Sir Bradley Wiggins says that cyclists should be required by law to wear helmets and banned from listening to music through headphones while they are riding a bike.
The four-time Olympic gold medallist and first Briton to win the Tour de France was giving his opinion on an interview shown on the BBC children’s news programme, Newsround.
Speaking on the subject of cycle safety, the father of two said: “I think certain laws for cyclists need to be passed to protect us more than anything.
“Making helmets compulsory on the roads, making it illegal to maybe have an iPod in while you’re riding a bike, just little things like that would make a huge difference.”
Trott, winner of Olympic gold medals in the Omnium and team pursuit at London last year, repeated an appeal she made in May for a Briitish Cycling video in support of the Get Britain Cycling petition, saying that regular cycle training in schools would lead to improved safety.
“Not all cyclists are that safe on the road either, and I think that would help young kids especially if we could get it in the National Curriculum once a week,” she said.
It’s not the first time Wiggins has spoken about cycle helmets.
Last year, when he was told at a press conference that London cyclist Dan Harris had been killed when he was struck by a media bus outside the Olympic Park, he said: “Ultimately, if you get knocked off and you don’t have a helmet on, then you can’t argue. You can get killed if you don’t have a helmet on.
"You shouldn’t be riding along with iPods and phones and things on. You have lights on. Once there are laws passed for cyclists then you are protected and you can say, ‘well, I have done everything to be safe."
"It is dangerous and London is a busy city. There is a lot of traffic. I think we have to help ourselves sometimes."
Later that day, Wiggins said on Twitter that he wasn’t calling for compulsory helmet laws: "Just to confirm I haven't called for helmets to be made the law as reports suggest. I suggested it may be the way to go to give cyclists more protection legally I [sic] involved In an accident. I wasn't on me soap box CALLING, was asked what I thought."
His latest comments, however, suggest that he is in favour of compulsion.
Mark Cavendish is another high profile cyclist who has said that cyclists shouldn’t listen to music while they ride.
Asked in 2011 by TV personality John Inverdale at an event hosted by the charity Right To Play whether he liked to do so, Cavendish gave the firm reply: “Don’t cycle with an iPod in, it’s dangerous!”
Cycling organisations such as CTC opposese helmet compulsion, saying that it should be a matter of individual choice.
Yesterday, talking about the case of a teenage boy left brain damaged after being struck by a van while out riding – he wasn't wearing a helmet because he didn't want to mess up his hairstyle – CTC's Campaigns Director, Roger Geffen, said: "My heart goes out to Ryan Smith and his family.
"What they are going through now must be unimaginable.
"However, faced with heart-rending stories like this, decision-makers need to remember that the only known impact of helmet laws is to drastically reduce cycle use, typically by over 30%, with much deeper reductions for teenage cycling."
152 thoughts on “Sir Bradley Wiggins: Cycle helmets should be compulsory, and iPods banned while riding bike”
Cycling to work, through
Cycling to work, through central London this morning, I had been thinking compulsory basic training at primary them more advanced training at secondary school would be a start to making cyclist safer. Every day it astounds me that more cyclists are not killed on the road, not through the fault of cars and lorries but through the unnecessary dangers many cyclists put themselves in. If cyclist do not respect their own saftey it is difficult to expect other raod users to respect them.
pure climber wrote:If cyclist
No, you are wrong. Totally wrong. It is absolutely necessary that other road users respect cyclists. Why? Because cyclists are vulnerable road users and don’t deserve to be killed or seriously injured because of someone’s bad attitude.
If someone rides through a red light and gets hit by a bus, then that’s their call – I only have sympathy for whoever has the trauma of hitting them. But if someone cuts me up, or buzzes past me at 60mph because they saw some other cyclist running a red light, then that’s wrong.
pure climber wrote:Cycling to
Totally agree. Wearing a helmet and not wearing headphones is generally sound advice too – though I’m not sure compulsion is the way.
Bradley did not receive his
Bradley did not receive his medal for having any extra level of clue about road safety.
The trouble is, most people
The trouble is, most people think ‘It couldn’t happen to me’- flying through the air at 20mph is not the time to think ‘I wish I’d worn my helmet’ so more power to Brad.
Completely agree that
Completely agree that listening to music is a) odd as it takes you away from enjoying the activity itself (same for runners) and b) potentially dangerous in some situations… but I do use one iPhone earphone with Google maps directions to get to new places sometimes: can’t imagine most cops being inteersted in the difference if this ever were to happen.
On helmets? Don’t feed the troll – even if he is a legend and a kngiht of realm!
Totally agree about the use
Totally agree about the use of ipods etc… you can’t hear what is around you, what is coming up behind you. You need to be aware of your environment and those people listening to ipods/phones etc have no idea about there surroundings!!
As for helmets, you never know when you’re going to bump your head!!! Wear one
helmets, ipods, who cares.
helmets, ipods, who cares. Sort the cause of accidents out and stop victim blaming!
Do something about the crap drivers!!!!!!!!!
Soundbites are great for
Soundbites are great for starting debates!
Interestingly he said helmets should be compulsory for cycling on the road. He didn’t say on they should be worn on cycle paths – presumably that would mean joggers and walkers would need to wear them too.
However, in such circumstances what would one do if the cycle path took to the road for 50m would one have to don a helmet for that stretch?
IMHO the whole debate about helmets is an unenforceable nonsense. The stats don’t back up the notion that they save lives as deaths are attributed to head injuries even when the other injuries are unsurvivable. Deaths from head injuries most often occur among pedestrians and car drivers so frankly they should be first in the queue for helmets. I could go on, but arguing against the small minded pro-helmet brigade is boring.
I think Brad should have been careful to avoid this debate on a children’s program as, irrespective of what he really thinks, in such circumstances there is only one message he could give that is acceptable to the media and that is telling children to wear a helmet and they will be safe. This is such a shame as children need to learn to make their own risk assessments and then make appropriate choices.
Yes helmets should be
Yes helmets should be compulsory it could save so many lifes, I wear mine all the time thank goodness I do as ive had some near misses.
Annabella wrote:Yes helmets
It could but won’t. See the studies linked above. Any benefit to the remaining cyclists from head injury protection seems to be outweighed by the earlier deaths of those who stop cycling and the reduction in “safety in numbers” as a result of helmet laws.
It it helps reduce the chance
It it helps reduce the chance I will be a vegetable and i need to be fed apple sauce for the rest of my life then i will wear one.
After my GF was hit in June the Doctor in A&E said the difference to her walking out of there and him shaving the side of her head ready for the neurosurgeon was the helmet she was wearing… which had a big crack in it.
As for wearing headphones, that just freaks me out it London as cars wizz by unannouced.
She knows this how? Fact is,
She knows this how? Fact is, she’s guessing. I’ve hit my head extremely hard off of tarmac, I was knocked out, I didn’t die, I didn’t get brain damage, just concussion. The head is tougher than you think and I still dont want to wear a helmet, the sweat doesnt evaporate off my head when I’m wearing one and the straps are horribly uncomfortable. Most of the times ive come off the bike its my hands or knees that get hurt, not my head.
so, if you want to make helmets mandatory, pedestrians 1st, then cyclists, walking is equally dangerous.
Listening to music with noise
Listening to music with noise isolating headphones is idiocy but in order to prevent thinking about stopping I have safely run along thousands of country miles listening to 5 Live with open headphones. Pedestrians listening to music cross in front of my path every single day, relying on engine rumble and peripheral vision. Equally dangerous as are drivers with boom, boom, boom stereos unaware of emergency vehicles.
Too bad that doctor was full
Too bad that doctor was full of it. He has no clue if the helmet did that, he just made it up.
Wearing ear phones saved my
Wearing ear phones saved my life.
What do those who say it’s
What do those who say it’s dangerous the wear headphones think about deaf cyclists? Should deaf cyclists be banned? What about in car music? Surely that should be banned for the same reason. I frankly can’t see the difference in these arguments.
These are all arguments about making the victim culpable for the acts done to them by the carelessness/recklessness of other road users. In my mind such arguments will one day be seen for what they are: predjudicial and on a par with sexism, homophobia and racism; all things that were one acceptable but no longer are. Anti cycling rhetoric will one day go the same way.
andybwhite wrote:…What
1+
I find it shocking that from doctors, politicians to pro cyclists no one has balls to say anything negative about idiots drivers in this country (in case it may offend a large part of the population?) and instead bang on about helmets, high-viz clothing and Ipods.
