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news
White cycle helmetCanadian doctors call for mandatory cycle helmets for all 'to reduce head injury'
Paediatricians in Canada are putting pressure on the government to legislate for mandatory cycle helmets, saying that forcing adults to wear them could protect children who copy their behaviour.
Currently only currently only four of thirteen Canadian provinces and territories have full helmet legislation, but the Canadian Paediatric Society is calling for them to be made mandatory for all ages.
In a paper entitled Bicycle helmet use in Canada: The need for legislation to reduce the risk of head injury, the CPS argues:
Bicycling is a popular activity and a healthy, environmentally friendly form of transportation. However, it is also a leading cause of sport and recreational injury in children and adolescents. Head injuries are among the most severe injuries sustained while bicycling, justifying the implementation of bicycle helmet legislation by many provinces. There is evidence that bicycle helmet legislation increases helmet use and reduces head injury risk. Evidence for unintended consequences of helmet legislation, such as reduced bicycling and greater risk-taking, is weak and conflicting. Both research evidence to date and recognition of the substantial impact of traumatic brain injuries support the recommendation for all-ages bicycle helmet legislation.
"Bicycle helmets reduce the risk of head and brain injuries significantly and studies show that legislation increases the use of helmets," said Dr. Brent Hagel, statement co-author and member of the CPS Injury Prevention Committee.
"Everyone is at risk for head injury, regardless of age group.
"Children see adults and often adopt similar behaviours, so if we can get helmets on adults then children and adolescents will be more likely to wear them too."
Six provinces and territories currently have no legislation at all on bike helmets:
- Saskatchewan
- Quebec
- Newfoundland and Labrador
- Yukon
- Northwest Territories
- Nunavut
-
Three provinces have bike helmet legislation that only applies to children:
- Alberta
- Ontario
- Manitoba
Four provinces meet CPS recommendations for all ages bike helmet legislation:
- British Columbia
- New Brunswick
- Nova Scotia
- Prince Edward Island
The report found that in those places that had legislated, helmet use had gone up.
“Systematic reviews have... demonstrated that legislation increases the use of helmets in children and youth.
“One review showed that bicycle helmet use increased postlegislation, with more than one-half of the included studies demonstrating an increase of at least 30%.
“One Ontario study noted a 20% increase in helmet use among children five to 14 years of age two years after passage of helmet legislation covering riders younger than 18 years of age, demonstrating larger increases in low- and middle-income areas.”
Despite evidence from countries including Australia, showing that helmet legislation reduces the number of people riding bikes, Dr Hagel insists that this is not necessarily proven.
“We definitely don’t want to stop people from cycling, we want to increase cycling,” he said.
“If there’s more education that needs to be done and perhaps more environmental changes to increase cycling, I think that’s where we need to look next rather than target legislation for mixed evidence.”
The report added: “While some individuals may avoid bicycling due to helmet legislation, it would need to be shown that they do not replace it with other physical activities for helmet legislation to be considered to have a negative effect on overall health.”
The report said: “There is... ample research indicating that legislation reduces risk of bicycle-related head injury. Evidence of the potential negative effects of bicycle helmet legislation, such as reduced bicycling, is mixed, and a direct cause-and-effect relationship has not been demonstrated.
“Head injuries rank among the most severe injuries in bicyclists, representing 20% to 40% of all bicycling injuries.
“Overall death rates in Canada are estimated to be 0.27 per 100,000 population.”
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74 comments
I can tell you from experience that some people are open minded enough to change their minds when acquainted with evidence and arguments from a different viewpoint. They are usually scientists trained to look at statistics. I well remember discussing helmets on a newsgroup with a helmet believer who is now prominent on cyclehelmets.org.
Given the helmet propaganda and misinformation so widespread in the media there is a place for the other point of view. That this side of the argument needs putting is apparent from the number of ill informed cyclists who say, "I crashed and a helmet saved me."
Not everyone who reads these threads has read previous helmet threads. For some cyclists it may be news that there are people who don't believe in helmets, and that there is strong evidence they do not work.
