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Cyclists called to mobilise against helmet compulsion
In the UK, the British Medical Association reverses a long-standing policy and comes out for universal compulsion, and in Ontario a private bill could make helmets obligatory for cyclists and skaters...
In the UK, the British Medical Association reverses a long-standing policy and comes out for universal compulsion, and in Ontario a private bill could make helmets obligatory for cyclists and skaters...
A report on BikeBiz recently revealed that the BMA has changed its mind and is now advocating the compulsory wearing of helmets for cycling. This is a Bad Thing.
BikeBiz has now organised an online petition to argue that the BMA should reverse this policy, which was presumably the result of lobbying by well-intentioned but misguided do-gooders. For background, see extensive coverage here.
It would be particulartly useful if medical doctors could sign up in numbers: I know there are plenty among Velo Visions's readership. Please visit:
http://www.bikebiz.co.uk/bma-petition.php
and do your bit!
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And in Canada...
Stewart Russell from Canada reports meanwhile on another helmet law - they are already compulsory for under 18s:
"Looks like we're being stuck with a compulsory bicycle helmet law in Ontario. It has snuck past second reading as a private member's bill at the provincial legislature. It seems that the bill, if made law, will affect inline skaters and skateboarders too. The first I've heard of it is today. It is not known if the sponsor, Kitchener Liberal MPP John Milloy, is a cyclist or skater."
Ontario Hansard notes are at: http://www.ontla.on.ca/library/bills/381/129381.htm. Although the summary doesn't mention bicycles, the full version does. You can read the proposer's speech here, followed by responses. Media reports are for example here and here while some skeptical discussion can be found, for example, here. And much more info and stats than you can shake a helmet at here.
***************
Velo Vision thinks it's up to you whether or not to wear a helmet. Incidentally I ban the helmet debate from the pages of the magazine as it usually generates more heat than light (perfect for the internet then :-). However, the effects of a helmet compulsion law can be so negative for cycling that stories like this deserve all the publicity they can get. If you can follow up the links and support the anti-compulsion effort... please do.
Posted on 11 November 2004
Your comments ...
| From: Steven Brandist (stevenbrandist@yah...) on 10 November 2004 | I used to wear a helmet all the time. Then I stopped a couple of winters ago. I couldn't fit my helmet over the wooly hat I needed to stop me freezing. When the better weather come, the helmet stayed off. My wife mentions it every now and then, but I don't plan on returning and wouldn't like it if I was forced to.
Work has taken me to a few places recently:
When I last visited British Columbia (west coast Canada) the helmet law had been in place for at least a couple of years.
In Spain I understand that its law to wear a helmet on main roads only. This selected area rule does't suprise me. The Spanish have long had a outlook on safety thats rather odd (in my opinion). You'll see adults and children riding in cars not wearing seatbeats around town, as "you only need them on the motorway".
In Indonesia... most of population is poor, they believe in fate. It doesn't matter what happens to you even if a lack of safety or negligence caused it. Its what God intended. |
| From: Tim Stredwick ([email protected]) on 15 November 2004 | Regarding the uk helmet debate. The following may be usefull to put it into perspective, what ever reasons are being put forward for cyclists to wear helmets this http://www.monash.edu.au/muarc/reports/atsb160.html makes much more compelling arguments for car occupants to wear them. If the BMA really had public health as a priority this is what they would be campaigning for.
Tim |
| From: Simon Ward ([email protected]) on 11 November 2004 | Ah, freedom of choice is a wonderful thing ...
... which is why I generally choose to wear a helmet when I'm riding off-road and choose not to when I'm riding on-road. |
| From: Stewart C. Russell ([email protected]) on 11 November 2004 | It's the objectivity of the proponents in the Ontario debate that I really like. This from Michael Prue, one of the speakers in support of the bill:
"This bill is absolutely right. I, quite frankly, am not going to bear any arguments. I'm not going to hear them, I don't want to hear them, about whether we have enough police to enforce it. We need it to be enforced. We need to do it for rollerbladers, in-line skaters, anybody, any contraption. It needs to happen."
