The New York Times ran an article this weekend on the differences in the perception of helmet laws (or the lack of helmet laws) for bicyclists in the U.S. versus Europe:
One common denominator of successful bike programs around the world — from Paris to Barcelona to Guangzhou — is that almost no one wears a helmet, and there is no pressure to do so.
In the United States the notion that bike helmets promote health and safety by preventing head injuries is taken as pretty near God’s truth. Un-helmeted cyclists are regarded as irresponsible, like people who smoke. Cities are aggressive in helmet promotion.
But many European health experts have taken a very different view: Yes, there are studies that show that if you fall off a bicycle at a certain speed and hit your head, a helmet can reduce your risk of serious head injury. But such falls off bikes are rare — exceedingly so in mature urban cycling systems.
On the other hand, many researchers say, if you force or pressure people to wear helmets, you discourage them from riding bicycles. That means more obesity, heart disease and diabetes. And — Catch-22 — a result is fewer ordinary cyclists on the road, which makes it harder to develop a safe bicycling network. The safest biking cities are places like Amsterdam and Copenhagen, where middle-aged commuters are mainstay riders and the fraction of adults in helmets is minuscule.
Helmet laws can become controversial when a city decides to start a bike sharing system, which brings biking under the umbrella of local government, and a lack of helmet laws can be seen as an official endorsement of riding without a helmet. However, having a helmet law in place can also be seen as a deterrent to casual cycling, which bike share systems are intended to encourage.
As Seattle prepares to introduce a bike share system, some local advocates worry the city’s stringent helmet law may doom the project (which also faces the usual hurdles of the city’s climate and topography). Seattle Bike Blog proposed some compromise steps short of repealing Seattle’s helmet law (which they believe is unlikely): make riding without a helmet a secondary offense, or exempt bike share users. The comments on the post show not everyone agrees even on these steps.
Personally, I always ride with a helmet when I’m on my personal road bike. But when I used the bikeshare bikes in my previous home of Washington, D.C., I often rode without. The heavier, slower bikes feel safer, and I was more likely to use them on a whim when I hadn’t necessarily planned on biking. Carrying a helmet everywhere, just on the off chance you end up on a bike, is just off-putting enough to be unlikely. In my experience, requiring a helmet does reduce the chance of someone spontaneously deciding to ride. The question, which doesn’t seem to have a solid answer, is whether that’s a desired effect.
