Met Police stopping unhelmetted cyclists to provide “advice and education”
As part of Road Safety Week, the Metropolitan Police is stopping cyclists and lorry drivers in three locations in central, east and south London to offer “education and advice” to cyclists who are seen riding dangerously. Conrtoversially, the police are also stopping cyctlists who are not wearing helmets.
A spokesman for Scotland Yard told road.cc that cyclists were being stopped “where there are concerns about their behaviour – for instance cutting corners, performing other dangerous manoeuvres or wearing headphones while riding.”
He also acknowledged that officers were stopping riders who were not wearing helmets. While there is no legal requirement to wear a helmet while riding a bicycle in the UK, the spokesman said: “If you want to be safe it’s a very good idea to put one on.” That’s an opinion that some in the cycling community might perhaps take issue with.
London Assembly member Jenny Jones told road.cc she had contacted the Met and a superintendent had agreed that helmets and high vis are not required by law.
Baroness Jones said: "The Met’s ‘advice’ on cyclists wearing a helmet and high vis is not based on any scientific research. As an informed cyclist I ride my bike without either. Their efforts would be better focussed on enforcing the laws we have, for example on not driving vehicles while using a mobile, not driving a vehicle into ASLs when the lights are red, which would make our roads much safer.
"Clearing our roads of illegal and dangerous drivers has to be the priority, not hassling cyclists who are obeying the law."
Scotland Yard said that the intention was not enforcement and when asked if, for example, a cyclist riding through a red light would be issued a fixed penalty notice, said that no fixed penalty notices had been issued to cyclists. “It’s about advice and education rather than cracking down,” said the spokesman.
A total of 45 officers are involved in the operation, and police are also stopping lorry drivers. Their vehicles have been checked for any issues and in one instance a lorry was found to have a dangerously over-inflated tyre that left it unfit to continue its journey.
According to LBC, police at one location have stopped 20 HGVs and found a total of 60 offences, including vehicles in dangerous condition and drivers who had been working too long.
Chief-Superintendent Glyn Jones, who is in charge of the operation, told LBC: "If you're going to cycle in London, wear a helmet, wear high-vis, make sure your bike has the right lights, don't wear headphones and obey the rules of the road.
"That way you will be a lot safer."
In a ten-day period to last Thursday, five cyclists were killed in collisions with large vehicles on London's roads. It is not known how many of them were wearing helmets or whether their riding was a factor in the crashes.
130 thoughts on “London police stopping cyclists without helmets in “advice & education” exercise”
Stopped for not wearing a
Stopped for not wearing a helmet?
FFS show me the evidence a single one of the recent fatalities in London would have been saved by a helmet.
Get a grip.
“vehicles have been checked
“vehicles have been checked for any issues and in one instance a lorry was found to have a dangerously over-inflated tyre that left it unfit to continue its journey” – I’m no mechanic, but how hard could this have been to rectify?
I’m assuming that bike riders
I’m assuming that bike riders that are cycling safely and within the law / highway code aren’t the ones being stopped for not wearing a helmet… Not likely to get a polite response from me if I’m trying to explain why I’ve legitimately chosen not to do something, if Plod then misses someone running a red!
If Chief-Superintendent Glyn
If Chief-Superintendent Glyn Jones believes that, “if you want to be safe it’s a very good idea to put one on”, then he should look at the statistics for head injuries amongst motorists, and perhaps be stopping drivers for not wearing helmets too.
I am a firm believer in
I am a firm believer in wearing a helmet, but it is down to choice, it is not a legal requirement. Until it is I don’t think that it is down to the police to stop riders and tell them. That would really, make me sense they are targeting me because I ride a bike. Over inflated tyre, oh please let the air out gently =))
mlimburn wrote: Over inflated
It could be bulging due to over-inflation, just letting air out wouldn’t necessarily rectify the situation.
I have a well rehearsed
I have a well rehearsed dialogue in my head, ready for the day a gormless police officer offers me ‘advice’ on my choice of headwear whilst riding my bicycle.
At the moment its a bit rough round the edges and needs to be a little more polite than the current version, which is essentially some advice they go away and attempt a physically impossible manoeuvre with a sensitive part of their anatomy.
This seems a bit daft.
Why
This seems a bit daft.
Why are the police stressing hi-viz and personal protective equipment as if they conferred some sort of magical protection against lorries? Cyclists could avoid injury in many incidents in which they are not at fault by adopting better road positioning – well clear of the door zone, far enough out from the gutter to register properly on the radar of following motorists and avoid nasty debris etc.
