My Fellow Cyclists:
There is a creak in our metaphorical bottom bracket, and if we don't address it now it's only a matter of time before we squash our genitals on the Top Tube of Catastrophic Failure.
So what is this creaking? Well, a California senator has introduced a bill for a mandatory bicycle helment law, and our beloved cycling media--which should be standing united against such nonsense in the interest of cyclists everywhere--is instead entertaining it, and in at least one case actually supporting it.
Now I don't care what your feelings on helment use are. Maybe you're one of those people who thinks not wearing a bicycle helment is tantamount to suicide. Maybe you're one of those people who refuses to wear one under any circumstances because they mess up your hair. Or maybe you're like me and don't care much about your hair because you're losing it anyway, so you wear a helment when you're riding a go-fast bike in a special outfit but you don't bother when you're noodling around town in street clothes.
And don't tell me which one you are, because honestly I don't give a shit.
The point is that I have no problem with helments, but if you support a mandatory bicycle helment law then you are anti-cycling. There, I said it. You're a traitor. A heretic. Give up your bike and go lease a Hyundai, because you are playing right into the hands of your oppressors. See, the Automotive Industrial Complex and their various lackeys need helment laws, and the last thing any self-respecting cyclist should do is help them. Here's why:
They need everything to be your problem.
Really, we're practically there already, which is why you'll routinely read newspaper articles that say things like, "The cyclist's legs were crushed when the unlicensed operator lost control of his steamroller. The victim was not wearing a helment." So what if it's an irrelevant detail? In America today, no helment = menace to society.
America may not be number one anymore when it comes to education, or health care, or overall quality of life, but you're goddamn right we lead the world in victim-blaming. There's not anyplace else on the planet where people are more gleeful when the strong get one over on the weak. If you don't understand this now, you certainly will when a driver hits you and you discover the entire system is built around shielding him or her from accountability. You can thank the auto companies and AAA for that, among others. (Do yourself a favor and read about the history of "jaywalking," a concept the auto industry more or less invented. As for AAA, they're fighting against red light cameras not far from me even as I type this, on the basis that stopping for red lights causes rear-end collisions.)
Mandatory bicycle helment laws are just one more way of shifting responsibility away from the driver and onto you. When I was hit from behind by a motorist who then lied to police about what happened, all her insurance company wanted to know was whether or not I was wearing a helment, even though my balding pate was completely unscathed.
Then, once the Automotive Industrial Complex has shifted all the blame onto you they can take it a step further and make it public policy. "Cycle tracks and so forth make cyclists safer and encourage more people to ride? So what? Make 'em wear plastic bumpers on their heads and be done with it."
Congratulations. You're now a car fender.
If all of this is too complicated, let me explain your future in four (4) simple steps:
1) Helment laws for cyclists 2) Self-driving cars over public transit 3) Privatization of roads 4) Future pedestrian: pic.twitter.com/n7YOBqtVYf
— Bike Snob NYC (@bikesnobnyc) March 26, 2015
Yep, that's how it's all gonna go down. It may sound crazy now, but 100 years ago nobody would have believed you could get arrested for crossing the street either.
(Read it, seriously.)
So it would be nice to think that the cycling world would dismiss mandatory helment laws out-of-hand and stand united against them. Sadly, they're not. First, I saw this on the "Bicycling" website yesterday:
I realize this is supposed to be an objective point-counterpoint type thing, but why should we even entertain this "debate" in the first place? What is this compulsion in American society to entertain dumb ideas? It's like when we pretend creationism is a legitimate worldview so we don't offend the religious kooks. (I realize "religious kooks" is redundant.) Hey, I know the helme(n)t deba(n)te makes good clickbait, but some of these ideas are downright toxic:
During the summer of 2014, while riding on a road closed to auto traffic, I survived a collision with another cyclist, only because I was wearing a helmet. Without a helmet, the front of my head would have hit the ground at 28mph, unprotected.
Just several months before my crash, a car that ran a stop sign struck one of my friends while she was riding her bike. She had massive facial trauma, and continues to suffer long-term effects from going through the automobile’s windshield. She “coded” while on the helicopter ride to the hospital. The only reason she is around today: A helmet saved her life.
