I say unusual in the sense of Japan seems to be the only one to have solved the issue of how do you transport 2 kids on a bike not with "big box" like the dutch and subsequently the entire western world but via 2 seats, they're apparently very popular over there as a means of transportation.
lmao
tbf though there is single child seat mamacharis , it seems to me more a vibes bassed classification than an engineering one
they do, I know i see them here. But it's not like, a cultural thing. That's just a bicycle with a child seat.
Fuck it I'm joining the war on helmets on the side of protecting baby brains
Cool bike btw
I've only seen a person wearing a helmet in Japan exactly once. I asked him about it and he says it was for seizures.
In fact I went into a trek store one time in Japan and they didn't even sell helmets. They're not big on them over there for some reason.
Edit: sorry, I didn't realize I wandered into a helmet struggle session? Why are we even doing this lol. Wear your helmet. Always wear one.
Actually kind of a common Dutch standpoint. The helmet is seen as basically being a justification for blaming accidents on cyclists, rather than drivers and poor infrastructure. If you're on a smooth and well-designed bike path separated from the street, it's pretty unlikely you're going to get punted by a car: the thing bike helmets are generally used for. When's the last time you just did an oopsie and flew over your handlebars when your tire hit... Nothing. Probably never, right?
Unfortunately, this sort of standpoint falls apart the second you start doing things like riding offroad or in even a modicum of crappy conditions, when you can just slip and eat shit on a droplet of morning dew when you try to go around some goofballs walking in a group and taking up an entire sidewalk or something.
The anti-helmet crowd's response to this is usually, "Simply do not do this, because it is not the way that it is done."
E: 7bicycles has also clarified that he is not anti-helmet and does wear one so... We're out here wearing seatbelts and telling people to blame drunk drivers and not the victim who hadn't buckled the seatbelt in their parked car yet.
in an ideal world infrastructure would be well maintained, drivers would be cordoned off, the paths would be salted in time, tourists would be banished to the sidewalk, but that’s not the world we’re in.
You mean that that's not the world you're in. There are plenty of countries where literally all of these things are the norm, and your experiences are a rare exception.
I don't think that helmets are bad or unnecessary, but I do agree that they are entirely ineffective against the things Americans will trot out the "should have worn a helmet smh" victim blaming for, i.e. getting punted by a speeding F150.
Yeah, I think this is a very carbrained argument. Cycle infrastructure is very well segregated from car infrastructure in the Netherlands and Dutch drivers aren't psychos trying to mow down cyclists at every opportunity. People in places with shitty cycle infrastructure have been heavily propagandized into thinking it's all "personal responsibility" and the default attitude of drivers (in America at least) is that cyclists have a death wish and they are more than happy to grant it.
This is the kind of trauma that living in an individualist society does to a person. People in the Netherlands and Japan actually look out for each other.
100%. Helmets are not useful for getting hit by a car. They're useful for when you inexplicably eat shit on a pebble or a single leaf somehow, both of which I've done.
Yeah, I guess it's an American thing but there's a million ways to hurt yourself and or crack your melon on a bicycle that do not involve collisions with a motor vehicle
Exactly. I think the argument that some people have against helmets comes from an argument against victim blaming cyclists murdered by drivers, but then ultimately gets twisted into wild shit where people just come to Bizarro conclusions.
Even in a world without cars I could still hurt my noggin if I fell off my bike, so I don't get this line of reasoning at all
I mean, yeah. I agree with you. Everyone should wear a helmet. I've been clipped by car doors and dipshits plenty of times in Toronto and the place I live now, and I am absolutely an advocate for making slip plane helmets (like MIPS, WG11, or WaveCel) mandatory for everyone on a bike, everywhere.
I'm trying to explain to Americans why some different people who are not me twist themselves into weird arguments against helmets, so that it isn't just seen as a completely inexplicable mystery outlier crank thing, rather than an irritatingly common belief in some places. I've heard people say dumb shit here like "cars don't go fast enough in PEI to need helmets." And they are mandatory here. (Also highway speeds are like 80 kmh so no idea what these freaks are on about)
how do you end up on a leftist forum and are entirely unable to interrogate that whatever conventional wisdom around cycling safety you have been taught by society at large might just be bullshit?
Like what, they're wrong about mostly everything, but they fucking nailed it when it was decided a bit of styrofoam around your head is gonna help you against a car running you over?
It seems I could ask you the same?
You can't both be dragging me for being an anti helmet weirdo and espousing conventional cycling wisdoms, they can't both be true.
They didn’t nail it, the design is continually being improved. There’ some really cool neck-mounted airbags you can get now Here you go. But wearing a helmet does massive wonders for mitigating risk and damage, a damage that is significant risk, as I’ve described.
Yeah but the significant risk only seems to pop up for cycling. I find it odd that car accidents rank among number one reasons for head injuries, but the idea of wearing a helmet there is preposterous, because you already wear a seatbelt. That evidently doesn't really stop people from getting head injuries a lot - a problem apparently solveable via a helmet or hövding - but hey at least they do some risk mitigation I guess? The endpoint here seems to be about that you gotta do some risk mitigation and then that's all well and good, regardless of outcome?
Cause you keep flip flopping here. You gotta wear a helmet, cause you might get hit by a car. That rings true for both pedestrians and car drivers, who get hit loads by cars, but the exact probability and risk of this starts just after a pedestrian and ends just before the car on the sliding scale of pedestrian - cycle - car. Also wearing a helmet both sucks a lot and is a teeny tiny thing, somehow.