At the moment my helmet is in Ireland and I’m in Germany – I failed to stuff it into my suitcase when I was coming over and am only starting to miss it and considering replacing it now that temperatures are starting to dip below zero. Polystyrene has insulating properties, the straps would stop the peaked cap I wear underneath from being blown away (the peak keeps snow off my glasses) and a helmet might offer some useful protection if I slid out on a patch of ice and whacked my head off a kerb.
Tomorrow they are going to be
Tomorrow they are going to be out with rulers to measure the lengths of young ladies skirts whilst fining homeowners for being burgled and lecturing stab victims for not wearing kevlar vests.
On a moderately more serious note, can anyone confirm if these pulls are being done by real coppers or PCSOs?
police at one location have
Is it naive of me to find this truly shocking?
The worrying part is that
The worrying part is that there is evidence to suggest that wearing a helmet makes you less safe. While the addition of a helmet may prevent road rash and dampen the blow, most are only rated to 12 mph, which most collisions you would be going quicker, but also while you have mitigated a small risk, the driver perception is that a helmeted cyclist is more professional and so they undertake more risky behaviour as the helmeted cyclist is perceived as more experianced and therefore less likely to make eratic moves.
Damned if they do, damned if
Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
The way I see it, they are at least making an attempt to engage and discuss. No-one is being forced or legislated to wear high viz or helmets. If the comments above are representative of the cyclist attitude then I think you could all do with some education in how to converse in a polite and respectful manner.
Here’s how I’d go about a typical encounter with a police officer
PC – “Sir, can I advise you on your cycling outerwear and headwear?”
Me – “Good morning officer..of course, please go ahead”
PC – “Helmets are great, high-viz is cool etc etc”
Me – “Thank you officer, I agree/disagree with your suggestions but either way I’ll bear it in mind for future reference..have a good day”
Replace the last one
Replace the last one with:
“Thank you officer, don’t you think your time might be spent more productively checking motorists and their vehicles, as they are the ones who are actually killing people, and of whom a large proportion will be driving without a licence or insurance, or in a vehicle that is not fit to be on the roads.”
Smoles wrote:Damned if they
Do you ride a penny farthing or something? Get down off your high horse!!!
Smoles wrote:Damned if they
Or alternatively as this conversation is going on, three drivers pass, tailgating, another drinking a cup of coffee, someone else is on the phone. another berating the kids in the back seat whilst on the way to school.
deal with the biggest problem first, if the cyclists have no lights and should, pull them, talk to them and give them the option, fine or lights. If they are doing nothing wrong then don’t bother. Use the limited time and resources for those things that matter.
Smoles wrote:Damned if they
Seeing as such your a reasonable chap I’ll be stopping you to discuss the rest of your clothes with you then. After all, if you’re walking down the street minding your own business I don’t see why the police shouldn’t stop you to have a chat with you about your diet, your lack of a copper bracelet to prevent arthritis, whether you’ve had enough homeopathic medicine today and whether or not you’re aware of the beneficial health effects of prayer.
This is all because as a member of a cash-strapped force that doesn’t have enough time to follow up on all manner of things I have oodles of spare time for standing around stopping you in the street.
Kick us while we’re down,
Kick us while we’re down, Met. Thanks.
Err. Are they also telling
Err. Are they also telling motorists to wear helmets?
Or advising drivers of cars with no airbags to part-ex for one with bags?
No thought not. they can sod off.
Political exercise, what a
Political exercise, what a load of crap. You would be better off having these policeman in plain clothes catching any dickhead using his mobile phone whilst driving or looking out for aggressive behaviour (both drivers and cyclists).
A helmet would hardly have helped the victims of the recent fatalities,
Imagine if the police in
Imagine if the police in Copenhagen or Amsterdam or Malmo stopped cyclists and told them to wear hi viz and helmets?
Im sure they would be met with a combination of bafflement, incredulity and open hostility.
I find it bizarre the
I find it bizarre the outpouring of emotion against wearing of helmets, I would not ride without one as I figure smashing my unprotected skull off tarmac, concrete, car windscreens etal would be better served with one at any speed.
I don’t need scientific evidence to convince me of that… Is this more an anti-establishment argument than safety debate?
Would you let your child ride without one?
darranmoore wrote:I find it
Would you object to being stopped by the police for not wearing a stab vest in a known high knife-crime area?
darranmoore wrote:I find it
I think I see the problem.
darranmoore wrote:
Would you
I do.
Pedestrians have more head injuries per mile travelled than cyclists http://cyclehelmets.org/1100.html
Pedestrians are killed at 41 per billion kms travelled, whereas for cyclists it’s fewer at 35 per billion kms travelled.
