Re-assembling automobility: bicycle helmets and the risks of cycling in the US, 1970-1995

Rony Blank-Gomel

Mobilities, 2019, vol. 14, issue 6, 825-840

Abstract: Traffic safety conceptions are often analysed as subordinated to automobility, but how this occurs remains vague. I examine the emergence and spread of accounts of the risks of cycling in the US and their domination by head injuries and bicycle helmets, a framing often attributed to automobility. I trace the sociotechnical network producing these accounts using academic and governmental publications, the mass media, and interviews. I demonstrate that the emergence and spread of traffic safety conceptions are non-linear and contingent, highlight the constitutive role of non-humans in these processes, and argue against the use of automobility to explain such developments.

Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1080/17450101.2019.1635338

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