Culture of Fear

Video about helmet use in cyclists raises more than helmet issues.

In a TED Video Mikael Colville-Andersen – Why We Shouldn’t Bike with a Helmet the speaker raises some very thoughtful, actually mind blowing ideas in discussing why we should not worry about wearing bicycle helmets.

If you are not familiar with TED which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, it is a conference where great minds give short presentations on their subject; past, present or future. To quote from the TED website:
 

TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.

After the conferences the videos taken at the conference are posted online. They are engaging, entertaining, inspirational, though provoking and well worth every minute you can spend watching them.
Mikael Colville-Andersen is “Copenhagen’s bicycle ambassador.” In this TED video Colville-Andersen “talks about how important the bicycle is for liveable cities.” He also talks about ”how bicycle helmets are threatening bicycle culture.”

His talk is full of great ideas about why cycling is an important part of the current society for our cities. He talks about how cycling saves energy, saves the environment and saves lives. He talks about why helmets have no real value to cyclists. I’ve transcribed his statements as best that I could, but I may not be perfect in my quotes of him.

There is only 50/50 proof that bicycle helmets work. Your risk of brain injury is higher wearing a helmet and you have a 14% greater chance of getting into an injury with a helmet on while cycling.
Pedestrians have a higher incidence of head injuries than cyclists do.
Instead of pushing helmets we should educate drivers so they don’t hit pedestrians and cyclists.
With Copenhagen’s big push on cycling helmets bicycling use fell 5%
When promoting bicycle helmets the idea scares away people from cycling. Because the idea of cycling helmets make it much more dangerous than it really is.
The health benefits of cycling are 20 times greater than any risk of cycling
By not cycling we are killing an additional 15000 people a year which is almost the same number scared away from the sport by the helmet campaign.

However his analysis of what is promoting this, not why it does not work is truly in depth and intelligent.

However

The Culture of Fear is a scary and a very ferocious idea. Colville-Andersen looks at the Culture of Fear several different ways.

The culture of fear does not worry about facts or science.
Fear has become that feeling that controls the public.
The most potent example of the culture of fear is this almost pornographic obsession with safety equipment. Never before have we lived lives so safe and so free of danger as we do right now in the western world.
The culture of fear has created a bubble wrap society.
If there is something that we can make people afraid of there is a long line of people willing to make money on it.
After 250,000 years is this where we really want to be going?
We should choose to go a little bit retro and [let] a little bit of common sense back in our societies. We should let rationality become the new black.

Please watch this video and see if it makes you think. Think about the following then:

• · If humans as safer now than they have ever been, why do need to create a bubble wrap society?
• · Are we creating fear as the marketing tool of the 21^st century?
• · If we are, how is that going to affect litigation in the United States?
• · How do we change that?

What do you think? Leave a comment.

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