BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

How busy was the train?

Can I pay port authority to sit in on one of their

driver trainings? I bed they provide beds.

I would be surprised if this hasn't been mentioned before, or even done, but looking at a broader picture, I'll bet a constructive meeting between transit union reps and Bike Pgh might do wonders. A large chunk of Bike Pghrs are philosophical if not actual supporters of PAT, but the union may not realize that, and they should provide some give-back to the cycling community. It should be a coalition.

Was this an old policy? Where do they get some of this stuff? Do they just make it up? Or maybe they read it on one of those online forums they hang out on all day, where anybody who types with authority may be taken seriously...

Yep, keep on with the documentation. You're right, they're wrong, and there's a system in place to correct things like that.

The people we need to connect with are the Trainers at each division, in this particular case, South Hills Village Rail Div. The Trainers are the ones who convey the rules to Operators, both newbie and veteran.

I believe they are represented employees, i.e., union not management, and thus more likely to be taken seriously. As opposed to the head of each div, who's white collar, but who probably should be our site contact.

I'll ask my PAT Liaison at tomorrow's ACTC meeting if we can set something up.

I had a question about them and bus racks - Is there any rhyme or reason as to which routes/times have racks? or is it just "Wherever it goes, it goes?"

I've waited through 3 buses with no racks before, and just because it takes longer to get up the hills without a bus, doesn't mean it's not an inconvenience...

I could just take the 51 instead of the 48, but I enjoy sitting and being dropped off at my front door.

Racks: No, not really any rhyme or reason. The stock answer is that about 3/4 of the buses are equipped. I don't think the dispatchers pay attention to what routes are supposed to have them.

Enough do to make it attractive. Enough don't to make it irritating.

The real answer is just to find about $200K to outfit the rest of the fleet.

eh, I figured as much, I was just hoping there was some kind of system, so I could keep myself busy until one that had a rack came, instead of standing there with my bike waiting forever.

@rsprake no busier than usual I think - I take this T or the following one every day and ride in the second car (its doors only open at some stops for the bewilderment of new riders, so it tends toward half empty, at least in the evidently less-desirable backwards seating end.) It's just this driver; the other biker indicated this is not the first time for him.

at the post agenda council meeting last week, a port authority employee said that they hope to have the buses near 100% outfitted with bike racks by the end of 2011/early 2012

curious if that is because they expect to have more racks or less buses out on the routes

Ouch

Yeah, snap.

Actually, I was going to suggest that. If they close two garages (Harmar and Collier) and take a pile of routes off the road, they could mothball all the rackless buses. There are quite a few this doesn't apply to -- articulateds, 45-footers, STVs. Those aren't likely to change. It also doesn't help that we lose 35% of the system.

I reeeeeeally hope this doesn't happen, but if it does, we're looking at a lot fewer rackless buses in Jan 2011, not 2012.

If the cuts happen it's unlikely I will be riding any busses due to the overcrowding!

Yeah, if they take away the 61A, I may have a lot more questions about, um, riding in snow...

UGH.

They took away my bus (71C).

when I was a kid, it was the epitome of awesomeness to get on an "accordion bus" and sit or stand anywhere near the "bendy bit" and get a little dizzy when the bus bent as it moved. It seriously made my month when that happened. Makes me smile just thinking about it. I didn't even realize that one would have to choose between the awesomeness of a bendy bus and the usefulness of a bike rack, kind of sad. But that touchy-feely memory gives me an idea...

Seems to me PAT could take advantage of some low cost PR bits - we've got a lot of arts students who might make commercials/PSAs/ on the cheap (for credit?). Could use them to publicize information, clear up misconceptions, promote good will. Wouldn't cost much either - I bet there'd be ways to make it mostly free to them.

What's up with that? Anybody ever see a PAT commercial or PSA?

The operator is 7768.

He just threw me off the train! !!! OMG I'm sitting here in disbelief. He said his orders come from his super. I showed him the "we like bikes" pamphlet but he picked up my bike and bag and escorted me off.

I'm calling complaints as soon as I stop crying. Eh. Maybe sooner.

{sprite} so sorry!

Yeah, that's seriously uncool. That's indicative of supervisors failing at their jobs, time to talk to the supers' super.

Are there vertical bars bolted to floor and ceiling on the T, like on buses, to hold on to? I'd get on and U-lock my bike to one. If the driver has to call for PAT police and a sawsall or grinder, you've got a better chance at getting a supervisor on the phone (maybe he'll do it for you!). That would at least prevent operators from seizing your belongings and ejecting them. handcuffs to the same Ulock would prevent them from ejecting you either.

But I'm malicious and stubborn like that. I very strongly believe that people should follow the rules they make, or make different rules. None of this BS you're going through. If they're going to be illogical, rude, and unreasonable, they should at least be consistent.

Is the bike friday the folder that comes with a rolling suitcase you can fit the bike into?

I think it's time for somebody (who doesn't need a bike for the multimodal part of their commute) to get on sprite's stop with a gigantic baby stroller.

The other fun part was other people on the t saying hey lady we want to get to work.. well... so do I. "First they came for the cyclists but I wasn't a cyclist so I did nothing." srsly.

I shall email some politicians as well and also see if my employer has any channels. I'm not in the mood for getting arrested though.

@ supervisors failing at their jobs

I think its the drivers union that has the strict no bike policy, whereas PAT management probably made that pamphlet. So it might be a union vs management collision. I had a bus driver (not T) that always used to let me bring my bike (regular bike, not a folder) on the bus when there wasn't a rack, but then one day he said another driver saw the bike in the bus and this other driver complained about it back at the garage . So my driver tells them that my bike is my wheel chair !, that I need it to get around. So he let me bring it on for awhile, but then he said he got called in to the trainers office and they said "you know thats not that guys wheel chair, don't let him bring the bike on the bus ". So then he wouldn't let me bring it on anymore. Oh, in that interimm period when he would let me bring it on, he told me to tell the PAT police that the bike was my wheel chair ( like there's something wrong with my legs and I can't walk) if they stopped me while I was getting off downtown. So the PAT police might be 'in' with the union.

what time did this happen?

