Another Helmet Thread

On 6/21/2013 1:08 PM, Jay Beattie wrote:

Anyway, IMO, bike share programs are doomed to failure

Personally I don't see the appeal. I suppose that in places like San
Francisco where your personal bike will be either stolen or stripped to
the bare frame a few hours after it's parked that there's some appeal to
a rental bike. And certainly tourists that like the ride across the GG
bridge would love to spend less than $30-35 for a rental (though I
suspect that officially you're not supposed to leave San Francisco).

On 6/20/2013 8:13 PM, Dan wrote:

(I'm just guessing that you are referring ot one of these two studies,
since "critics of helmet legislation cite" it, and they really tend to
zero in and latch on to the few anomolies that tenuaously *appear* to
support their wacky version of reality.)

It's a new type of reading. Instead of "reading for comprehension" it's
"reading for anomalies.

I recall many years ago looking at FARS data that compared fatalities
and injury rates (classified by level of injury) for helmeted versus
non-helmeted cyclists. The fatality rate for non-helmeted cyclists was
of course much greater than for helmeted cyclists. The moderate injury
and minor injury rates were also much greater for non-helmeted cyclists
than for helmeted cyclists. But there was an anomaly--the serious injury
rate was slightly greater for helmeted cyclists than for non-helmeted
cyclists. The likely reason for this anomaly was pretty obvious--the
helmeted cyclists were surviving with serious injuries while the
non-helmeted cyclists were not surviving. The "wacky version of reality"
would be "helmets cause serious injuries."

On 6/21/2013 5:44 PM, sms wrote:
On 6/21/2013 1:08 PM, Jay Beattie wrote:

Anyway, IMO, bike share programs are doomed to failure

Personally I don't see the appeal. I suppose that in places like San
Francisco where your personal bike will be either stolen or stripped
to the bare frame a few hours after it's parked that there's some
appeal to a rental bike. And certainly tourists that like the ride
across the GG bridge would love to spend less than $30-35 for a rental
(though I suspect that officially you're not supposed to leave San
Francisco).

Me neither but there seems to be a lot of people using them here and if
it reduces cars then I'm all for it.

On 6/21/2013 6:48 PM, Duane Hébert wrote:
On 6/21/2013 5:44 PM, sms wrote:
On 6/21/2013 1:08 PM, Jay Beattie wrote:

Anyway, IMO, bike share programs are doomed to failure

Personally I don't see the appeal. I suppose that in places like San
Francisco where your personal bike will be either stolen or stripped
to the bare frame a few hours after it's parked that there's some
appeal to a rental bike. And certainly tourists that like the ride
across the GG bridge would love to spend less than $30-35 for a rental
(though I suspect that officially you're not supposed to leave San
Francisco).

Me neither but there seems to be a lot of people using them here and if
it reduces cars then I'm all for it.

That's one of the questions about the bike share programs. Are they
being used to replace car trips or are they being used to replace
walking and/or public transit. It would be pretty rare for a trip on
city buses to be faster than a bicycle in the Bay Area other than a few
express routes, especially if the trip involves changing buses.

Are the bike share bikes multi-speed with seriously low gears for San
Francisco? Next time I'm in that area I'll check. I could see a massive
demand for bike share bikes at the Caltrain station in the morning to
avoid taking the bus from the station to the financial district, and a
massive demand the other way in the evening.

sms writes:

On 6/21/2013 1:08 PM, Jay Beattie wrote:

Anyway, IMO, bike share programs are doomed to failure

Personally I don't see the appeal. I suppose that in places like San
Francisco where your personal bike will be either stolen or stripped
to the bare frame a few hours after it's parked that there's some
appeal to a rental bike. And certainly tourists that like the ride
across the GG bridge would love to spend less than $30-35 for a rental
(though I suspect that officially you're not supposed to leave San
Francisco).

I like the idea of putting bikes in of front random people walking
around and saying, "Hey, wanna ride this?" However, yeah - the
municipal type program is kind of goofy and faces some dire, inherent
challenges to success.

Cooler than that would be employers and schools and such with a handful
or even a fleet of bikes for ad hoc trips and break time bike rides.
There a couple of old such bikes gathering dust in a couple of the
buildings I've worked at. I've been thinking of keeping a play bike
in the basement at work so I don't have to take the LHT when I go out
for lunch.

I'd like to see the schools take it many steps further, with curriculum
(riding, bike maintenance, transportation issues, the whole nine yards),
free helmets, loaner bikes for kids to ride to and from school. This
would completely obviate the need for child MHL, as kids would be
quantumly better qualified to make the choice, know how to use a helmet
correctly, understand its true significance in the total scheme of safe
bicycling, etc. It would make school more fun, too. Advanced classes
could tie in with math and science and P.E. and... Jeez! Why aren't
they doing this already??

Can you just imagine what the world would look like a few decades into
this? (My daughter says, "It would be like Copenhagen!" :-)

On Friday, June 21, 2013 2:13:23 AM UTC-4, James wrote:


I note that it is summer in the UK, and the London bike share scheme has

approx 50% usage - just slightly higher usage than here.

