8 ms·

I'm sorry, and pardonner mou Français, but what in the actual fuck? Should delivery drivers not wear seatbelts because they might not be as afriad that they'll

I'm sorry, and pardonner mou Français, but what in the actual fuck? Should delivery drivers not wear seatbelts because they might not be as afriad that they'll fly through the windshield? Should linemen not wear harnesses because they might be more confident working on power lines? Should warehouse workers not wear hi-vis jackets because they might be more confident working around forklifts? Should construction workers not wear helmets because they might be more confident working in areas with falling objects? And I love the "if something bad happens, it's obviously the rider's fault" mentality here. I guess cars never hit bikes, right? Or bikes hitting other bikes? Or other accidents that, you know, are entirely unavoidable or otherwise have nothing to do with the rider being at fault? If I was a staff rider, I'd be putting that helmet on and telling Pedal Me to eat an OSHA-sized bag of dicks if they have a problem with it. Banning helmets "for safety reasons" might not be the absolute dumbest thing I've read this year, but it's up there.

polote 4y ago
> If I was a staff rider, I'd be putting that helmet on and telling Pedal Me to eat an OSHA-sized bag of dicks if they have a problem with it. And then they would fire you and you will have to find a company that allow helmets and everyone will be happy
- hh3k0 4y ago
  > And then they would fire you, hand you a substantial financial settlement for your wrongful termination, and you will be able to collect unemployment benefits while you take your sweet time to find a company that's not garbage. FTFY
- moonbug 4y ago
  ah, but you see, they don't actually employ you
  - GuB-42 4y ago
    In the case of pedal.me, they do. > At pedal me, we believe in looking after our people properly. That’s why our team are employees, not contractors.
- indymike 4y ago
  We can downgrade from OSHA to class action lawyers with this kind of thinking. Seriously why not require helmets and hire for safety, too?
pcdoodle 4y ago
Don't take the job. Every occupation has risk. Nobody wants the nanny.
chrisshroba 4y ago
I understand where you’re coming from, but I’d like to see some data rather than “what the actual fuck”. I believe there are some cases where safety protections make people act dumber - and now I’m curious if this is or is not one them. I don’t take a position either way, but I don’t feel like shouting that you’d tell your employer to eat a bag of dicks really contributes much here.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  This would make sense for situations where the main risk was the driver/operator of the machine, but when it comes to cycling on the road (especially in crazy Central London traffic) I would expect the risk to primarily come from cars.
  - mbrookes 4y ago
    For which there is some evidence [1] that you are less likely to be involved in an accident doe to external causes when not wearing a helmet than when wearing one - in essence the same effect that helmet wearing has on the cyclist (taking greater risks) it also has on drivers passing cyclists. [1] https://www.cyclist.co.uk/in-depth/1365/is-it-safer-to-wear-a-helmet-when-cycling https://www.cyclist.co.uk/in-depth/1365/is-it-safer-to-wear-...
- yellowapple 4y ago
  > I believe there are some cases where safety protections make people act dumber And I don't believe that to be a justification for removing those safety protections entirely. This ain't some data science problem to be solved; this is ethics and morality, and there is precisely nothing ethical or moral about demanding that your employees make themselves less safe and then having the gall to pretend that this somehow makes them safer. > I don’t feel like shouting that you’d tell your employer to eat a bag of dicks really contributes much here. You're right: all employees telling their employers to eat an OSHA-sized bag of dicks if they try prohibiting basic safety equipment would contribute far more greatly to society than just one. But we gotta start somewhere.
  - 4y ago
Nextgrid 4y ago
