mcon

No I wear a helmet. :)

I wear a helmet; I am an organ donor...

You should be one, too. Or stop asking it of others.

I crunched some numbers, and the chance that I'll die in a bicycle accident in my live is 0,148%, this translates to roughly once every 53.500 years. I do have a donor codicil, and people are free to recycle everything they want, but I doubt bareheaded cycling is going to be the thing that makes my organs available. Unless it's because it'll keep my organs more healthy.

[MENTION=95183]JoeyBike[/MENTION] people need to realize, at least at some level, that bicycles are an important part of the way of the future, that is, if we want to have one. And they also need to realize that that it's not a bad thing.

In most states cycling won't become an important part of the way of the future due to weather related issues that most states suffer from, infrastructure, and no tax money to improve it will also help to keep it at bay.

Not saying having a bicycle is bad thing, because it isn't, just don't expect cycling to bring nirvana to your city or state at anytime in the future...unless global warming makes all these cold states warm like California.

@rekmeyata Let me start to point out, with the risk of sounding condescending, that the future involves a lot more than the future of America, since more than 95% of people, including Yours Truly live elsewhere. As it is, cycling is already big in a lot of places, and it doesn't look like the age of the bicycle will end anytime soon. If anything, the opposite is true. But even in America, cars will sooner or later become unsustainable, simply because fossil fuels will start to run out, and since there isn't a real alternative, driving will simply become too expensive for most.

Weather is less than an issue than you seem to think, since successful implementation of of utility cycling exists in a wide range of climates. From tropical climate in developing countries in east Asia to the cool climate of Scandinavia. I don't want to pretend our local weather is harsh or something, but even around here it's common for people age 8-80 to cycle trough normal weather ranging from roughly -10 to 30 Celsius with extremes of roughly -20 to 40 Celsius, without even resorting to specialized equipment. And what can't be overcome by simply (wo)manning up, can be dealt with by means of technology. Of course cycling probably won't ever be very big during Canadian or Siberian winters, but in the end most of humanity lives in temperate or warmer climates anyways.

Here's a new study, not out yet, that tries to approximate what impact a helmet can have on reducing/mitigating severe head injuries, including concussion and other brain related injuries: Bicycle helmets are highly effective at prev... [Accid Anal Prev. 2014] - PubMed - NCBI

I posted this in another thread, but as I said there and will say again briefly here: one of the reasons that you cannot prove whether or not a helmet is safe is that you cannot create a controlled experiment in which you tell some people to wear helmets and others not to, and then tell them both to repeatedly fall off their bikes so we can check their brains. It's unethical. So all we can do is look at one of two sets of data: 1) Epidemiological studies that look at the crashes in which people had helmets on and compare them to people who don't and (2) Data collected from models of humans that can be subject to repeated traumas (similar to the idea of a crash-test dummy). The first set looks at real world data, but is flawed in that there are a ton of uncontrolled variables (what caused the crash? what speed were they going? what side of the head is the injury on?). We can still use this data to look at correlations, but it wouldn't be definitive. The second set is better, IMO, because even though it doesn't involve real people, it gives us an experiment that better isolates the helmet as a variable. This is the sort of data set exemplified in the study I linked to above.

My understanding of the issue isn't so much the effectiveness of helmets per se as whether it makes sense to have an MHL (mandatory helmet law). For me, I have no choice because we have an MHL where I live. If we didn't, I would still wear a helmet when I ride mostly in traffic (i.e. commute) and when I ride fast (i.e. fitness/training). However, I wouldn't when I simply run some quick errands in the hood or ride to a nearby restaurant.

MHL is not really the issue. The number of FB posters who support helmet laws is miniscule. There is no debate here in the helmet thread about MHLs. If it were, this thread would have gone dormant almost immediately. It's not in the poll that started this thread and appears at the top of each page.

If you were to start a thread with a poll of who supports MHLs, it would show the one-sided results I'm talking about. However, because it would contain the word "helmet," it would get rolled into this beast of a thread and the poll results would be lost.

The issue isn't whether cyclists want MHLs or not, because they won't be asked. They weren't polled in Australia, as the states there, and finally the country passed MHLs. Nor were they consulted in Dallas, TX and the various counties in WA, when MHLs were passed there.

