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Metropolitan DC Local Politics
Reply to "Why are there no safety rules regarding children on bikes?"
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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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/[/quote] 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.[/quote] 100 percent of them would be avoided if parents didn't put their kids in harm's way. [/quote] Do you also not let your kids swim or bathe? Think of the drowning risk![/quote] 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? [/quote] 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. [/quote] 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.[/quote] 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?[/quote] I can't believe bikers aren't required to wear helmets[/quote] 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.[/quote] 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/[/quote] where do you routinely see this? DC? I almost never see bikers without helmets, of any age. [/quote] I’ve never seen a single CaBi user wearing a helmet. [/quote] CaBinis also pretty low risk. Those are slow upright bikes. It's not like they're racing with clipped in pedals.[/quote] And…? This is an irrelevant point to whether or not someone never sees someone wearing a helmet. [/quote] It's relevant if you care about the risk of head injury. Do you ask if pedestrians wear helmets?[/quote] 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/ [/quote] Let's get the same level of traffic safety here that we have in the Netherlands before you try to make comparisons[/quote] 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.[/quote] Helmets are designed to mitigate injury from a fall — not being run over by a 4000 pound car. [/quote] 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).[/quote] 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.[/quote] 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 [i]The peak acceleration of any impact shall not exceed 300 g when the helmet is tested in accordance with § 1203.17 of this standard.[/i] 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. [/quote] 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. [/quote] 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?[/quote] 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.[/quote] (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?[/quote] 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.[/quote] 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.[/quote]
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