To Bike Helmet or Not to Bike Helmet? To Slow or Not to Slow?

[XLFD]

A reprinted 2018 article was recently featured in an article in the Strong Towns Facebook page making an almost unheard of admission by a bicycle rider and transportation journalist.  It was featured so as to support the ST claim that more traffic calming measures by road engineers is a desirable end:

Here is another link to the article:  I Do Not Wear A Bicycle Helmet.

As you might expect during this safety-obsessed times, the vast majority of respondents chided the author of the Forbes article or ST for advocating such a heretical notion of not wearing a helmet while bicycle riding, many missing (or choosing to ignore) the point trying to be made about adopting road engineering policy to slow traffic down. 

The consensus seems to believe that we do need to slow traffic down and use helmets.  Over 80% of those that opined on helmets spoke favorably of their use, while 100% either explicitly or implicitly agreed with slowing down motorized traffic.

I disagree with the majority in both cases.  In my refutation, I will first support anecdotally using my over 100,000 miles in bicycle riding experience, where less than a thousand miles was with a helmet.  It doesn't have to get too warm to sweat when you're pushing 20 mph on a bicycle.  When you wear a helmet the sweat comes right down into your eyes in sheets, the longer you ride the sweat becomes even more salty and stinging.  When you can't see, accidents happen.

Any potential safety from head injuries is overwhelmed by the potential danger of riding blind.  Without a helmet the sweat is easily mopped up with an occasional head to shoulder swipe or by the air resistance you ride into.  I have also noticed that I'm less likely to move my helmeted head as often to check on various aspects of the road that may affect my safety.  

To add another personal anecdote, in the several incidents I have had without a bicycle helmet (crashes and falls), I have yet to have one that a bicycle helmet would have helped, though I am sure that it would have made things a lot worse in one incident had I been wearing one.   I believe there are times for bicycle helmets, such as when you are traveling on uneven rocky terrain in cooler weather, but the full risk/benefit factors should be analyzed by each individual rider who can analyze using their own metrics gained through experimentation whether helmet use is right for them in a given situation.

As for slowing traffic, if we look at Strong Towns approach of Slowing the cars we find some of their methodology for doing so:

1)  Narrow the lanes

2)  Eliminating 'forgiving design'

3)  Limit visibility

If you do not have separate bicycle facilities on a road and are thereby either on the road shoulder (if it exists) or vehicular cycling, each of these practices actually enhance the dangers to bicyclists.  This suggests that lowering motor vehicle traffic flow decreases the safety for bicyclists.

The goal in traffic engineering is to optimize both traffic flow and safety to the best extent possible for all traffic, so when both variables are reduced by your design, you have failed as a traffic engineer, at least as far as bicycles are concerned.  But let's look at a graph from a recent study on lane widths and accident rates:

The standard size lane width of about 3.45 m (11.4 ft.) actually sees increases in crashes in all categories as one goes to smaller lane widths.  On the other hand, as your width increase from that standard width point, crashes decrease for a little while in all categories of crashes.  Crashes minimize at about 3.5 m (11.5 ft.); going down to a 10 ft. lane (3.05 m, effectively the starting point of each line) actually maximizes all types of crashes, considerably higher than standard lanes by over a factor of three for all crashes.

Through experience, it's noticeably scarier on a bicycle when you travel down a narrow road with no shoulder and hear a car coming at full speed behind you when there's one in front coming at you.  On a standard sized road you can get far over and have them pass in the same lane, you can only bail into the sand or gravel for safety otherwise.  I appreciate 'forgiving design' allowing the extra road width in those situations, and I'm sure that more bicycle lives have been saved than taken because of it.

As for limiting visibility, primarily by making an intersection of another road, driveway or alley way obscured by vegetation, this is just bad road engineering but ST explains using the above picture:

"The street is narrow. Visibility is limited—look at that front left corner of the intersection, where a red fire hydrant stands next to a white fence. The lack of visibility there is not a safety hazard: paradoxically, it’s probably the single biggest thing that promotes safety at this intersection. Because if you’re driving here, and can’t see whether a vehicle is approaching from the left, what are you going to do?  That’s right. You’re going to slow down."