Some people are going for the reductio ad absurdum approach to this challenge, and demand that Ontario makes helmet wearing mandatory for all -- and I mean *all* -- activities.
Are you wearing your shower helmet? |
| From: John Shackford (n/a) on 11 November 2004 | I wear a helmet. I am 54 yrs old. I started to wear a helmet 6 yrs ago. Why? Because I fell off and hurt my head. I will never go without ever again.
As to compulsion. I am with the zero tolerance brigade here. Compulsion is wanted and in my opinion the best.
Start the kids young and hopefully they will get to enjoy a long lifetime riding.
Contoversial indeed but I am a CTC member and totally disagree with the CTC view.
Best regards,
John.
http://www.pbase.com/john28july
|
| From: Arch (@Kings' Manor) on 11 November 2004 | | I study in an attic room with low beams, and it's just occurred to me that I should wear my helmet up there instead of leaving it with my bike in the bike shed. |
| From: jes (@pedalcars.info) on 11 November 2004 | Freedom of choice has to be maintained.
But 2 thoughts for you:
I have a friend who has been seriously disabled for the last 12 years due to being knocked off his bike by a drunk.
He will never work (or ride a bike) again, has no short term memory, and trouble with such things as speach through no fault of his own. A helmet would have been a Good Thing in this case.
I still feel that I owe my current good health to the fact that helmets were made compulsory in pedal car racing 10 years before I had my accident which involved me impacting the corner of a wall with my right temple at something over 20mph. Or would have done had my Giro Hammerhead not taken the impact instead of my skull.
Make your own choice, but with the people about on the roads today I doubt your bravado will be worth the consequences.
That's just my opinion, sirs. |
| From: Seamus (etc) on 11 November 2004 | Slightly off topic.
I notice another horse rider has been killed after being thrown from a horse frightened by a low flying aircraft.
Would it not be a good idea for horse riders to instead of wearing those traditional and obviously so ineffective hats and instead wear something more akin to a motor cycle helmet just as professional jockeys already do? |
| From: Dave Minter (somewhere@outthere) on 11 November 2004 | | I have fallen off bikes both while and not while wearing helmets and have lived in Australia (the first country where compulsory helmets were required) for most of my life. The facts are clear, compulsory cycle helmets don't save additional lives in Oz. Why go down the same track here? |
| From: Adrian Setter (@lunch) on 11 November 2004 | | I don't know whether Stewart had this unfortunate story - http://www.bikebiz.co.uk/daily-news/article.php?id=3965 - in mind, but it does support the point he makes. |
| From: Mark Marsh (...) on 11 November 2004 | I notice that most of the above comments make the assumption that helmets actually work effectively in reducing injury. This has _NOT_ been proved in any way that relates to real life conditions. This is a complex subject which is generally approached with less thought than choosing what to have for breakfast.
Helmets can, under certain curcumstances, mitigate the effects of an impact to the head. They can also translate glancing blows into rotational accelerations that are much more damaging to brain tissue and also make an impact more likely due to their bulk. The issue of risk compensation is also very important. Even if I were in favour of compelling people to do things for their own good, I would still not support compulsion for cycle helmets as they cannot be proved to be effective.
I am not keen on using anecdotal evidence in what should be a scientific debate but it seems to be the main thrust of the arguments so let me add a story...
A friend of mine who suffered a very serious head injury was told by his surgeon that he would have most likely have died if he had been wearing a [motorcycle] helmet. This is because helmets are quite good at reducing the point loads that cause skull fractures but not so good at reducing the acceleration that causes brain damage. When the brain is damaged it swells up like any other part of you, if his skull hadn't cracked his brain would have been constrained by it and forced out through his eyes and ears as it swelled - the cracked skull acted as a safety valve and kept him alive long enough for the medics to stuff him full of drugs to reduce the swelling.
