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I don't understand the mindset of not wearing a helmet riding an electric vehicle at 15mph on a city street. The chances of head & face trauma are substantiall

I don't understand the mindset of not wearing a helmet riding an electric vehicle at 15mph on a city street. The chances of head & face trauma are substantially reduced, and the chance of a fatal injury reduced by almost 70% w/a helmet on. I think that Bird's "we'll send you a free helmet" is a cute way to get around criticism & liability. But given the clear market demand for bird and bike-sharing, I would love to see an entrepreneur really nail the "portable bike helmet" category or figure out a non-gross way to share helmets with strangers. There are a few options on the market today that show people are thinking this problem through, but what else could be built besides a foldable / more portable solution? https://www.ecohelmet.com https://www.ecohelmet.com https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fendhelmet/fend-the-collapsible-bicycle-helmet https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fendhelmet/fend-the-col... https://www.morpherhelmet.com https://www.morpherhelmet.com (1) https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/sep/22/bicycle-helmets-reduce-risk-of-serious-head-injury-by-nearly-70-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/sep/22/bicycle...

megaremote 9y ago
Have you ever used one?
subpixel 9y ago
Unfortunately, the mindset is 'everyone else is doing it'. I'm not sure where I stand on legally requiring helmets, but man I would not ride one in the company of cars without one.
ghaff 9y ago
There's also D3O material. [1] I wear a hat using this when I downhill ski. (Not really interested in a skiing helmet debate. I skied for years long before anyone besides racers wore helmets and I downhill ski very little these days and not very aggressively.) I don't have a real opinion on when people "ought" to wear helmets. It's a tradeoff. People do have falls walking and accidents in cars where serious injury would have been prevented by wearing a helmet. And many of these sharing services are not practical if one is required to wear a "real" helmet. [1] https://www.d3o.com/ https://www.d3o.com/
c22 9y ago
This could work [0] but it's probably too expensive to include with the bikes/scooters since people would walk off with them. Certainly feasible for an individual to wear around the city though in case of need. I wonder if you could design some sort of airbag system into the bikes themselves. [0]: https://hovding.com https://hovding.com

megaremote 9y ago

Have you ever used one?

subpixel 9y ago

Unfortunately, the mindset is 'everyone else is doing it'. I'm not sure where I stand on legally requiring helmets, but man I would not ride one in the company of cars without one.

ghaff 9y ago

There's also D3O material. [1] I wear a hat using this when I downhill ski. (Not really interested in a skiing helmet debate. I skied for years long before anyone besides racers wore helmets and I downhill ski very little these days and not very aggressively.) I don't have a real opinion on when people "ought" to wear helmets. It's a tradeoff. People do have falls walking and accidents in cars where serious injury would have been prevented by wearing a helmet. And many of these sharing services are not practical if one is required to wear a "real" helmet. [1] https://www.d3o.com/ https://www.d3o.com/

c22 9y ago

This could work [0] but it's probably too expensive to include with the bikes/scooters since people would walk off with them. Certainly feasible for an individual to wear around the city though in case of need. I wonder if you could design some sort of airbag system into the bikes themselves. [0]: https://hovding.com https://hovding.com