Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Juan 2-3 or more mi. on November 16, 2012 at 8:52am

It's nice to hear Mikael's confirmation that Chicago and San Francisco CAN be good cycling cities.

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Permalink Reply by John Greenfield on November 16, 2012 at 9:05am

Yeah, we'll never be Copenhagen - Chicago is too spread out to have the same density of bike facilities. But I think if the city of Chicago does half of the stuff they're proposing in the Streets for Cycling Plan 2020 we'll definitely become a world-class bike town.

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Permalink Reply by Juan 2-3 or more mi. on November 16, 2012 at 12:51pm

I am psyched! Never seen so many more cyclists year round, and different types also LOL.

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Permalink Reply by Bill Savage on November 17, 2012 at 2:17pm

Hmmm.  Very interesting argument that wearing helmets, or the promotion of wearing helmest, makes people not ride.  But then, if getting in an accident makes you brain-damaged, can you continue to ride?  The real key, it seems to me, is the physical street-level infrastructure for safety, which (as you point out, John) is hard to build in Chicago's grid.

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Permalink Reply by John Greenfield on November 19, 2012 at 4:47am

I think the publishers of Momentum, a bike mag out of Vancouver, nailed the helmet issue in this editorial:

http://momentummag.com/articles/moving-the-conversation-beyond-helmets

Wear a helmet if you want, or don't - it's a personal choice. But don't attack others for their choice, and don't let the helmet debate distract us from the more important issue. Helmets may help mitigate the damage from some crashes, but they don't prevent crashes. Let's move on from debating the pros and cons of helmet use to working to create streets that are safe enough that bike/car crashes are virtually eliminated, as is the case in Copenhagen.

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Permalink Reply by John Greenfield on November 19, 2012 at 5:29am

Ah yes, a bicycle ninja. In bike-friendly countries people usually don't wear helmets but they *always* use lights at night.

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Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on November 19, 2012 at 8:34am

Bikeyface also has a good summary of the big picture - very relevant here.

John Greenfield said:

I think the publishers of Momentum, a bike mag out of Vancouver, nailed the helmet issue in this editorial:

http://momentummag.com/articles/moving-the-conversation-beyond-helmets

Wear a helmet if you want, or don't - it's a personal choice. But don't attack others for their choice, and don't let the helmet debate distract us from the more important issue. Helmets may help mitigate the damage from some crashes, but they don't prevent crashes. Let's move on from debating the pros and cons of helmet use to working to create streets that are safe enough that bike/car crashes are virtually eliminated, as is the case in Copenhagen.

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Permalink Reply by Will on November 26, 2012 at 10:01am

I agree that just like bikes are no match for cars, helmets are no match for prevention. However, it's clear that in some crashes, they do help prevent serious injury or death, and such crashes need not even involve motor vehicles. I take issue with Mikael's assertion that promoting helmet use scares people away from riding- he is not basing his argument on anything but a 2% decrease in ridership in Copenhagen from 2008, he presents no evidence for a causal relationship. While mandating helmet use would surely discourage ridership, let's see some real evidence that simply encouraging helmet use has the same negative impact. Until then, I'm not buying it.

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