A little over a month ago, I was in Portland, Oregon on a mini-vacation. Portland is known for its strong support of bike commuting, and this support pays off as streets are shared between drivers and bicyclists. While I was there, though, I also noticed a handful of people riding without a helmet, which seemed very out of sorts to me. When I got back home to Seattle -- another city that is big on biking -- I started to notice a good number of people here biking without a helmet, too. This struck me as extremely unsafe and frustrated me as I thought these helmetless bicyclists were affecting the image of the responsible commuter.
This longread forced me to reconsider my viewpoint. As someone who doesn't ride a bike, I really don't know about the risks of bike accidents. I have assumed that riding with a helmet was a fundamental safety issue, but apparently the science is not nearly as clear. Furthermore, the overall safety of bicyclists might be improved if helmet requirements -- a barrier to biking for many -- were eliminated.
I still have a strong visceral reaction to seeing bicyclists without a helmet, but this longread got me thinking about this issue in new ways and has me questioning whether my initial impulse on this issue is the right one.
"To Encourage Biking, Cities Lose the Helmets" by Elisabeth Rosenthal
Published in the New York Times, September 29, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/sunday-review/to-encourage-biking-cities-forget-about-helmets.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=opinion&pagewanted=all
Eric
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