As I said, it isn't a simple subject and the realities of the physics involved are not all that intuitive... |
| From: andy scaife ([email protected]) on 11 November 2004 | | The loony arguments about helmets for all activities, is the one that should be used by all those campaigning for freedom of choice. The primary argument and approach in my opinion would be the 'make the roads safer instead of using helmets to excuse bad driving', but the 'lever' that will shut down any legislation is to remind the proponents that they will be creating a precedent and their own atatistics and arguments can and will be used straight back at them. Whatever statistic, and from whatever angle, is quoted in favour of cycle ehmet wearing, can be used to enforce wearing by all motor vehicle occupants. Any time a nanny quotes figures at you, just reply "And what aould be the figure for car drivers and passengers?". that should kill this ridiculous piece of interference stone dead. |
| From: jes (@pedalcars) on 11 November 2004 | Compulsion is probably wrong (except for competition purposes where rules will always demand helmets to be worn now).
Promoting the use of helmets, however, must surely be the right way to go.
Oddly enough, in France pedal car races are run without helmets but my all four drivers in my team chose to wear theirs when we did a 12 hour race there a couple of years ago.
You could argue that, in that heat, we might have won the race had we not worn helmets (we lost by about 500metres) but the thought never occured.
It's a cultural thing in this case I think. |
| From: Arch (@KM) on 11 November 2004 | | Veering off topic again... Seamus, we do wear the jockey style helmets now - or at least the riding school I go to. But I guess there's a lot more to falling off a horse than hitting your head, like the flailing hooves, getting dragged along etc |
| From: John Turvey ([email protected]) on 11 November 2004 | | Regardless of any (unproven) benefits of ering helmets when cycling, the one definite fact is that cyclists, on average, live some 2 years longer than non-cyclists - and this is after any increased risk of cycling on UK roads with or without helmets |
| From: Steven Brandist (stevenbr...) on 11 November 2004 | Peter, thank goodness that you don't (and won't) ever print about the helmet debate in Velovision. It's a real turn off.
But whatever your view point (and we have lots above!) one fact is constant... we love human powered vehicles and riding them - and nothing will stop us, if we have the choice to wear a helmet or not, or have to do so by law. |
| From: Arch (@KM) on 12 November 2004 | It's true most, or all, of us who comment here would continue to cycle if we were compelled to wear helmets, but we are a rather selective sample. The big issue is that the waverers, or the not-yet-cyclists may be put off and will then never get the undisputed health benefits (or find out about the sheer joy!). And the pavement-cycling, red-light-jumping, brakes-disconnected yoofs will never wear helmets anyway, adding fuel to some motorists' view that cyclists are an irresponsible menace.
Off to my dangerous low beamed attic now... ;-) |
| From: David Hembrow (hembrow@someplace) on 12 November 2004 | Steven said:
>But whatever your view point (and we have lots
>above!) one fact is constant... we love human
>powered vehicles and riding them - and nothing
>will stop us, if we have the choice to wear a
>helmet or not, or have to do so by law.
It might not put you off, but it will almost certianly put some people off. I'm not sure I'd bother with the extra hassle for a trip to the local shops.
It's been shown that those places with more cycle usage are safest for cyclists. So, compulsory helmets making some people stop riding makes cycling more dangerous for those who are left riding. |
| From: Antony (at pedalcars dot info) on 12 November 2004 | Did you know, 60 people die every year in the UK alone by falling down the stairs *in their own home*?
Another 20 die by falling out of their own bed.
Or possibly someone else's.
Quick! Ban beds! Ban stairs! |
| From: Span Tally ([email protected]) on 12 November 2004 | | Those who state that "I fell on my head and the doctor told me that a helmet saved my life" are this: deluded. For this to have any evidential value, they would have to repeat the experiment without a martlehat. Few, if any, seem to do so. Moreover, it may help to think of doctors as "ex-medical students". This should remove any lingering beliefs in the infallibilty of the medical profession. |
| From: Cycling proficiency bod (someone@somewhere) on 12 November 2004 | I recently experienced the local council's idea of how children should be trained to cycle. Helmets are not compulsory, but they are very very keen to make sure kids know they'll die without one.