MHL's will be proposed by well meaning politicians, possibly responding to parental concerns, or other "nanny's" out there. Unfortunately, if there's no debate about the limitations of helmet protection, or if they believe posters like some here who keep repeating the idea, that all intelligent cyclists wear helmets they'll see only an upside and have no reason to vote no when a proposal is put before them.

Feel good legislation always passes because it's hard to argue against. If anybody wants to virtually assure passage, all they need to do is wait for someone to die of a no-helmet TBI in a bicycle MVA, or simple bike crash while riding on an MUP, then propose a law named for the victim -- "Jill's Law" --and push it "so Jill won't have died in vain and this doesn't happen to anybody else" (sound familiar?).

I don't claim (like some do) that helmets offer little benefit, though I strongly suspect than many, if not most, have unreasonably high expectations of the level of protection. But if any discussion of helmet limitations is shot down and suppressed, we can expect to see more MHLs.

So my challenge to helmet advocates who claim to oppose MHLs, is to encourage open discussion about what helmets do and don't do, so if MHLs are proposed there'll be a history of discussing saying that though they help, they are not a panacea.

Perhaps this map will shed some light on the situation; see: Bike to Work: U.S. Cities Map Just hover your pointer over any area and see the results. There are more areas then not where commuting by bike is a very small percentage and it's all due to climate. Hover over Davis CA then hover over Duluth MN where they have actually had a decrease in commuting, hover over where I live in Fort Wayne IN and look at the results, very few people commute to work on bikes in most places across the US, in warmer climates it's not as big of a deal, but cyclling will not become important in the colder climates EVER...unless global warming does a better job.

I highly doubt that this thread of ad-hom ankle-biting and pantie-twisting will save us from the next MHL legislation.
The Bare Head Brigade is far more vocal in their objection to MHLs. But for many, anti-MHL is a fall back position. They post that they don't wear a helmet for all of the reasons that helmets suck, are ineffective, unneeded or dangerous. When those reasons are rejected by the Helmet Nannies, they come back to, "Just don't make it a law." The result is nobody here disagrees with them on that point. The debate stops so they have won the internet, for the day.
This has played out time and time again in this thread.

On the other side, the Helmet Nannies post their arguments filled with anecdotal evidence and the much referenced "85% prevention" study. These arguments are shot down, and rightly so, by the Bare Head Brigade. So the Helmet Nannies fall back on the "organ donor," "only smart riders wear helmets," and "think of the kids!" statements.
This has also played out multiple times in this thread.

I do agree that cyclists won't be the ones trying to pass helmet laws. However, arguing about the efficacy of helmets does little to counter those who would make them mandatory.

I agree with you on all your points. The debate won't affect MHL proposals, but keeping alive the idea that there is a debate, and that NOT ALL experienced riders wear helmets, and that they are not as effective as some would believe, is important because it's the only counter to the myths that outsiders believe.

BTW- for those opposed to MHLs in their jurisdictions. The best ally are often local Chiefs of Police. Issues of enforceability make sense to them, and most don't like to waste resources on this kind of nanny question. When the issue was raised near me, I asked about "transit" cyclists, or those non-residents cycling through the county. The legislators felt this would be a small number and not a problem, but after the hearing a local Police Chief said he couldn't see stopping every non-helmeted rider to check residence. He insisted that the county provide enforcement dollrs and indemnify the town and his department for any expenses if there were a sui of any kind. That spelled doom for the proposal for now.

I *think* @CarinusMalmari is talking about the cycling world outside the U.S...

@rekmeyata. Let me point out -again- that I'm mainly looking at the bigger picture here. After all, what less than 5% of the total world population will or will not do transport-wise, is not that all that important. Especially since it's a group that's extraordinarily addicted to cars. But fossil fuels are extremely convenient (if you forget about the pollution, climate change, wars and of course the fact that they're not renewable etc.) to power cars. Unfortunately we're burning through our stocks like a bunch of *******, so they will run out sooner rather than later, and replacing them with batteries, bio-diesel or whatever is problematic it seems. Especially if you consider the fact that cars fuel is not the only thing we'll need an alternative for. So cars probably won't have much of a future, and most certainly not the cars 'Mericans like to drive. So what will Americans do when their favorite means of transport becomes less available? I mean, a sense of entitlement doesn't get you around very well, and you can probably forget about some convenient futuristic alternative

Everyone would switch to horses, and would wear cowboy hats, because it was good enough for grandpa it's good enough for them...Not those funny things that equestrians wear... ;) Thus the helmet thread expands... :p

