GREAT piece, so wonderfully well done!

I you inform that I have integrated your fabulous video Cycle Chic in Copenhaguen and Beyond, in the blog Valencia Cycle Chic, Friend and small brother of Chic Copenhaguen Cycle.

Thank you for your so wonderful work. Here also we fight for the sustainable mobility and the bicycle
http://cyclechicvalencia.blogspot.com/

Fernando Mafé

Valencia Spain

The guy from Lodz is saying that cyclists in his city are few but got style!

Cycling is much safer where they don't wear helmets. So clearly even if helmets are a bit helpful, they aren't *very* helpful. Otherwise you'd see something in the data (which no good study looking at large populations has found.)

And while there's excellent evidence that helmet promotion deters cycling, there's very little evidence at all that it protects cyclists.

Tom Vanderbilt had a nice discussion with Prof. Ian Walker about helmets here:

http://www.howwedrive.com/2008/10/01/to-wear-or-not-to-wear-and-is-that-even-the-right-question-ian-walker-on-cycle-helmets/

FWIW I wear my helmet when I cycle in the US and don't when I cycle in Holland. And I feel a lot safer in Holland

So in summary, from the experiences of Denmark and Holland, we know of a lot of ways to make cycling *much* safer than it is in the US. Helmet wearing is clearly not one of those ways.

Furthermore promotion of helmets discourages cycling while distracting attention from real proven improvements.

So helmet promotion is not helpful to cycling.

As most cycling helmets for urban use - thankfully - are never actually used for their explicitly-marketed and officially-stated function, their primary function is to communicate some message about responsibility, or lack thereof. For me this message is about the irresponsibility of designers of mobility infrastructure and users (no matter their intention) of primarily private vehicles and simultaneous transfer of responsibility to vulnerable road users, encouraging them to buy something which solves neither the primary causes of the disease, nor many of its symptoms, and may make things worse.

Thus, the helmet is a mirror of a society which is often well-intentioned but caught in a candy-coated safety drug-induced fog of over-promising and under-delivering ideas like "share the road" and "complete streets". The truth, I think, is that cyclists and pedestrians cannot ultimately share the world with private urban vehicles and that streets were complete before cars came along, and so with them the balance is forever not right.

No helmets worn in Europe - may be I should move there....

Justin, cars have safety features that include seat belts, airbags, and crumple zones all of which are designed to absorb the impact of a collision. Cars are engineered to protect the occupants, so you comparison is pointless.

Also, it looks as if they bent over backwards to show some helmets. No one in Europe wears a helmet except maybe in England or if he/she is an athlete. That's the big surprise when you ride in Amsterdam, Berlin, and Copenhagen.

BTW, haven ridden in many truly bicycle friendly places in Europe (and the US), you begin to realize that its the drivers of cars and the lack of quality infrastructure for bicyclists that necessitates, or at least makes one feel that helmets are necessary. If your riding Cycle Chic style and not Cycle Geek style (slow and not for all out speed) then cycling is really very safe.

What actually makes cycling somewhat hazardous in this country are our homicidal drivers, a lack of proper infrastructure for bicyclists and unsafe bicycle operation by the cyclists themselves. In true cycling cultures these three issues are properly addressed, making mandatory bicycle helmet use rather unnecessary unless again, one rides for speed.

If these charts are accurate -- http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1079.html -- Justin's right on. Much lower helmet use and much lower fatality rates in western European countries. But it would be specious to suggest that X leads to Y here, no?

Some studies have shown that a helmet is actually even more crucial for motorists when driving. When was the last time you saw a motorist wearing a cool helmet in his car? When was the last time anyone urged a motorist to wear a helmet, or even snidely suggested they should have to?

I don't think helmets are that bad, and when I do not wear one it isn't because it's uncool. It's just that they are not absolutely necessary at all. Those Europeans have much more experience with city biking than we do. I think they must have some sense of what they are doing.

- J