8:53am (inbound Mt Lebanon.)

It doesn't matter if it's Union vs PAT.

Taking out their petty inner disputes on paying customers is not just bad for business, it smacks of immaturity and idiocy. Even Mickey Mouse would run a tighter ship than this.

If it turns out to be union in origin, what possible freaking interest could the union have in excluding bikes from transit!!! (mini rant directed potentially at union, not people here on the board!).

Again, I think Bike Pgh should dialogue with the drivers union, we should be on the same side.

from their website:

"Foldable Bikes Allowed on Port Authority Vehicles

As part of a sustainable living initiative, Port Authority permits cyclists to bring their foldable bicycles onboard Port Authority buses, light-rail cars and the Monongahela Incline during peak and non-peak hours.

Folding bike users riding buses with bike racks are required to use the racks to secure their bicycles."

Share some love on twitter @pghtransit

ej, do you know anything about Disney? Mickey runs the tightest ship going.

Does the port authority phone service still have a section for complaints? they used to take complaint messages 24/7, but now I think you have to call during the oh-so-convenient business hours to leave a complaint, if the option is still there (it wasn't on july 4th, when they knew there would hundreds of out-of-towners for the phillies game, and when they knew of the major city function at the point, and that people like to party and wanted to go to the southside after, but still ran the horrifically infrequent sunday bus schedule.)

I dunno, edmonds, all the footage of Mickey on a ship I've ever seen showed all kinds of silly things happening, coordinated with some very lively music, but extremely silly. Maybe Sprite would have taken it better had all the seats sung to her in unison and the doors flopped open and closed to the beat as she was being thrown off.

yeah, call and raise hell... this is unacceptable.

Email sbland at portauthority dot org as well and tell him your story.

For him to pick up your stuff and carry it off the train is so incredibly disrespectful and screams of unprofessionalism.

has this same driver tried to give you a hard time in the past? I ask because there one certain driver that has always been a jerk to me about taking my bike on the T and in the incline when he started running it on Saturdays.

When I first moved to Pittsburgh i was living in mt lebanon and taking the T inbound at 9 am. That would give me just enough time to ride from steel plaza to the strip to be to work at 10. Seems simple. The problem was that the rush hour ended at 9am, the train i would take came at 8:56. Most of the time the driver at that time would be ok with me getting on 4 minutes before rush hour was over, but there was always this guy that would tell me to get off the train. Then I would have to wait for the one at 9:20 and be late for work. The thing that would really piss me off tho is that half the time the 8:56 would be a few minutes late and it would be 9:00 by the time I was boarding it and would still be turned away. And I really hate how other passenger would start getting mad at me, calling me a asshole and telling me to get off the train becuase I would try to reason with the driver and would hold up the train.

I used to call and file complaints but honestly it was just easier to move to a place where I don't have to count on the PAT system to help me. I am hoping that in the next 10 years things change but trying to use the T or buses in everyday life was just way to stress full for me. I would get to work and be in a bad mood because I spent my morning getting hassled. Or it would take 2 hours to get home because I would get turned away and have to wait for another train. That is just no way to go through life.

Sprite, that is awful. There must be some recourse. If nothing else, maybe we could take up alegal fund and threaten to sue them.

"Even Mickey Mouse would run a tighter ship than this."

Would tht be Steamboat Mickey?

helen s - I do believe Steamboat Mickey is the guy in my head. Mickey used to be a total jerk, too, if I remember correctly. Those old cartoons did not paint him in the most polite light, even putting racism aside.

But Sprite's experience just underlines the argument to do away with PAT entirely. If it's the Union causing this problem, they're just helping their own demise. Surely somebody over there might have the foresight to recognize that.

This is ridiculous. I also think it's terrible that other passengers were giving you grief. This is the general problem that we (as a community) are still trying to overcome - the idea that cycling is purely recreational, and as such should be treated as both completely optional and low-priority.

And let's be honest. The T is a cross-section of some real scary people of the PGH metro area... it's like Deliverance on rails

JZ has implied a bigger problem that has been bubbling in my head, regarding bus drivers shouting, commenting, otherwise harassing cyclists. The driver sets an example, and sorry if I offend any humans out there, but humans are at times just really dumb pack animals, and if they didn't have any opinion or association with cyclists before, they will readily adopt the direction of the big stupid dog in the front, so now you have 30 more people who think bikes don't belong on the road.

I think the worse thing about riding into the city on the T with my bike was how people on the train would treat me. I would see the same people every morning. After a few times of the driver giving me a hard time they would all stare and give me dirty looks as I brought my bike to the rear of the train. They all knew that at any minute the driver might stop the train and tell me to get off, holding up their commute. Apparently it was easier to get mad at me then the people that are really causing the problem. I just don't see why other passenger care if there is a bike in the back of the train.

Although there was a day when I walked to the back of the train with my bike and a man moved over to give me room and said nice bike. We talked a bit and he told me his name was Scott and he owned a brewery. That was the only pleasant T ride I have ever taken. About a year later I met Scott again while following him pulling a keg on his bike. Very nice guy

"...humans are at times just really dumb pack animals..."

You give us too much credit.

Hell has been raised via multiple channels and sources tell me widespread reeducation (and individual talking-to for the operator) will commence. Whether it commences before tomorrow's commute, we'll see.

@sprite. Enter the phone number of the PAT police into your cell phone. Next time the driver won't let you on and starts taking your stuff - remain calm and call the police. When they show up, show them the "official PAT policy" and make sure that a report is filed. I'm betting the driver will change his ways before you have to file a second report. The police may even offer to drive you to work (they drove me to work once after a confrontation with a driver many years ago). And forget about what the other passingers say- they're just sheep!

