wphamilton

I was thinking about that question, as you can tell by my post above regarding passenger helmets. I think you have a point, but as expressed it doesn't come across the way you probably intended it. You can't include literally all safety laws just because it's safer - there has to be a balance somewhere.

It depends on the actual danger that is being mitigated, on the burden caused by the law, and I think on the perceived utility of the activity. There may be a better way to phrase that last, but generally if it's not something people think they really need to do frequently it's easier for them to justify regulating it.

So I alluded earlier to the Iowa hospital data showing that traumatic brain injury is almost as likely for a passenger in a car accident as it is for a cyclist. The danger of TBI is more or less equal. By your principle of equivalence, which makes sense when things are equal, any helmet law for cyclists should also include a mandate for auto passengers. If the one is reasonable, then so is the other. If one is ridiculous, then both are ridiculous.

wphamilton

You can go through life riding in a passenger car thinking that nothing will ever happen to you, or you can be proactive and wear a helmet every time you climb into one. Any injury prevented is a good thing.

rydabent

wp

Off subject----------this thread is about cycling.

JoeyBike

You can't do anything about this^^.

If you see a young person with a prosthetic leg and they don't have a Purple Heart to show for it, 99% of the time there was a motorcycle involved and a "It can't happen to me" attitude.

If you see an older person with no legs from the knee down, most likely that is due to ignoring diabetes. "It can't happen to me".

I think even the most unreasonable person on this thread agrees that a bike helmet is slightly better than nothing under certain circumstances. A light tap on the head is no big deal and a brutal whack won't make much difference helmet or not. But maybe, just maybe there is a sliver of circumstances where a styrene lid would save some brain cells. It's this tiny sliver of a chance that a cyclist will hit their head JUST RIGHT for the helmet to actually do some good that has people here saying "It can't happen to me" and they are willing to take that chance. The vast majority of them will survive that decision.

"Don't worry, be happy!" - Bobby McFerrin

Bobby McFerrin - Don't Worry Be Happy - YouTube[h=3][/h]

wphamilton

It's not off topic - it's about helmets and mandatory helmet laws. If you're that adamant about cyclists wearing helmets, you must be adamant about car passengers wearing helmets - or else you aren't as logical and concerned for safety as you portray yourself to be.

Besides, the answer you avoid will demonstrate whether or not your argument is valid.

rekmeyata

All of this is complete nonsense and none of it means anything to people living in the USA vs the Netherlands, we have such a vastly different society, and car vs bikes it simply cannot be compared as you having the best in the world because the Netherland is only 13,000 square miles which is only 2,500 square miles larger than the State of Maryland in the US which is one of our smallest states in the Union, in fact we have counties within states that are far larger than your little country! The average commute in the US is 16 miles and 26 minutes (I use to drive much more than 16 miles one way just living and working in the county of Los Angeles California!) while in Netherlands it's 8 miles and it takes 43 minutes due to crappy roads you have which are not geared as well as ours is toward cars, add to that you pay more than twice what we pay for a gallon of gasoline, and the cost to get a drivers license in the Netherlands is 7 times more expensive than here, not to mention your cost of living is much greater than here, so yes commuting in the Netherlands by bike is indeed more practical there but not here. In addition to that your temperature varies less dramatically then ours, you range from 33 degrees (F) as the lowest to 70 degrees (f) at the highest, in the US we range from minus 9 degrees (f) to 92 degrees (f). Your landscape only ranges from 3.3 feet above sea level to just 1,059 feet above sea level, in the US is minus 282 to over 20,000 feet, heck just in Los Angeles county alone the elevation ranges for 9 feet below sea level to just over 5,000 feet above sea level.

Is that to say the US can't improve? no, but we will never ever come close to what the Netherlands can do in regards to bikes because it's impossible due to logistics, so you need to get your head out of your arse and look at the a picture much bigger than your little secluded "perfect" little world.

wphamilton

No one actually says that. If we've looked into it we might say "there's a .00022 probability for an individual cyclist my age to suffer a traumatic brain injury this year, and that might be reduced to .00014 probability if I wear a helmet every ride."

