride in the street on Connecticut or Wisconsin, but I do let them ride in the street or on the sidewalk, whichever they feel more comfortable on, in our neighborhood. It's not that cars don't run stop signs and speed in the neighborhood, but it's still significantly safer on the side streets than on the bigger ones.

You make similar risk judgements, I suspect: You drive your kids in the car, even though the risk of an accident is higher than it should be, and you probably let them swim in swimming pools, even though they could drown.

What most bike advocates here are saying is that there are steps we should take that would lower the risk -- not eliminate it. You seem to think that if we don't eliminate all risk, we're endangering our children by letting them use the streets at all. And yet you also oppose any steps to mitigate the risk short of "keep your kids off bikes."

If what you're really saying is "the current level of risk is acceptable because the tradeoff in convenience for drivers is not worth the proposed changes," that's a fine position to take (though one I disagree with). But then it seems a little much to also accuse anyone who wants to use the streets in the current, risk-unmitigated status quo of playing Russian roulette with their children's lives.

Person 2 here. The difference is that I don't go around trying to spread hysteria about the dangers of swimming and then turn around and ask my kids, "hey wanna go to the pool?"

People asking for bike lanes and traffic-calming measures aren't "trying to spread hysteria" about the dangers of biking. In this analogy, they'd be trying to make sure there are lifeguards before taking their kids to the pool.

If you've read any of this thread, you'll see cyclists make some pretty comical assertions, including:

1. Drivers routinely go 70 mph in the city (ha! i know -- it's literally impossible).
2. Drivers never stop at stop signs (wouldn't that be interesting, were it true?)
3. Drivers are crazed sociopaths who care nothing about human life (uh, what?)
4. Apparently drivers from Maryland and Virginia are even more crazed sociopaths (no clue)
5. No traffic laws are enforced, despite D.C.'s massive police force and ubiquitous traffic cameras, so it's a complete free for all out there.

AND YET:

Despite these Mad Max like conditions, cyclists have no problem allowing their children to bike on Fury Road. And despite these apparently desperate conditions, and the recommendations of doctors notwithstanding, they also don't think they should have to wear a helmet. Oh, and they don't want to have to stop at any stop signs either.

So you try to square that circle.

Sure, if every person who wants some changes in road design has to answer for every single opinion held by every person on a bike, that circle is impossible to square. You win.

Except you're the person who's been making the outlandish claims.

[Anonymous]

I dont understand how these threads so quickly devolve into a useless car vs. bike debate. Why can't we agree that both can be true: 1) kids should be protected on DC roads, including being in a carseat in a car or wearing helmets when on a bike and 2) that there should be better enforcement of the traffic rules which makes the conditions safer for bicyclists.

Why can't we choose both? The constant deflection is so bizzare and unncessary. It's a "whataboutism" that sounds like a "but her emails!" from years ago

[Anonymous]

The discussions devolve because there is a group who seem to believe that bike safety is a zero-sum game. That bike lanes, whether protected or not, and Idaho stops are an existential threat. That nothing should be done to calm traffic and make roads safer for everyone because some cyclists don’t come to a full and complete stop at signed intersections and some parents don’t require their kids to wear helmets at all times.

So they hijack conversations and throw hissy fits. It’s the online version of the community meeting where the loudest and most obnoxious group — usually in the minority is rewarded for their petulant misbehavior. They’re not interested in discussion. They want to stifle discussion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These people from some outfit called the CDC seem to think helmets are pretty important.

"An average of 247 traumatic brain injury deaths and 140,000 head injuries among children and adolescents younger than 20 years were related to bicycle crashes each year in the United States. As many as 184 deaths and 116,000 head injuries might have been prevented annually if these riders had worn helmets. An additional 19,000 mouth and chin injuries were treated each year."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8909479/

Key words: "among children and adolescents." Yes, helmets have been shown to be effective in mitigating low-speed falls from bicycles, as is typical of beginning cyclists.

I'll throw this back at you:

Feds will stop hyping effectiveness of bike helmets

Two federal government agencies will withdraw their longstanding claims that bicycle helmets prevent head injuries. The decision comes in response to a petition the Washington Area Bicyclists Association (WABA) filed under the federal Data Quality Act.

https://www.thecre.com/oira/?p=1843

If you read the story, you'll see, "Last February, I sent emails to both CDC and NHTSA, pointing out that the 85% estimate is incorrect and providing citations to newer research. A few weeks later, Laurie Beck, an epidemiologist from CDC promised to remove the error."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I dont understand how these threads so quickly devolve into a useless car vs. bike debate. Why can't we agree that both can be true: 1) kids should be protected on DC roads, including being in a carseat in a car or wearing helmets when on a bike and 2) that there should be better enforcement of the traffic rules which makes the conditions safer for bicyclists.

Why can't we choose both? The constant deflection is so bizzare and unncessary. It's a "whataboutism" that sounds like a "but her emails!" from years ago

I second choosing both! Helmets good! Traffic control also good! And yes, while we're at it, car seats good!

[Anonymous]

Still repeatedly, deliberately, ignoring that street safety isn't just about kids on bikes.