There are indeed topics and forum discussions here which do not interest me. I do not read them. I don't bother to add my comment to say that the people who do find them interesting should shut up.
Of course some people are big enough to change their minds when they come across evidence that their previous assumptions were not correct (and indeed decent science is all about evidence based decisions and opinions).
Of course there are some who faced with evidence that previous assumptoins were not correct choose to disbeleive the evidence and try to discredit it or come up with contrary evidence. In the pro-helmet world that tends to involve quoting lots of frequently repeated "evidence" in the form of anecdotal information which is not actually "evidence" at all.
In the 1980s I became convinced that the helmet was a good idea - my opinion at that time wasn't evidence based but the modern type of helmets were appearing on the pro race scene and they seemed like a good idea.
Has anyone else noticed that the number of pro racers getting killed since helmet wearing was required hasn't reduced? (Note in most countries in Europe professionals could choose to wear helmets or not, and generally chose not to, until the UCI rules made them wear helmets in 1993)
Evidence since has indeen enabled me to change my mind and realise that no helmet, even a full motorcycle type offers nearly as much protection as changing the way people use the roads. I still tend to wear a helmet, it is a good place for my extra lights and it reduces the amount my wife worries (she's worked in casualty and has the usual anecdote based view on helmets and safety).
In other news:
Police in Kentucky the place with the highest levels of firearms ownership have called for body armour to be compulsory. They claim that when people are recklessly shot, it prevents some but not all of the injuries and that this was a sensible measure to prevent injuries. Asked why they didn't seek to stop the reckless use of guns that caused the problem in the first place the spokesman for the Kentucky State Police merely looked puzzled.
I've been a member of this forum for just over a year, quite long enough to realise that the helmet debate is road.cc's answer to Groundhog Day.
The debate generates a lot of heat every time, but is there actually any serious possibility that a mandatory helmet law will be introduced in this country? I can't help feeling that the topic is a good excuse for people to mount their favourite hobby horse.
Most of my riding is in a rural setting and at this time of year especially lots of things fall out of trees, so I wouldn't go out without a lid. It saves me from being bruised by conkers and stray branches, but I'm under no illusion that it would prevent serious injury if I was hit by one of Cheshire's 4 x 4's.
I'm sceptical about some of the arguments presented earlier. There was a claim that helmet wearing put teenage girls off cycling, but the fact is that once compulsory school sport ends most teenage give up physical exercise.
Then there was the assertion that riders who went helmetless would be a target for police, but the police routinely ignore riding without lights after dark and riding on pavements so I'm not sure why they would choose to enforce a helmet law while ignoring other infractions.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to the next lengthy thread on this subject which should be due shortly after Christmas.
There was talk some years ago of a pledge by one UK party or another to introduce mandatory helmet laws once the base rate of wearing exceeded a particular percentage (not sure which party or what percentage). And now Sir Bradley Wiggins has joined a helmet law campaign (which sadly trots out the discredited 88 per cent figure).
Helmet wearing rates in central London are already quite high. Some years ago I did my own tiny survey (one commute to work about 5 miles in length on one route on one morning). Of 100 people on bikes I counted, 82 were wearing a helmet (I stopped at 100 because it's not easy to concentrate on traffic when you're juggling numbers). With no other evidence to back it up, I'd guess that figure is on the rise, thanks to the continual drip feed of pro-helmet propaganda and regular scare stories carried in the press. I think the spectre of helmet laws is going to be with us for a long time to come.
I prefer to see it as refining and sharing the argument against bike helmet laws.
Instead of making cycling safer by introducing continuous, dedicated and segregated infrastructure, which requires investment (investment which will eventually be recouped) and time, politicians prefer to seek out a fast, cheap fix, and helmet laws are it.
Those of us who love to cycle are far from convinced, and would prefer not to go down the path taken by countries which have enacted helmet laws, but made no other provision for safe cycling. As a result, cycling rates drop and remain low, bike hire schemes languish and the few people who dare take their bikes on the roads are no safer than before the laws were made.
