Do they 'push' it because they want to (their choice) or because they have to (government regulation)?

Do they 'push' it because they want to (their choice) or because they have to (government regulation)?

Probably because whoever in Gazelle decided it serves the interests of the car lobby more than the interests of his own employer.  Because that is where it comes from; the car lobby pushes for mandatory bike helmets. In public for safety. But the real reason is very clear; mandatory bike helmets increase car use, decreases cycling, leads to more injured cyclists and a less healthy population in general. You can look to Australia for exactly that effect.

Why wouldn’t someone wear a helmet?  I mean, aside from their vanity or desire to be ‘individualistic’?

Why wouldn’t someone wear a helmet?  I mean, aside from their vanity or desire to be ‘individualistic’?

I don't see it's either of those issues, if a person grew up not wearing a bicycle helmet then it's not in their DNA to even think about wearing a helmet. That's certainly the case with me.     Even on my motorcycle, if I'm just going to quickly run to the nearby hardware store and it's all city street driving I don't put a helmet on.

I always wear bike helmet. Just common sense, nothing to do with conspiracy theories, government, or car lobby overlords. Doesn't make me avoid using bicycle. I've fallen of a bike in the past and value my wellbeing.

I guess You do not happen to be a Lady with an hour spent each morning making your hair. Do you ?

Or a father of a girl who will refuse to bike-commute to school for the exact same reason.

And those are only the show-stopper scenarios. Then there is the "inconvenience aspect" which affect absolutely everyone. Even manually working men with short hair.

The thing is, this narrative that helmets IN COMMUTE CYCLING are a net positive is pushed by a LOT of well-meaning people. Mostly, though, these are people who did not grow up bike-communing and the importance of situational awareness etc. does not ring a bell to them.
There were always such well-meaning people causing mayhem. But the legislation is indeed eventually driven by the forces which Coen mentioned. Those and the normal lawmakers who are bothered when their limousine has to slow down behind a cyclist so will agree on anything that will get those pesky bicycles off the roads.


The thing (#2) is that for anyone who grew up in a "cycling town" like me /and I presume Coen/ the narrative is totally absurd.
When I was a kid, starting in 8+ years almost everyone went to school by bike. In a town of 50k I have NEVER heard of a head injury of any seriousness from bike -commute- there. That was over 30 years where 1/4 the city or so commuted daily. Including winters when ice was on the roads. *)
Since I moved to a 500k city I know of ONE occasion where a guy went down after car driver opened door into him. He got unlucky and hit a Tram rail on the road head on. That was over a 10 year period here.

At the same time a LOT of friends had heavy injuries (rarely head though) from mountatin biking but no one from commute. The normal "injuries" from commute were strained wrists, bruised legs or back. Etc. Etc. The same as when walking or running. This is logical - a bike moves at a similar speed to a runner.


@Coen
Well put.

*) Fun fact: When you know how, a bike is safer in the winter than walking. You have 3 contact points - two wheels and your leg - so can maintain stability even on flat ice. I learned that at like 10. Since then icy road was seen as a fun challenge, not a danger.

I think there are two types of riding a bicycle, commuting/recreational and sport riding. There is no need at all for a helmet for simple commuting as the speed is mostly between 10-20 kph. Wearing a helmet at those speeds will add absolutely nothing in safety. Most accidents that happen there, in the city, are collisions with cars, and the helmet won't do jack for you.

But for sport riding the speeds go up to 30-40 kph or even more, and that's where a helmet is essential. Most accidents that happen to sport riders are single sided, like slipping, or a collision with a steady object, and that's where you can get seriously damaged.

Here in Holland everybody has had a bike since we could walk, and I rode my city bike for 40 years without any serious accident or injury. And then I got a faster touring bike with 3x8 gears, and suddenly 40 kph was a reality. I had the bike for less than a year, doing 30 kph, when I slipped on a wet spot on a bridge and broke my clavicle and bruised my head. Head injury was nothing serious, luckily.

Nevertheless, in the hospital they very thoroughly checked my head for internal bleeding, as that can suddenly kill you overnight. When I got home I saw in the news that happened the same day Michael Schumacher hit his head while skiiing, and became a vegetable. I decided that from now on, I needed a helmet with these speeds. Funny thing was, I was 35 km from home when I fell, later I bought a very professional helmet for peanuts from a guy living only 500 meters from that spot. Some things are just meant to be.

Coen, from here and previous posts of you I sense a lot of mistrust towards car drivers from you. I do not share your sentiment, at least not here in Holland. In my experience, cars are always very careful around cyclists, except maybe the occasional 21 year old in an overly tuned Japanese car. On the other hand, I see a lot of dumb things from cyclists, especially those on a racing bike, as they think they own the entire road, speed by in crowded spots, and ignore traffic lights as they please.
 

Reminds me of my bike racer days back in late 80’s early 90’s when US Cycling and UCI mandated helmets for events. Lots of pushback.  They started it with juniors and us higher category guys were all too cool (read: “stupid”) to want to do this and standard practice was to warm up with it strapped to your bars, pull it on at start line then off again at finish.

Many helmets back then were heavy and hot, not the case today and there’s no reason to not wear one.

I would disagree that commuting is inherently safer than sport riding. Perhaps on dedicated bike lanes, but in urban environments dealing with cars, skateboarders, dogs, pedestrians (whatever) introduces many variables that can lead to one’s head meeting with hard objects.

I bike commuted probably 300 days a year and my rule of the road was to assume cars COULD see me and that they were actively trying to hit me. It was on me to get out of their way….