Okay. Firstly, I'm glad everybody's alive and all that. But...but...you were both wearing helments!!! So why does it follow that we need a law? By all means, wear a helment when you're cycling for "sport." Granted, I don't know about the friend who got hit at the stop sign, but I'm going to guess that someone who works for "Bicycling" and is riding on a closed road at 28mph was not on a townie bike picking up radishes from the greenmarket. Yet because he crashed while engaged in high-speed cycling someone who's cruising around in a sundress should have to wear safety gear as well? Come on.
Comparing cycling to other recreational pursuits, we see that football players—at all levels—wear helmets to lessen the risk of brain injury.
Leave it to someone at "Bicycling" to reduce cycling entirely to a recreational pursuit. The sporting component of cycling is a small one, and USA Cycling makes you wear a helment when you compete anyway. And holy shit, football?!? The sport of football is based on people slamming into each other on purpose! How is riding your bike around town even remotely like football--or any of these other sports?
This is also the case for baseball, hockey, horseback riding, and virtually every other sport that may involve some risk of personal injury.
You gotta be kidding me. I'm pretty sure baseball players only wear helments when people are throwing 100mph fastballs directly at them. As for hockey, it's fucking hockey!!! I do give him bonus points for working equestrianism into the argument though. Sure, if my bike weighed a thousand pounds and had four steel-shod hooves and a mind of its own I'd make sure to wear a helment too. But the amount of times my bicycle got scared by one of its own farts and threw me is exactly zero.
Anyway, everybody knows "cycling is the new golf," so why not just compare it to that? Do golfers wear helments when they're out on the links or zipping between holes in their golf carts? I don't think so.
And here's where the argument gets really dangerous:
The next logical step would be for insurance companies to deny claims for those involved in a bicycling accident while not wearing a helmet. This could be avoided by mandating helmet use, saving both legal fees and lives.
So wait. You actually want insurance companies to deny claims for victims because they weren't wearing helments?
Holy fuck that's cold.
Anyway, reading this in "Bicycling" was bad enough, but then someone tweeted this post from the Red Kite Prayer blog at me:
Bike advocate groups might consider what others see when they see us. They see people who run stop signs, weave in and out of traffic, ride in packs, take up a lane, and so on. It’s not a pretty picture. Sure, most of us are wearing helmets as we bend rules and traffic laws, but that’s not what the pissed off drivers see. So when they hear cyclists are opposed to a helmet law, it only furthers their belief that we are selfish, unpredictable and dangerous.
Maybe we let this one go. Let the lawmakers and drivers have this one without resistance. We got our 3-foot law in California, we can put up with a helmet law on the books. Pick you battles as they say. This is one fight we can easily walk away from.
Wow. "Let this one go?" Leave it to the Freds to sell the rest of us out. Sure, they've got nothing at stake, since the helments already go with their outfits. Essentially what he's saying is that because people get irritated by the local crabon weenie group ride every person who rides a bike for any reason should cop to the Foam Hat of Shame as some sort of penance or polystyrene bargaining chip.
I swear these goddamn Freds will ruin cycling forever if you let them.
By the way, check out the Red Kite Prayer post that immediately preceded that one:
Make of that what you will.
So go ahead, call me irresponsible. Tell your "My helment saved my life" stories. Bow to the people who say you're statistically insignificant and don't deserve bike infrastructure, yet somehow vast numbers of brain-injured cyclists are destroying the American economy. Let them pass a bicycle helment law to appease the non-cyclists who find us annoying. (Yeah, I mentioned appeasement. DON'T MAKE ME GO GODWIN!!!)
Just don't come crying to me in 20 years when you need a license and registration to operate a bicycle, and you're wearing a giant Dayglo bodysuit with illumination circuitry, one of those "smart hats," and a GPS beacon up your ass so you don't get hit by an Apple car.
In fact, you won't be able to come crying to me, because I'll have emigrated to the Netherlands, where they'll have granted me political asylum.
The rest of you can enjoy your dystopian Australian future:
Heroes and football players.
They never ask why.