I can tell you don't have a clue. Car purchasing and using just in China alone is now GREATER as of 2010 then the USA!!! And by 2020 China is expected to exceed BOTH all of the Americas AND all of Europe! While bike transportation in China will decline dramatically as cars take over. Could that result in a war? perhaps if China gets desperate and wants an unlimited source of fuel from the Mid East. Will we run out of fuel? Are you kidding? I remember the 70's fuel crises when they said we had already ran out of fuel, then they later corrected that and said we would run out by 1995, you're crying the same wolf that has been cried about for years and that is when will the fuel run out? even when it does run out there will be alternatives which are already in place ready to go. I'm sorry but you and I don't have horses, or camels, or bicycles only in our future. And don't forget when you say batteries you also say fossil fuel because it takes fossil fuel to make the generators work that send the power down the line to charge a car, so if fossil fuel runs out so does the battery car.

Since of entitlement? are you kidding me? If you have a problem with entitlement then fight to end free handout programs like food stamps, free or reduced utilities, tax returns 5 to 10 times larger than taxes paid in, the list goes on and on, end those entitlement programs if you're bothered by a sense of entitlement but don't come here yapping about cars being a sense of entitlement, it's a need...a need to get to work so hopefully they won't be on entitlement programs. America, like China, is quite a bit different than Europe, the average person in the USA commutes 25.4 minutes, or 16 miles to work one way, most people are not going to ride a bike 32 miles a day, in Europe its 8.5 miles but by car it takes longer than here with an average of 33 minutes to go those 8.5 miles, no small wonder why there are more bicycle commuters in Europe than here.

So don't worry, gasoline cars will be around longer then any of us will be alive on this forum, howbeit the cost will rise dramatically as oil companies develop more complicated and thus more expensive ways to drill deeper. Too bad, I was looking to become a Mad Max.

By the way, I own a Mercian, it's a bicycle, before that it was an ancient kingdom called Mercia back 600 years ago, and as far as I know they didn't have cars, not sure what the hell you were implying, if you want to educate me on that I would be interested in knowing what that means since my internet search turned up nothing of any meaning.

Saying everyone will have to bike because we are running out of fuels to power cars is wrong on several levels. Just one point here, the Germans were making oil out of coal during WWII. We have thousands of years of coal available in this country.

Bikes yes, but cars will be with us for hundreds of years. Cars mean accidents, which mean cyclist need to wear helmets. Not by law, but by common sense BTW.

You're right, @rekmeyata, oil won't run out, it's just that we have to wait a couple of hundred of millions of years before nature has replenished the supplies, but during that gap we need some other energy source. And while I agree that it will not run out in the very near future, the remaining oil will be increasingly harder to win, which will drive up the price. This is already happening, btw, if you hadn't noticed. The fact that more and people are using more oil will only hasten things up. As for alternatives: yes there are alternatives, but none as convenient as oil. And I didn't say that bicycles are the only way in the future, they're an important part of the way of the future, especially in an urban setting. SUVs OTOH, well, you can forget about those. And I wouldn't count a lot on casual air travel either Horses and camels aren't largely obsolete for no reason, they're horribly inefficient, but other forms of alternative transport will be along the lines of mass-transit and efficient lightweight electric vehicles.

And you call me clueless? It doesn't take a whole lot of insight to figure out that you can hook a car to a solar panel and charge the battery that way. The problem is whether we'll ever be able to produce enough batteries.
You don't *need* a car, life is harder without one. And even if you really need one, that doesn't mean you can automatically afford one or thar they will be available in the future. The sense of entitlement is that you expect there's going to be an unlimited supply of oil, so you will be able to drive your car. In other words, that the universe has to pull some fairly impossible tricks solely because it's convenient for you. That's a couple of magnitudes more severe than feeling entitled to food-stamps. Also, If you want to talk clueless. Referring to Europe as a single monolithic entity is rather clueless too.

Gasoline cars will probably be around for a rather long time, but they will become increasingly more expensive to use, and less and less people will be able to afford them. Creating smaller and more efficient cars will help, but even then it's a matter of time.

Life for me is easier without a car. Sometimes a car might be convenient, but 99% of the time a car makes my life more difficult for a number of reasons. If a person sets up their life properly and is happy with less and with "doing less", then owning a car is a huge burden. My car-free lifestyle allows me to afford taking up to 6 months off each year to bike tour or just enjoy life in New Orleans.