As a result of this, I saw an "experiment" that we're supposed to perform in front of the kids to demonstrate the effectiveness of helmets.
What you do is take an egg, put it in a miniature plastic "helmet" designed to protect the egg from certain impacts and drop it vertically on to the floor. You're advised to put the whole thing in a plastic bag as it "doesn't always work".
So, by demonstrating that something which is not a human head is protected by something which is not a cycle helmet from a fall which could never happen in reality we demonstrate the usefullness of cycle helmets. This is the sort of "science" we're faced with from BeHIT.
I reckon that dropping someone vertically upside down 5 feet or so onto the ground, with or without a helmet, would never have a good effect on a person. On the other hand, taking this apparatus out into the car park and driving over it with the "safer cycling" trainer's car (they weren't cyclists, of course) might demonstrate something else about helmets.
Posted anonymously as I've still not decided if there is actually any real benefit to doing this, or whether the kerb hugging etc. is more dangerous than the good bits (considerable emphasis on "life saver" looking over the shoulder).
I've never seen an advert for driving instructors which suggests that you can do it without being a driver, why should cycling instructors not be cyclists ? Meanwhile, I'm going to start training elephant jugglers. I've no experience with elephants and can't juggle, so clearly I'm the right man for the job... Any applicants ?
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| From: Ben - Kinetics ([email protected]) on 12 November 2004 | | You need quite big hands to juggle elephants... |
| From: Roger the hilldodger (@my sesk again) on 12 November 2004 | | If helmet compulsion became law then I'm afraid I'd have to become a law breaker. I don't perceive cycling to be dangerous. |
| From: S (etc ) on 12 November 2004 | | I think it's cruel forcing innocent horses to carry people though oddly I've nothing against them being killed for food. |
| From: Howard Peel ([email protected]) on 12 November 2004 | As has been mentioned there is no real evidence that cycle helmets 'save lives'. This is to be expected given that they are only designed to absorb simple impacts at speeds of up to 12.5 Mph. The limited value of helmets is related to the fact that the amount of kinetic energy generate in a crash rises with the square of the speed. Consequently, so even if a helmet functions as intended (rather than just breaking up which is very likely) it can only reduce a 42 mph impact to the equivalent of an unhelmeted 40 Mph impact, a difference to small to �save lives�.
Where helmets have been made compulsory there have been no falls in the number of cycle fatalities taking into account the reduction in the number of people cycling as a result of such laws. Again, this is to be expected when a cycle helmet is not designed to, and is incapable of, absorbing the sort of life threatening impacts that arise if a cyclist is hit by a motor vehicle. |
| From: Howard Peel ([email protected]) on 12 November 2004 | The real reasons for the pressure to get cyclists to wear polystyrene hats?
Firstly, drivers think that if cyclists wear helmets there will be less need for lower speed limits and so on.
Secondly the 'Government' has set targets to reduce 'serious and fatal' injuries. Many cyclists injured in crashes attend hospital for treatment to head cuts or 'for observation' after receiving a minor blow to the head. In fact almost any blow to the head might well result in admission to hospital. This biases the figures making it look as though most cyclists who are in a crash have head injuries. Also such injuries, no matter how minor, will be recorded as being 'serious' as they involved a visit to hospital.
