[ed. You should see the looks I get from the spandex-clad, florescent green, REI-helmeted geriatric crowd here in my community. Remember folks, you heard it here first (and second).]
And here's some advice that might help with that goal: Stop forcing people to wear bike helmets.For most bikers, this advice is anathema. The importance of wearing a helmet has been drilled into everyone since childhood. And, it's true that, as study after study has shown, you're better off with a helmet if you're in an accident.
But in the world's most popular biking cities, particularly in Europe, very few bikers wear helmets. And there are good reasons for that: biking, it turns out, isn't an especially dangerous form of transportation in terms of head trauma. And the benefits of helmets may be overstated. While they do protect your head during accidents, there's some evidence that helmets make it more likely you'll get in an accident in the first place.
Most importantly, requiring helmets deters many normal people from biking in the first place — in Australia, bike commuting rates plummeted when mandatory helmet laws went into effect. And, when there are fewer bikes on the road overall, biking becomes more dangerous.
Of course, if people want to wear helmets they are more than welcome to.
But we should think of helmets as an optional accessory, rather than an absolute requirement — and proposed laws that would mandate all cyclists wear helmets are a bad idea.
by Joseph Stromberg, Vox | Read more:
Image: John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