It’s no different from suggesting that women should be wearing baggy trousers instead of mini skirts to avoid being raped.
Like doctors and other “experts” Wiggins should stick with what he does best for living and nor trying to be an expert on traffic safety. We have too many of them already.
Time to get the deaf off our
Time to get the deaf off our roads.
IF cycle training stopped
IF cycle training stopped riders being stupid it would be a great idea. I would like to see compulsory cycle safety training for drivers as part of their training as well.
pz1800 wrote:IF cycle
lol, i think cycle training should be taught at school. but i suddenly had a thought.
if we train drivers and give them numerous tests and then give them a license to drive a 1 ton piece of metal around does that make them good drivers?!
DOH!
“Little things like that”…
“Little things like that”… Deary, deary me :”(
“Little things” like helmet laws with a proven track record of costing money to produce no safety improvement and significantly reduce numbers of cyclists.
Note to the meejah: if you want a clueful soundbite about cycling safety from a gold medal winning track star who has enjoyed success in the Tour de France you want Chris Boardman, because he actually knows what he’s talking about.
compulsory helmets for
compulsory helmets for pedestrians and car occupants! Huge rates of head injuries to pedestrians and car occupants could be slashed by making everyionewear a helmet all the time!
Once more, Wiggins has shown he’s clueless on this issue.
(for the record: I wear a helmet when engaging in cycle-sport. I don’t when I’m pottering around town)
It has also been proved that
It has also been proved that car drivers and passengers are at an equal/greater risk of head injuries and serious brain trauma than cyclists during an accident.
Where is the call for compulsory helmets for cars? and those radios/cd players need to be banned from cars, to much of a distraction.
Wiggins is starting to loosing credibility when talking on issues he has not researched.
Danger is all around us,
Danger is all around us, outdoors, indoors, in cars, we should all wear a helmet from the day we are born, permanently!
antonio wrote:Danger is all
Exactly! Never leave the house.
And if you have to, remember your hi-vis jacket.
Wiggins is not worth
Wiggins is not worth listening to on this issue – after his Olympic (and TfF?) wins he is pictured riding sans helmet with his son sans helmet. Sounds like he changes his position to suit what he’s been told to say. Cavendish seems to speak his own opinion, and stick to it.
And why just cyclists and ipods. Almost every road user has 2 key safety systems which should be kept fully working when they are moving around on the road.
Eyes provide the major input route for information about your next move and also tell other road users that you have seen them, and, using inherent social and cultural norms, feed a non-verbal message on priority/permission on how you interact with other road users. Just as tinted windows are banned on cars, so mirror and dark glass eyewear should be banned for pedestrians and cyclists.
Ears likewise, drivers who drive with windows totally shut and music playing loud are as bad as cyclists with earphones and pedestrians using mobile phones. THe universal road safety message “You have safety kit with over 4 million years of development and proof that it works, so don’t switch it off” And before someone makes a clever remark about the blind and the deaf – if all road users are looking and hearing it becomes clear that one road user is not locking in and you act accordingly – no eye contact – make a noise. No reaction to a noise like a warning bell or horn then get a visual connection.
Helmets – well that same development process has eliminated most bodies that cannot survive falling over or running into a rock or a tree at running speeds – so at 20mph the protective system of the skull is at only 30% of its impact capacity – compared to a styrene helmet which is at 260% of its impact capacity.
As the Dutch rightly say “Nothing, is better than a cycle helmet”
[[[[ A.V.Lowe quotes the
[[[[ A.V.Lowe quotes the Dutch as saying “Nothing better than a helmet.” Hmmm.. I knew a Dutch girl who mostly wore a cap, and she told me, “Any helmet is better than no helmet at all!” After a while I realised what she meant…took me a while, though.
P.R.
To wear a helmet or not?
To wear a helmet or not?
Darwin was right.
mattbibbings wrote:To wear a
Darwin’s theory certainly gives a good account of why people may have evolved a hard protective skull that prevents them being killed any time they fall over…
From my experience living
From my experience living next to a national cycle route (East Burton, in The Purbecks, Dorset) I’d hazard that 95% of drop-bar riders wear lids, but only about 40% of the more ‘pedestrian’ cyclists. Would be interested to find out the accident/injury split between the 2 groups.
sidesaddle,
I don’t have the
sidesaddle,
I don’t have the stat or link to hand, but I gather that in the Netherlands helmeted cyclists are over-represented amongst admissions to hospital by a factor of 10 or so.
Paul J wrote:sidesaddle,
I
Please find and show the link as I have searched and found nothing.
I would suggest you pulled this “factoid” out of your a**e but that would be rude
Wesselwookie wrote:
Please
How about this one?
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1261.html
Explains the stat too…
ct wrote:Wesselwookie
How about this one?
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1261.html
Explains the stat too…— Wesselwookie
Thank you
I see and as you stated it explains the reason for the discrepancy:
“The answer is probably related to another statistic. Of the injured cyclists wearing helmets, 50 percent were riding mountain bikes and 46 percent were riding racing bikes (Rijkswaterstaat, 2008). In other words, most helmeted cyclists in the Netherlands are engaged in a competitive activity, with very few making utility trips on the traditional style of Dutch bicycle.”
Where can I get one of Brad’s
Where can I get one of Brad’s helmets that protect you if you are run over BY A BUS?
Dear Bradley,
Please STFU and
Dear Bradley,
Please STFU and concentrate on riding your bike, you’re quite good at that.
Otherwise, you don’t have a clue. Seem to remember that you were wearing a helmet when that woman drove into you as she exited the garage? The cause of the collision wasn’t you wearing/not wearing a helmet, it was her shit driving. Let’s fix that first, then worry about helmets.
Thanks awfully.
crazy-legs wrote:Dear
How many crashes have you had, Crazy Legs? Less than Sir Brad I suggest. The idea that he is not qualified to comment, or should STFU is ridiculous. Don’t resort to ad hominem attacks it makes you sound childish.
Meanwhile I don’t support compulsion but I do always wear a helmet when commuting or training. I would gladly pick out a new shiny helmet for shopping trips if legislation came in and we saw a drop in deaths. I would make it bmx styly to go with street clothes not aero-venty for my road kit. Any excuse for new kit. Helmets are cool.
“These are all arguments
“These are all arguments about making the victim culpable for the acts done to them by the carelessness/recklessness of other road users”
This kind of argument misses the point, in the face of non-ideal conditions (that aren’t changing any time soon) it simply makes sense to maximise your own personal safety (however you see best). Not doing so because any accident is likely to be someone else’s fault is pretty silly. You can do your best to highlight the wider issues at the same time.
MattT53 wrote:”These are all
So you’ll be donning helmet, hi-viz and body armour as soon as you get out of bed then. Because most accidents happen in the home. What you are doing is to cherry pick your safety concerns and focussing on a minority group – cyclists! Shame on you.
ooh look, a helmet debate
ooh look, a helmet debate
He is talking to an audience
He is talking to an audience of 7 to 15 year olds and what he says has some validity. Lets not tear a strip off him because he has told a kid’s TV programme that he thinks helmets should be worn and the iPods shouldn’t.
ct wrote:He is talking to an
If you want a good, Clueful, evidence backed summary of the cycle helmet debate that includes particular thought on how it affects children then the Annex of Tim Gill’s “Cycling and Children and Young People” is an excellent go-to.
Free download at http://www.ncb.org.uk/media/443203/cyclingreport_2005.pdf
Though Gill wears a helmet himself he still says, “the case has not yet been convincingly made for the compulsory use or promotion of cycle helmets”.
It’s widely assumed that the arguments are very different for children, but when you drill down in to the evidence it turns out they’re not. They still don’t appear to save lives and they still appear to put kids off.
Wiggins is sounding off on an important issue with no sign that he’s done any research (compare and contrast with Boardman), so yes, we should be tearing him off a strip.
Still never seen or heard a
Still never seen or heard a valid argument against the listening of music whilst riding. But, let’s all bring it up again.
Unfortunately wearing a
Unfortunately wearing a quality helmet didn’t save my dad in July. It comes down to personal choice, everyone knows the risks but if I ever get back on my road bike again I wouldn’t consider riding on the roads without a helmet these days.