Not sure if this person is a board poster or not but they were upset by the way the guy treated you too:

@PGHtransit I am glad to hear action is being taken -- I was in that car and was offended by the way he treated the lady

about 1 hour ago via web in reply to PGHtransit

@PGHtransit What is the point in promoting bikepgh when your T drivers are kicking folks off the T for having folding bikes with them??

about 2 hours ago via web in reply to PGHtransit

@PGHtransit 8:53 T fr Mt Leb was delayed 2nd day in row by driver incorrectly saying no folding bikes allowed before 9

about 5 hours ago via web

@Marko82 thanks for the tip, I'm entering that number right now.

He came back today and said "let's do this the right way"

I said "what's the right way" (not sure what "this" meant).

He wanted the fold-up seating folded up because "nothing can be in the aisles." Fine by me. I'll fold the seat in the morning and we both win. No evening driver has ever cared.

Sure wonder whether he does it for strollers or a suitcase though.

There were few other passengers but talking with one of them, the reason the average nonbiker thinks "bikes is bikes" (like (guinea) pigs is pigs if we're still on old Disney) is that the *schedule* only states the garden variety bike policy, therefore how could there be any other. I know of 2 other folders on my route - a Giant and a Citizen - don't know if it's worth asking for a sentence added to schedules (could lead to more people buying a folder... hm.)

A new sentence on the schedules? Maybe just a new word: "non-folding", to be inserted before "bicycles".

Glad to hear the operator's been retrained.

I surely hope he apologized.

Since the metro north railroad is the only other light rail system I've ever used I figured I would check out their rules on taking bikes on the train.

http://www.mta.info/mnr/html/getaways/bikerule.htm

@ejwme "Steamboat Willie" was the original Mickey Mouse Cartoon.

@dmtroyer Many people are not man enough to apologize when in the wrong and like them he overlooked this unique opportunity for personal growth.

what are the chances that this is the same driver that was fired for the LRT slowdown?

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11027/1120955-455.stm

Sadly, I think there is more than one bad apple in the union, so the chances are not as high as we would hope.

[anti-union/corproation rant]

The PAT union really needs to get it's act together as much as PAT in general does. This whole slowdown issue is a prime example of corporate bureaucracy and unions working as ineffectively and inefficiently as possible. The issues causing those problems are also causing the problems when it comes to transit sharing from the original issue of this thread.[/end rant]

Another chart showed minimum 90 percent on-time service along the light-rail routes, except for February 2010, a month with major snowstorms. The average on-time service last year was 96 percent

I wonder what the on-time rate is for the bus routes. Not fair? The busway routes, at least, should be a fair comparison.

I also wonder how they define on-time.

I've noticed bus drivers really hauling lately. Stopping hard, accelerating hard. If they're being pushed to meet an unrealistic schedule, they're taking it out on the equipment.

One bus driver I talked to said that they are STRONGLY discouraged from being early but there's no real problem with a little lateness, which is good.

However, I saw that she was checking her times against a paper printout next to her, which I'd rather see her keeping her attention on the road, the passengers, whatever -- even stopped at a light.

On the other hand, I've overheard passengers complaining about "slow drivers" who stop and idle to get back on schedule, because they would rather "get home sooner".

Not seeing the big pitcher...

@lyle I've noticed bus drivers really hauling lately. Stopping hard, accelerating hard. If they're being pushed to meet an unrealistic schedule, they're taking it out on the equipment.

Doubt that it is an unrealistic schedule. More like "I can hang at the end of the route for an extra 5 minutes if I haul it."

On the weekends change "5 minutes" to "20 minutes."

When I rode the buses a lot, about 1/4 of the buses on the weekends ran early. Often so very early that you could show up a minute before scheduled time and not know you already missed it.

The rest were more likely to run late than would be caused by traffic.

I was at County Council's special meeting last night with PAT brass and ATU 85. They did both have valid points about the rail slowdowns; I won't belabor the details.

@sprite - I'd say the chances of that one operator canned being the one who gave you a hard time are slim, but more importantly, there's bad mojo right now between labor and management, and guaranteed it's going to filter down to how customers are treated.

@Lyle - Standard Operating Procedure is that to be on-time, vehicles are to be zero to 5 minutes late, and definitely not early. I've found that being at the stop 4 to 5 minutes before arrival time gives me close to 100% chance of making the bus. A minute early does sometimes happen.

Time is built in at the end of each trip to allow the driver to get back on time in case traffic, wheelchairs, detours, etc., make them late.

If buses are running early, as verified by a reliable timepiece, mark it down and report it. I tweet (@bus15237) every trip I board with time, bus rt, bus dir, bus # and where I got on, for later reporting.

I always thought they were supposed to wait at the timepoints (black stars on the map) if they were early, but intermediate stops could be a bit early - is that true?

I usually try to show up 4-5 min early too, which seems to work out well. sigh - if only we could get real-time GPS locations.

@Lyle: I also wonder how they define on-time.

a few years back, when I was calling to report a bus that was 25 minutes late (during the time of day where it only ran every hour), and mentioned that it's late every day, the operator told me that within ten minutes, they're on time.

So maybe that's why I'll see so many instances of two of the same route within 5 minutes of each other, when it would otherwise never happen?

I think buses on the same route naturally cluster. It's because a bus running late tends to pick up more passengers than one running on time. (Say a stop gets bus service once an hour. If one bus shows up five minutes late, and every other bus is on time, it gets 65 minutes worth of passengers boarding.)

So that bus running late tends to fall a little further behind. As it becomes more crowded relative to the other buses on the route, it also must make more stops to discharge passengers, delaying it even more.