The problem is that as another commenter points out, passengers wouldn't feel safe next to a helmet-wearing driver while not wearing one themselves. The proper solution here is to provide helmets for passengers as well, but that raises more problems - they needs to be a way to sanitize them, multiple sizes might need to be available (I assume they need to be sized properly for adequate protection?), etc. The aforementioned problems are hard (read: expensive) or impossible to solve, so while the ethical idea might be to just not offer this service at all, the objective here is to make money whatever-it-takes (or most likely, raise money, as I doubt this thing is profitable) as opposed to providing a good transport service (maybe because there's no actual demand for this?).
- guerrilla 4y ago
  > The problem is that as another commenter points out, passengers wouldn't feel safe next to a helmet-wearing driver while not wearing one themselves. Too bad? If your business model depends on this then you just have to suck it up and deal with it, not compromise worker safety. > The proper solution here is to provide helmets for passengers as well, but that raises more problems - they needs to be a way to sanitize them, multiple sizes might need to be available (I assume they need to be sized properly for adequate protection?), etc. Too bad? Cost of doing business.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    Just FYI, I'm not defending them by any means. I take a very dim view of this company.
    - HelloNurse 4y ago
      If customer safety conflicts with worker safety, and the company cares about neither, even by contemporary standard it's a particularly callous corporation with a particularly unsound business plan.
- Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
  > the objective here is to make money whatever-it-takes.. This. Definitely. However if it came to court, as indeed it might, and they tried to argue helmets cause risky behavior, it wouldn't take Johnny Cochrane to get them slapped with a massive fine and laughed out of court. They're gambling that the cost of safely resolving the issue will be more than any legal costs. Talk about preventing risky behavior!
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ekianjo 4y ago
> I'm sorry, and pardonner mou Français, but what in the actual fuck? Do you wear a helmet when you drive inside your car? If not, why not? It might make you much safer in case of a crash, according to your reasoning. Wearing a helmet can itself become a leading factor to cause an incident, and it's clearly what they are hinting at in the linked article: that data seems to indicate that riders wearing helmets may be getting more incidents on average. Then it's a simple equation: number of incidents x gravity of the incident in both A/B scenarios, and compare which one is the most favorable. It's not a question you answer with a "what the actual fuck" kind of reasoning.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
  I've seen research stating adjacent car drivers will give less space to a cyclist wearing a helmet due to implied added safety.
  - enkid 4y ago
    This sounds like one of those papers that got published with just barely "significant statistical evidence" but never had follow-up to verify, meaning you can't really draw conclusions for it.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - analog31 4y ago
    The study was barely scientific. The researcher was his own test subject, and the result has never been replicated. Also, most crashes probably occur under conditions where the driver can't be aware of whether the cyclist is wearing a helmet or not. "The cyclist suddenly came out of nowhere" is a common defense.
- arjvik 4y ago
  Correlation vs causation much? In order to show that helmets *cause* accidents, they need to create a randomized study where they force employees to flip a coin to decide whether to wear a helmet or not. Otherwise, here's one plausible scenario: Employees who work in tiny suburbs with small roads and very little traffic feel safer, and this are less likely to wear a helmet. They get in less crashes because their town has fewer and safer drivers. Employees working in the city have more crashes simply because of being in a busy city, so they are more likely to wear helmets. Right now, you cannot prove that helmets cause crashes and not the above.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