Is he still smarting from
Is he still smarting from being dropped as team lead for this years TdF that he now has to have a crack at utility cyclists?
Brad: build a bridge and get the fuck over it!
Helmets and earphones have a
Helmets and earphones have a similarity in that they both reduce the sense of risk for the wearer allowing him to be more reckless.
However, I would only ban earphones as, similarly to alcohol, the individual is numbed to his environment and they provide no apparent benefit.
Whether the helmet makes the rider safer is somewhat beside the point too, as risk-compensation no doubt kicks in to counter whatever benefit there is.
Nevertheless, could it also be true that with those wearing earphones, similarly as with cyclists when we are a motorist, we are just annoyed by someone in our environment who we have to take more care around?
3 incidents in the last 5
3 incidents in the last 5 years, all 3 included hospital visits, 2 in an ambulance, still using the same helmet as it is completely undamaged.
I still wear a helmet, it is just doing better than my elbows and shoulders as far as wear and tear goes…
am also deaf in one ear – should I cycle or not? maybe if I just use a single earbud in that ear?
guidob wrote:3 incidents in
If you head hit the ground in any of these accidents you should replace the helmet. There may be no visible damage to the outside however the internal structure will have been damaged by the accident. Which mean that although the helmet was rated to 12mph that can no longer be guaranteed.
Wesselwookie wrote:guidob
If you head hit the ground in any of these accidents you should replace the helmet. There may be no visible damage to the outside however the internal structure will have been damaged by the accident. Which mean that although the helmet was rated to 12mph that can no longer be guaranteed.— guidob
regardless of hiting th ground, how do you know you didnt hit your head on anything else, eg a vehicle.
quite often you can scrape the side of your head or helmet without knowing it, and of course, you focus on th worst pain – which was your shoulder/elbow.
i crashed at 20-25mph and didint realise i had scraped my left ear until i saw my left headphone was scratched (only wear it in my left ear). in this instance the helmet was not scratched or hit, but just goes to show you dont realise which bits of you get damaged when you fall off
Pjrob, have you any evidence
Pjrob, have you any evidence for your claims? I suspect not.
While trawling the internet
While trawling the internet on helmet safety I did find this:
https://sites.google.com/site/bicyclehelmetmythsandfacts/
I believe cycle helmets should be a matter of personal choice and not a dictate of the nanny state
NEWSFLASH! Wiggins and Cav
NEWSFLASH! Wiggins and Cav are both entitled to their own opinions.
Yawn, yawn, people. Wear one if you want. Dont wear one if you dont.
Stop getting so worked up about who and what is quoted in the media.
The man is entitled to his
The man is entitled to his opinion.
Opinions are (hopefully) formed from experience.
His experiences are of a life in high intensity bike racing where crashes are common and high speed.
His experiences of cycling arent the same as mine and many of yours.
In my experience a helmet seems superfluous and therefore it is my opinion that i am not going to wear one.
Its a shame Bradley’s opinions on bad infrastructure, general contempt of cyclists by motorists and bad driving arent made widely known.
The biggest problem i see is that helmet wearing shifts the balance of culpability onto the cyclist (“Its your fault you’ve got brain damage from being hit by a lorry”) when really we should be looking at shifting the external factors that can make cycling safer higher up the agenda
Some Fella wrote:The man is
If you want to presume to somehow know the full extent of Wiggins’ experiences, perhaps, just perhaps, you might have overlooked experiences of others close to him. Someone like, oh, Shane Sutton, who was hit by a car at the same time as Wiggins last Nov, and who said in an interview that the helmet saved his life (quoted his hospital doctor on the subject). Sutton had head injuries if you recall.
Now personally I believe in freedom of choice when it comes to wearing a helmet. I happen to wear one, but if you want to go without it doesnt matter one toot to me.
But this knee-jerk reaction to people in the public eye who voice a pro-helmet opinion, and claiming that somehow they’re ill-informed and dont know what they’re talking about because they race bikes, and so OBVIOUSLY only ever go on a bike at high speeds…well…that’s just silly. And patronising.
@Sim1 – i wasnt suggesting he
@Sim1 – i wasnt suggesting he is ill informed. He is a much more experienced cyclist than me. I was just saying he has a different day to day cycling experience than the vast majority of cyclists and that will inform his opinion.
As far as Shane Sutton goes – neither he or his doctor knows whether his helmet saved his life – they are both speculating. Sutton rides without a helmet sometimes (he admits it and ive seen him). His ‘accident’ was caused by a stupid old driver not looking where he was going.
As i said – we should be focussing more on that sort of thing than what people wear on their heads.
And whilst im being patronising – do i *really* have to post up again videos of thousands and thousands of Dutch and Danish cyclists going about their business day in day out – none of whom are wearing a lid?
Some Fella wrote:@Sim1 – i
Sorry?? His doctor, a specialist in head injuries, dealing with a patient who had bleeding on the brain, was just ‘speculating’? Whereas you typing from behind a keyboard know better? Naturally.
Its this kind of nonsensical argument that makes me wonder whether there can ever be a reasonable debate on this subject.
And I’m not arguing for or against helmets. I wear one, I’ve come off my bike before and dented my helmet enough to be bloody thankful that I was wearing one. But I still believe in choice.
But I am kicking back at people who are so dismissive of others views. And I raised the Sutton accident as example of an experience by someone close to Wiggins, and which may very well influence the view Wiggins has just expressed on the wearing of helmets – over and above his experience as a bike racer.
Sim1 wrote:Sorry?? His
Doctors do not reconstruct accidents and have no particular knowledge of limitations of bicycle helmets (which are known to be much less effective than motorcycle helmets). So any doctor who comments on how a helmet saved someone or argues that helmets save lives are just speculating wildly. The doctor has absolutely no clue how bad the outcome of the same accident would have been without a helmet (or with one, if the person wasn’t wearing one).
There is a reason why medicine improved greatly when people started to use scientific research rather than anecdotes. An example: for 2000 years patients with a fever were bled. A lack of blood reduced the fever and doctors interpreted this as the patient getting better. Of course, we know now through scientific research that a fever is a tool the body used to fight off infections and that patients who are bled are more likely to die.
Unfortunately, most people have little to no understanding of scientific principles and how easy it is for anecdotal ‘evidence’ to be wrong. The helmet debate is always a good illustration of this sad state of affairs.
Sim1 wrote:
Sorry?? His
I think it’s just ^this^ sort of approach that makes it hard to have a reasoned debate, not the other way round. It’s anecdote over evidence, just what’s not needed.
No doubt the doctor is an expert on head injuries when he’s got one sat in front of him. When it comes to getting his crystal ball out and predicting what would have happened if you change some things about the incident why would he be more of an expert than the next person?
Some Fella wrote:@Sim1 – i
does he train by riding on th roads? if he does then surely his milage and experience is far greater than most peoples?!
Bradley, much as I admire you
Bradley, much as I admire you as an athlete, you are wrong.
If you ban ipods for bikes then you should ban loud music in cars. No body is suggesting infringing on drivers’ rights, so why should they infringe on cycists’?
Agree with comments above about cause of accidents being car drivers. This sounds like victim blaming, or at least gives drivers an excuse for when the inevitable collisions happen.
we are all entitled to personal choice on these matters.
700c wrote:Bradley, much as I
i think some people think that infringing on a cyclists right is deemed to be ok because they are the vulnerable ones who are going to get hurt.
Until boy racers with ridiculous sound systems that take up the back two seats are stopped i dont see any reason to make it law to stop cyclists listening to music.
it should be RECOMMENDED that cyclists will reduce one of their sense if they listen to music, but even saying this is pretty patronising as its bloody obvious.
I chose to listen to music, in one ear (the left), but i feel im an experienced cyclist and it does not impede on my ability to ride a bike on a busy road while being aware of the common mistakes that motorists make.
sometimes if im riding home late or in a rush i dont listen to music, because i need every little edge that will give me an advantage.
funny how he didn’t bother to
funny how he didn’t bother to say any of this before his ‘fame’, these are issues lots of us have been bothered about for years ….
