One more time…

Posted on October 13, 2010 by Dave Feucht

I was reminded of something today, seeing the post on Copenhagenize about Roger Geller, Portland’s bicycle co-ordinator, and his visit to Sydney, Australia to talk about Portland’s movement towards accommodating bicycles.

Portland Roger Geller
Photo courtesy of Copenhagenize.

I’m going to write about bicycle helmets one more time :) Through discussion around the internet and with people in person, plus a lot of time in thought, I’ve come to the opinion that bicycle helmets are, amongst other things, an indicator of how safe people feel while riding a bike. When we’re talking about the cross-section of people riding around in cities for normal everyday trips like going to work or to the grocery store or out to a movie or whatever, I feel that the choice whether to wear a bicycle helmet or not is largely made based on whether the person feels that the streets are safe or not, and this is mostly based on the motor vehicle traffic, street design, etc. I don’t think most people feel the need to wear a helmet on a separated path where there is no car traffic, unless they are riding head-down and fast (i.e. racing), or if to them the helmet is just kind of “part of the gear”.

It really struck me when Mikael noted that in one of Roger’s presentations, on one slide he shows the current percentage of people wearing helmets in Portland, and then mentions he’ll show the desired percentage – the next slide says 0%. That is, he envisions a Portland which is deemed safe enough that nobody feels the need to wear a helmet when riding around the city.

This is also my ideal for the city I live in, and it’s really nice for me to know that, whether it moves quickly that direction or not, the city I live in is interested in making the city safer for people to move around by bicycle, and not just telling them to watch out for themselves, and good luck.

Clearly, in the Netherlands, it is deemed safe to ride a bicycle. There isn’t even a second thought about it. Everyone from age 3 to age 90 rides them, and not a single person wears a helmet while just going from place to place on their daily trips. Despite nobody wearing helmets, they have the safest bicycle traffic in the world, statistically. Subjectively, it feels like a dream. A very good dream.

Amsterdam 2010

We don’t need more emphasis on forcing or coercing people to wear helmets in Portland or anywhere else in the U.S. If people feel like they need them, they will wear them, they are readily available. In the meantime, we should be spending our time and energy in an effort to make it actually safe (both through street design and law) so that people don’t in fact need them.

In case you ever read this Roger, thanks for understanding that.

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  • Simply Bike

    Yes! Very well put!

    Ever since you made this observation on my helmet post a while back, I've been struck by this idea as one of the best ways to describe how I feel about helmet use. I don't wear my helmet when just riding (literally) down the street to the grocery store, nor do I wear one while just riding around campus among pedestrians and footpaths (no cars). I also didn't wear a helmet when my husband and I rode bikes in Europe – in Munich and in Prague – because no one else did there and the infrastructure made us feel safe. We also felt safe there because we saw how *good* drivers were about respecting cyclists.

    I now wear a helmet because my husband insists on it, and he insists on it because a friend of our already got hit by a car while cycling in our town, and we've witnessed driver-to-bike aggression while just riding around together.

    Our helmet use is definitely fueled by a need to protect ourselves from the drivers in our town and because the lack of bike lanes often forces us into precarious road-sharing situations.

    I would love to see more advocacy for bike-friendly environments rather than just more helmet use. S.

  • Anne

    That's a very nice photo of Roger!

    I've stopped wearing a helmet altogether when riding my Omafiets. It amazes me how often total strangers will scold me for this choice (once a week, more or less).

    How Not To Get Hit By Cars jibes with my own personal view of bike-riding. Its author says, "Since I've become more observant of how bikes and cars interact, I've decided that bicyclists have two major safety threats: cars and themselves."

    Sport-and-speed cyclists–the ones who, on BikePortland and elsewhere, bemoan the grave frustration they suffer if they have to stop at a red light–don't want to hear about these simple safety techniques. "Choose wide streets", "Choose back streets" and "Choose slow streets" are suggestions that would seem to abridge their right to take the lane on Hawthorne.

    Me, I'll happily relinquish that right every chance I get. I'll take the lane only when I have no other choice. That's why I'm okay with leaving my Nutcase at home most of the time.

  • portlandize.com

    Simply Bike: I hope that, as well as advocacy for environment change, we start to see city, state and national officials more and more waking up to the fact that the way our transportation system as a whole works is very literally deadly, and actually people on bicycles are about the safest group of people currently.

    About 40,000 people die inside of cars every year in the U.S. – automobile traffic is the leading cause of death for everyone under 35 years old in the U.S. That's close to the number of Americans who died in Vietnam, dying every year just to move from one place to another.

    We need to start to recognize that by making our roads safer for the most vulnerable users, we are not just benefiting some special interest group or bunch of nutty hippies who can't afford cars, we're benefiting every person. We can't afford to be in such a hurry that human life ceases to matter to us.