Meanwhile, an on-time bus behind the one that arrived five minutes late gets only 55 minutes worth of passengers from that same stop. So it tends to run faster than it would if the other bus ran on time. Unless the driver notices and slows down, he's likely to start catching up to the late bus, since he's serving fewer passengers than normal. (And if he does, then the bus behind him gets more passengers, slows down, and the pattern keeps filtering back.)

So evenly spaced buses are unstable, and tend to clump into pairs, once any minor delay sets them off.

RF: That's what I find - I have to show up 5 minutes early to avoid being surprised by an early bus, and I can expect to wait until ten minutes past the schedule even for an "on time" bus, so on a good day, I could wait 15 minutes for an "on time" bus on a route with 20 minutes nominal between buses. For any trip of less than a mile, I might as well walk, and for any trip of less than 6 miles I'm farther ahead to bike.

Ok, slightly OT, but I couldn't find a better PAT thread to gripe on.

Hubby got symphony tix for christmas, they're tonight. He agreed to take the bus, to avoid parking - yay! But when I called PAT to see how to get home after (leaving downtown at 10PM), they said "sorry, that's too late". Too late? It's Friday night! 10PM is when many people START to leave to go out. I guess club hoppers are expected to drive drunk or have a sober and patient friend or shell out for a taxi.

The closest we could get is to drive to Wilkinsburg station, take the EBA. Parking is free, but since there's no game, there's 5$ parking downtown, it'd cost more for us to do that than just drive the whole way in/out.

And I was all excited to take the bus. I'm getting tired of finding out about a cool route I didn't know about, or finding a transit option, and then finding out that my requirements are just slightly off enough from the norm that it won't work.

We've got opera tickets April 1st, maybe I can convince him to bike instead.

bicycle to the opera? Watch the hands, I said watch the hands...

?

Well that's interesting.

Helmets! Helmets, people!

where do we sign up for *that* ride?

@edmonds Helmets! Helmets, people!

Why?

Helmet promotion isn't completely harmless: It discourages riding wtihout a helmet and riding without a helmet is more healthy than not riding.

If you see a convincing study that helmets in adults are safer than no helmets? Please post it. I've looked for such a study and can't find it. Plenty of excellent studies show there is no difference.

Nah, I was just goofin.

They're in an opera. They're likely to die tragically before the end of the last act anyway.

Not sure why I feel like getting into this tonight, but helmet studies are always flawed, because they never take into account the accidents where the use of a helmet prevented a serious enough injury to seek medical attention.

Like the time a got hit by a car at 30 miles an hour, or when I crashed and broke some teeth on a curb, or the 2 or 3 helmets I've broken riding off road.

My wife was hit by a pickup truck last year, landed on the back of her head, helmet saved her from serious injury. Had she wrapped her head in a study, the outcome would have been very different.

Studies don't save brains, helmets do. At least that's what my research shows.

"Safety is no accident"

^ eric.

Agreed on studies being flawed. My wife did not need medical attention because she was wearing a helmet. No way for this data to be integrated in any study.

Dang, my bad. I didn't mean to start something. Not that time, anyway.

I believe there is some known equivalent to Goodwin's Law when mentioning helmets in a cycling thread.

yeah, this thread was on the verge of a great turn before something bad happened.

can we get back to the guy with his hand on the gal's boob, please?

Pgh needs a Naked Bike Ride.

I'm not suggesting that it should be some sort of groping festival BTW.... just randomly throwing it out there.

what better way to open the "missing link" between southside and homestead?

@eric Not sure why I feel like getting into this tonight, but helmet studies are always flawed, because they never take into account the accidents where the use of a helmet prevented a serious enough injury to seek medical attention

Not a problem. That is totally balanced by not including people whose non-use of a helmet prevented a serious enough injury to seek medical attention.

Sounds trite and cheeky, but it's real.

If you look at studies like this one?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1410838/?tool=pubmed

It's really hard to escape the conclusion that a lot of people honestly believe a helmet saved them injury when the helmet, in fact, did nothing.

I have a crushe helmet at home that at one point I thought had saved me from an injury, too. Most cyclists I know do.

If that were true, though, how come brain injury rates are not much higher in helmet-free Holland?

Of course, I stil wear my helmet. I does protect me from a certain amount of harassment.

I do NOT do the right thing, which would be refrain from helmet wearing so I don't give non-cyclists the false idea that bicycling is such a dangerous activity that you somehow need a helmet (or give the dangerous idea that a silly little foam hat gives some protection).

That is totally balanced by not including people whose non-use of a helmet prevented a serious enough injury to seek medical attention.

I'd like to see the paper on that. Sounds almost like you're saying that helmets can cause injuries. Ill fitted, maybe. Otherwise I think it's a no brainer.

I think if I'd been wearing a helmet when I crashed into that fence (I was very new to bike commuting, especially with a hill+corner), I may not have needed quite so many stitches in my face. However, I'll never really know, short of recreating the incident, which I'm pretty sure is a terrible idea.

@quizbot- the paper I cited handles that quite nicely. Read it.

Helmets give people a sense that they are a little safer than not having a helmet. That sense of safety, where none exists, is incredibly dangerous.

Next time you go down a hill, say 18th street, ask youself, "Am I going faster than I would without a helmet?"

If you are, then you are being dangerous: speed is associated with a change in injury rates, including head injuries. Helmet use is not.

http://momentumplanet.com/videos/mikael-colville-andersen-why-we-shouldnt-wear-bike-helmets

Note: he has a similar hair style to the "Flock of cycles" dude.

@Mick: it would be easier to comment on your posts if you didn't edit them mid thought. Holland isn't Pgh.

Also: maybe I'd ride slower without a helmet, but I'm not going to test it out.

@quizbot it would be easier to comment on your posts if you didn't edit them mid thought.