In the real world, not everyone slows down just because the town pictured dangerously allows solid vegetation in the sight triangle of an intersection, Ludington doesn't.  It could be sensibly argued that being able to see potential traffic conflicts approaching an intersection would make both vehicles safer and any collateral damage bicyclists in the area safer too.  

Slowing traffic without a noticeable increase in safety (perhaps even a decrease) should not be considered by traffic engineers who know better.  And if you choose to not wear a bicycle helmet, just as if you decide not to wear a mask in a public place, do so because the risks you assume by not donning one outweighs any benefits that you receive.

[Willy]

 It’s for the individual to decide if they want to wear a helmet. I feel the same about seat belts. Be glad that cyclist still have a choice. I wonder if there are any cyclists out there who wear a helmet and mask at the same time. It’s still foolish to be sharing the road with tons of metal hurling at high speeds next to you. To each his own.

[Epictetus]

Agreed Willy! The forced wearing of a helmet takes away the individuals choice as well as can lead to a misplaced sense of safety when riding along. However, I would be interested in finding out the speeds of the vehicles traveling along an "expressway" in Shanghai versus neighborhood and lower speed streets that ST is talking about. 

[XLFD]

Epic first post, Epictetus, with a healthy dose of the stoicism and wit you're known for.

It is well worth analyzing whether a Shanghai 'expressway' would be synonymous with a lower speed street in an American city.  The study does come to a conclusion using various factors (like congestion, # of vehicles involved, etc.) to find that a width around 12 ft. is definitely much safer than 10 ft.  Many stateside studies working with lower speed streets that I have been able to locate, show a less dramatic difference. 

When the traffic speed limit is 15-25 mph, I see no further need to slow the cars, because a cyclist in good health can attain those speeds themselves.  If one tries to traffic calm such situations by making hazardous conditions, it runs counter to traffic engineering principles that most people hold on optimizing safety and traffic flow.  That shouldn't be thrown out based on perceptions.

Good mid-speed roads are hard to find around here, however, if you ever make it into the area, Epictetus, let me suggest that you take a bicycle ride down Hansen Road (thin lane) between Ludington and Scottville, and compare it with a ride down Fountain Road (which has a 2-3 ft. paved shoulder).  Both have 55 mph speed limits but I'll bet you'll feel safer on Fountain. 

[Epictetus]

Thank you for the warm welcome! 

Finding those studies would be interesting to review to determine the best options for both high and low speed roads. The feeling on wider shoulders on those higher speed roads definitely gives someone a higher confidence in being able to control their own safety when riding. As for the lower speed streets, while in theory I agree with the posted limits, sometimes the way in which we have built the streets or set the limit can lead to someone traveling significantly higher than posted. Those would be ideal candidates for what ST argues in "Slow the Cars" not the already slower streets with little real world variation.

[XLFD]

Everybody get a warm welcome here, it's those damn flames on both sides of your screen.  

I may take some time one day to review the state police's accident database over the last decade and use their filters to look at bicycle vs. vehicle accidents when both vehicles are traveling the same direction (a statistically low number of incidents, < 10%) and look at the characteristics of the road where those happen.  I can easily document each case and use Google maps to figure out additional information the UD-10 accident forms might leave out.  

As in all scientific inquiry, if the data seems to indicate a different conclusion than my initial bias and conceits indicate, I would humbly change my hypothesis.  

As for the ST approach, I am awaiting better guidance on the issue from them.  Late last year I took issue with one of their more controversial posts, where they show two neighborhood streets, one with wide lanes and wide open spaces to either side, the other a narrow one with clutter on either side.  They noted both had 20 mph speed limits, and effectively applauded the latter:  "If It Feels a Bit Dangerous, It’s Probably Safer."

If they had both been the object of a traffic study, these two roads would have had 85 percentile speeds that would undoubtedly be quite different and should be what the limits are, rounded to the nearest 5 mph.  My belief is that if you artificially make traffic go slow, by putting in a speed limit significantly lower than what the 85%S indicates, you do more harm than good; and that if you put in 'hazards' or 'visibility blockers' to artificially slow traffic down, you create more accidents-- with only the consolation that they're likely lower speed accidents with higher survivability rates.