The 'Government' knows that many such minor 'serious� injuries might be prevented if cyclists wore polystyrene hats. Of course, just as many (or more) cyclists would die or end up in a wheelchair as helmets are as much use a chocolate fireguard in high impact crashes (and may well increase the rotational laod on the brain), but what the hell, compulsory helmet wearing would mean that the �Governments� pretty meaningless casualty reduction figures could be achieved. Even better this could be done without introducing policies that would upset 'the motor voter', such as better enforcement of the speed limit. (And of course, it is exactly such policies that are needed to reduce the level of deaths and genuinely serious injuries...) |
| From: Howard Peel ([email protected]) on 12 November 2004 | Another reason for the degree of misplaced faith in cycle helmets? Most people know next to nothing about the mechanics of brain injury. People don't die of cut heads or even fractured skulls they die of brain injuries. Even if a helmet is worn the brain moves around inside the skull in a crash and 'rotational' injuries as the brain moves around are a particular problem.
The brain is naturally protected to a degree from these rotational injuries by having a slippery outer layer (the scalp) that can move over the inner protective layer (the skull). Helmets do not mimic this and may even increase the rotational load due to their size, mass and interference with the sliding of the scalp. As a medical text on this topic states:
''In certain types of head injuries, such as those involving a great deal of force and movement the brain will swirl, rotate, oscillate, and slosh around inside the skull in a rotary fashion... as the brain swirls about the neocortical surface becomes contused, sliced and sheared by the the bony protrusions (e.g. the sphenoid wing) within the cranium and haemorrhages will develop over the surface of the cerebrum. The frontal-temporal regions are at particular risk for these type of injuries.'
All in all helmets are a dangerous distraction away from the real issues that need to be addressed if we are to make the road 'safer' for cyclists...
|
| From: Howard Peel ([email protected]) on 12 November 2004 | More on the limitations of polystyrene hats. Below are some quotes from the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute, A US based pro helmet group, from a document looking at the limitations of helmets.
We are aware that the acceleration measured in a test lab drop is not necessarily equal to the acceleration the head sees in an actual crash of the same distance on the street.
I.e. helmets are designed only to pass tests in a lab, and need not offer the degree of real world protection suggested by those tests...
There is a second thread in the seemingly endless discussion of g thresholds: concussion. The vast majority of consumers assume that a helmet should prevent concussion in even the heaviest hits, and that if the helmet protects against severe blows it must surely be easily protective in lesser ones. in fact the helmets built to our standards are in many cases too hard to protect against a mild concussion in either a low speed hit where foam fails to crush or a much harder hit where clinically evident permanent injury is avoided, but a lesser concussion still results even though the helmet has not crushed completely and bottomed out.
Read that again. A certified helmet only gives any significant level of protection at impact load imposed in order to pass the impact test. (Usually equivalent to a simple 12.5 mph crown impact onto a flat surface). Again this is largely because helmets are specifically designed to pass a single test with a single specified impact load. Not only will it be as much use as a chocolate fireguard in a high impact situation, it need not reduce the impact significantly in an impact situation lower than that which the helmet is designed/tested for...
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| From: Howard Peel ([email protected]) on 12 November 2004 | And more from the BHSI...
'nobody has a clear definition of the threshold of concussion, or at least a workable new failure threshold that can be applied in lab testing...We have a suspicion that the threshold should be different for children and perhaps senior citizens than for others, but no data to support a change.'
I.e. we don't even know what sort of characterises a helmet actually needs to have to be effective, what's more we probably need a different design of helmet for each user group...
'Finally, there is the question of rotational injury. We know it is a problem, and perhaps even the worst villain in concussion. But we don't have generally accepted injury thresholds and lab test equivalents to write into our standards. In fact, most of our labs don't even have the test equipment they would need to begin testing helmets for rotational injury performance.'
I.e. it is rotational and shear injuries that we need to be most concerned about, but as we don't understand the mechanisms of such injuries, or the relationship between real world impacts and such injuries, we will just forget about them...
And all this is from a strongly pro helmet organisation!... |
| From: Arch (still@KM) on 12 November 2004 | Seamus said: I think it's cruel forcing innocent horses to carry people though oddly I've nothing against them being killed for food.
Especially the poor beast that gets me. Actually horse meat is actually very healthy, due to the fat being naturally polyunsaturated. The only reason we don't eat them is that doing so was banned by Pope Gregory the somethingth in some century or other. Oh, and they take a bit longer than cattle etc to breed.