Coen, from here and previous posts of you I sense a lot of mistrust towards car drivers from you. I do not share your sentiment, at least not here in Holland. In my experience, cars are always very careful around cyclists, except maybe the occasional 21 year old in an overly tuned Japanese car. On the other hand, I see a lot of dumb things from cyclists, especially those on a racing bike, as they think they own the entire road, speed by in crowded spots, and ignore traffic lights as they please.

Go over the border into Germany... all the jerks in cars have a Dutch license plate on their car. If German police would enforce their passing distance law... the gas tourism would end soon 

My best friends' sister was killed by a drink driver. I was hit a few years ago by a dipshit that was standing still and accelerated onto the priority bike path while I was straight in front of him. And just last week a guy (am I allowed so say; "with migration background"?) in a Mercedes tried to ram me out of this life because I disagreed with him using the bike path as a place to turn his car around. I always like to say; if he had done so in the USA, I probably could have shot him right in the head, no charges. But his Mercedes with enlarged rims had a bad turn radius and my response time is nil, so I did a 180 and rode away. Had it been the USA... I would have loved the "stand your ground" idea man...

Also look at past two years; way way way less traffic due to Covid lockdowns, but still almost the same number of "traffic deaths". Meaning car drivers abused more space on the road to illegally drive past the speed limit more often.

20 years ago the road near my parent's house was a through-route. The police put down a speed radar once in a while and the results were published in the local newspaper... "1560 vehicles passed the check, 1386 were fined, allowed speed 50 km/h, average speed 65 km/h, maximum 92 km/h"
The daughter of the neighbors in that street was also killed by a car driver than ran here over in the street. And 30 years later they also lost a grandkid to the same stuff. Now it's not a through route anymore... but a more empty road. So now the speeding is not a constant stream of cars doing 15 km/h over the limit... but every night a steady dripple of cars going 50+ over the limit.

Last year... empty road, middle of the night... car drivers drives into parked car... two cars total, one damaged. "I just tried to grab my phone". Yeah... fucking idiots.

Do you remember Hans Wiegel? Famous Dutch politician. His first wife died in a car crash... he then married her sister... and she also died in a car crash.

Car violence is ominous, outside NL even more.

If I could get 50% of the fine for all the stuff car drivers pull off... I would work on the bicycle for 8 hours per week and have a paid-off home by the end of the year. I fact, I could sit in front of my parents house in a lounge chair and live from the speeding tickets alone. Or I could walk 2 km from here and sit in a lounge chair and live off the tickets for all the car drivers that drive through a sign explicitly banning cars from that road...
Or sit next to the N-road and fine all the drivers with the mist lights on. Every 3 minutes €90 * 50% = €1350 per hour.

I wish schools spent more time teaching probability theory and additive and multiplicative properties of risks. That would be large contribution to public and personal safety.

Sure. Then everyone would know the probability for an American to be killed "in a traffic accident" is TRIPLE the chance of getting shot death by someone else. Outside specific gang-land territory that is probably 30 times...

Also that mandatory bike helmet laws decrease public health.

Perhaps people would then also understand the relative risk of "traffic" versus the covid-cough....

@Coen
Well put.

*) Fun fact: When you know how, a bike is safer in the winter than walking. You have 3 contact points - two wheels and your leg - so can maintain stability even on flat ice. I learned that at like 10. Since then icy road was seen as a fun challenge, not a danger.

You should try a recumbent tricycle  . That would just go 180 on you on ice.

   Choose analogies, and comparisons carefully in this topic.  And please avoid hot button phrases that are borrowed from other political and social concerns. We don't need to end up delving into other "issues".

Thanks,

   Seth

So on to recumbents, if your 401K has gone south recently or if you're tired of paying child support for those "entangling alliances" I'd heartily encourage you to purchase and ride a recumbent on a daily basis. That will take care of your monetary depleting issues within a week or two of ownership.

Cool bikes, fun to ride but they do offer up the death wish on a daily basis. If a motorcycle is "invisible" when it's 50" above the ground, how visible is a recumbent when it's only 30" above the pavement? I sold mine after 2 weeks...

Haha. The one time I was hit was from the flank. So a 2.5m long, 1m heigh, 0.75m wide bright colored object with reflective coating on the sides. Drivers that can't see that... should be stripped of their license.

The enclosed recumbent I have, being a tricycle and >0.75m wide gives me the right to ignore the "mandatory" part of bicycle paths in the Netherlands. Hugely increasing my safety.  That's another thing Germany has on us, besides the better behaved drivers; their courts trashed the idea of these "mandatory" cycle paths if they are junk.

On what drivers supposedly "see" and "not see". It's funny that they tend to claim they didn't "see" my as a cyclist. But somehow, if I (tall) have a 15mm copper pipe in my right hand they do. They just ignore everything that doesn't affect their own safety. That's why they cross they bike path without looking but do look onto the road they want to cross. And that is why I choose more and more often to ride on the road instead of on the bike path. Because they _do_ look at what's at the road... as they know... rolling onto the road blind might get them into their coffin... but crossing the bike path blind... will never kill them. It's that type of asshole drivers that need to be stripped of their license. As a bonus, it could save us about 500+ lives a year. Or 40.000 in the USA...

P.s. https://www.fox26houston.com/news/cyclist-self-defense-highlighted-after-armed-rider-shoots-road-rage-driver-on-houstons-east-side
Driver uses car as weapon, cyclists shoots driver, driver charged with assault, cyclist goes free.

There are various human factors in play when Motos or bicycles interact with cars and their drivers.

One big one is the SMIDSY. Bikes of all sorts don't present good visual representation of their speed and distance when viewed nearly straight on, such as at a  road intersection.



And another is that our brains tend not to see the things we don't expect to see. That one probably has some relevance to operating woodworking machinery too, though I don't know if it's been examined in that context.