Karbon Kev wrote:funny how he
He probably wasn’t asked to be on Newsround before he was famous mind…
There is a lot of
There is a lot of over-confident mouthing off here about how little helmets help. But has anyone here actually had a full on crash ? I know 3 mates who have had massive smashes, with broken bones, hospitals stays, the lot. None of them had any cranial injury, all their helmets were smashed to buggery and all of them swear that the helmets saved them. A sample of three admittedly, but I have never met a serious cyclist in the last 15-20 years who does not wear a helmet. If anyone has had a serious smash without wearing a helmet and had no head injuries, feel free to correct me.
GrouchoBlondini wrote:There
Totally agree. I think you’re a fool if you don’t think that in most cases it will help. I’ve read the ‘torsional twist’ theory and I think it’s a spurious argument made by people that don’t want compulsory helmets….not to say that I think that they should be compulsory, but that you’re an idiot if you don’t wear one.
Again personal anecdotal evidence suggests that it has saved a few of my friends and acquaintances from serious harm…..arguments about whether it saved Shane Sutton’s life should think about what happens in car accident these days….it certainly isn’t the same as the past now that seat belts are compulsory in the front, “but you can’t prove that by the absence of injuries” is what they appear to be saying in Shane’s case.
Colin Peyresourde
A brilliant and compelling use of insult to get your point across. That coupled with your anecdote has completely won the day for your point of view.
Meanwhile, there’s little evidence to support what you believe so fervently.
Imagine what the rest of us think of you!
GrouchoBlondini wrote:There
I have a friend in hospital right now with cerebral contusion. He was wearing a helmet. Here is the Canberra Police appeal for witnesses to his accident. Helmets don’t do much to mitigate concussive force. Or maybe it is because he landed on his face. Maybe his helmet made it worse, due to its increased leverage increasing rotational forces. He also has three cracked vertebrae, and will require facial reconstruction surgery. It isn’t yet clear how bad his brain injury is.
Big discussion!! My ears have
Big discussion!! My ears have saved my life more than once, I’ll never ever use ear phones on a bike. A helmet has definitely saved my head from getting broken before, but I also had a crash without one and was glad I wasn’t wearing one (due to angle I fell, on shoulder/neck: helmet would have put more angle on my neck… not good…).
Summary: Ear phones irresponsible and daft, helmets are a lottery.
Wesselwookie,
Yes, helmeted
Wesselwookie,
Yes, helmeted riders in the Netherlands are overwhelmingly either sports riders, or else foreigners (and then very often from english-speaking countries 😉 ).
They’re a *tiny* proportion of cycled kilometres there, just as sports cyclists are a fairly small proportion of road users here (I don’t have a figure to hand, I’d estimate very low %s – 2% or fewer). Yet, they account for >10% of cyclist hospital admissions.
Another interesting dutch cycling factoid (via Hembrow’s blog): >50% (I think circa 60%) of fatalities are pensioners.
Just thought I’d link to this
Just thought I’d link to this image: http://i4.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article1154794.ece/ALTERNATES/s1023/Bradley%20Wiggins-1154794
Also I noticed last week Portuguese police on bicycles without helmets but with handguns. I reckon that would reduce the likelyhood of being knocked off in the first place.
SteppenHerring wrote:Just
+1 !!!!!!!!!!!
The victim blaming aspect of
The victim blaming aspect of the helmet debate really grinds my gears, but that said I do find the comparison between cycling with headphones in and driving with music on rather spurious. IMO there’s not much about driving a car on the roads that’s directly comparable to cycling, so it doesn’t follow that if it’s OK to do something while driving then it’s OK for cycling- or vice versa.
If I’m driving I never find that people accelerate past to turn left in front of me, or to get to the lights in front of me, or try to get alongside me in the lane, or squeeze me into the curb or box me in to the back of a parked car. But on the bike those are common occurrences and I find the audio cues that they’re about to happen quite useful, especially as I don’t have mirrors.
Same goes for the observation that deaf people can and do cycle. Sure they do, but that doesn’t say anything about whether or not giving up one of your senses is a good idea or not.
This isn’t an argument of
This isn’t an argument of should you or shouldn’t you wear a helmet (although it has, as usual turned into a load of hot air and anecdotal evidence of “i was once knocked off and…”
This is a discussion of whether or not helmets should be compulsory.
I don’t care whether you choose to wear one or not, the issue to be discussed is “should all cyclists be FORCED to wear one?”
Personally, I think NO. I think it’s unworkable, unenforceable and it’s yet another stick to beat cyclists with.
I’m pro-helmet but anti-compulsion.
if we force cyclists to wear
if we force cyclists to wear a helmet BEFORE we improve road safety then increasing cycling numbers will never happen.
INCREASE road saftey first.
THEN more cyclist will ride.
THEN we can string recomend they wear a helmet, but if we force them we will scare them off too soon….. weve got to get them cycling first, then ask them to improve their own safety!
if the roads arent safe in th first place they wont start to ride
hood wrote:if we force
+12
95% of the time I wear one. I insist my son does 99.5% of the time (I let him get away with it when he’s testing his fettling in the lane). If you want people to use bikes for “normal” thing like popping to the shops then mandatory helmets will be a Bad Thing.
crazy-legs wrote:I don’t care
You should care if people CHOOSE or don’t choose because this gives us an insight into the fact that perhaps it ought to be a CHOICE and not forced. I agree with you that it should be a choice – I choose to wear a helmet too. But if folk don’t want to then leave them be.
(I think it could be enforceable though, if it were compulsory. Motorbikes made the change (although the risk is far higher etc so not entirely comparable – but an established behaviour change none the less))
Wiggins is a muppet, just
Wiggins is a muppet, just look at his hair. Just because he can ride fast doesn’t make him an expert – I’ve been riding longer than he has, does that make my opinion more valid?
I wear headphones a lot when
I wear headphones a lot when I’m riding around town, and I can usually hear not only cars, but quite often the music people are playing in their cars. Just sayin’.
i love it when i stumble upon
i love it when i stumble upon an article that has comments sooooooooooooo long that they quadrouple the size of the article itself!
by th way. in the argument AGAINST wearing a helmet – on building sites we are taught that PPE (personal protective equipment) is the LAST line of defence. a proper risk assesment must have been done to eleminate the risk before the PPE is needed. the helmet is the last line of defence.
using these same risk assesments and applying them to the road would mean that a helmet is the last line of defence. the dangerous should be eliminated first.
encouraging more cyclists to wear a helmet is like going onto a building site and seeing bricks dropping from the scaffolding, and instead of stopping the bricks falling off, telling the pedestrians passing by underneath that the route they want to walk along is dangerous so they should don a hard hat!
crazy theory!
I’m all for safety and I wear a helmet when i cycle. but telling everyone who wants to cycle to wear a helmet is focusing on the wrong person. eliminate the risk, dont try and control the hazard!!!!
and, while im on my soap box, another problem with giving people protective equipment is that they feel removed from the risk. after a couple of “close shaves” where they learn the equipment they wear will protect them they become complacent and depend on the last line of defence (the glasses, hard hat, boots, whatever) more so.
giving someone a helmet theoetically makes someone feel safer and they COULD be more likely to take a risk.
apparently research has even shown that some drivers take MORE care driving past cyclist who do not wear a helmet. while this is WRONG it is also not helping wiggins request to make helmets compulsory.
something else that just popped into my head is that out of all th stories i have read about cyclists being killed by lorries and cars i dont know of any where a helmet would save their life!
stop the left turning HGVs killing people first. THEN focus on th cyclist wearing a bit of polystryrene strapped to their noggin! FFS
there, that feels better 🙂
hood wrote:
by th way. in the
I think your analogy falls down because people on building sites do have to wear “PPE” even though the risk assessments have been done. You’re right, it’s the last line of defence but it’s still a line of defence so you have to wear it. They don’t say, we’ve eliminated all of the risks we can think of so you don’t have to wear any safety equipment do they?
And I don’t think it’s like telling pedestrians walking past to wear helmets as bricks may fall, it’s like telling workers to wear them.
Whilst I agree that we should do more to educate drivers in how to drive around cyclists, not bothering to wear something that could protect your head while we’re still trying seems the wrong thing to do.