Come on Seamus, we'll totally derail this topic if we keep up... |
| From: ian fardoe (www.wolvesonwheels.co.uk) on 12 November 2004 | I also find it disturbing, (would say amusing but then that could be taken in the wrong light), these anecdotal "helmet saved my life" stories.
I fell a few years ago whilst riding offroad and landed head first, striking a glancing blow and removing half the skin off my face.
That's all I received, no long term damage, well I'd struggle to get any uglier.
However if I'd been wearing a helmet the angle I hit the floor at would have meant the helmet would have twisted my head around probably breaking my neck. Not a great story, except for one thing, I haven't gone back to repeat the experiment for obvious reasons.
So I don't know if my theory is right, but then no one I know who claims a helmet has "saved their life" has gone back and repeated the incident without a helmet to see if their theory is correct either, so all these anecdotes should be taken with a large pinch of salt.
I wear a helmet 99% time mtbing because the chance of it prevent a minor injury is high enough to warrant it, 1% on the road as it does nothing except in icy conditions when I might fall off a DF, but then it's much safer to ride my trike, perhaps that's what the BMA should be calling for compulsory Trikes, might also help reduce amount of mental ilness, although those smiling happy people enjoying themselves :)
the main problem I have with all this is the fact it makes the victim guilty of something that someone else does, BeHIT claim that people should wear them because they might get hit by a car, surely we should stop them from getting hit in the first place. |
| From: steve green (**************) on 13 November 2004 | Andy Scaife and Ian Fardoe have got it right. Better driving, and much more rigorous enforcement of driving standards are the answers.
A change in public opinion, treating dangerous, incompetent and inconsiderate driving with the appropriate contempt is also long overdue. |
| From: Tom (burning@bothends) on 13 November 2004 | Selective sample tho' it is, I'm quite heartened by the amount of sense that's being talked here.
When I fielded all the email for Company of Cyclists, we were often taken to task for showing pictures of cyclists without helmets in our adverts; many seemed to think that this was tantamount to luring them to their deaths. A 1000 word stock response, customised to reflect many of the issues they raised, usually brought a polite reply, and either a change of viewpoint or a pledge to research the issue more carefully. So keep spreading the word, folks! |
| From: antony (at pedalcars dot info) on 14 November 2004 | Interesting this, from the latest CTC newsletter:
"Road casualties down in London
"Statistics released today by Transport for London (TfL) show a sharp reduction in road deaths in London in the first 6 months of 2004. Pedal cyclist casualties decreased by 3 per cent, with fatalities down by 60 per cent over the same period. TfL figures released earlier this year showed a record 23% increase in cycling in London over the year to May/June 2004. This is the sharpest one year increase in cycle use ever recorded for a British city."
So, cycling is hugely up (presumably linked to congestion charging - this isn't stated here but it has been reported elsewhere that since the CS was introduced, car journeys in central london are down and cycling is up), cycling casualties are down, cycling fatalities are massively down. No mention whatever about any change to the proportion of cyclists wearing helmets.
QED? |
| From: andy scaife (heartened @ Tfl) on 14 November 2004 | Has anyone seen any statistics for Amsterdam or copenhagen, gronigen or odense?
how many people wear helmets there?
Apart from American tourists of course!
some american cycle campaigners, visiting york last year for a conference, came out for a ride with various local bods. we found them all bicycles and clothing, and were ready to set off, but they seemed a mite puzzled and hesitant. After an awkward silence, one of them politely mentioned that we had forgotten helmets. A mile into the ride they were revelling in the liberation and the 'naughtiness' of it all! |
| From: Arch (@uni) on 15 November 2004 | | They'd come to York without clothing? |
| From: S (etc) on 15 November 2004 | | The Return of Nude Cycling. |
| From: simon thomas ([email protected]) on 15 November 2004 | | If helemts are designed for a 12.5mph impact, presumably part of the helemt compulsion law will be to force all traffic to drive at no more than 12.5mph? |
| From: Seamus (etc ) on 15 November 2004 | | It'd have to be less than 12.5 mph 'cos of resultant forces. |
| From: Peter Clinch ([email protected]) on 17 November 2004 | "As to compulsion. I am with the zero tolerance brigade here. Compulsion is wanted and in my opinion the best", writes John Shackford, but he is, alas, somewhat misinformed. Compulsion is a total disaster because /everywhere it has been implemented it has failed to make any difference to cyclists' injury rates/
Fact. Really.