It woudl be much harder to read my posts if I didhnt' go back and correct spelling.

But you are right, I should add a new post when I add material or change anything substantial.

Here's an excellent site on the whole controversy.

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1139.html

A couple of excerpts that stuck me.

From the "Ethics" section

Medical research into helmets has assumed that cycling is comparatively risky; there never was any significant risk assessment completed to justify helmet promotion. This represents a serious failure of due diligence. It is now known that previously sedentary people who start regular cycling may expect to enjoy reductions in mortality rates greater than after giving up cigarette smoking. Since the actual risks of cycling fall in the same range as for walking and driving, helmet promotion directed only at cyclists should be recognised as a serious threat to healthy public perceptions.

In addition, it is misleading to publish only a subset of the evidence when the wider evidence might lead to a different conclusion, but this has sometimes been the case. There is a lot of emotional association with helmet research and some researchers may be too committed to a particular outcome to allow them to be as dispassionate as good scientific research requires.

Publication bias is a problem that affects all research, whereby papers are only offered for publication and then published if they support the 'right conclusions', whether this be to meet the prejudices of the authors or publishers or established societal norms. Sometimes published helmet research has given more prominence to speculation about helmet benefits than to much stronger evidence that is less supportive of helmet use.

Another excerpt. Old study, though. I'm a little skeptical about finding 1/2 million injuries or death per year associated with cycling in the 70's and 80's but this is what the Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation site says:

As early as 1988 Rodgers studied 8 million cases of injury or death to cyclists in the USA over 15 years - the largest survey of its kind ever undertaken. He concluded that there was no evidence that hard shell helmets had reduced head injury or fatality rates. Indeed, he found that helmeted riders were more likely to be killed.

I'm going to repeat this because someone asked for a cite of a study that showed helments to be a danger:

Indeed, he found that helmeted riders were more likely to be killed.

...helmeted riders were more likely to be killed.

I have yet to read that original paper of Rodgers's. I can only find the abstract on line, but it indeed, says:

In fact, using Petty's helmet data, bicycle data, bicycle-related fatalities are positively and significantly associated with increased helmet use.

http://md1.csa.com/partners/viewrecord.php?requester=gs&collection=ENV&recid=2043921&q=rogers+%22bicycle+accidents%22&uid=1006125&setcookie=yes

Caveat: I believe the helmets used them had a very different construction from modern helmets. Today's fashion accessories might be less hazardous.

I want to reiterate something from Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation overview page:

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1139.html

Since the actual risks of cycling fall in the same range as for walking and driving, helmet promotion directed only at cyclists should be recognised as a serious threat to healthy public perceptions.

It's widely regarded here (and in our society) as being a good thing to say "You should have your helmet on!"

We need to examine that feel-good statement, because it might be hurting our community.

@quizbot maybe I'd ride slower without a helmet, but I'm not going to test it out.

No need to test it physically. Just ask yourself, when in heavy traffic or going down a hill, "Would I be safe doing this without a helmet?"

If the answer is no, then you are not being safe.

@mick: I haven't looked at all your links, but I do recall that you *do* where a helmet most days, no? I think that most studies can be manipulated to any conclusions that the author chooses to hypothesize (and I use to do statistics for a living). That’s what keeps the NRA and big-pharma in business, and why 99% of statistics is wrong 50% of the time. My personal belief is that a helmet is most useful in a very low speed, oops I forgot to unclip my shoes type of accident. A two-ton car hitting you at any speed – it probably doesn’t matter what you are wearing very much. My likelihood of being in the former, vs. the latter, is very high (in my experience), therefore I where a helmet when I ride. Plus I don’t want one of the local reporters to comment on how I was run over by a drunk driver going three times the posted speed limit, while texting his girlfriend, but hey, he wasn’t wearing a helmet so it’s the cyclist’s fault story in the newspaper.

Now back to our regularly scheduled debunkery…

Mick, the first study you cited is very interesting, and seems to be using sensible methodology. I think it makes a strong case that the effectiveness of helmet laws in preventing serious brain injuries is, at best, too small to easily measure.

But that's not quite the same question as whether encouraging helmet use reduces head injuries. As the study itself says "Helmeted cyclists in collision with motor vehicles had much less serious non-head injuries than non-helmeted cyclists (suggesting lower impact crashes)." This is partly because voluntarily helmeted riders do other safe things, but the study didn't directly address how much of it was due to voluntary helmet use. For instance, it could be that if you can convince people to voluntarily wear helmets, that encourages them to wear bright clothing too, or use lights. On the other hand, a legal requirement for helmet use might just result in unsafe people doing the minimum to comply with the law: an ill-fitting unbuckled helmet, say.

Also, since the study only looked at hospital records, it's silent on the effect of helmet use on less serious injuries.

And it's a bit odd that the evidence shows declining head injury rates as helmet laws were introduced, but the author says they didn't decline fast enough, and would have declined anyway. It would be more convincing if the head injury rate were stable during the introduction of helmet laws, not quickly falling due (presumably) to other causes.

The study's claim of decreased bike use from helmet laws is worrisome, but less convincing. Cycling rates naturally rise and fall over time, just due to certain sports or activities becoming trendy. That could account for the substantial decrease they observed.

The study looks at rates of cycling to work over time, which went from 1.1% to 1.6% before the law, and to 1.2% after it. It concludes that helmet laws stopped an upward trend. But it could be that the 1.6% was just due to cycling getting trendy for a while.

So I'd say the evidence that helmet laws are effective in preventing serious injuries is very poor (they probably don't), and legislatures should focus on drunk-driving, speeding, and other things to improve bike safety.

But where's the evidence that individuals voluntarily wearing helmets discourages cycling use, or that it doesn't really reduce head injury rates (since we know that cyclists wearing helmets get fewer serious head injuries)?

