|
 Too often education efforts for bicycle safety are aimed exclusively at bicyclists, setting them out as the wrong-doers. The absurdity of blaming the most vulnerable in a car-bike crash must never escape us. That is why we always emphasize that driver education for driving safely with bicyclists must come first. We will soon add good examples of additions to driver education programs
There are also many terrific bicyclist education programs available for adults and children and we look forward to adding these as resources.
DRIVER AWARENESS TEST
Watch this video awareness test to see how important driver awareness education is. Keep in mind that if you are visiting this web site, you are amongst the most aware!
THE PROBLEM WITH HELMETS
Myths about helmets are another absurdity that has taken hold in countries where bicycling is not commonplace. Fear mongering rhetoric has escalated to the point where those not familiar with bicycling believe that if you so much as swing your leg over a bicycle you will smash your head open. Helmet rhetoric that sets bicycling out as far more dangerous than it is, has done immeasurable harm to efforts for increasing bicycling. Be sure to take this fun Quiz to adjust your perspective on the dangers of bicycling: http://www.bicyclinglife.com/SafetySkills/SafetyQuiz.htm
Mandatory helmet laws often follow the spread of these myths, adding the weight of the law to the idea that bicycling is more dangerous than any other form of transportation. In fact, as you will have found in the above Quiz, if these laws took a realistic approach to their attempt to prevent head injuries, all pedestrians and car drivers would be required to wear helmets as well. And, it seems, wearing a helmet inside the house should also become mandatory.
Please understand that we support people who want to wear helmets and even encouraging the use of helmets. We simply expect the reasoning behind wearing helmets to be factual so that people who choose to wear a helmet understand the limit of safety that helmet will provide them. Combining this understanding with the facts about how safe bicycling truly is will do wonders for efforts to increase bicycling. See this web page for a good overview of reasons to question overzealous helmet propaganda: http://www.cyclehelmets.org/mf.html?1012 . You will also find important papers linked from that site. Here is another we recommend:
Fortunately, more and more high-level analysts are questioning the helmet propaganda and finding the earlier figures to be false. Below are some more tips on how to fight helmet laws if the threat ever comes to your community. Also, make sure to visit our Campaign Planning page to plan out a comprehensive campaign that will stop the law and, ideally, guide the effort to improve bicycle safety towards preventing crashes.
1) Helmets do not prevent crashes! Improved road and pathway conditions, driver education, better protections for cyclists and increased numbers of bicyclists through safety in numbers, prevent crashes. Too often government officials, health practitioners and even insurance companies grasp at helmet laws as a lazy solution, following the misinformation that has proliferated about helmets decreasing head injuries.
2) Helmets do not prevent major head injuries – While helmets help to prevent minor head injuries such as minor skull fractures and lacerations, they cannot prevent major head injuries caused by brain trauma inside the skull. They have also proven to be of little use in car-bike crashes.
3) Helmet laws are another barrier - Potential cyclists see many barriers to starting cycling. Mandatory helmet laws add to this list and thus prevent many new riders from starting. These laws have also been proven to decrease numbers of current cyclists thus increasing the potential for crashes by hindering safety in numbers: http://ip.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/9/3/205 . This is the main point on this site: http://www.cyclehelmets.org/ which also has lots of other good resources.
4) Helmet laws also set in place a ready-made blame the victim reaction - Each time a helmetless cyclist is in a crash, their bare head becomes the focus even if the driver deliberately ran them over and they died not from head injuries, but internal injuries.
Remember that whenever one of these laws is presented, it is from a lazy knee jerk reaction, either to a recent crash or fear mongering rhetoric. They always divert discussions away from the real remedy - making the bicycling environment safer in order to prevent crashes. Any time we hear of efforts to make crashing safer, we must respond immediately and demand that they instead work to prevent crashes!
Spain’s Helmet Results Poster Paper
Helmet Law Outcomes Summary
|