??? London has something like 8000 bikes in its system, so if you're correct, 4000 bikes in use. Melbourne has only 600 bikes in its system, so if you're correct, just 300 in use.

Are you really claiming 300 is as good as 4000??

- Frank Krygowski

Joe Riel writes:

Dan writes:

The second ecologic
study was restricted to 1 year of postlegislation data;16 subsequent
analysis of 3 years of postlegislation data by the same principal author
showed that the helmet law led to a 19% reduction in the rate of head
injury."

Haven't seen that on any helmet promotions: reduces head injury
rate by nearly 20%!


It sounds consistent, though - considering the limited (but real)
protection that helmets offer, the (unfortunately) marginal quality
of typical helmets, and the infinite other factors around their use.

On Friday, June 21, 2013 3:08:06 PM UTC-4, sms wrote:
On 6/21/2013 6:18 AM, Duane wrote:



That's one of the arguments here against MHLs. The Bixis are pretty busy

and they don't want to adversley affect that. But you also have to look

at the usage of Bixis. They're mostly in town and there's a lot of

cycling infrastructure. I've never rented a Bixi but if I happened to

be taking the metro somewhere I might think of it even though I don't

have a helmet. Whereas on one of my regular rides, or even on a commute

like this morning, the helmet goes on.



One thing to keep in mind is that the success level of bicycle sharing

schemes is based on many factors. In Australia, the helmet law is one

factor, but by no means the major factor in the slower than hoped for

uptake.



It's a popular tactic of the AHZs to picking and choose snippets of

"evidence" from biased sources to attempt to prove a point. This is what

organizations like Fox News, cyclehelmets.org, and the Tea Party are

famous for. Providing a comprehensive evaluation of a subject based on

scientific studies and actual evidence is a lot of work and doesn't

result in the outcome they desire.



A comprehensive article that examined the situation in Australia came to

the following conclusions about how to increase usage of the bike share

program:



• substantial improvements to the bicycle lane/path network

• lower speed limits

• integration with public transport smartcard ticketing

• significant increase in docking stations and bicycles (particularly

Melbourne)

• improved helmet availability.

http://theconversation.com/fixing-australian-bike-share-goes-beyond-helmet-laws-10229



It would be nice if Australia repealed their mandatory helmet law but

since Australia has universal, publicly funded, health care, this is

unlikely to happen, especially with the most recent peer-reviewed,

scientifically and statistically sound studies coming out in the past

month or so that continue to prove the value of bicycle helmets.



http://www.sbs.com.au/cyclingcentral/news/43560/sydney-university-research-shows-value-of-helmets





http://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science/helmet-crash-tests-dont-hit-road-without-one



The key takeaway is that it takes more than just the lack of a mandatory

helmet law to have a successful bike sharing program.

The first link cited is speculation about how to improve the bike share. But cities that have not taken those measures beat the heck out of Melbourne.. It's beyond silly to pretend that requiring a helmet will not deter a spontaneous bike ride.

The second link is a letter, not a refereed article. Don't pretend it's more than it is.

The third link describes a paper in which a solid model of a human head in a helmet is grazed by a smooth surface. The authors claim this replicates the complex physics of an actual human brain within the skull protected by the scalp tissue and hair. But they do not directly compare with any realistic model of the human head. They do not use a realistic model for an asphalt surface. And they do not measure the angular acceleration without the helmet, especially in situations where the riders' reflexes would tend to cause lesser road contact with an 8" diameter head, compared to a 10" diameter helmet.

Scharf has _finally_ attempted to give links to data. But his criterion is simple: If it's pro-helmet, it must be good. There's no real examination of the quality of work.

- Frank Krygowski

On Friday, June 21, 2013 6:59:08 PM UTC-4, sms wrote:
On 6/20/2013 8:13 PM, Dan wrote:



(I'm just guessing that you are referring ot one of these two studies,

since "critics of helmet legislation cite" it, and they really tend to

zero in and latch on to the few anomolies that tenuaously *appear* to

support their wacky version of reality.)



It's a new type of reading. Instead of "reading for comprehension" it's

"reading for anomalies.



I recall many years ago looking at FARS data that compared fatalities

and injury rates (classified by level of injury) for helmeted versus

non-helmeted cyclists. The fatality rate for non-helmeted cyclists was

of course much greater than for helmeted cyclists. The moderate injury

and minor injury rates were also much greater for non-helmeted cyclists

than for helmeted cyclists. But there was an anomaly--the serious injury

rate was slightly greater for helmeted cyclists than for non-helmeted

cyclists. The likely reason for this anomaly was pretty obvious--the

helmeted cyclists were surviving with serious injuries while the

non-helmeted cyclists were not surviving.

Really? The entire U.S. has only 750 bike fatalities per year, half of which are caused by cyclists' truly egregious violations of laws Yet you think fatalities are completely distorting injury data among millions of Americans??

- Frank Krygowski

bike share can be viewed as bike nasa