In a recent post I showed how child safety laws are based on their cost and benefits. Here's a John Stossel piece on whether bike helmets are worth the cost:
If parents have such a hard time assessing risk for their own children, how much better can politicians assess the risk for millions of Americans?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
So to sum up:
ReplyDelete"When helmets are required, head injuries go down, but so do the number of cyclists. This means less people exercising, which means increased health risks. And that means PEOPLE DIE!"
I don't think we should have mandatory helmet laws, but that's one of the worst, most illogical arguments I've ever heard. Just because people stop riding as much they get fat and die, as if no other forms of exercise exist. And the idea that less people would ride their bikes if there was a helmet law is an "unintended" consequence? If I made that law, I would want people not to ride if they're weren't going to do it with a helmet. That seems pretty intended to me.
Not to mention the blatant correlation/causation problems with the rest of the video. I keep giving Stossel a chance and he keeps letting me down.