Clifton CC

Did anyone see the cycling helmet 'debate' on BBC Breakfast this morning? (Made me so angry I would have put my foot through the telly if I hadn't been waiting to catch a glimpse of the new Look North weather woman before going to work..)

Anyway it did make me think of the whole helmet issue so I did my own little survey on the way to work this morning. I saw 82 other cyclists, 24 with helmets and 58 without, thats a whopping 71 percent not wearing helmets, many young children. The debate could go on but the fact that jumped out was one third of childrens serious head injuries are due to cycling accidents whilst not wearing helmets. We all have very thin skulls and we all have accidents, NOT wearing a helmet is just wrong.

So what can be done about it?

On an individual and small localised scale I can put up a notice on York College home page about wearing helmets. On a huge scale, would anyone respect any bike sellers less if they insisted on seeing a buyers helmet (or selling them one) whenever they sold a new bike?

I'm sure it's been debated on here before, just after other peoples opinions.

Michael

I agree. Considering that all new bikes have to be sold with a bell now, it seems silly that helmets have been overlooked. A helmet is much more important than a bell, so if anything, the helmet should be automatically sold with a bike. Then it is up to individuals whether they wear one or not, but it is their risk if they injure themselves through not wearing a helmet.

I think if you look around the Internet, you will find that there is a lot of info on helmet wearing and how complex an issue it is. I think the main reasons against wearing them are:

They only protect you in low energy impacts as they are a compromised design (low weight and ventilation requirements). Anything inolving a car for example compresses the helmet to fast it has no effect.
wearing a helmet may make you feel safer so ride more dangerously.
Wearing a helmet make make it more likely that you hit your head.
There is no statistical proof that wearing a helmet makes you safer.
There is evidence from Australia that making it law to wear them reduces cycle use. Statistics say that the more people who cycle the safer we as a collective group are. Therefore making it compulsory actually increases the risk of an accident!

Still I wear a helmet. I think mainly so that my children also do. They are much more likely to be involved in low enery crashes. Also MTB crashes also usually happen at lower speed.

MichaelCarter wrote: (Made me so angry I would have put my foot through the telly if I hadn't been waiting to catch a glimpse of the new Look North weather woman before going to work..)

Are you serious?!.....What was she like?

You're going to start some real arguments with this post i reckon! If people don't want to wear helmets then let them do that. If they have an accident and do damage from not wearing a helmet then it'll either knock some sense into them or kill them. Either way it's their own fault and I'd have no sympathy.

If you want to promote cycling and keep commuters safe, take down your poster.

Have a read of this:

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/

and in particular that graph on the front page.

Obviously this doesn't apply to racing, MTB etc, where helmets do make sense.

I must admit that I do try and get the children to always wear one but legislation is completely inappropriate. If people want to 'run the risk' (assuming there is one - which we can debate ad nauseam) then I defend their right to do so as long as we live in a (reasonably) free society.

EDIT: I've looked at a few web info sources - I can't be sure but it does look as if some of the 'research' is actually rather biased. Some supposedly independent bodies seem to be a front for a libertarian, anti-helmet legislation position (reminds me of the NRA in the States).

I'm not suggesting anything is compulsary, we all should have a choice, like we all have the choice to take off our bike bells.

I am suggesting that at the point of sale, bike retailers suggest the purchase of helmets every time. Of course I'm no expert and statistical arguments can be made on both sides, but I am merely basing my argument on the advice of the brain surgeon I heard this morning. It makes me cringe to see children without them (these children don't make the conscious choice we do and some parents just don't think).

(NickB, yes its true: http://www.bbc.co.uk/looknorthyorkslinc ... ture.shtml)

MichaelCarter wrote:I'm not suggesting anything is compulsary, we all should have a choice, like we all have the choice to take off our bike bells.

I am suggesting that at the point of sale, bike retailers suggest the purchase of helmets every time. Of course I'm no expert and statistical arguments can be made on both sides, but I am merely basing my argument on the advice of the brain surgeon I heard this morning. It makes me cringe to see children without them (these children don't make the conscious choice we do and some parents just don't think).

(NickB, yes its true: http://www.bbc.co.uk/looknorthyorkslinc ... ture.shtml)

Either that picture is awful or she makes Jimmy Hill look
chinless

The problem with pushing the helmet line is that it implies irresponsibility in those who don't wear them and this raises the prospect of cyclists being held responsible for their injuries when they are knocked off instead of the motorist who hit them.....

There was an interesting article on the radio earlier this week - I only half heard it as I was busy being a parent at the time.

It was about the smoking ban one year on, and what should government be looking at doing to protect us next (sorry, I can't find the emoticon for "ironic"!)? One of the responses from the politician behind the smoking ban was along the lines of "I can foresee the compulsory wearing of cycle helmets".

Jason.

Dr Dave wrote:Some supposedly independent bodies seem to be a front for a libertarian, anti-helmet legislation position.

I gave up on the uk.rec.cycling newsgroup a good while ago because it seemed to be dominated by a vehemently anti-helmet clique who were quick to belittle helmet-wearers should they dare to make some sort of positive remark about them (the opposite viewpoint is just as bad, see below).
As Arthur has said, helmets are A Good Thing for competitive cycling, but for ordinary riding, if people want to wear them, they should be able to, whilst if you don't want to, you shouldn't have to. The overly pro/anti lobbies seem intent on portraying those who don't see their point of view as complete idiots, which is somewhat more than irritating. Right, rant over - I'm off for a sandwich....

Dave

Dave B - well said.

And I'm another ex-urc

Cheers to all who responded to my original posting, I've mellowed now after my rant this morning, and I feel a lot more clued up on the subject although the basic conclusion is simply "if you want to do, if you don't don't".

The only person I am not happy with though is Dr Dave likening the lovely Keeley to Jimmy Hill. I am going to tell her he said that, which might make her cry then I will console her and tell her she has a lovely chin, she will then think I am nice, then she will marry me, so all in all its been a good day for me!

Michael

It seems there's a near-consensus: wear a helmet yourself, require your children to, defend others' right not to wear them. [This is my view too.]

But would you take the same view of car seat belts? Of course I wear mine, and I make sure the children wear them. But if you don't want to, that's fine?

Or not...

tomf wrote:It seems there's a near-consensus: wear a helmet yourself, require your children to, defend others' right not to wear them. [This is my view too.]

But would you take the same view of car seat belts? Of course I wear mine, and I make sure the children wear them. But if you don't want to, that's fine?

Or not...

You have to wear a seatbelt as its the law. You dont have the wear a helmet though, when I cycled to college I never worn a helmet, just extra stuff to carry round and made my hair a mess for college.

A variation on Tom's suggested consensus - I wear one when training/racing, but not when pottering round town on the hack bike. I ask my daughter to wear one, but if it really did make the difference between her cycling or not cycling, I'd rather she cycled. I think compulsion would be totally wrong.

My reasoning for this - and I think it probably answers Tom's question - is to do with the clarity of evidence. Wearing seatbelts reduces the likelihood/severity of injury in most cases, wearing helmets has less statistical certainty if you take into account the broad picture (motorists passing closer to helmet-wearers / children being dissuaded from cycling / etc).

The helmet compulsion argument and the government's drive (sorry) to make us all safer reminds me of the furore about leg-protectors on motorbikes years ago. The TRRL spend thousands of pounds making mock-up leg protectors and driving cars into dummies astride bikes when the statistics were ambiguous, riders were opposed to compulsion, manufacturers were warning of extra costs, etc. They eventually saw sense, but it took some fairly heavy lobbying to get them to do so. The helmet issue's a harder one in some ways because the non-cycling public has an opinion on it too.