Is it safe to assume that when you go for a walk at this time of the year you don a safety helmet???
Fair point, but I don't walk in the country and I can't walk at 15/20mph.
Also, I generally wear my trilby when I'm out and about at this time of year. (I am an OAP)
Interesting to read reactions to this article. I am writing this post having crashed on Monday morning. I have a fractured pelvis, dislocated and broken collar bone, cracked ribs and multiple lascerations. What I don't have is a fractured skull because my Kask Mojito took the impact of my head on the road. Most of the right frontal lobe area has collapsed inside the helmet as it absorbed the impact. I was travelling at over 20mph when I crashed on black ice. The ambulance crew,doctors and specialists agree that I was saved from serious head trauma and possibly brain damage or even death by that helmet. Anyone who argues that the protection of a helmet is not necessary should stop and think about those around them. If I had not had a helmet on I may have orphaned my 5 year old boy, widowed my wife and caused more distress for my widowed mother. We have a responsibility to set standards for all and be a good example to younger people. If wearing a helmet became the norm then it would not be an issue. My brother in law has been trying for ages to ensure my nephew wears a cycle helmet. He has shown him pictures of my Kask to show the benefit of wearing one. It is accepted that if you ride a motor bike you must wear a helmet. Why should it not be the same for us on two wheels sharing the roads as well?
Round and around and around we go.
Cinelli Dave, I wish you a speedy recovery. I also have a crashed helmet in my garage that is used to scare kids into wearing one, but I still don't think that helmets should be compulsory. If you're tearing round roads on skinny-tyres then wearing a helmet makes sense. If you're rolling down to the shops at 6mph on a dutch-bike the likelihood of hitting your head is tiny and a helmet makes no more sense than full downhill body armour.
This is where Wiggins and Trott's pro-helmet views come from too. The kind of cycling they do means they have crashed many times and been glad to be wearing a helmet. When that is your experience it's hard to imagine why anyone wouldn't wear a helmet. It's also why if you see a cyclist in the Cheshire lanes they are probably wearing a helmet. But their cycling is abnormal, and the kind of cycling anyone who follows this site does is probably abnormal (when compared against the total population of people who ride bikes).
As has been said previously, the problem with helmet laws is that they reduce cycling, which produces more risk for the remaining cyclists, and a cost to society from increased car use (congestion and pollution), increased diabetes etc etc.
A month or two ago I was going down a hill. It had rained that morning, after a dry period, and the road was greasy. The lights at the bottom of the hill went red and I braked a bit too hard. The front wheel locked and folded up. I was going about 45 km/h. I had a bad gash to my elbow, and problems moving it, and went to hospital for X-rays. Luckily nothing more than severe road rash and a bruised nerve. I wasn't wearing a helmet. The natural human instinct to lift the head away from a fall prevented mine from hitting the ground (note: helmets sometimes can defeat this instinct, their extra weight and width turning what would be no-contact or a glancing blow into a heavy blow).
Aside: For every anecdote there is an opposite anecdote. Which is why we should let our views be guided by the output of science instead. E.g.: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000145751100008X (a meta-analysis, so systematically analysing a number of primary studies).
1. E.g. as demonstrated by some of the cyclists in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqo4hwnJt6Y
With such responsibilities in your life, I'm surprised that it didn't occur to you not to take risks such as cycling at 20+mph on black ice.
No one was to blame for your crash but you, but you seem to want everyone else to pay the price.
If you could walk that fast would expect to see you in the next Olympics
my preferred walking head wear is a duncher. I think it is better known as a flat cap down your way!
Head injuries are also no doubt contributing to motorist and pedestrian deaths.
If cyclist MUST wear helmets, surely car drivers and pedestrians should too?
And what about people who live near coconut trees?
Golf... All those small white missiles. A nice tweed or argyle golf helmet will make that game safer
I'm mocking a serious subject here, but it illustrates some sort of point..
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