    Anne: I haven't gotten any "where's your helmet?" comments in quite a while, and it's been kind of refreshing. The last one I got was from a guy walking his dog near a park where there was literally not a single moving car in sight.

    I don't want to take away anyone's right to ride in the road, but I want to also give people who can't or won't ride in the road on busy roads a place to be. It's good to ride defensively, because it's necessary here, but I would love to see the infrastructure and law change so that people going for a walk or to ride their bike didn't have to worry about dying every time they leave the house.

    I basically follow what I see on How Not To Get Hit as well, but every time I see something like that, I'm reminded of being in Amsterdam or Vilnius or other cities where I could simply walk or ride a bike calmly, aimlessly, slowly, wanderingly and didn't have to constantly be thinking about whether I was doing everything I could to avoid getting hit by a car, because I know the people in the cars are going to be doing what they can to avoid hitting me.

    Here in Portland, I absolutely do what you do and take quiet side streets whenever I can – thankfully there are quite a few of them – but still the feeling just isn't the same. Avoidance of traffic isn't the same thing as peaceful co-existence :)

  • Anonymous

    The last time that I was told that I "should wear a helmet" was just after being pulled over for speeding by a motorcycle cop with a radar gun. He had clocked me going 12 mph, and very politely told me about the 10 mph speed limit on that particular path, and then wrote me an official warning for violating the dress code. That's right, I'm not allowed to ride more than 10 mph on a separated path, but I am required to wear a helmet. Of course, if I ride 12 mph on the road, I get pulled over for "Impeding Traffic". In case you hadn't guessed, I don't live in Portland (yet). Some cities have a long way to go. Val

  • portlandize.com

    Anonymous: isn't it weird how bicycles sometimes get targeted like that? Why on earth is that cop wasting his time policing a bicycle path, when you have people out on the roads endangering lives? The way things work on our roads is often ironic – ride in the road, you're a vehicle, but don't impede traffic, or it's your fault if you get hit! Want protection? Fine, buy a helmet and neon clothing. Good luck!

    It's good to see it changing some, but it has a long way to go.

  • Anonymous

    He was there because the 10 mph limit was new; the result of a pedestrian dying after a collision with a bicyclist. My feeling is that if this is going to be the policy, it should be uniform – we need a 10 mph speed limit on every road on which a pedestrian has been killed. I could get behind that. Mandatory helmet laws for ALL vulnerable road users, too, while we're at it. But I'm not bitter, or anything. Val

  • Velouria

    It is fantastic to learn that a bicycle coordinator/planner in an American city holds this attitude. Maybe all is not lost to the helmet hysteria backed by faulty claims.

  • portlandize.com

    Anonymous: the thing that gets me, is that it has nothing to do with you wearing a helmet (or not). Your choice of whether to wear one or not won't harm or help anyone else. And yeah, if they're going to institute 10mph speed limits for bicycles, they should apply to cars too.

    Velouria: here's hoping!

  • Ryan

    I remember when I first started commuting by bike about 7 or 8 years ago I was in the minority.
    No helmet and no spandex. Nearly every bike on the road back then was someone training for the "tour" it seemed.
    I was only told to put a helmet on once by one of these 'cyclists'. The rest were just constant dirty looks.

    I'm happy to say that today (well actually for the past three years now), the spandex crowd has diminished to Sunday morning rides, and we now have a larger group of people who ride without a helmet and in just average everyday clothing!

    I find people wear helmets to protect them if they get hit by a car, yet most studies indicate that a car traveling anything over 30kph (19mph), helmets are of little use.

    An issue we have in Canada is out health care system. People say cyclists should be forced to wear a helmet since the "tax-payers" pay for the medical bills.
    They usually don't have an answer to the growing obesity rates from people who sit around all day, constantly eat crap, smoke, drink too much alcohol, get injured in car accidents etc.

  • portlandize.com

    Ryan,

    There's been a similar change here in Portland in the last few years, more and more people dressing in normal street clothes, etc.

    I think one of the biggest issues we have regarding helmets is our health care system as well, only in our case it's the insurance. It's less likely you'll be covered if you weren't wearing a helmet, and people get pissed off, not because they're paying taxes for stupid people not wearing helmets who get hurt, but because those stupid people drive up insurance costs.

    The same here, people rarely/never get angry about having to pay for those people who eat crap and destroy their bodies in various ways and then end up in the hospital all the time (because that is closer to the cultural normal).

    The leading cause of death in America for everyone under age 35 is automobile traffic. The leading causes of death for everyone over 35 are things which may be caused or exacerbated by inactivity (high blood pressure, heart disease, etc).

