Almost 9 in 10 people back headphones ban and compulsory helmets for cyclists say survey

Since the last big debate about helmets and the article about lights i have kept a count myself of cyclists (road, mtb and bmx style bikes) using the roads and pavements around where i live and work.

Its far from being scientific but just a bit of fun for myself. The resukts are quite interesting:

I counted 745 cyclists in total of which 434 were road bikes, 219 mtb and the rest (92) were bmx style bikes.

Of the 434 none were ridden on the pavement and of those 401 were wearing helmets - 92%.

Of the 219 MTB less than 5% were wearing a helmet and nearly 80% were on the pavement when i saw them.

Of the bmx riders none had a helmet on and all were on the pavement BUT nearly every one of them was a youngster - upto 14yrs.

Obviously i dont know there ages, where they were going or anything about them and its just for a bit of fun but from what i saw it appears that if your on the road the vast majority will wear a helmet yet those on pavements wont.

As for lights it's quite frightening how many dont have a light on their bike during darkness. In the end it proves nothing, just thought i would pass it on.

FFS
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the thing that concerns me about "helmets" and "high vis" is the political agenda behind it?

when I went to hospital just under 2 weeks ago, after being run over by a white van driver who simply did not bother checking the road before pulling out into traffic from behind a parked bus (he then fled the scene)

the first things the women at the A&E intake desk asked me:

"where you wearing a helmet?" (answer:yes, but i did not fall over or hit my head, I broke my right hand on the side of his vehicle when I impacted it at 20kph)

"where you wearing high-vis?" (answer:yes, but this was 09.30am in the morning in sunlight, and he did not bother checking his mirrors before pulling out in front of me)

-WHO has tasked A&E staff to ask these questions?
-Is this is a survey of cycling accidents?
-WHO is using the data from this survey?
-To what purpose?

I find this somewhat creepy.

And the lack of resources put into tackling illegal drivers (no license/ mot / insurance) which I can only assume includes the guy who caused my accident because he did everything in his power to escape the scene before anyone could accost him

Compromise; use iphone ear buds, the sound leak is so high you can't hear the music anyway!

There would be less accidents if there was less traffic, better roads, more cycle paths between towns, better road lighting, less use of in car sat nav/stereos/mobiles/smoking, better on board viability technology in large vehicles, speeding, a ban of excessively wide 4wd's, wider roads, sensible road behaviour, young drivers curfew, enforced use of winter tyres, pedestrians learning to look, no winter or dark nights, introduction of foam tarmac, rubber cars, badgers/fox/deer road awareness courses, American drivers who can't understand roundabouts, rush hour and reach down for a packet of mints instead of looking where you are going.....

No, lets just attack the cyclist, they are easy to go for & won't annoy the voting motorist.

So, which one shall we pursue...?

When I drive a car I often have some music on.
When I ride my motorbike I have ear plugs in to protect what's left of my hearing.
When I cycle at a decent pace the wind noise makes me deaf anyway.
When the electric car becomes more common you wont hear it coming.
If you rely on your hearing for any road use you are an idiot.
If you ban it for one you must ban it for all.

As for helmets, the specification and protective capability's place them in the toy category at best.
good for holding a camera tho.

In another study....

"Public wrong about nearly everything"

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-public-wrong-abou...

Evidence based policy making sounds like an indisputably good idea.
Policy made on the basis of this survey would be the reverse.

As someone said 'There's a dead cat on the table!'.

The politicians have swiftly moved the story from '6 dead cyclists' to 'cyclists need to do something about their safety'. This is all very 'The thick of it'.

This is probably for two reasons:

1) Because the clamour over the 6 dead is reactionary (i.e. It is a reaction to a series of events which don't (per se) have any connection).
2) Because it means they don't have to do anything.

I mention the reactionary response, because if, in May, you had gone to politicians about Lee Rigby and asked them to do something to protect soldiers or radicalised muslims they would do the same thing: throw a dead cat on the table. But the reactionary demand is do something about the situation, when actually it is an isolated incident - the UK is not full of radicalised muslims wishing this sort of thing.

Now, if after a year soldiers are regularly being killed by radicalised muslims they would know that there was a real problem, they would then be bound to do something for many many reasons, and mostly that the story would not go away. This is the danger of jumping on something like the unfortunate spate of deaths in the capital and demanding action, the 'cluster' of deaths has the effect of discouraging cyclists and therefore less cyclists are likely to put themselves in danger and so no more deaths, no more media attention.