I don’t think anyone’s arguing that helmets could save you in every scenario, if you’re run over etc, but it could help if your head hits a windscreen, or you get knocked off and your head hits the floor. It’s enough that I’ll choose to wear one although again, not sure everyone should be forced to.
i agree, and for that reason
i agree, and for that reason i too chose to wear a helmet.
i was just putting forward some opinions to show why it shouldnt be forced upon us.
we should treat the problem – the dangerous driving first. then ask the vulnerable people to wear a helmet if they chose to….
hood wrote:
apparently
It’s the other way around (drivers pass closer if the rider wears a helmet), at least in the study reported on road.cc previously – you can download a summary at http://drianwalker.com/overtaking/
a.jumper wrote:hood
yea, i said they take more care when passing someone without a helmet…..
i agree, they also pass closer to someone with a helmet
something to do with thinking the cyclist is more competent/serious if they have a helmet on. therefore the driver can pass closer (or with less care)
Are the deaf legally allowed
Are the deaf legally allowed to ride bicycles? Of course they are. So the discussion on headphones and music can go no further than being ‘advisory’. I would not ‘advise’ a deaf person to ride a bicycle, for example, across London. And I would advise anyone choosing to wear headphones and to listen to music while cycling anywhere to ‘proceed with additional caution’. But that’s it. If we ban headphones by the same logic we must also ban the deaf. Can’t see a politician advocating that though. Nor even a Tour de France winner.
http://epetitions.direct.gov.
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/48526
Please support our e petition, the Ryan smith foundation is to support a 16 year old sports mad young man who had an accident while cycling to work 5 weeks ago.
He is in a coma…he was not wearing a helmet and he had earphones on.
Please take a look at the Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/ryansmithfoundation
fatty, take it from me
fatty, take it from me enforcing this would never ever work, there are simply to many people on bikes who dont wear a helmet
Trotty and Boardman talk
Trotty and Boardman talk about training kids to ride confidently, but kids become adults who become drivers. Better to merge cyclist and early driver training in to a single ‘road safety’ course, so that cycle awareness is embedded all the way through and becomes a natural part of the driving test.
Helmets i would recommend
Helmets i would recommend wearing but not make it compulsory. I did a 4 day tour and didn’t wear one. It took me back to the good old days. 99% of the time I do have a lid on.
Earphones definite ban on music but I too have used them – one earpiece for navigation apps. You need all your senses turned on when riding.
Interesting thought… Cars are semi sound proofed (on the inside) and have music players. Should we be driving with our windows open and music off? Maybe.
When I was a kid high vis
When I was a kid high vis vests weren’t to be seen anywhere, whereas now they are worn by virtually everybody (in any walk of life, regardless of perceived risk), so these ‘safety’ things can filter through, albeit slowly… it would be a very long term societal attitude change with helmets – a generation at best – then it becomes more enforceable if the norm is to wear one (if indeed that were to happen, depends on choice vs forced debate now which influences the future)
Have Rapha got anything new
Have Rapha got anything new out?
Helmets are designed to
Helmets are designed to mitigate a very narrow range of injuries. They may be of use to people falling off their bicycles onto flat surfaces with no other vehicles involved.
They are probably useless for accidents with enough energy to cause concussion and worse injuries.
If people want to wear them, please do. But please don’t start baseless “Shane’s Law” type petitions forcing those of us that have made an informed decision against wearing them from doing so.
While I have sympathy, as a father, for the family here I have absolutely no respect for their decision to try and force others to wear helmets.
I agree with Wiggo. You have
I agree with Wiggo. You have to look after yourself. I’ve had several crashes and not hit my head,but I still alwats wear a helmet because yiu never know, the next one might be the tine when my helmet saves me from being a cabbage, or worse, for the rest if my life
ipods and bikes don’t mix it’s plain common sense!
Crazy motorists……. well that’s a whole different matter!
Most injuries sustained while
Most injuries sustained while cycling either:
1) don’t involve the cranium
or
2) would not be prevented by a thin polystyrene hat full of holes.
I’m pro-choice.
Helmets are a good idea.
Helmets are a good idea. Landing on your head is always going to hurt.
Compulsory wearing of helmets is not.
In NZ, the introduction (a knee-jerk reaction) of helmet-wearing laws saw a near-immediate reduction in cycling numbers of something like 30%.
Personally, I hate helmets with a passion. I’ve tried so many, but have yet to find one that is comfortable. I have the worst-possible reason for saying no to helmet laws – I’ve been cycling, sometimes competitively, for 40 years. Of course I have come off, and been knocked off, my bike. To hear the proponents of helmet law speak, you’d think I was a unique case but we know that isn’t true.
Besides, how else am I going to dry my hair on the way to work in the morning? 😉
The construction of the
The construction of the cycling helmets made today are tested to a lower standard than that of the 80’s – strange but true. The European standard that superseded the old British standard is far less stringent.
The material used for std road helmets will not deform on impact and therefore will transmit the whole force of the impact directly to the brain. Its basic engineering, cycling helmets do not have crumple zones. The best you could hope for is a reduction of contusions to the top and possibly back of the head. Have a friend hit the top of your helmet while you wear it and see for yourself, you will feel the full force.
My last big road crash with a car (>20mph) resulted in face grazing with no impact to the helmet. The substantially worse injuries were to my knee and elbow.
I do wear a helmet when riding hard etc, they make a good place too keep you glasses and cam.
Same (or similar) arguments
Same (or similar) arguments used in the get motorcyclists to wear helmets!
I will wear a helmet because it will help save my head in some instances. I have face-planted during a taxi vs bike incident and, whilst the helmet didn’t stop me getting gravel rash to the face and a nasty case of whip lash, the damage to the helmet suggests that I could have more injuries. It won’t help if I get run over by a bus, but if I slightly head butt it….
I’m pro reducing injury.
You can do what you like. It doesn’t matter to me!
Impressive the number of
Impressive the number of comments that a Sir Wiggins commend will generate. Although I have to agree with his thoughts on iPods. Cyclists who can’t even hear an “on your Right” are dangerous!!!
I couldn’t care less who said
I couldn’t care less who said it – I’ve maintained my (personal) position on helmet wearing ever since busybodies started trying to get it made compulsory.
The fact that the law in NZ is going to be reviewed suggests that recommendation is appropriate, but enforcement may not be.
If you think headphones are
If you think headphones are ok, where do you stand on eyepatches? I’ve got a bit of a pirate thing going on at the moment, one eye open should be enough though?
Serious response to a
Serious response to a flippant comment – please don’t discriminate against those with different physical abilities.
At the moment, for the third time in the last 20 years I have one eye that is not working properly (a disease, then cataract and now scar tissue – none of which are helmet preventable!) and the vision in my other eye is excellent and way above average for my age. I can cycle and drive safely and I surpass the driving eyesight requirement by a very substantial margin.
People need good vision to cycle or drive.
To cycle or drive well it is important that they actually use that vision!
Always an incendiary one but
Always an incendiary one but I will always argue against mandatory helmets as it allows the safety discussion to be obfuscated. Take the most recent accident: it would appear that the medics believe a helmet would have helped him so the focus is moved on to the fact that he wasn’t wearing one, away from the fact it is not safe to ride on our roads without one. I don’t know the facts of the accident but being knocked off your bike by a vehicle is something most cyclists avoid at all costs and I am sure that was the case for young Ryan.
Press coverage can not focus on the primary cause of cycling accidents, i.e. bad driving (as borne out by statistics) as it is sub judice (so as not to prejudice the facts of any case that might be brought). The net result is that the press move away from the primary cause of accidents to the consequent results (injury caused) and focus on uncontroversial facts (helmet or not). The real controversy is that so many appalling accidents happen on our roads and we tolerate driving that falls well below safe standards.
For what it’s worth I wear a helmet and don’t listen to music.
I am genuinely sorry to hear of another young life so terribly affected by a cycling accident but the focus on helmets in my opinion is the wrong point to home in on.
Knee pads, elbow pads and
Knee pads, elbow pads and back brace just like when im riding my motorbike would reduce injury too, I hope brad starts wearing them when hes on the bike.
Educating children in the
Educating children in the necessary skills of riding bikes is too narrow. Schools, parents and other responsible educators should inform kids in all aspects of road use from all perspectives. Most of these youngesters will drive cars, some lorries, others miscellaneious forms of road transport and they will all be pedestrians.
The mindset which categorises people into groups (us and them) must be consigned to the dustbin.