CarinusMalmari

But then again, I wasn't specifically talking about the US of A so let me give you a bit of advise:

Blah, blah, yes you are much bigger, but there are still a whole ****-load of trips suited for bicycles.

LOL but nope.

That's because they learn us how to drive, and very rigorously I may add, in the process of getting that licence. That's why Americans (among other people) have to apply for a Dutch (= proper) driver's licence if they want to continue to drive after migration to the Netherlands.

Pro-tip, if you want to tell Dutch people what their country is like, it's a good idea to actually know what their country is like. Else you just come across as stupid.

We already sort of covered this. But maybe it's time for you to realize that this discussion, while dominated by Americans, is really international in this thread. Maybe it's also time to realize that the Netherlands is hardly the only country that does better than the US. Of course NL is probably an unreachable ideal, even for some of the reasons you accidentally got right, but that doesn't mean that the US couldn't do tens of times better than it is doing now.

I-Like-To-Bike

Aren't you the fellow who spouts endlessly, "Any injury prevented is a good thing?"

Why not be proactive and consistent about preventing cycling injuries and advocate for a 100% BAN ON CYCLING? No more cycling injuries except for lawless, Darwin Candidate scofflaws who deserve what they get, eh?

I-Like-To-Bike

CarinusMalmari is exactly right.

As if any significant number of Americans (or anybody else anywhere) commute up and down mountain peaks, or regularly ride across the entire country, state, county, time zone or any other ridiculous distance obstacle that an emotional ranter might dream up to discount the cycling environment of NL, DK or anywhere else where cycling IS a significant factor in meeting the population's daily transportation needs.

rekmeyata

You are funny beyond compare.

First off it's quite evident your country does not have the roads to handle high volume of cars like America which is why it takes twice as long for your commuters to go half the distance which is why I called your roads crappy, not meaning potholed, just not enough to handle the traffic.

If you move from the Netherlands to the US you have to get a license too if you migrate here. LOL, that was a great comment you made!!! The USA doesn't just throw an American drivers license at you just because you puff out your chest and proclaim you're from the Netherlands!!! LOL!!!!! By the way, no one can be learned anything, they are taught, something you didn't learn in your English classes...but you're doing pretty good with most English here. Moving right along.

Speaking of "Pro Tip", do tell us Mr Pro Tip the correct information you were referring to in that paragraph that was wrong. A Pro Tip person would back up the remark with a...well a pro tip!

The last paragraph, like you said we already covered this, the secluded little land of the Netherland is a pale comparison to American way of commuting as is most of the EU because like the Netherlands the rest of the EU has the same miserable twice as long commutes by car going less than half the distance as the average American driver. Accidently I got that right? LOL !!! LOL !!! 10 times better? that's difficult to tell until more time goes by, in warmer climates that may be (a huge ?) reachable but most of the USA is a colder climate area and they would be lucky to get to 2 times better unless global warming significantly changes things, otherwise the snow zones won't see any improvement. Overall though there has been an increase in bike commuting here as more and more communities install more and better bike paths, but that increase nationwide is only about 1% over the last 5 years with the largest portion of that in the sunny states and virtually little to negative gain in the snow states. So we do agree on one thing, (oh will miracles never cease?), the US can do better but it will never do as well as the EU can due to logistic issues. Maybe where the future lies is not so much in how we commute but rather how much work can be done at home on a computer over the internet and thus have no need to ever drive into a worksite. As America becomes more focused on service related jobs instead of manufacturing jobs working at home is a very viable option that a lot of service related jobs could do and that could be done as soon as now; this would be much more critical to think about rather than does one country commute by bikes more than another.

rekmeyata

Wrong, a lot of people working in the Bay area, Los Angeles, etc all have a mean distance of 77 to 61 mile commute, and this sort of mileage is not uncommon. When I use to live in Bakersfield Ca, I knew a lot of people who commuted to Los Angeles averaging almost 2 hours one way, or an average of 110 miles one way!!! I also knew people who did that going into San Francisco. Those commuters are not rare by the way. When I lived in Lancaster Ca I had for a while a 68 mile commute to Los Angeles via the 14 frwy and that frwy was jammed with cars all doing similar miles. The top 20 largest cities in the US have an average of 25 mile commutes, little difficult to attempt that by bike.

rydabent

wp

It is off subject. Cars have their own safety devices, seatbelts and air bags. The safety device for cyclist is a helmet.