I know you were not addressing me personally. Just thought I would chime in. I could easily afford a nice car. I don't like spending my money that way. Or having yet another master to care for (my house already owns me). Pretty simple.

You are freaking clueless, any idea how long a battery powered car with solar panel will take to recharge? So lets say you drive a Nissan Leaf that has a 24 kilowatt hour battery, you would need very very expensive high efficiency solar cells on your roof that very few people would be able to afford to buy, and assuming you could get a full day's sun every day you would need to charge the car up for 12 hours because the trip home you won't be able to charge due to the fact the sun would be low or missing entirely if winter so you would have to charge for the evening commute and the morning commute the day while at work. But since high efficiency cells are out of the reach for most people we would be stuck with low efficiency panels which would take about 24 hours to recharge which means, assuming of course you had full sun each and every day, you would be running a power deficit. And that solar panel nonsense only works in areas where the sun is displayed more frequently like Southern California, but it would fail miserably in cloudy places like Seattle Washington, and fail if more miserably in climates that see snow in the winter. THINK MAN, THINK!!!

For the near seeable future, meaning in our, all the forum members here lifetimes, we will not run out of oil. What that means is that over the next say 70 years we will have oil and during that time technology will advance as it always does and something will come along to first probably assist it then eventually replace fossil fuel long before 70 years are up.

Only a primate would think that all these corporations that make trillions of dollars on the oil economy are suddenly one day say "oops, we didn't see that coming"!! It's the same dodo head thinking that were screaming about the world financial markets were going to crash when the year 2000 rolled around because all the computers were never programed to go past that point, anyone who thought that, which a lot of people did, couldn't think past their noses because no corporation would allow itself to go bankrupt because of an oops, we didn't see that coming; but there were the fear mongers out there pushing this crap just as you are pushing your crap.

Why the world isn't running out of oil - Telegraph

By the way, oil is constantly being renewed! yes it is; see: http://www.wnd.com/2008/02/45838/
http://www.cuttingedge.org/News/n2268.cfm
http://www.info-quest.org/documents/newoil.html

I like my cars, and I have a car collection to which I'm entitled to because I bought them with money I earned by working, so you can kiss my arse.

That's a good point. I'm currently experimenting living car-light. For the last few months, I've driven less than 50 miles per month, and that could easily be done with my wife's car. I will sell mine if I can keep living like this for a few more months.

@rekmeyata. I spell out several times that alternative energy sources are "less convenient" than oil, so your little rant about the limitations of solar power only really proves you are apparently semi-literate, and don't understand the meaning of bigger words, like "convenient". You also don't seem to be able by connecting "solar power is less convenient" with one solution I mention "efficient lightweight electric vehicles" so your overall reading comprehension sucks too apparently. The current generation of (semi-)electric cars is indeed a joke, but it would be fairly easy to power something that weighs 100 kilos or so and make it run at a decent speed. Also, there are of course other ways to produce energy, all of them less convenient than oil, but together they might do the job.

This is just naive speculation. Civilizations/societies collapse/decline all the time because they overextend their means and run out of resources. Why would we be the exception? Also you seem to live in a lala fantasy world where no corporation will ever go bankrupt because of wrong decisions. And you know humans are primates right?
Thank you, Captain O., but I already mentioned that. But it is produced at a far lower rate than we waste it. That's why we have to win it from increasingly more difficult sources, because all the easy well are running out or are already sucked dry.

@JoeyBike. I use a bicycle for 80+% of my trips. I don't own a car myself, but I do on occasion use the car of the spouse for the rare trips longer than 40-50 km (round-trip that is). Not because I really need it, but because it's more convenient and comfortable than public transport. Giving cars up completely wouldn't be much of a sacrifice, and would free money for something more efficient than my hybrid comfort bike, so I could increase my range. I wouldn't own a car if it was up to me, I only really owned one for a couple of years during my twenties, but for some people, including my spouse it would be a pain to live a car-free life (he is freelance nurse, sort of, so irregular shifts in places up to 50 kilometers away)

Cars often loose out completely against bicycles. especially on short urban trips. For example, the Saturday errand run is a costly, bothersome and stressful affair with the car, but on the bicycle it's fun, relaxing and cheap. Any time gain with the car is undone by invisible time loss. Because you don't have to work to earn money for gas, parking and the gym if you opt for the bicycle.