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The Case for Not Wearing a Bike Helmet
Helmets have been mandatory in the pro peloton for well over a decade. Where’s the data that it’s helping?
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Bicycle Network campaigns for helmet law reform
Australia's Bicycle Network has come out in favour of reforming Australia's mandatory bicycle helmet law.
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Cycling Tips: Commentary
Commentary: Why I stopped wearing a bike helmet
by Peter Flax
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Bicycling Magazine
It’s Okay If You Don’t Wear a Bike Helmet
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Carlton Reid, transport writer
I Do Not Wear A Bicycle Helmet
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More on Why We Shouldn't Have Mandatory Helmet Laws
Over on VOX, Joseph Stromberg rounds up the studies about bike helmets and concludes that if you want to get more people to ride bikes, then you shoul
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Give Kids Bikes, Not Helmets
Why helmet giveaways are an act of surrender
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Enough with the Smashed Watermelons! Helmet Mania Is Scaring Kids Away from Biking
Free Range Kids
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According to research undertaken in Bordeaux, France, men who used a helmet for the first time increased the speed at which they cycled, suggesting that they took more risks because they felt better protected. The same did not apply to women.
From 2009 to 2010 free helmets were given to 1,557 cyclists in Bordeaux who did not normally wear a helmet. 58% of the volunteers were women.
Cameras were used to record how 587 of the cyclists rode before and after being given helmets. Helmet use was recorded in 99 of their movements. The average speed of the men was 19.2 km/hour when wearing a helmet and 16.8 km/hour without. The speeds for women were 16.5 km/hour and 16.1 km/hour respectively.
However, the robustness of the results is uncertain. The researchers caution that Bordeaux is a city with high cycle use and that the behaviour of the 970 other cyclists who were not captured on camera might be different. Moreover the helmeted riders comprised only 3.8% of the trips analysed, a very small sample from which to extrapolate a clear outcome.
Tue 22 May 2012
