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]Amazing how I’ve survived 40 years of biking as a kid and adult biking… a lot… never once wearing a helmet with no injuries. Safety is more than regulations and rules. It’s being responsible and aware. [/quote]

This reminds me of those movies where there's a guy who wrestles with bears or tigers or whatever and says he has a special connection with them and he's been doing it for decades and they would never hurt him so clearly it's safe. Then, one day, he gets disemboweled. [/quote]

Why are there no safety regulations to prevent people from hiking in woods where there are bears??[/quote]
You think you’re being clever but actually there are requirements to have bear canisters in order to camp in national parks with significant presence of bears. 
https://www.nps.gov/olym/planyourvisit/wilderness-food-storage.htm

[/quote]

Oh that's great, but wouldn't it be safer for them to just not go out there at all?

It sounds like you're advocating for a reasonable balance of risk with freedom to enjoy the outdoors and all the benefits that come with that.[/quote]
The “reason balance” is to require use of mitigation, e.g. use a bear canister or wear a helmet. Clearly you have not thought this through.[/quote]

The nice thing about drivers, unlike bears, is that you can make rules that govern their behavior and expect them to at least understand them, if not actually follow them. You can also change cars' habitats more readily than you can bears'. Which is all to say, unlike with bears, people who want protection from cars don't have to do all the work themselves.[/quote]
First, the vast majority of bike accidents have nothing to do with vehicles. So you are focused on the wrong thing.

Second, it’s never either or. Safety always should be multi-faceted such that you are not solely reliant on one point of potential failure.

Wear a friggin’ helmet. [b]And if you don’t have helmets on your kids you should be criminally prosecuted. [/b][/quote]

I see parents carrying children in their laps on ebikes without helmets. [/quote]

I see drivers running red lights and stop signs without repercussion every day, what's your point? Can we start with enforcement of drivers? I only drive, but I have to get my kid into their school and it's sometimes a bit challenging with the number of people who don't bleeping know to fully stop before the line at a stop sign. Can we start with those idiots first? [/quote]

We could slash the number of head injuries overnight with a helmet requirement. Pretty simple and effective and costs the government nothing. It's odd the bikers who claim to care about safety are so angry about the idea that they should have to wear a helmet. [/quote]

Are we going to start making pedestrians wear helmets? Otherwise, I still prefer to enforce the driving law as a priority and when that is fixed, fix the bike helmets. As it is, what do you think, DC MPD is going to chase down bicyclists about helmets when they don't pull anyone over, EVER for running lights and stop signs? I mean 15 years in this city and never saw a cop pull anyone over for a traffic infraction but they are going to start pulling bikers over?

Sorry, no, pull the drivers over first. Start there, please.[/quote]

Bikers want to do this really dangerous thing -- ride their bikes is a huge, congested city -- but they don't want to take any responsibility for anything that would make it safer. It's always someone else's job to make it safer, and always someone else's fault when they get hurt. No rules for them, endless rules for everyone else. [/quote]

What specific rules are you so upset about? [/quote]

Still waiting on those specific rules.[/quote]

The one about not allowing drivers to turn right on red anywhere is kind of hilarious. What is this supposed to accomplish? My guess is there was an accident one time, somewhere, where someone was turning right on red and of course that prompts the city to change the law. Government by anecdote. If that driver had instead been wearing a blue hat at the time of the accident, it would now be illegal for drivers to wear blue hats.

No evidence that banning people from turning right on red protects anyone, but no one cares. Meanwhile there's a mountain of evidence that helmets save lives, but somehow that's not good enough for bikers. [/quote]

I'm a driver and I actually stopped turning red on most lights in DC at busy intersections anyway. I pretend I'm not turning then turn on my blinker when the light changes to green and then proceed to turn.

I hate creeping into crosswalks at red lights just to appease impatient people behind me.[/quote]

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