Has there ever been any good research on the effect on others of an individual voluntarily wearing a helmet? Does it convince people that biking is unsafe, causing them to avoid biking? Or does it encourage them to practice safer cycling, using lights, and wearing high visibility clothing (which we know is correlated with helmet use)? (Similarly, do use-a-helmet campaigns measurably decrease bike use? Do they encourage other safe practices?) Without that kind of data, I don't think you can conclude based on any solid evidence that you're harming anyone by wearing a helmet.

If that were true, though, how come brain injury rates are not much higher in helmet-free Holland?

Differences in rates of speeding and drunk-driving could account for it. Or the percentage of cyclists who follow traffic laws, or who use a light at night. Or a great many other things. You can't get useful data when you change hundreds of variables at once (as when comparing Holland to here).

Helmets give people a sense that they are a little safer than not having a helmet. That sense of safety, where none exists, is incredibly dangerous.

The paper you cited suggests just the opposite. "Cyclists who choose to wear helmets commit fewer traffic violations" and "Helmeted cyclists in collision with motor vehicles had much less serious non-head injuries than non-helmeted cyclists (suggesting lower impact crashes)." In other words, people who choose to wear helmets are more likely to have other good safety practices, not less, and this is part of what results in their lower injury rates.

@quizbot - I propose "Bell's Law of Helmet"; any invocation of the word "helmet" on an Internet message board thread of any topic initiates a pro/con discussion in the form of an infinite loop, only rarely successfully terminated by the input "we agree to disagree". Exception: citation of "Viking helmet".

I think the reason more scientific testing hasn't been done on Viking helmets is that, if you drop a weight of any size from any height, the Viking will beat your ass down and take your woman. And beer.

If you think this discussion is bad you should see the mail I get accusing me of doing "less than the best for the human race" in one instance by publishing a magazine that features riders choosing not to wear helmets, and writing that even though I always have worn a helmet I do not equate the choice to not wear one as a death wish.

Back to the opera pic... they don't need helmets. Looks like they're gonna need condoms, though.

yoi.

Look at what I missed by going to the symphony. I'm going to see if Sunday performances are any easier to bus to/from (preliminary indications are that 5PM on a Sunday is also "too late", though maybe easier to bike).

We've got tix next to Turandot - an Italian opera, set in china, based on a french translation of a persian story of a turkish princess. While it starts off with a decapitation, it apparently ends happily.

(not to start it up again, but I like to use a helmet to hold my blinkies and the earmuffies my sister knitted me, and to keep people from yelling at me - no matter the noggin protection factor, it's great for those aspects)

@ Ejwme - While there is a chicken/egg factor here (nobody rides the bus late at night, because there is no bus, which is why nobody rides it...), your complaint seems most properly directed at your neighbors with their low demand for transit service, rather than exclusively Port Authority. Most nights the last 71A leaves downtown for the East End around 2:00 a.m., and the EBA's last trip is around 1:00 a.m. Plenty late for near any event.

And if you count the cost of driving as 50 cents a mile (as do most institutions doing reimbursement for costs), even $5 parking may tip the balance in favor of transit.

Oh, PAT doesn't get the brunt of my displeasure, by any means. But when I start to indulge in too much judgement on my suburbanite neighbors, their SUVs, their lawns, and their hatred of The City and my hippy ways, I start to wonder too hard why I live where I live, why I don't live where I want, and then have to mentally detail the Escape Plan over and over again in my head to regain a little sanity.

Seriously, if I was 30ish and could swing a mortgage, I'd buy *two* run-down houses in a run-down part of the East End, tear down the lesser one, make the first one habitable, live in it until I've built a good house on the other lot, move into it, tear down the first, build a good house on it, and rent it out. By the time this is all done, gas will be $7/gallon, and people will be clamoring for decent housing in the city, and guess where you're sitting?

@stu +1, and AMEN, brother!! I decided years ago that it made more sense to live in town so I didn't have to drive to work and everywhere else.

When I tell people that the old inner cities are going to revive and be the next big place to live, they usually look at me like I have sprouted two heads and am talking in an alien language. I patiently wait....

@marko I think that most studies can be manipulated to any conclusions that the author chooses to hypothesize (and I use to do statistics for a living

I'm a statistician. I make my living writing papers on the saety (or lack thereof) of some anesthetic procedures. I occasionally give workshops to physican researchers on statistics and data interpretation.

Until I started reading the literature, i believed that helmets dramatically increased safety. I dismissed those who said otherwise as flakes and so, for a long time, didn't read the literature.

It is puzzling to me that helmet do not seem to be measurable protection. I can't think of a good explanation for that that is borne out by the lit.

Steven is right - some studies show that helment users get fewer non- head injuries. Why? Not from helmet-based protection.

Two questions I can't really answer, ans they really bug me:

Why DON"T helmets provide measurable protection?

The standards for bike helmets aren't good standards for preventing serious injuries, but they still should provide enough protection to make an easily measured difference. They don't.

The second question is: Why is so much time and energy spent on helmet promotion? Even by people that should know better.

The science doesn't justify it. But no conspiracy theory makes sense to me.

I rode on the street without a helmet today. The first time I did that deliberatley in this century.

I though it would feel unsafe. It didn't.

My impression (after maybe 15 minutes of helfet-free riding) is it's noticably easier to be aware of all the movement around me without a helmet.

So far, against my expectations, no one has yelled "Get a helmet" at me.

"...some studies show that helmet users get fewer non- head injuries. Why? Not from helmet-based protection. "

I can throw out one wild guess, and I'm being serious, this is not my usual idiocy. It may be that people who have a tendency to wear helmets are implicitly more safety concious (maybe older?), be less likely to take risks, may ride more safely overall, and may be less likely to get injured in general.