With regard to headphones…..Stupid! Helmets, well it’s saved my bonce on three occations, one at 35mph where I felt the helmet compress under the force of impact.
As for compulsion….”yes” to not wearing headphones. Helmets….The jury’s still out from my perspective, however most of my friends wear them and of those that have have come a cropper, the ones not wearing helmets have faired worse (including concussion and an overight stay in hospital).
Having said all that, keep cycling and encourage youngsters to do the same. 🙂
You know what, he says now
You know what, he says now showing his age!! I remember the same arguments against crash helmets in the early seventies about compulsion for motorcyclists. Also car drivers used similar arguments about seat belts. Once celebrity know alls get involved it is only a matter of time!!
Oh, yes, yes, yes!
I can’t
Oh, yes, yes, yes!
I can’t ride my bicycle anymore.
In 2005, I fell off a bicycle in France. I spent a few weeks in a coma (and was flown home in a LearJet – thank you, Churchill Travel Insurance!), 8 months in hospital, and 18 months off work. My husband used to bring our toddler into hospital to see me, but he often brought a very cute little baby as well. I kept asking where her mother was. He *kept* telling me “You are. I told you that yesterday…”. (Thankfully, my working memory returned eventually, but I am still missing a few years – moving house, having a second daughter…).
I only survived because I was wearing a helmet. My ‘Traumatic Brain Injury’ has left my eyesight far too bad to ride a bike again, and I have a few other accident-induced problems, but hey, after 18 month off work sick, I was able to go back to my job as a university lecturer. I have also run the London Marathon a couple of times (for Headway, a brain injury charity).
If I hadn’t had that helmet on, I’d be dead. WHEN CYCLING, ALWAYS WEAR A HELMET!
Flumptious wrote:If I hadn’t
Bzzzzzz. Wrong answer. Anecdote is not evidence. Go back to the 1st square and miss a turn.
And DON’T tell me what to wear.
Having just re-read my post
Having just re-read my post on this subject ……. I wish I could type!
Compulsion is counter to one of the great pleasures of going for a ride, the sense of freedom. But it seems a bit daft to not take advantage of something that can reduce the consequences of a head impact if you’re unlucky enough to suffer an accident.
@SimonE It is very sad that
@SimonE It is very sad that you are such a contrarian that you immediately dismiss Flumptious. She has signed up and put a first post with a touching personal story with a happy ending. I hope her partner might consider a tandem bike.
The idea that anecdotal evidence is irrelevant is a childish resort of individuals who fear they might loose the argument. True it is not scientific but you cannot dismiss someone who says that a ‘helmet saved my life’ by saying that is untrue, you don’t share their experience. Flumptious’ injuries sound traumatic enough that it could easily be true. And even if the helmet only reduced the extent of the injury that is worth something.
I regularly talk to climate change deniers who demand empirical evidence. Here’s news for you THE CONTROL EXPERIMENT THAT YOU DEMAND WILL NEVER BE POSSIBLE. Unless you volunteer to throw yourself at a concrete block without a helmet. Correlation is the ONLY evidence we have, so for every person who tells you a helmet saved them there could be another person who can’t tell you why they didn’t wear one.
I also regularly go white water kayaking. I have a Sweet carbon fibre helmet. The top is encrusted with scratches (along with a few scars on my knuckles,) from rocks. You regularly capsize regardless of your level; better paddler, harder rivers. I would have drowned dozens of times over if I didn’t use a helmet, but by your account that is anecdotal evidence and untrue. You don’t do some sports if you don’t use a helmet. Would you go Horse Riding without a helmet, maybe, would you Show Jumping, NO. Why would cycling be different?
This is all about perception of risk. If you cycle infrequently and slowly you may think your risk of head injury is low, and it is true it would a lower chance of an injurious event. But when an incident happens your risks are just the same as anyone else’s.
Having said that, I am against compulsion because it apportions blame and could reduce people actually cycling. But this is the reason to argue against a law, not that helmets do not work. There is NO DOUBT that helmets save lives.
@Flumptious Stick around, the world is more interesting with you in it.
bikeboy76 wrote: I would have
Actually, what I think we’re arguing against most of the time is the spurious overgeneralization from “a helmet seems to have helped me once” to “everyone must be forced to wear helmets on pain of fines”. Evidence for the first is not evidence for the second.
What would you lose by being
What would you lose by being forced to wear a helmet?
bikeboy76 wrote:I regularly
You are right that a double-blind trial isn’t possible and that does mean that the most stringent scientific research isn’t possible. However, science works for different levels of certainty. It is still possible to draw conclusions from injury statistics, with 4 major caveats. The lack of controls means that:
1. You need big sample sizes
2. You need to account for effects that distort the results (people who wear helmets take fewer risks than those who don’t, for instance)
3. You need many independent studies with the same findings before you can really draw conclusions
4. The uncertainty means that only large effects are truly significant
These studies are completely different from the n=1 anecdotes that unscientific people use to defend mandatory helmets. That nonsense is on par with the claim that a cold winter means that climate change isn’t real.
Anyway, these studies were done for motorcycle helmets, seat belts and bicycle helmets. For the first two, the positive effect on survival was huge, so there is little doubt that they are hugely beneficial. With bicycle helmets that just isn’t so. At best the positive effect is rather marginal.
I regularly fly combat planes in various wars and a parachute has saved my life several times. So I always wear a parachute on my bike too….of course this is completely nonsense, just like your claim that your kayaking experience has any validity here when the helmets are different and the accidents that happen there are completely different too.
I must say, I think many of
I must say, I think many of you people are nuts. I’m from the UK but have been living in the southern hemisphere (NZ and Australia) for the past 5 years. Wearing a helmet is compulsory down here. Even if it wasn’t, I’d still wear one.
I had a cycling accident a number of years ago where I came off my bike, not wearing a helmet, and ended up in hospital for a week with severe concussion. I was off work for the following three weeks. There is absolutely no doubt that had I been wearing a helmet, then I would not have suffered with the same injury.
Anecdotal evidence, you say. Sure. But there’s enough anecdotal (and otherwise) evidence that solidifies the fact that wearing a helmet WILL save you from injury and to dismiss these stories is both short sighted and stupid.
Yes, we need drivers of cars, trucks and vans to improve their behaviour on the road but until they do so, why be so stubborn as to not wear a helmet? I simply don’t see what you gain to win by not wearing one? My helmet, a Limar 777 cost me under $100, it weighs absolutely nothing and I hardly notice I’m wearing it.
At the end of the day, its your head and to be honest, I don’t care what you put on it or don’t. You’re the ones who have to deal with the repercussions of not wearing one and all the arguments against not wearing one (“they’re not as effective as a motorbike helmet!”, for example) is nothing more than stubbornness. How anyone can say that there are any pros of not wearing a helmet over wearing one.. well, like I say, it’s your head.. you deal with the consequences. Good luck to you.
For me, I will always wear a helmet, even if going down to the shops and back. If nothing more than having faced the prospect of a fine for not wearing my helmet and having that ingrained in me for the past five years, I simply wouldn’t think twice about not wearing it.
welly2 wrote:At the end of
Cool. So we agree: no helmet laws! Yay agreement!
“My helmet, a Limar 777 cost
“My helmet, a Limar 777 cost me under $100.”
And it cost less than $5 to make, why should we all either be ripped off or made to wear some ugly thing?
No, don’t make stuff up, this simply IS NOT TRUE, anecdotal evidence does not mean anything scientifically, that’s the whole point and I will continue to dismiss anecdotal evidence because it does not prove anything, Also it is only one small part of the story – the wrong part. Real evidence shows that cycling and fitness saves lives, over 20x more lives than helmets would ever save. Forcing helmets upon people is shown to reduce cycling and fitness and causes many more deaths than helmets would ever save.
If people want to wear a helmet, I’m fine with that but don’t go trying to force your uneducated, misguided, unscientific, narrow-mided ideas on the rest of us.
[dons flame retardant suit]
The argument around helmets
The argument around helmets is of course a giant waste of our time.
Helmet compulsion = less cyclists
Helmet Compulsion = drivers driving worse around us
Helmet Compulsion = overbearing authoritarianism, freedom is about choice.
And here’s some pointless anecdotal evidence – I’ve had umpteen head injuries without a helmet and I didn’t get brain damage and I’m not dead.