The politicians are actually hand-tied to do anything. They have their policies, and they have allocated their budgets already to cycle safety (and other areas), and so they're unlikely to do anything unless it can be proven (with some significant statistics) that cycle deaths are increasing, and there is some way of addressing it….so to make your point you need to have the data to show it - after a year, if you have 24 deaths, with an increase of 50% that they can't ignore things. But we're not at that yet.

Basically the politicians (Boris/Cameron/whomever) have out manoeuvred those cyclists campaigners wishing to use these tragic events to persuade further funding for infrastructure or road legislation. Better to organise yourself into a political organisation/opposition will to steal votes from them and expose them for their lack of action - point out their hypocrisy at a time when it counts. A typical case of careful what you wish for….cycling lobbyists will now be distracted into campaigning against high viz, helmets and ear phones, and this will be on the table every time until statistics show a clear trend of events - this can only ever be shown after full inquests into the cycling accidents. Such is the reality of politics and urban living.

I was thinking about the recent London cycling deaths over the weekend and whilst tragic, I think there is a whole world of perspective that needs to be applied. What do I mean?

Well, put simply, the fact that a cyclist death in London is new, added to the fact that multiple cycling deaths create a whole barrage of knee jerk reaction to me simply proves how safe cycling is.

The day cycling deaths are no longer news, is the day that I dred... Put it this way, how many people have you read about getting killed in their car this week?

The likely reality is, there have been more than six. Its no longer news... people die in cars all teh time, thats what happens. The fact that cyclists don't get killed is the very reason it is news when tragically cyclists are killed.

This is a safe sport, this is a safe mode of transport, cycling is safe. We do not need laws 'protecting' cyclists by restricting their activity.

If there should be a law applied to cyclists it should be that everyone should go through a cycle proficiency course. Drivers need to have it before they drive, kids should have it before being let out alone. It shuld be taught at school.

I am not surprised by the overwhelming opposition to the imposition of strict liability for motorists in the event of an accident involving a cyclist. There wasn't even a majority in favour amongst the 'more cyclist than motorist' group. I agree, it goes totally against the principle of innocent until proven guilty that is fundamental to the British justice system.

I did raise an eyebrow at the 59% who think that punishments should be harsher for cyclists that 'cause accidents'. If we are talking about pedestrians, perhaps fair enough. Otherwise, I would have thought that (serious) injury / death was probably a harsh enough outcome for the kamikaze cyclist.

We can all see how this is going, can't we? The slow, insidious creep towards compulsory helmets. But there may be an answer.

If we are being forced down the "data shows that helmets will save cyclists' lives" route, then the same data gathering methodology will also show that drivers' lives will be saved too, if they also wear helmets. And far more drivers die directly as a result of head injuries than cyclists.

We should be using this clear and unequivocal fact, wherever this thorny issue is raised, because it's one of the most powerful arguments that we have at our disposal.

So this YouGov "survey" contains between 75 and 280 cyclists, depending how you cut it. Rather a high risk of atypical results with such a small sample, so subdividing the responses like in this start of this road.cc article is rather inappropriate: the error margins are just too high once you do that.

Why can't this topic just be left alone and up to personal choice

I completely agree about headphones.

The amount of other riders you say "morning" to who are really close but can't hear you is growing.

(unscientifically)

Whilst I never wear headphones whilst cycling, it makes no sense that cyclists are somehow asking to be run over by wearing them. Surely the driver behind must take care to look where they are going?

If I’m rear ended, does it matter that I could hear that I was going to be rear-ended a few moments before it happens or should I just accept that motor vehicles can bully me off the road?

On the other hand it is too scary listening to the noise of cars accelerating behind me and motorcycles revving their engines impatiently trying to hint to me to get out the way because I don’t pay road tax have insurance etc. (yawn).

I think I’m going to start wearing headphones as it will my make commute more pleasant.

PS: How does wearing headphones make me less visible to motorists?

As an aside it'd be interesting to know of the incidences of head injuries in the pro peloton pre and post helmet compulsion and see if they've gone up or down.

As a regular commuter to work I play any music I want through the MP3 player and speaker on my phone. I play the volume at full blast. On the busy road I can just about hear it, but on the Canal banks its fine. I don't think it disturbs any pedestrians as they tend to have earbuds in anyway.

Why is The (Sunday) Times running a poll like this which stirs up opinion contrary to its "Cities Fit For Cyclists" campaign? Just seems dumb and counter-productive.

Maybe they should have added in the question, "Knowing that Johnson has had multiple affairs outside of his marriage, one which resulted in a child that he has absolutely no participation in raising, do you think Boris should 'keep it in his pants' and stop being a dirty philandering bastard?"

Yes it is (100% safe) next piece of rubbish?