I am not for MLHs. But with all the nanny state fools we have in this country, I wouldnt put it past them to require bikes to be outfitted with air bags. Wont the weight weenies go nutz over that???

FBinNY 

No problem with an airbag requirement, since it will only affect bents and trikes.

wphamilton

Not relevant, since the likelihood of TBI in an auto accident includes autos with these additional safety devices.

It's an apples to apples comparison. The risk of traumatic head injuries, today including all of the safety devices, is similar in the car to the bike. Why do you come up with excuses for helmetless car riding? It's exactly the same question, risk vs safety measure.

I'm actually attracted to the air bag helmet. But not enough to buy one ...

350htrr

Wouldn't that be something, MHL for the air bag helmet... I wonder how big the uproar over that would be...

I-Like-To-Bike

You commuted 68 miles, Oh Boy! or BFD! since it is totally irrelevant.
Bicycle commuting is the subject; NOT how far people commute to Los Angeles or anyplace else by any other mode.

LesterOfPuppets

Cars have WAY more than those for racing, but they pass on the airbags.

Some cyclist wear way more than a helmet even while not racing - folks that ride ski slopes in the summer, terrain parks and the like, for instance. I don't think the helmet needs to be the baseline of PPE for cycling, it should be a little to the right of zero on the cycling PPE spectrum.

3alarmer 

...you must be new here stranger. Most of the regular townfolk figured that one out a long time back. Ayep.........Dumber than a box of rocks.

3alarmer 

...thank you. I always wondered what this thread was about.

3alarmer 

.
...oh, about 319 pages right now.

CarinusMalmari

Judging from the other "information" you got about the Netherlands, your figures on Dutch commutes might not be the most reliable in the world. I'm sure commutes take longer, but that's not a surprise since population density here is 12 times higher than in the US of A . The fact that NL isn't in perpetual gridlock is because Dutch Road design is rather good. As you said, OTOH, America can't even do basic road maintenance, so that probably doesn't bode well for road design.

True, from what I know of it, the USA basically just throws American drivers licences at anyone over 16. Dutch driver education typically features a theoretical exam, 40 hours of driving lessons by a licensed instructor after which you have to demonstrate your ability to ride flawlessly in traffic for about an hour. It's fakking hard to get your licence here, as it should be, since cars are dangerous in incompetent hands.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands

With an average of 0,6% share of cycling trips, it would be hard for America to do worse. The rest of that paragraph is just you regurgitating arguments from a couple of pages ago. But outside your imagination, reasonably well-developed cycling cultures exist in a whole range of climates, including cold ones. The best example of the latter is pretty much all of Scandinavia. I looked for an American example, and both the state Minnesota and its capital Minneapolis seems to pop up high in the list of best places to cycle in the US. Despite the harsh local winters.

CarinusMalmari

Blah, Blah, now let's take a look at some real information like this graph. We can see that about 25% of car commutes is shorter than a perfect-for-cycling 2x5mile trip. Another quarter of commutes is up to a less ideal 2 x 10 miles, but still within the capabilities of the average Joe. And this is just the car commutes.

yote223

Well Said. Might I add that I for one, prefer Freedom of Choice over socialist protectionism.

CarinusMalmari

Last week, while I was euthanizing my grandmother's wife with an overdose of marijuana, I wondered for a moment, whether American Freedom isn't a bit overrated. I hypothesized that maybe many Americans are believing they're super-free, because a significant part of the population is dumbed down enough to mindlessly swallow any propaganda that is spoon-fed to them. Especially the kind of propaganda that contains intimidating big words they don't really understand when referring to non-Americans. Words like, I don't know, "socialist" and "protectionism" for example.

Anyway, from what I know of it, there's is no difference in freedom of choice for transportation between the US and NL. There seems to be a difference in options to choose from, though, with NL offering the best and most extensive assortment of transport options. There's very good car, bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, public transport is excellent, featuring trains, buses, trams, and metros. There's also lots of waterways, which I admit, is mostly a geographical bonus, and we even got them sky-planes.