Most of the head injuries I had – I wasn’t on a bike.
Mandate pedestrians wear helmets first.
– Spontaneous bike trips with people. The Boris bike scheme simply wouldn’t work with helmet compulsion law.
Helmet compulsion law does not force people to wear helmets, it just criminalises people who don’t wish to wear helmets,
Helmet Compulsion law makes police focus on fining cyclists instead of fining bad drivers.
Helmet compulsion law has lead to big reductions in cycling in Australia.
Helmet compulsion law = more people dying at younger ages overall = it does not save lives overall.
I think most people are
I think most people are missing the point here! He’s commented on Newsround not at the international convention of neurosurgeons and brain injury specialists
The probable aim was to that the target ordiance of children listen to this well known person/sportsman/hero and wear their helmet when out cycling, or scootering, or skateboarding or go karting, anything thing that increases the risk of receiving a head trauma.
With regards to Roger Gefens comments about helmet laws only reducing the the number of cyclists, the realistically his thoughts a finance based and hold no other water, if someone really wants to ride their bike and you had to wear a helmet, then and person of sound mind and rational thought would wear it. It’s compulsory on a motorised vehicle to wear one, and a lot of cyclists meet or exceed the same speeds as some of those vehicles.
If they made helmets compulsory then, in 10-20-30 years we would not be having this discussion, because it would be the accepted norm, and people would just conform and follow suit.
And as for the measure of helmets not saving lives etc, no they may not save lifted but I am sure they reduce the risk of cycling, so may say its a marginal gain, but for one I wouldn’t cycle without one.
My five pieces of common
My five pieces of common sense:
Helmets prevent more damage than they cause.
Using headphones on a bike is dangerous and should be banned.
Helmet’s should not be compulsory
Driver liability should be made law here as it is abroad
Cyclists should be banned from undertaking lorries at traffic lights. Go around the outside or wait your turn.
Pretty simple stuff.
Flumptious – so sad to read
Flumptious – so sad to read what happened to you and pleased that a helmet saved your life.
The claim that anecdotal evidence isn’t evidence is quite ridiculous. When Parliament decides on whether to pass safety related laws – they only have anecdotal evidence to rely on. The Health and Safety legislation we have now has made the workplace a much safer place.
I think it’ll only be a matter of time before helmet usage is compulsory.
Finally, from a car drivers perspective it seems that cyclists are allowed to get away with everything (for example I wish I had a pound for every cyclist I saw blatantly running red lights on Euston Road). So compulsory helmets may well work in our favour.
Anecdotal evidence is not
Anecdotal evidence is not evidence, read:
Anecdotal evidence (Wikipedia)
Oh because car drivers never: speed, park on double yellows, use their horn to harass, tail-gate, red-light jump, drive too close, drive in the bus lane, text whilst driving, talk on mobile whist driving, drive without a license, drive without mot or insurance, drive whilst drunk, drive whilst tired, check facebook whilst driving, block junctions with yellow boxes etc.
Eh?
hairyairey wrote:When
No, they can rely on actual quantitative evidence from academics and places like the Transport Research Laboratory. They don’t always – so-called conviction politicians – but they can.
@aapje Well thanks for
@aapje Well thanks for truncating my quote to make it seem out of context. My point if you quoted the rest of it is that helmet use is based on your assessment of risk. Too many people think that they are not in the ‘racer/lycra lout’ category so they don’t need one. Some sports assume there is a risk and take precautions automatically (as you do when flying.) Too many people think they go too slow for anything to happen to them when in fact you can fall over at no speed and sustain a serious head injury. Obviously suggestions that pedestrians wear helmets are facetious. Encouraging bike helmet use can only be positive.
Obviously suggestions that
No, that is serious, the accident data shows that pedestrians are in as much danger as cyclists and have roughly the same amount of accidents per mile, the point of arguing for pedestrians to wear helmets first is to put this in context about how safe cycling is relative to walking/jogging.
Get it?
It seems to me that all of the people who come along with their knee-jerk reaction use anecdotal evidence only to support compulsory helmet wearing without having listened to all of the arguments, without having seen the actual statistics, without having looked at the science.
I’m not against helmet wearing, just compulsion.
http://road.cc/content/news/12058-ctc-slams-transport-research-laboratory-cycle-helmet-report
Read CTC’s report, all of it:
http://www.ctc.org.uk/sites/default/files/file_public/cycle-helmets-evidencebrf.pdf
Actually, it can scare people off of cycling, causing them to think that cycling is so dangerous that they need a helmet.
These people don’t need a helmet, why should we?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-AbPav5E5M
bikeboy76 wrote: “Obviously
[[[[ BIKE-BOY—-Ask any Accident & Emergency Dept. for their figures on cyclists’ head-injuries versus NON-cyclists’ head-injuries, and you’ll see how vacuous is the idea of helmet-compulsion for cyclists only….
P.R.
If I wear enough gel my hair
If I wear enough gel my hair becomes a helmet, that would pass under a helmet compulsory act. Right?
… I wonder if Sir Wiggins has
… I wonder if Sir Wiggins has been taken on to a board of a company that manufactures cycle helmets? Seems to be going down the same route as the annoyance that is Cracknell, who can’t pass a sentence about cycling and road safety without mentioning compulsory helmet wearing, due to his links with a cycle helmet manufacturer and the scarey thing is he his now standing as an MEP for the South West!!!!!
Personally if I am out for a ride I wear a helmet, if tootling to the shop’s then no. I think Chris Boardman who has worked with British Cycling is a better mouthpiece on cycle safety, we need to be sorting the cause of the problem, not putting the onus on the victims. :/
Later on the very day I read
Later on the very day I read Brad’s comments in the comic I rode an evening ten mile time trial, I might mention here that the majority of the riders in the event heeded the organisers (Southport R.C.) advice re a rear light. After the event and general chat with fellow competitors it was getting near to dusk and as I drove along a quiet narrow lane I spotted a cyclist ahead dressed all in black. As he entered a tree lined section he virtually disappeared, even with my headlights on he was difficult to see, however his long leggy look put me in mind straight away that it looked for all the world like Brad, indeed it turned out to be so, resplendent in his all black Sky outfit. Riding in narrow lanes at dusk, and he was still quite away from where he lives, without a rear light at least struck me as a rather dangerous thing to do, especially as there may have been a ‘white van lady’ lurking in the dark. This is not anecdotal, he was also spotted by Bury clarion lads as they too drove home from the event. Perhaps he should be wearing a helmet with led’s built in, I think in this case a rear light would be a safer option than a helmet.
I am very much in the ‘leave
I am very much in the ‘leave it to the individual’ camp.
I do regularly wear a lightweight LAS road helmet when I’m road cycling at speed but as a motorcyclist I know cycling helmets will not afford me anywhere near the protection of my Kevlar composite fullface Shoei motorbike helmet. In fact my LAS is a total waste of time compared to the bullet and bombproof Shoei. However, I don’t sweat on my Kawasaki so a heavy helmet is not a problem but on a bicycle a heavy helmet would be ridiculously hot. I wear my LAS just in case, cos you never know. Totally bogus reasons really though it does look nice.
So what protection do I get from my LAS cycle helmet? Well, I’ve no idea. There is no data available of impact tests for cycle helmets as there are for motorbike helmets. What I can say is that I feel safer with a helmet on so I ride faster and more confident, taking greater risks, especially on downhill sections.
Riding down a steep hill on my road bike at 40mph or so is so much more exhilerating & scary than the same speed on my Kawasaki. I know that falling off at 40mph will hurt on either machine, but unless I hit something or tumble head over heels, my head probably won’t hit the road too much and so won’t require much impact protection. It will require some that’s for sure so wearing my LAS to avoid grinding bits of my skull off is probably the main aim.
The reality is that I tend to cycle in the range of 10 – 25 mph and that is within the range we humans run at so I don’t believe, at these speeds, helmets are essential protection. If I fall over whilst running down a hill it will hurt and I may bash my head but I’d have to be pretty unlucky (or stupid for running down the hill so fast) to sutain any more than a minor injury. How many runners die from falling over?
