I disagree. Kinetic energy increases with the square of speed. Jogging at 6 mph is simply an order of magnitude less dangerous than biking at 20 mph. This isn’t a simple footnote. You make a mistake while jogging and you scrape a knee. You make a mistake while biking and you may have your mental faculties permanently reduced and lifelong personality issues that drive loved ones away. Barrier to entry isn’t worth arguing about. It’s simply the safety precautions that need to be taken.
20 mph is far, far faster than "casual biking". Most people can't maintain 20mph much less 12mph. You need to change your frame of mind to be more inclusive as it seems you're thinking of people decked out in biking shorts/jerseys with water bottles and all geared up. The context we are talking about here is not that kind of biking.
Also keep in mind, jogging can cause traumatic injuries. But I agree, biking does pose more risk as you have less control than being on your feet.
You are perhaps confusing the sport of cycling with cycling-the-mode-of-transport. When I lived abroad, it seemed very difficult for people to understand the nuance, and difficult to see how missing the nuance was holding back bike-usage in commuting.
In NL, the average is ~20kph for muscle-powered bikes on bikes like [1]. Sports bikes like [2] are not usually used in commutes and considered as dangerous as scooters if used at speeds of 20mph. E-bikes legislation takes 25kph as the limit above which the cyclist is required to follow certain extra rules, and of course muscle-powered cyclist reaching that speed should perhaps also be legislated accordingly. The reason it isn't is difficulty of enforcement, but there are people advocating a maximum speed for bike infrastructure [3], at 25pkh.
We're talking about a barrier to entry to casual cycling here, people commuting in work clothes are not going to be able to reach speeds of 20mph in a busy city, if they do it's up to them to decide whether or a not they should wear a helmet.
Then there should be an enforced speed limit for cyclers not wearing helmets. There is a delicate balance between personal freedom and the greater good. Seatbelts do not protect anyone other than the person wearing it but societies have deemed making them mandatory is a good idea. Helmets have moved into the same category and I think they should stay there. The benefits of lower barrier to entry aren’t worth the increased, unnecessary risks.
> The benefits of lower barrier to entry aren’t worth the increased, unnecessary risks.
Every study I've ever seen contradicts your statement here.
You are all over this thread making strong, sweeping claims about bike safety and your only supporting data point seems to be "KE = 1/2mv^2". But there are entire cities in Europe where biking with no helmet is the norm, lots of people do it every day, and serious accidents are all but unheard of - there are other comments on this post with citations to back that up. There is also evidence that getting more people out biking increases bike safety more than anything else [1], and requiring helmets for everyone at all times makes this very difficult to achieve.
Please stop passing off your gut feeling as fact, it is spreading misinformation and - though I know it seems counterintuitive - actually making biking less safe. To be clear, kinetic energy being proportional to the square of velocity is a fact, that fact's impact on real world bike safety is a much more complicated question.
Disclaimer for what it's worth - I've been biking to and from either work, school or social events about once a day for the past 11 years, and I almost always wear a helmet :)
Firstly, I am not making sweeping claims. I am making a very narrow, specific common sense claim. I have not seen a single paper that refutes the safety benefits of a rider wearing a helmet. Helmets reduce brain injuries. Does this need a citation?
Secondly, there are a lot more than two factors at play to make the "cyclists killed per billion of km of bicycle travel" number. Culturally bikes need to be accepted. I don't see how helmets preclude cultural adoption.
I don't have a lot of faith in common sense, no matter whose it is. Especially when dealing with large numbers, large populations, diverse human behavior, common sense is rarely common and frequently wrong. So yes, a citation is needed.
> I don't see how helmets preclude cultural adoption.
Case in point. It seems completely common sense to me that helmets are a massive barrier to widespread adoption! Leaving aside the issues it introduces with bikeshare logistics, having an additional thing to keep track of and carry around and periodically replace (helmets can go bad!), here's something that I suspect you may not have considered: women! Whether it seems reasonable to you and me or not (and I'll be honest, it doesn't seem reasonable to me), the 2 reasons every woman I've ever asked gives for why they wouldn't want to use a bicycle to get around more are
1) sitting on the seat is awkward/uncomfortable when wearing a skirt or dress
2) helmets would ruin their hair
Requiring helmet wear makes cycling a nonstarter for a large chunk of 50% of the population (how I wish I had a citation for this! as far as I've been able to find, nobody has done any kind of survey that attempts to figure out if this is as widespread as I've observed personally). This alone makes me opposed to it, never mind the exaggerated claims of helmet efficacy
>1) sitting on the seat is awkward/uncomfortable when wearing a skirt or dress
Try watching a video of people in Copenhagen riding bikes. Women wear dresses and skirts there all the time while cycling. Same goes in Japan; women commonly wear dresses/skirts there and ride bikes.
You're also making the claim that bicyclists should be forced to wear helmets. That is what people are primarily disagreeing with.
And, yes, people are sometimes forced to take other steps that are primarily about their individual safety, such as wearing seat belts. I mostly disagree with those laws as well.
Bicycles are not motorcycles, the risk for injury is not so much with speed but instead with collisions between other (primarily motor) vehicles and the types of surfaces cycled on i.e., pavement. There's also a significant socio-economic influence on injury rates, cycling in a city like Delphi with poor road infrastructure and worse general road safety is significantly more dangerous than cycling in any Dutch city with world class cycling infrastructure.
Helmets are obviously essential for reducing serious head injuries (although they're less effective than generally advertised[0]) and parents/individuals should strongly consider using them, but legislation should be focused on improving road safety through education, community outreach, and infrastructure design long before it starts to seriously restrict personal liberty and hampering adoption of better modes of transport. The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, etc, have all showed that you can have world class cycling cities without requiring helmet use.
>Seatbelts do not protect anyone other than the person wearing it but societies have deemed making them mandatory is a that good idea.
This is a dangerous misconception, unbelted rear passengers seriously increase the risk of fatal injuries for the driver and front passengers[1] and in general increase the overall amount of injuries, which should be obvious when you consider that unrestrained passengers essentially become ragdoll missiles in the event of a crash.
> Barrier to entry isn’t worth arguing about. It’s simply the safety precautions that need to be taken.
It's both. Safety doesn't necessarily require helmets, as Netherlands and Danmark demonstrate. I imagine barrier to entry by requiring helmets would be a huge blow to bicycle culture here.
