Are Rentable Bikes Safe?

This past summer I took a trip to  New York City and was surprised at the amount of Citi Bike Stations that I saw. There was about one every 4 blocks and at one time I could probably see 15 people using a Citi Bike. I really liked the idea of rentable bikes as an environmentally friendly alternative to cars and hoped that it would catch on.

In June of 2013, Chicago implemented a similar system into its own City: Divvy Bikes. I tried Divvy bikes out for the first time over this past long weekend.  It's a little stressful to ride bikes through the busy streets of Chicago and I was pretty surprised that although they encourage you to wear a helmet, they don't require you to wear one nor do they have any for rent (you would have to bring your own). After going through the system, I found it would be very unlikely that someone would just happen to bring a helmet around with them.

So when I went home I googled what kind of training is required before you rent a Divvy bike, and found out there is none!  At the posts where you rent the bikes they don't even have an introductory video of rules you must follow. They have online training you can check out, but basically anybody can pay $7 to rent a Divvy Bike to get around town. It's very unlikely that anyone's going to look up Divvy Bike training online.  On an article from the Huffington Post website there was a video of a lady riding her Divvy bike in the middle Lake Shore Drive!  Although this is not technically illegal because it is a Drive, not an Expressway, this is totally not safe. This woman could easily be killed because she is not wearing a helmet and is doing something unsafe, and I'm sure she isn't the only one out there.

Just about anyone has access to these bikes, as long as they have a credit card. Literally a 5 year old would be able to ride their bikes if they stole daddy's credit card. I read an article in the New York Times about people in New York using the Citi Bikes to ride home from bars to avoid getting pulled over for drunk driving. Although drunk biking is not as dangerous as drunk driving, it is still extremely unsafe. The biker could seriously injure themselves. These rentable bike station would have no idea that drunk people are using their bikes for unsafe reasons. Breathalyzers or some other way to make sure the customer is sober could be implemented, but they would surely be expensive. Would it be worth the money to install something like a breathalyzer into each station? Would people use the bikes as much if helmets were rented out with the bikes?