The occasions I ride above 30mph are so infrequent (never, when I’m simply commuting on the flat or bimbling around town) that the benefit of wearing a helmet is very limited at best and wholly ineffective at worse. For this reason helmets on bicycles should remain a recommendation but should not be compulsory. As far as being hit by a van is concerned there is enough evidence to show that impact levels from vehicle collisions are too high for current cycle helmets to be effective. How do I know this? Well, motorcycle helmets don’t protect the wearer in these situations unless the person is very lucky and so a lighter weight cycle helmet would be useless.
Until helmet manufacturers can produce a cycle helmet with the high level of ventilation required for practical sporting use and the same level of protection that a motorcycle helmet affords any suggestion that cycling helmets should be compulsory will be unjustified.
Motorcyclists have to wear
Motorcyclists have to wear crash helmets, drivers have to wear seat belts. Why shouldn’t helmets be compulsory for cyclists? We all have to use the same roads after all.
freespirit1
Because there is no proof that wearing a helmet will save your life, only anecdotal evidence. Whereas there is masses of evidence that if you step off your motorcycle at speed; or your car comes to a sudden halt from 50mph because you hit something, without a helmet or seat belt, you are going to get seriously injured. It is also against the law, with certain exceptions, to not wear a motorcycle helmet or seat belt when required, but you are not compelled by law to wear a cycle helmet.
freespirit1
[[[[ Hmmm…so why shouldn’t pedestrians wear helmets too? Many more pedestrians suffer head-injuries than do cyclists, quite obviously.
P.R.
freespirit1
Motorcyclists have to wear crash helmets, drivers have to wear seat belts. Why shouldn’t helmets be compulsory for pedestrians? We all have to use the same roads after all.
Before 1973 wearing of crash
Before 1973 wearing of crash helmets was not compulsory. Similarly before 1982 the wearing of seat belts was not compulsory.
What makes you think that the wearing of cycle helmets will remain voluntary?
freespirit1 wrote:Before 1973
I refer you to my previous answer
You poor deluded soul!!
It
You poor deluded soul!!
It has been made compulsory in other countries already. It is only a matter of time over here. The most recent example of course is the smoking ban. The nanny state is still alive and kicking.
I reckon within 5 years cycle helmets will be compulsory.
freespirit1 wrote:You poor
I just love it when people comment on my financial or mental health because they have lost the argument, just like being back at school. 🙂
There are lots of things that the populations of other countries are compelled to do which we don’t. It doesn’t make them right and us wrong.
Come back to me in 5 years and we will see who is the ‘poor deluded soul’ and who is still riding without his helmet on, legally, if he chooses to do so.
Not mocking your financial
Not mocking your financial health at all. You obviously don’t understand the word banter.
Was not aware we were arguing robust debate has a better ring I feel.
See you in five years.
freespirit1 wrote:Not mocking
I understand banter and debate.
Debate is where you put forward an argument supported by evidence.
So, are you for or against compulsory helmet wearing?
It is not a case of whether I
It is not a case of whether I am for or against. I for freedom of choice in all matters and dislike being told what to do by government. I am merely stating what has happened in the past.
However all governments over the years have proved themselves incapable of letting people make up their own minds.
I personally do not think helmet wearing should be made compulsory, but I am realistic enough to realise that it is only a matter of borrowed time. Especially as governments and their servants be they Civil or otherwise just cannot help themselves.
Anyone who thinks that there is not someone in government who is prepared to try and shovel it through as a cost saving in NHS treatment really is in cloud cuckoo land.
At least you’re standing on
At least you’re standing on the right side of the line.
Now all you need to do is believe the glass is half-full not half-empty 😀
The only countries in the
The only countries in the world to have countrywide helmet laws for adults are Australia and New Zealand.
Chart shows how pointless helmets are:
From wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet_laws
And
Australia’s helmet law disaster
Study confirms helmet laws killing Australian bike share « Helmet …
How does that graph prove
How does that graph prove anything? The percentage of helmet use has some meaning, unless it caused a drop in cycling, However, what is a percentage of head injuries? As a percentage of all injuries? Then it is not going to vary very much anyway. Where are the numbers of head injuries treated in hospital cause by cycling as a gross number, THAT would be meaningful. If you think science will help you disprove something that seems really obvious, you need to use some real statistics.
I have looked and there is no
I have looked and there is no solid statistical evidence showing that mandatory helmet use lowers head injuries other than that caused by the one third drop in cycling caused by mandatory helmet laws.
What I have found is many bad papers with major valid criticisms, for example a paper that claims a 85% drop in head injuries amongst cyclists wearing helmets also somehow claims that facial injuries are also reduced substantially although the helmets don’t protect the face and it also claims 66% drop in head injuries with a 35% increase in helmet use – figures that obviously don’t add up.
The study of mandatory helmet use in NSW has charts with 100% variability in head injuries from month to month so a claimed a 29% drop in head injuries can not be taken seriously when the sample size is clearly too small to draw accurate conclusions from.
In the only 2 countries in the world with countrywide enforced mandatory helmet use – New Zealand and Austalia, Cycling dropped by a third causing a drop in health outweighing the benefits by 100s to 1. :B
There is a very simple point
There is a very simple point here. If you do exactly the same things on a bike and either wear a helmet or not, there are going to be times you will suffer brain damage or die without the helmet and stay uninjured or survive with the helmet.
Wear a helmet – it’s a no brainer!
Elroch wrote:There is a very
There is a very simple point here. If you do exactly the same things on a pavement and either wear a helmet or not, there are going to be times you will suffer brain damage or die without the helmet and stay uninjured or survive with the helmet.
Wear a helmet whilst walking – it’s a no brainer!
Elroch I completely agree
Elroch I completely agree with you !
I strongly think cycle
I strongly think cycle helmets should be made compulsory because I had an accident recently that was my own fault! If I had not had my helmet on I would not be sat here typing this comment.. I went down a hill too fast and collided with a stone wall ended up in A&E dislocated shoulder and cut and bruises and a huge lump on my head I was knocked out for about 5 minutes.. When I saw my helmet it had a large chunk missing and a big crack in other side this damage would have happened to my head if I was’nt wearing the helmet. These cycle helmets are not perfect but they can stop a lot of head injuries!! I feel I was very lucky .
Whilst we’re on the subject,
.
hey neildmoss,
hey neildmoss, cyclehelmets.org has some good analysis of studies.
neildmoss wrote:Whilst we’re
Easy to do experiments yourself that confirm both.
Bang your forehead on a table with and without a helmet, which hurts more? There’s your answer to b). Now repeat, but move back to make sure the set up is such that the table will catch the top of the helmet but not a bare head. There’s your answer to a)
Next you want to look at c), which is how much riskier cycling (at least utility cycling) is than, say, being a pedestrian or using stairs, and when you’ve found that the answer to that is “not appreciably riskier at all” then answer d), which is why prioritise cycling as a special case for head injury?
neildmoss wrote:Whilst we’re
There’s four major types of studies in that direction:
1. a possible increased risk of rotational injuries (see TRL.co.uk Reports > Road User Safety > Assessment of current bicycle helmets for the potential to cause rotational injury, for example);
2. the increased risk of strangulation by the straps of helmets which are often worn incorrectly (no helmet, no straps, no strangulation risk – see Byard RW et al, Bicycle helmets and accidental asphyxia in childhood, Medical J Aust 2011:194(1):49);
3. a possible “risk compensation” effect – people think they are better protected, so they take more risks than they would if they were “naked”;
4. an inverse of the possible “safety in numbers” effect – the most strongly demonstrated effect of cycle helmet compulsion is to cut numbers cycling and as riders become rarer, the accident rate increases.
Of course, only the rotational and strangulation risk increases would not “have resulted if the rider was not wearing it” as the other two depend on what society in general does – but I feel the question is slightly unfair, so I’ll mention the other two drawbacks of helmets anyway 😉
There are, but the ones that show strongest effects are limited to a particular type of low-impact accident: a person falling from a stationary bike to a flat floor.
There are some general studies, but there seem to be as many showing no or negative effect. A round-up of the studies is in Appendix B of the evidence summary, a download near the bottom of http://www.ctc.org.uk/campaigning/views-and-briefings/cycle-helmets
neildmoss wrote:Whilst we’re
to answer A) – i have heard that SOME people who wear protective equipment can SOMETIMES become complacent and rely too heavily on the protective equipment they wear