    Seems like a lot of pretty good reasons to stop trying to frighten people and start trying to get them all out on their bikes!

  • Dottie

    Hell to the yeah. Great to read something so well-reasoned on the subject.

  • portlandize.com

    Dottie: Thanks for the compliment – that means a lot coming from you :)

  • portlandize.com

    Dottie: also, more people should say "hell to the yeah" :)

  • She Rides a Bike

    Mostly, I don't wear a helmet. Usually, I am biking on the segretated urban trail. Even on most streets I feel fairly safe and I am a rather cautious rider. Still, when I read about the fatality of a bicyclist involving a car I pause at fact that even in a bike town like Flagstaff, people still don't really look for them on the street. I still encounter aggressive drivers and thoughtless drivers talking on their cells or texting who veer into the bike lane. By far, I think most accidents and fatalities are accidents and that no intent to threaten or do harm was intended. My own experience behind the wheel tells me how easy it is to not see a bicyclist. I think things will improve and helmits will become more and more optional as bicycles become more common on the road and when more drivers are also part-time bike commuters.

  • jj

    I wear a helmet not because of cars but because concrete is stronger than my skull. If a car hits me, I know I have more to worry about than whether my helmet is on. But if I slip on wet leaves, get distracted by the view, have a suicidal squirrel dart in front of me on a multi-use path, slip a wheel into a streetcar track, any number of freak occurences, I'd like to know that there's something between the road/curb and my head to cushion the blow a bit. Been there done that once 11 years ago, and was very thankful that the helmet was there and did it's job.

    But if others don't want to wear 'em, I wish them well. To each their own.

  • portlandize.com

    jj: I think a person's own circumstances have a lot to do with their felt need for a helmet – how they ride, what they ride, where they ride, etc. That's perfectly normal, as we all have a unique situation and comfort level.

    When I wrote that automobile traffic is a big reason for people to wear helmets, I wrote it not only with the idea that people fear getting hit by a car, but that riding in amongst fast/busy automobile traffic may increase their likelihood of, for instance, hitting a streetcar track wrong, or hitting a pothole they otherwise would have easily avoided, because too much of their attention is on the automobile traffic.

    So, part of my point was that I think at least some people might feel better about their ability to stay upright, apart from actually being hit by a car, if our roads and other public spaces were designed in a more accommodating manner.

    But overall this post wasn't about whether you wear a helmet or not. It was simply to make a point that we have bigger things to worry about promoting and enforcing. As I said, people will wear a helmet if they feel the need, they're easy to come by.

  • Michael M.

    I tend to agree with your point above that "we have bigger things to worry about promoting and enforcing," but I still wear a helmet most of the time for many of the same reasons jj mentions. If I generally cruised along at 8 – 12 mph, I might dispense with the helmet more often.

    But I think one reason for the antipathy that exists toward the helmetless is that there is, at least in my observation, a strong correlation between recklessness and the lack of a helmet. Last evening's bonehead move, for instance, was an unlit male cyclist crossing Naito (at NW Couch, where I was waiting at the red) against the signal, while talking on a cellphone. He wasn't wearing a helmet. IMO, that was the least of his problems, but to some extent it is a fair predictor of what kind of behavior you can expect. It seems to me there's an especially strong correlation between the helmetless and the unlit. So I'm generally wary of riders not wearing helmets, unless they're on big Dutch- or cargo-type bikes or hauling a trailer.

  • portlandize.com

    @Michael M: Yeah, I'm sure a fair amount of antipathy does come from that, just like I still get the "cyclists don't care about red lights" line from people – because of the few cyclists who blow through them and scare someone who is driving, who then rants to all their friends about how cyclists don't care about rules, and then those people to their friends, and on and on.

    Again, everyone has different reasons to wear or not wear a helmet, and that's totally fine. I usually do cruise along at 8-12 mph, have lights, and ride pretty relaxed and calm and pretty upright, so I don't really feel the need – but I might if I were riding drop bars and averaging 20mph.

    But I feel that the helmet issue (and the stuff promoting super high-visibility clothing, and a number of other things) take a lot of attention away from actually making the roads safe and giving legal protection to those who need it, and I think that's a shame. We shouldn't have to go to extraordinary measures to protect ourselves while just getting from one place to another.

  • 2whls3spds

    Excellent post.

    FWIW statistics indicate a higher percentage of car occupants die from head injuries in a year than cyclists…so maybe the helmets are on the wrong heads? However the cycling stats are pretty screwy due to reporting discrepancies.

    To me helmet choice is personal, nothing more nothing less. I wear one on occasion, but seldom when riding my upright bike on slow side streets. Situational awareness goes a long ways towards keeping your self safe from falls and accidents.