It has a tarck record of not working, and there's no reason to suppose it will do anything else here. It might drive total cycle numbers down, as it has where it's been enforced elsewhere, and that makes existing cyclists worse off for safety.
Pete.
|
| From: Peter Clinch ([email protected]) on 17 November 2004 | Actually, I've noticed a factual error in my stated "fact"... In some places where compulsory helmet legislation has been introduced injury rates have /increased/! I omitted the word "beneficial". Silly me.
Those relying on "common sense" telling them that a hat can't be anything other than a good thing (the attitude I used to take myself, in case anyone thinks I'm sneering at them) should probably do some reading. Start at www.cyclehelmets.org and wonder if we should really be criminalising people for not wearing something that's only likely to save you a bump, bruise and a headache, assuming you actually (a) have an accident and (b) bang part of your head covered by a helmet as a result.
Pete. |
| From: Tony Smith ([email protected]) on 17 November 2004 | I don't wear a helmet, having spent many a lunchtime researching the facts. In 30 odd years of cycling (mostly commuting year round)I've so far only suffered one serious injury - a broken hip caused by some unseen black ice 2 years ago. My mother cursed me for not wearing a helmet, as of course that would've helped!
As a teenager I had many crashes, usually at speed and don't ever remember a noggin impact but I have had a couple of accidents where a helmet could've been very nasty, such as the time I got caught in a rut and was thrown into a wire fence. I had 3 friction burns on my chest, neck and forehead where I slid along the rusty wires, hurt a lot at the time and the one on my chest left a scar but that was all. What might have happened if I've hooked a helmet over one wire?
I think the potential danger is roughly equal to the potential safety....but that's just my view.
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| From: Al ([email protected]) on 19 November 2004 | Seamus said: I think it's cruel forcing innocent horses to carry people though oddly I've nothing against them being killed for food.
No me neither, I've never had a problem with eating horse riders |
| From: Clive Parsons ([email protected]) on 20 November 2004 | I started wearing a helmet for cycling to work when I felt that I was at most risk. Then I fell off my bike one Sunday afternoon on an quiet road. The weather was perfect for cycling. The incident was entirely my fault. Since then I have rarely cycled without a helmet. That is my choice and that is the way I would like it to stay. I am under no illusions about how effective a helmet suffice to say that on balance it is probably better than nothing.
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| From: Clive Parsons ([email protected]) on 20 November 2004 | I fell off my bike one Sunday afternoon on an quiet road. The incident was entirely my fault. Since then I have rarely cycled without a helmet. That is my choice and that is the way I would like it to stay. I consider that I am safer wearing a helmet than not.
I am perlexed that in this society of alegedly well informed intelligent people we cannot grade levels of risk. After that rail crash near Reading someone wrote in The Times (no I don't buy it) that with a train journey it was a matter of pot luck if you would you reach destination safely. True, but the implication is that train travel is inherently unsafe. The people who died on that train were the first to do so in this country for over a year. Was the writer aware of how many people have died in cars during the same period? Do we need a league table of risks published every week. Using stairs, boiling kettles, driving cars, sedentry life styles, using a power saw, cyling with or without a helmet, serving in Iraq, they all entail risk, how do they stack up? Alternatively the cause of every death each day in the UK could be conveyed to us in the news. After a while the do-gooders would perhaps start to leave cyclists alone. |
| From: andy sutcliffe (still.not.vince.fox) on 21 November 2004 | Just a little statistic to help fan the flames.
