grantelmwood

The bike helmet debate rages on as study finds drivers view cyclists wearing safety gear as 'less human' (msn.com)

A recent study found that drivers viewed cyclists wearing a helmet or safety vest as "less human."

• This research could add fuel to the debate over bike helmet mandates in the US.
• Many bicycling advocates argue helmet mandates make bicyclists less safe for a variety of reasons.

mschwett 

kind of a weak study IMO, just asking people questions based on photos. a better study would be to somehow get lots and lots of dashcam/integrated car camera footage and analyze actual driver behavior in different situations. of course that would be really hard.

like most of us, i always, always, always wear a helmet when riding solo, fast, long distances, etc. but when i ride with my kids on slow streets and bike paths in the city, they wear helmets and i do not precisely because of the decent amount of research that suggests others do behave somewhat more deferentially when a rider isn't wearing a helmet. i believe this combo is the safest possible for them, and at the speeds and types of paths/roads involved the risk to me is acceptable. i realize the study is building on the referenced one which concluded that "respondents who rated cyclists as 89 percent human or less showed 1.87 times more direct aggressive behaviors to cyclists compared to the respondents who rated cyclist as more than 90 percent human," but without having read that entire paper, it's not clear to me how they came to that conclusion. (the 1.87x)

Gresp15C

Most reported behavioral effects should be treated as preliminary, as the effect size tends to diminish upon replication of the study, sometimes to zero.

I agree that better studies would be based on real life observations by detached observers using video. Even then, doing social science research in a scientific fashion and getting reliable results is hard and might not be forthcoming in my lifetime.

At the same time, I wonder about the relevance of the effect, if it turns out to be real. I don't care if you dehumanize me. I just don't want you to run me over. And I have a hunch that in most crashes, the driver doesn't "see" the cyclist, or they otherwise misjudge the situation with no time to form a conscious personal opinion about me. If I'm invisible, it doesn't matter what I'm wearing.

veganbikes

So again what is your personal opinion on this extremely weak study grantelmwood ? What is the point of the link are you for the study, against the study do you agree, disagree? Do you have any opinions of your own? Are you just trying out your copy and paste skills?

Also did you read the article or the study, did you know it was done in Australia and may not be relevant to a completely different country?

If you want to just copy paste stuff, open up a Word document (since you use MSN I would guess you are a windoze user) and then copy and paste all the articles and videos to your hearts content or if you need to share them maybe create a blog where you can just copy and paste stuff with zero opinions about what you have copy and pasted and people can find it as they need it. Posting it here with zero opinion is kind of silly. If I wanted a news aggregator I can get tons of them all over the net that are way better.

Like Gresp15C said I don't care about being human, I just don't want to get hit either. I also don't think my clothing or lack of clothing has much of a real world effect to someone crashing into me unless intentional and in that case the person is a psychopath and probably shouldn't have been allowed a license if they even had one.

Also looking at the pictures they used they aren't great pictures and those safety vests are ugly, granted pretty much all of them are ugly but there are better vests out there that I would have chosen and if they are using safety vests then I think the study should have included road construction workers as well since they were vests? Are they less than human for wearing a vest or did the few people in the study have a bias against cyclists in general and the vest just made them more visible for the study?

livedarklions

So? Even if it's right,. what's the solution? Wigs that go over helmets? More "human" high viz?
Ride helmetless in dark clothing? No thanks.

livedarklions

This should get dumped into the helmet sticky thread.

veganbikes

Except there is no content aside from a few of us giving our opinions, the OP didn't provide anything but a copy paste.

I wouldn't dump this into that thread.

rumrunn6

what a moronic survey

FBinNY 

Not commenting about the quality or methodology of the survey, but I understand the results.

Over last 50+ years I've noticed cyclists becoming more assertive (for better or worse, not a value judgement). I can see how drivers might associate that assertiveness with cyclists kitted out that way, and therefore focusing their resentment selectively. This isn't any different that how we, as cyclists, make judgements about drivers based on the type of car or pickup, so the only surprise is that anybody is surprised.

On a side note, I found it interesting that they said that bicycle advocates were arguing against helmet mandates. Years ago, as helmet use was becoming mainstream, the only people talking helmet mandates were self appointed bike advocates. This is one reason I parted company form bike advocacy years ago, and I remember many times where I'd be in the minority arguing against mandates at public meetings. OTOH- this came out of Australia, where there's been a national helmet mandate for decades, so maybe the shoe is on the other foot down there.

Polaris OBark

Didn't we just do this?

Edit: yup https://www.bikeforums.net/advocacy-...anization.html

Koyote

fify.

livedarklions

I don't see or hear a lot of people arguing for mandates for adults these days. The selective enforcement issues are just too glaring, and it's just not effective. The kids' mandate is on the books in most states, and enforcement is pretty much nonexistent. My understanding is that the emphasis has gone to promoting the use by giving away free helmets to kids.

FBinNY 

All that's beside the point. This thread isn't about helmets per se. It's about driver perceptions.

Paul Barnard

This is a very good post. I have little use for copy and paste dolts.

FBinNY 

Why are folks attacking the OP?

Regardless of the quality or import of this survey, it is out there and of interest to anyone who rides public roads.

The OP is right to post a link, allowing any of us to read the the article and draw our own conclusions. IMO this "cut and paste" post is more valuable than knowing what the OP thinks.

livedarklions

So it's wrong to respond to your "side note"?

You made a comment about advocates, I think their position has evolved a bit.

I have no idea if people associate being kitted with being assertive and that's why drivers dehumanize them and are therefore hostile. That's way too speculative (how many logic leaps?) to merit much discussion as far as I'm concerned.

veganbikes

The reason for it is they have no substance of their own. They are trying to win a contest nobody knows about for the most posts at one time. A news aggregator is fine for those who want it but this is a forum not a news aggregator.

FBinNY 

Not at all, but still beside the point. Especially since I said it was a side note and was clear that I was speaking about the past.

FBinNY 

Maybe so, and if true, I get it.

For my part, I prefer to consider the massage more than the messenger.

I got the original article on a news feed earlier, and considered posting, but was undecided whether it was worth the effort.

That said, many here don't get news feeds, so I don't see the effort to share news as problematic. One is always free to ignore it.

BTW - This survey mirrors one I pretty vaguely remember front the USA a while back that purportedly showed that helmeted riders got closer passes. No value judgement on that either, but the similarity makes both more interesting.

Of course, even if there's truth here, we're still faced with whether the pan is less unsafe than the fire.

jon c. 

I suspect such studies intend to prove a point from the outset. In any case I give them no credence and certainly wouldn't alter my riding or attire in any way based on their contentions.

veganbikes

It feels very true especially since they just posted on the very same topic just recently.
I like a good massage as well

I think if you had posted it you probably would have posted some opinion on the article and that would be have been great. That I think is the whole point of posting a link as your own post.

FBinNY 

We have different outlooks. I find lots of things interesting, and worth thinking about, though without a personal opinion.


I'll often post a link I find interesting with an intro like...

Offered without opinion, for your consideration......

veganbikes

Very possible I don't use Outlook, Thunderbird was my preferred email client but now I just log in on the website.

Even then at least you had an intro it wasn't just a straight copy paste.

FBinNY 

In case you didn't intend humor.....

Long before Outlook became an email program, it wasn't capped and was simply one's personal way of looking at life.

veganbikes

No I very much intended humour! We gotta laugh and have some fun here or what's it all for?!