Evidence in arguments about bicycle helmets…
1) Melissa Marshall, a scientific communications consultant and faculty member at Penn State, gave a TED Talk titled, Talk nerdy to me. She spoke on the effective communication of technical or scientific ideas. She begins by introducing us to how describing your science in a relevant manner is important. She states, “beware of jargon, it’s a barrier to our understanding of your scientific ideas.” She recommends that they make it more accessible to the general population, without dumbing it down. Albert Einstein said, “make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler.” We also learn that examples, analogies, and stories are strategies for engagement. In addition, she advises us to steer clear of bullet points, as it’s marginalizing. She tells us to use something more effective, like a single, readable sentence that the audience can key into if they get a bit lost. And she encourages that we provide visuals, which appeal to our other senses and create a deeper sense of understanding of what’s being described. She closes off her speech by claiming that these are just a few keys that can help the rest of us see the wonders of science and engineering.
2) Mikael Colville-Andersen, a designer and urban planning consultant, presented a TEDxCopenhagen Talk called, Why We Shouldn’t Bike with a Helmet. He argued that bicycle helmets do more harm than ood. He starts off by showing the audience a list of the world’s top twenty most livable cities in 2010. He points out that the top twelve cities all have respectable levels of bicycle traffic. The tone of the presentation begins to shift when quotes like, “fear is lucrative” and “fear is big business” arise. He then brings our attention to something the Norwegian Philosopher Lars Svensen wrote, “that fear has become that feeling that controls the public.” Furthermore, the culture fear he is talking about is focused on the obsession we’ve developed with safety equipment. This is exemplified when he displays pictures of the “thud guard helmet,” a product available online in the U.K. They are helmets that children should supposedly wear in the safety of their own home. The site quotes all sorts of scientific facts to support the product as well. Then he dives into the topic of bicycle helmet promotion. He reveals that scientists are split on the subject, whether helmets are necessary or not. There are scientific studies that show your risk of brain injury is higher when you are in a helmet, and that you have a 14% chance of getting into an accident with a helmet on. In the lab, helmets are tested by dropping dummies on the crown of their head. And he adds that pedestrians are at a higher risk of head injury than of those on bicycles. To make it even more complicated, insurance companies and the Swedish government encourage helmets as they say it will save millions of dollars a year in reduced injury and death. One of the best points he makes in the video is how the automobile industry is one of the main promoters of bicycle helmets. This is due to the fact that bicycles are an immediate and real threat for the dominants of car culture in our cities. So, this industry essentially does everything it can to eliminate this threat. And in a way they succeeded. The first year of hardcore bicycle helmet promotion in Denmark caused bicycle sales to drop 5%. On top of that, it caused 10,000 people to stop bicycling in Copenhagen. But the European Cyclist Federation is trying to do what they can in order to aid these people. They are campaigning against this and promote and encourage bicycling.
3) Fred Rivara, a physician and professor of Pediatrics in Seattle discussed in his TEDxMontlake Cut Talk, how the pros of bicycle helmets outweigh the cons. In Importance of Bike Helmets, right off the bat, he informs us that almost a hundred people a year die from bicycling. 31,000 people, he claims, are hospitalized for it. 500,000 people visit the hospital emergency rooms for the treatment of bicycle related injuries. And three quarters of the deaths are really due to brain injuries. And the only way to prevent brain injuries is through the use of helmets. Helmets prevent on the order of 85% of head injuries, and 88% of brain injuries. He goes onto put up a slide with the heading, Changing Behavior for Good: tools to increase helmet use. This is followed by a list, under it states, “improvement in product, price, place, and promotion.” He didn’t forget to leave out another powerful tool though, victim stories. A graph is placed in the center of his next slide, with statistics from 1986 to 2010. In the beginning of this time period, 2% of people wore bicycle helmets in Seattle, which has now grown to up to 80%. This is leading to a change in the norm, and acceptance of bicycle sharing programs. The difficulty here presents itself in the accessibility of helmets, which is worth noting since studies show that these riders wear helmets less frequently than your typical cyclist. Luckily, some MIT students invented something to combat this problem. They came up with a plan to solve this, their answer came in the form of a kiosk that can dispense helmets and accept them back.