Road deaths in 2003 were 3,500 people; of which, cycling accounted for 7. That's 0.2%!
Who can ignore the other 99.8%, while targeting the minority accusing them of risking their lifes? |
| From: gNick (gnick@...) on 21 November 2004 | One of the problems with a helmet is its limited working range primarily due to the need for it to be lightweight and ventilated. There is no way that it could absorb enough energy in a collision involving a motor vehicle or at even non-racing downhill speeds. They may help at low speed accidents and may help to prevent abrasion damage but like all things it is at best a small change to the overall risk of living. Having had the sort of low speed accident it might have saved me a week in hospital and the best part of a year getting my memory back reliably. But then again it might not - I was at the time "very very drunk" and hence have not the faintest idea as to what happened.
I suspect that the helmet issue is all that the "Management" can enforce to be able to show that they are doing something without treading on car lobby toes. Unlike actually doing something constructive like addressing the Road Traffic death toll.
Funny how a few deaths in a train crash in a year puts people off travelling by train but a larger no. of deaths on the roads every week doesn't stop people driving. |
| From: Peter Clinch ([email protected]) on 22 November 2004 | "I consider that I am safer wearing a helmet than not.
I am perlexed that in this society of alegedly well informed intelligent people we cannot grade levels of risk"
It helps if you look at the numbers. For instance, the numbers say that you're not any safer in terms of serious injury with a helmet, yet you say you consider you are, giving a pretty clear illustration of your own point that people aren't too good at this sort of thing!
To quote our pro-helmet Roads minister from a written reply, "the Government knows of no case where cyclist safety has improved with increasing helmet use". And he's got teams of people looking for such data and /wants/ a positive answer!
Pete. |
| From: Michael Terwisscha (m.d.terwisschavanscheltinga@fi) on 24 November 2004 | In my own case I always wear a helmet with my recumbent but never on my ordinary bike. The biggest question I do have who is causing the danger. When I cycle I am not a danger for others. Cars are a danger for my. So is that the reason I have to wear a helmet?
The problem with all this laws is, they are made by people in the office, thinking from the position of a car driver. Is that fare?
I think when children have to wear a helmet it will not stimulate to use a bike. An when childeren even do not use bikes anymore why they should do when they are grown up? So it is not good for the promotion of the bike. |
| From: Mike (mike@....) on 25 November 2004 | If helmets were made compulsary then cycling would become more dangerous if the Auz stats are anything to go by.
Time to build a roll cage and bull bars for the Brox!! |
| From: Ralf Grosser (catwing@T-online) on 02 December 2004 | More people each year are injured, falling off barstolles, each year, with serious head injuries, then falling off bicycles.
I often do not wear a helmet on a bike, but advocate, anyone who rides an Aluminuim bike to wear a helmet. If your Aluminium bike is designed by someone in Darmstadt, write youre last will inside of the Helmet.
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| From: dan keown ([email protected]) on 03 December 2004 | How refreshing to see such informed debate. Personally however I do not eat horses.
As regards the helmets It would be nice to think this issue is so obviously a question of personal choice that the government wouldn't interfere, but unfotunately experience elsewhere has taught otherwise.
One of the correspondants thought this was an unimportant, unworthy topic of conversation, I disagree. This issue encapsulates what is wrong with society. Reliance on oil- to make the helmets, and to drive the cars when people stop cycling-, nanny states and the loss of personal choice, the triumph of corporations over truth, the rise of epidemic obesity and the loss of our public spaces to the motorcar. All of these are major threats to our health and happiness.
To lose this battle is to lose the fight for all that is good in life. It should not be belittled |
| From: andy scaife (bikerescue etc...) on 03 December 2004 | | Fab comment, Dan! can i steal chunks of it for my next letter to local press? |
| From: dan keown ([email protected]) on 04 December 2004 | | You're welcome to plagiarise as much as you like! |
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