polote 4y ago

> If I was a staff rider, I'd be putting that helmet on and telling Pedal Me to eat an OSHA-sized bag of dicks if they have a problem with it. And then they would fire you and you will have to find a company that allow helmets and everyone will be happy

hh3k0 4y ago
> And then they would fire you, hand you a substantial financial settlement for your wrongful termination, and you will be able to collect unemployment benefits while you take your sweet time to find a company that's not garbage. FTFY
moonbug 4y ago
ah, but you see, they don't actually employ you
- GuB-42 4y ago
  In the case of pedal.me, they do. > At pedal me, we believe in looking after our people properly. That’s why our team are employees, not contractors.
indymike 4y ago
We can downgrade from OSHA to class action lawyers with this kind of thinking. Seriously why not require helmets and hire for safety, too?

pcdoodle 4y ago

Don't take the job. Every occupation has risk. Nobody wants the nanny.

chrisshroba 4y ago

I understand where you’re coming from, but I’d like to see some data rather than “what the actual fuck”. I believe there are some cases where safety protections make people act dumber - and now I’m curious if this is or is not one them. I don’t take a position either way, but I don’t feel like shouting that you’d tell your employer to eat a bag of dicks really contributes much here.

Nextgrid 4y ago
This would make sense for situations where the main risk was the driver/operator of the machine, but when it comes to cycling on the road (especially in crazy Central London traffic) I would expect the risk to primarily come from cars.
- mbrookes 4y ago
  For which there is some evidence [1] that you are less likely to be involved in an accident doe to external causes when not wearing a helmet than when wearing one - in essence the same effect that helmet wearing has on the cyclist (taking greater risks) it also has on drivers passing cyclists. [1] https://www.cyclist.co.uk/in-depth/1365/is-it-safer-to-wear-a-helmet-when-cycling https://www.cyclist.co.uk/in-depth/1365/is-it-safer-to-wear-...
yellowapple 4y ago
> I believe there are some cases where safety protections make people act dumber And I don't believe that to be a justification for removing those safety protections entirely. This ain't some data science problem to be solved; this is ethics and morality, and there is precisely nothing ethical or moral about demanding that your employees make themselves less safe and then having the gall to pretend that this somehow makes them safer. > I don’t feel like shouting that you’d tell your employer to eat a bag of dicks really contributes much here. You're right: all employees telling their employers to eat an OSHA-sized bag of dicks if they try prohibiting basic safety equipment would contribute far more greatly to society than just one. But we gotta start somewhere.
- 4y ago

Nextgrid 4y ago

The problem is that as another commenter points out, passengers wouldn't feel safe next to a helmet-wearing driver while not wearing one themselves. The proper solution here is to provide helmets for passengers as well, but that raises more problems - they needs to be a way to sanitize them, multiple sizes might need to be available (I assume they need to be sized properly for adequate protection?), etc. The aforementioned problems are hard (read: expensive) or impossible to solve, so while the ethical idea might be to just not offer this service at all, the objective here is to make money whatever-it-takes (or most likely, raise money, as I doubt this thing is profitable) as opposed to providing a good transport service (maybe because there's no actual demand for this?).

guerrilla 4y ago
> The problem is that as another commenter points out, passengers wouldn't feel safe next to a helmet-wearing driver while not wearing one themselves. Too bad? If your business model depends on this then you just have to suck it up and deal with it, not compromise worker safety. > The proper solution here is to provide helmets for passengers as well, but that raises more problems - they needs to be a way to sanitize them, multiple sizes might need to be available (I assume they need to be sized properly for adequate protection?), etc. Too bad? Cost of doing business.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  Just FYI, I'm not defending them by any means. I take a very dim view of this company.
  - HelloNurse 4y ago
    If customer safety conflicts with worker safety, and the company cares about neither, even by contemporary standard it's a particularly callous corporation with a particularly unsound business plan.
Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
> the objective here is to make money whatever-it-takes.. This. Definitely. However if it came to court, as indeed it might, and they tried to argue helmets cause risky behavior, it wouldn't take Johnny Cochrane to get them slapped with a massive fine and laughed out of court. They're gambling that the cost of safely resolving the issue will be more than any legal costs. Talk about preventing risky behavior!

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

ekianjo 4y ago

> I'm sorry, and pardonner mou Français, but what in the actual fuck? Do you wear a helmet when you drive inside your car? If not, why not? It might make you much safer in case of a crash, according to your reasoning. Wearing a helmet can itself become a leading factor to cause an incident, and it's clearly what they are hinting at in the linked article: that data seems to indicate that riders wearing helmets may be getting more incidents on average. Then it's a simple equation: number of incidents x gravity of the incident in both A/B scenarios, and compare which one is the most favorable. It's not a question you answer with a "what the actual fuck" kind of reasoning.

aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
I've seen research stating adjacent car drivers will give less space to a cyclist wearing a helmet due to implied added safety.
- enkid 4y ago
  This sounds like one of those papers that got published with just barely "significant statistical evidence" but never had follow-up to verify, meaning you can't really draw conclusions for it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- analog31 4y ago
  The study was barely scientific. The researcher was his own test subject, and the result has never been replicated. Also, most crashes probably occur under conditions where the driver can't be aware of whether the cyclist is wearing a helmet or not. "The cyclist suddenly came out of nowhere" is a common defense.
arjvik 4y ago
Correlation vs causation much? In order to show that helmets *cause* accidents, they need to create a randomized study where they force employees to flip a coin to decide whether to wear a helmet or not. Otherwise, here's one plausible scenario: Employees who work in tiny suburbs with small roads and very little traffic feel safer, and this are less likely to wear a helmet. They get in less crashes because their town has fewer and safer drivers. Employees working in the city have more crashes simply because of being in a busy city, so they are more likely to wear helmets. Right now, you cannot prove that helmets cause crashes and not the above.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]