The point I'm making isn't that you shouldn't wear a helmet, as noted I wear one, hell I wrote a guide on how to find one that you actually wear cause it's useless otherwise, my point is the very weird hyperfocus on helmets or PPE for cyclists and cyclists only and no one even on this here leftist forum seems to want to question that much. There's a reason the bulletproof backpacks for school children get shouted down here, but following that logic, hell, why not? As long as society doesn't change, there isn't anything wrong with recommending those, eh? Better be safe!
used to cycle to uni years ago, almost entirely along a protected, 2 lane cycle path. Still managed to take a corner at the bottom of a hill that I'd do every day wrong and fully Looney Toons myself head-first into a tree, would've been concussed at best if it wasn't for my helmet. Accidents happen, inconvenience of carrying a helmet around is worth keeping your precious brainmeat safe
as someone who worked hard to earn enough concussions to empty her brain of all thoughts i'm a little jealous that these kids are getting such a headstart on bimbofication
People don't really need helmets for most bikes that have an upright seating position and operated at a low speed.
If you're doing some more aggressive riding it's a good idea, but otherwise it's an unnecessary pain.
i will ride a bike without a helmet but I do not have two toddlers on that bike with me who are also not strapped into their chairs
You should wear a helmet, but mandating then reduces the number of cyclists so much that you're probably causing more harm than good. Kind of whacky 🥴
we're also not talking about a consenting adult on a bike but like an adult with TWO TODDLERS lol
not even strapped in! kid on the back could just like stand up because kids are stupid and do shit like that
I don't even have kids but just from being in proximity to people who do it's just like, wow lol this is unsafe
Bullshit, don't give dangerous advice. I was upright and going at a casual speed and got doored. Completely shattered my helmet, luckily I had one on.
brain trauma is... not good, so like, why risk it on a thing that can tip over or launch you off of it in an accident, especfially when you are also risking not just one but two toddlers (one of whom is also like not strapped into the seat, lmao)
Traumatic brain injuries are so cool! I can't remember how to move my legs but at least I won't get the nerd emoji commented at me by cool guys on the internet!!!!!
I'm really sorry that happened to you. I'm not the person who was arguing that helmets weren't necessary. I wrote the nerd emoji comment because I thought it was absurd that the debate was even happening and honestly believed that the anti-helmet person was just pulling the other person's leg, now I see that that wasn't the case at all.
should children or hell, anyone, wear helmets in cars? They have a horrendous track record of head injuries in case of accident. What about when just walking about. what if you fall
most people don't fall out of cars onto the pavement in a slight low speed collision
are you anti seat belt too or something lol what is this shit
Yeah, there's a difference between sitting inside a heavy metal box and balancing on two wheels connected by metal tubes, completely exposed
Children should wear safety straps in cars, as should adults. Head injuries are mitigated by airbags.
Lmao, every car comes with specific instructions to make sure that your airbags don't obliterate your child in the event of a crash.
The average biking speed in an urban environment is 19-26 km/h. Cracking your head on the pavement at that speed can be deadly.
Boy cars travel much faster than that, why don't we expect everyone to wear helmets in those?
Nah, the wheels stick out further and they're surprisingly strong to forces in that direction.
It seems like it'd be really hard to wrangle the second kid into the seat while you're balancing the bike for the first. Big box seems easier for that.
Look at the center stand mounted on the rear dropouts - when you're loading kids the bike would sit upright on the stand.
This seems to be the only time the overengineered Canadian/American solution is the best one: don't stick your kid in a wheelbarrow on the front of your bike or in a carrier seat in front of your handlebars. Put them in a trailer with an integrated roll cage.
Honestly they're not that bad. My dad had one for my sibling and I when we were little, and I've used them with my ebike when babysitting family members. If you have big ol' ebike disk brakes it's no biggie. Dad said it was only a pain to control for tight turns or stopping downhill. The worst part is just added weight going uphill mostly.
Maybe they did the safety engineering on this already, but I swear the front kids seat should almost certainly be turned around facing the bicycler. And not... facing whatever will impact them face on in the front if the worst happens.
Rear facing seats support a baby's and toddler's head and neck in the event of a head on collision - as opposed to front facing where little little kids heads will rock forwards (they have big heads and not well developed neck muscles to not snap forward). So, not likely or whatever as a cyclist lol. I guess it'd be more likely if some wacko motorist hits a cyclist at low enough speed itll support the baby at the front to be safer.
It's not exactly fun for the kid to have to face their parent instead of the world, but it's safer I'm assuming. But maybe the designers did the safety engineering already and figured it didn't matter I dunno.
I don't know if they've really solved the problem, the front kid is getting ejected or squished in an accident.
Good point. Still seems dangerous for the kid in front to me because they don't have anything protecting them except for a helmet, but I guess no more than another collision on a bike.
I've seen enough kids manage to tip over trolleys when I worked retail that I would be uneasy about riding this bike as opposed to the bucket bikes with lower kid centers of gravity.
It's not really that bad. A Bicycle is basically an upside down pendulum as far as the physics is concerned, adding weight at the mid point mostly affects handling, you're not just gonna tip over like with a trolley where you can shift the center of gravity off to the side so it breaks away from you
"it's really not that bad" well then explain why I tip over after three seconds on a bike then :thonk-cri:
My inner kid riding the supermarket trolley is telling me the bucket bike would be more fun
