Good morning
- If you want to testify in front of Mendelson's committee on Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety on May 30th, you have until Friday to sign up.
- The Clarendon Metro Plaza will get, among other things, covered bike parking.
- Men who wear bike helmets were observed to ride faster than those who don't. But there was no difference for women. Risk compensation or self-selection bias? More here.
Helmetheads rule! Among men, anyway.
Posted by: Crickey7 | May 23, 2012 at 09:13 AM
Too bad the full text of the helmet study is behind a paywall.
There's an obvious potential problem: the abstract indicates that the assessment was made by video, and it's not clear how one distinguishes between professional riders and casual/recreational riders using that method. It could be that pros all wear helmets. Since the vast majority of pros are men, this would explain the gender bias.
Posted by: antibozo | May 23, 2012 at 09:59 AM
Compelled to ask. Aside from bike messengers and pedicab ops what constitutes a 'professional' cyclist?
Posted by: Riley | May 23, 2012 at 10:36 AM
Women are more risk-averse than men, and so are more likely to wear a helmet for even a casual ride.
Posted by: SJE | May 23, 2012 at 10:45 AM
Riley, sorry if my terminology is too loose. How about cat-3 or lower? My point is that helmet wearing may correlate with race training, not necessarily with risk taking per se (tho that would presumably also correlate to some degree with racing).
Posted by: antibozo | May 23, 2012 at 11:14 AM