As to why helmet promotion? My only comments are - aside from any actual data, it seems intuitively like a helmet should prevent head injuries, and people are more that ready to make quick emotional decisions rather than check actual facts; and people are quick to accept easy silver bullet solutions instead of working through complex, multi-faceted problems.

Plus it's a THING to SELL.

I don't know if its because I rode without a helmet for so long before buying one, but there doesn't seem to be any noticeable difference in how I ride, whether positive or negative. Well, I take the lane more often (positive), but that was starting before I bought the helmet.

Mick, I'll try and take the time to read the studies you cited. Does anyone know when and for what reasons pro racing made helmets mandatory? I know it’s only been in the last decade or two. Maybe they were getting pressure from the great helmet-industrial-complex?

Say you had to run full speed and slam your head into a wall, and could do so with or without a helmet, which would you select? Now how about if there was some marginally meaningful statistics showing it didn't make a difference either way?

In addition to possibly saving my brain, in the winter, my helmet helps keep my skull cap and neck gaiter in place, keeping me warm. I have both a headlight (so I can light up whatever I look at) and a red blinky on my helmet -- those combined with the bright yellow color and reflectors on the helmet, give me the feeling that the drivers see me just a little better. I also recently added a mirror, so I can see cars behind me.

If I ditched my helmet, and all this other crap, would I feel more safe? would I have more awareness and be more visible? Absolutely not.

Say you had to run full speed and slam your head into a wall, and could do so with or without a helmet, which would you select?

(I always hate that particular rhetorical question. My usual response: "Would your answer differ if you were on a bike, in a car, walking down stairs, or in the shower? Look up the relative incidence of each case with regards to traumatic brain injury, then explain why cycling should be treated differently...")

That aside, I wear a helmet for pretty much the same reasons as Dan. Good place to keep secondary lights and reflective bits, and a helmet cover adds a lot of warmth in cold weather.

I do sympathize with Mick's point re: awareness of environment sans helmet, though. I suspect different helmets have different impacts in that area: my old Trek helmet, for whatever reason, felt like it dulled my hearing and peripheral perception a great deal. When I replaced it with my current Bell Metro, the difference was significant...the Metro didn't seem to impact my senses at all. Dunno why...differences in airflow, perhaps?

If it were socially acceptable to wear a helmet in a car and walking around Oakland, I'd probably just leave it on So no, my answer wouldn't really change.

That would eliminate embarrassing sweaty helmet hair (something I cope with daily, because my hair is naturally oily), at least until you go home

Steven is right - some studies show that helment users get fewer non- head injuries. Why? Not from helmet-based protection.

I certainly didn't mean to say all of that. Perhaps I expressed myself poorly.

The first part is certainly true: helmet users get fewer head injuries.

But why? I don't think we know that. At least, there's no good evidence I could find in the links Mick posted that address this question. There are various poorly designed studies though, and other researchers tearing apart the poorly designed studies.

But the fact that there are studies that show helmets prevent injuries, but the studies are poorly designed, doesn't mean helmets don't help. They might or might not. The bad studies just don't provide useful info on the question.

So it could be that helmets are like an "I Bike Safely" sticker you apply to your head. Naturally, people with the sticker also bike more safely, so they get fewer head injuries. But the sticker isn't preventing the injuries.

But it could also be true that, among people who bike safely in other ways, adding a helmet makes them even safer, whereas forcing unsafe cyclists to wear a helmet makes them take more foolish risks, so they're in more danger. That might explain the results in the British study that found mandatory helmet laws didn't reduce head injuries.

Or there could be many other explanations for the very few research-supported facts we actually know.

Why DON"T helmets provide measurable protection?

We know they do on dummies in the lab. We know they don't when forced on an entire population. We don't know much about everything in between. Maybe they do, but we haven't figured out when.

Why is so much time and energy spent on helmet promotion?

The result that they don't work when forced on a population is counterintuitive. We don't understand why mandatory helmet laws doesn't work. And that result may not apply to merely promoting helmet use (again, we just don't know).

Given how little we know, bike safety shouldn't be focusing on helmets before all else. Focus on lights, riding technique, all the rest. There's no very clear harm (or benefit) with including helmets in the mix too.

My helmet likely kept my face from getting scratched up, a few years ago. I'll keep wearing it, awaiting further research.

Any studies on how safe Hairmets are?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0rGoWtF-hs

I wear a helmet because I FEEL safer with one on than without, but that's not based on research. I would probably not be tempted to hit 48 mph downhill on Steubenville Pike behind a truck. This year I'm going to get 50, I swear.

I also wear one because I want my kids to wear one and I don't want to be a hypocrite. The kids don't need to know about the 48 mph thing.

Wear a helmet if you want to wear a helmet, and don't freak out if someone who is not your child doesn't wear one.

There is a lot of discussion currently in professional sports about concussions. As a result there is a lot of research being conducted on both what happens inside the cranium (brain) and without (helmet).

Football helmets, if you've never held one, are a significantly heavier-duty piece of equipment, with thicker plastic, different types of foam cushioning - and even a type with inflatable air bladders to soften the impact.

But the technology of the helmet is really secondary to the primary cause of the concussion: the the skull atop the body moving at a high rate of speed decelerates immediately upon contact (either with another player or the field surface, etc.), that "stopping" of the skull causes the brain to crash forward into the inside of skull, and voila! You have a concussion.

Certainly the football helmet prevents surface injury, but the big deal is concussion prevention, and current helmets don't quite measure up.

Similarly, I suspect that bicycle helmets will prevent surface injury, but given the relatively lightweight construction (especially compared to motorcycle or football helmets), I find it hard to believe they could provide any meaningful protection against significant head injury (ie: concussion, etc.). However, I have no data to support my conclusions.

And, having said all that, I'll still wear one.

I think the cushioning in a helmet is supposed to lengthen the impact time, which reduces the maximum acceleration and helps to prevent the concussion. The hard shell is for surface protection, but all the cushioning is there for concussion.

