I didn’t wear a helmet…and felt safer

I live north of Toronto, where most roads don’t have bike lanes. (Although, I guess, the same might be said for downtown, soon, anyway. Sigh.)

In this relatively small town, there are a few bike lanes in the “downtown” area, but for the most part, it’s roads with shoulders—or none at all. My house is 4 km from the train station, so when I leave to go to the Canadian Cycling Magazine offices in Toronto, it unfortunately means I need to drive. I would love to ride my bike the quick 7 a.m. ride to the station, but the roads there have no shoulder, and rolling hills. It would only be a matter of time before some yahoo going well over the speed limit made my day much, much worse cresting a hill. It’s a horrible reality, but knowing some of the drivers around here, it’s not a risk I want to take.

The horrors of the closepass

I ride on the same roads on the weekend when it’s a little later in the day, and less traffic. I will ride on my own, or sometimes the local Donut Ride. There are more and more people out in the country now, which means more and more drivers.

 

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Everyone knows how scary a close pass is, and to be frank, I’ve had far more in recent years when I am out training. I’m almost always in full MAMIL mode—Lycra, helmet, the works. Even with lights, cars can scare the hell out of me, ruining rides and worrying that someday that close pass will be too close.

The revelation

The other day I was testing out some new cleats and jumped on my bike in regular clothes, a puffy jacket and toque, and rode a few kilometres testing them. What I experienced shocked me. Every single car that passed me gave me a wide berth. Well above the metre cars are bound to give me. Many even moved into the other lane! I couldn’t believe it. Then I remembered. I wasn’t wearing a helmet. Was that why?

Don’t tell me the cyclist wasn’t wearing a helmet

I remembered a study I had written about that said the same thing. Research by Mark Limb from Queensland University of Technology and Sarah Collyer from Flinders University highlights a troubling trend where many people fail to view cyclists as fully human. Published in Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, the study examined how dehumanizing perceptions of cyclists, especially those wearing helmets or safety vests, hinder efforts to promote cycling. The survey, involving 563 participants, sought to uncover the causes of these negative views.

Less than human?

Basically, the study suggests that the more gear you have on, the less humanized you are viewed as. If you’ve ever watched old hockey games, you might remember how (in theory, I mean, they still got busted-up faces) how their faces weren’t even more wrecked. Because (and yes, I know many broke this rule) it was usually frowned upon to shoot for the face. With more equipment, checks got worse and players didn’t worry about where the puck might go.

As former Calgary Flames defenceman said when he didn’t wear a helmet, “I didn’t get hit in the head or with a high stick or anything. If anything, players might have been a bit more tentative, keeping their sticks down. I played 10 games without a helmet, then put it back on.”

GCN’s Orla Chennaoui explains why she doesn’t wear a helmet, outrage ensues

Now, this is not a manifesto to say you should chuck your helmet and go full 90s pro. I will admit when I raced in the ’90s it was common not to wear a helmet training, and with the exception of a few pro races in the U.S., we wore them in races. (Which apart from the safety aspect, is really dumb. Don’t wear a lid training, then put on a helmet for races—and they were heavier, and far less ventilated. But I digress.)

But if drivers don’t view us as human beings, that’s truly troubling.