I'm guessing that whatever the issue with helmet effectiveness, it's not in the design or the physics (things that are easy to study in a lab) but in some societal or behavioral impact (harder to study).

Stu - ironically, I started my professional life living in Squirrel Hill. I moved to Penn Hills to halve my commute and eliminate the tunnel, because I worked in Monroeville. I couldn't find a job in the city.

My place of employment has since moved from the suburbs to the exurbs. Some employers are stuck in that 1950's mindset that produced the suburbs. These employers are keeping thousands of people out there - some happily (a handful of my neighbors), some not so much (like me).

I truly have to wonder at any larger company's motives and sanity when telecommuting isn't mandatory (for office workers). The infrastructure is there, the benefits SHOULD outweigh any ridiculous managerial "warm fuzzies" received at the sight of worker bees bent over keyboards. Overhead dissappears into salaries, workers don't get stuck in traffic, life just gets easier for everyone.

(end gripe, thank you)

@dwillen In addition to possibly saving my brain, in the winter, my helmet helps keep my skull cap and neck gaiter in place, keeping me warm

On my second day of helmet-free riding, I am finding that to be true. Hat-hoodie-helmet is pretty warm.

It might even be a safety issue: If I have my hoodie up, then with the helmet, the hoodie moves out of the way whan I turn to look behind me. Without the helmet it doesn't.

From the Interwebs: "Bike helmets are a proven lifesaver. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 98 percent of bicyclists killed in 1999 weren't wearing helmets. In the event of a crash, wearing a bicycle helmet reduces the risk of serious head injury by as much as 85 percent."

No mention of how many of those 98% were wearing Viking helmets. However, one anecdotal reference identified a crash involving a Viking who collided with a semi-truck, jumped up off the pavement, chewed the tires off the rig, pulled the driver out of the cab and beat him to within an inch of his life (with his u-lock, apparently), then ran off, dragging the trucker's female companion.

Steven, very thooughtful and well reasoned posts.

The other thing that needs to be considered here is the application of all this data to your personal choice to wear a helmet. You are not the population as a whole, you are one person, riding a bike. Do you believe wearing a helmet will make you less like to to be seriously hurt (or killed) in the case of an accident?

Only you can take into account risk compensation, riding skill, etc...

@edmonds - what's the optimal place to do that, do you think? iirc i was able to hit 45-46 around primanti's going eastbound, but no more. i was *not* drafting a car at those speeds, which is definitely out of my comfort zone.

i had my suspicions that higher speeds were possible westbound, i.e downhill from around strathmore, but that hill sketched me out a lot more with the curve and the lights at the bottom and whatnot. i think i'd maybe hit 40-42 before i felt the urge to slow down.

in any case, i'm not sure a helmet is going to do a lot of good at those speeds, especially if a car/truck is involved... but i always wear one anyways.

i'd like to hit 50 too - i'm not sure i ever have... not sure what the right place to do it is, though. i think i remember topping 40 on my MTB on panther hollow, so that might be worth a shot.

From the 79 intersection/Kings going eastbound toward Crafton. There are no side roads coming in until Primanti's, and then again until the hill flattens out, so you don't have that to worry about.

Going westbound from Strathmore, no, with the curve and lights, no sight line, possible left crossers, no good.

I suppose I should have been a little more vague about that. In the event someone was to try such a thing, which one shouldn't, that might be one way to do that. Or not.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around "if you wouldn't go that fast without a helmet, you're not being safe anyway" or however one paraphrases whoever said that (I'm lazy, sorry).

I can usually, if I know the route ok, don't have a wardrobe or bike malfunction, and don't take a "where does this go" detour, I match the google maps cycling directions "cycling time". That averages me out at about 10mph, which is pretty slow. But that's chugging really slowly up some stupidly steep/long hills, and pedalling fast as I can down the other side.

I'm sitting here wondering how slow I would go if I removed the helmet, and if that would really change my averages a significant amount - or would it be balanced by my getting stronger in general for the flats and uphills? And as I bike more, will my perception of "safe" shift faster? When I first started, I was leaning on the brakes down every hill, until I realized inertia was my friend on the uphills, and exhaustion overcame fear.

Safety question aside, it's an interesting point to ponder. I have no doubt that the helmet does not magically make faster safer. But I wonder what's magically shifting my *perception* of safety, helmet or no.

One day in the last week or so, I dashed out the door in a rush and was five minutes down the road before I realized I'd left the helmet home. IIRC I rode all the way Downtown sans helmet. Going PerryHwy/Perrysville, the absence of the helmet was the deciding factor in whether I cared to take the "shortcut", i.e., go down Federal Street.

@edmonds59 - You want to hit 40+ in a hurry? Just decide in advance that you'll take the chance that someone isn't going to turn in either direction at the lower Federal/Perrysville corner, and you'll be >40 no problem. Probably >50. At any rate, not recommended.

All that said, since I was helmetless, I opted for the rattly though slow descent on Perrysville. I suppose if I really wanted my speed jollies, I could go Burgess-Hazleton-Suffolk, but it's out of my way.

well, the speed limit there is 45 IIRC so it's not even really illegal, plus you've got the 3rd lane as a bit of an "escape hatch" if something unexpected happens. Although cars turning left out of Primanti's are definitely a concern.

But, I couldn't make myself go any faster than 46 or so. I don't think it mattered if I pedaled or just tried to "tuck" (or some of each), I just couldn't get going any faster.

To Stu's point - going down Negley with no brakes you'd find yourself doing 40+ at the bottom easy - but it is certainly a rare occasion when you get that lucky with the traffic and lights - and still dangerous with peds, right-turners, kentucky/howe, etc. not that i'd know anything about it, just speculation.

And left-turners. Just 'cuz they aren't signalling doesn't mean they're not going to left-cross you.