I presume you let your child walk on the pavement without a helmet? For the same reasons I let my child cycle without one.
darranmoore wrote:I figure
So you dont need scientific evidence to convince you that a helmet is not designed to protect your head against impacts over 12mph, nor against rotational or oblique impacts, or do you mean that you wear one as you’re convinced through superstition of its supernatural powers to save lives under all conditions?
Exactly! How dare those dirty low down Dutch allow their children to cycle to school sans helmet!
Wont somebody think of the children!
When I was young we had
When I was young we had something called “The Iron Curtain”, now it appears we have “The Iron Union Flag”
Where is the freedom of choice everyone loves to say our forefathers fought for ?
Do motorcyclists feel the
Do motorcyclists feel the same way about the “Iron Union Flag” or motorists over seatbelts…? I am too young to remember the mandatory introduction of these safety regulations but not for one minute would I consider giving up either even if I had the choice?
My brother went across a car bonnet as the discerning motorists ran a red light, his helmet was mashed, his head was not!!!
Bring it on I say, mandatory use of cycling helmets “could” save the lives of those to cool to, to stubborn or stupid enough to not see the benefit of wearing one? I despair every time I see a young cyclists without a helmet.
darranmoore wrote:I find it
Really? Because you do go on to spout a load of emotive bollocks, such as the following:
You also go on to say that “mandatory use of cycling helmets “could” save the lives of those to cool to, to stubborn or stupid enough to not see the benefit of wearing one?”, which, first of all, suggests that you yourself aren’t actually convinced that they definitely will save lives but also you deem yourself above someone who chooses to not wear a helmet. Not only do you want to turn people in to criminals because of your beliefs which have no real grounding but you also choose to denigrate the choices of others by suggesting they are stubborn or stupid. What a bad tit you are.
darranmoore wrote:Do
..er, yes, they do.
And as you’re obviously concerned about your safety, do you wear a helmet when participating in something far more dangerous than cycling, such as driving a car? I doubt it.
No one thinks genuine safety advances are a bad thing, but unless we realise choice is still important, the day will come when you won’t be allowed to even get out of bed without wearing a helmet – I don’t want that either.
darranmoore wrote:
My brother
I salute you and your brother for your courage in wearing pedestrian helmets. If he hadn’t been wearing that helmet as he walked across the road he COULD HAVE BEEN DEAD.
I too have had the same experience, except for me it was with my 2 year old child who fell and banged her head on the floor. Luckily my child was wearing a Thudguard helmet and a child’s spine protector. I am sure that you, like me, are a careful and prudent person whose common sense has led them to equip all their family with helmets. Personally I cry whenever I go over to a young family’s house and I see their children running around without helmets on.
It’s just common sense. Why won’t people wear them? Is it some sort of anti-establishment thing?
Or maybe they’re not f****Ing mental like me?
This could finally prove
This could finally prove Darwin right when somehow people who wear pedestrian helmets fail to reproduce even though they are supposedly more likely to survive a vehicle strike
….
…. 😕
Quote:Bring it on I say,
They “could”.
They [i]”could”[/i] also make it more likely that those people are hit by cars (who pass cyclists closer if they wear helmets) and more importantly, mandatory helmets [i]”could”[/i] over-emphasise the relative danger of cycling, putting people off trying it, leading to an increase in the deaths from heart disease and obesity when cycling [i]”could”[/i] save their lives.
The Met have followed Alice
The Met have followed Alice through the looking glass…
Good god, this is exactly why
Good god, this is exactly why helmets can never become compulsory under UK legislation as it would just give plod another pointless target to pursue whilst avoiding the obvious.
Full disclosure – I choose to wear a helmet for some reason or another
News coming through another
News coming through another cyclist killed by a lorry in London.
Remind me – what is the *real* problem here?
Seriously? Do people really
Seriously? Do people really cycle around London not wearing a helmet?
My bike slipped from under me at the weekend whilst taking a slippery country lane and I went down smashing head first into the tarmac. I’m only replacing my helmet as opposed to my wife replacing her husband. I’m glad I chose to wear one.
utm_swest wrote:Seriously? Do
And this is the only scenario a helmet will help in, if you are hit by a car it will make precious little difference.
And can we stop with the pointless helmet saved my life anecdotes, you don’t know if it helped, you don’t know if it didn’t.
Humans have been falling out of trees for millions of years, as we are still here it is pretty safe to say the skull is tougher than some give it credit for being.
utm_swest wrote:Seriously? Do
Why, what did the helmet do for you?
utm_swest wrote:Seriously? Do
To be honest you probably shouldn’t be let out of the house without supervision let alone be allowed to ride a bike.
Ridden properly, bikes do not just ‘slip from under me’.
Wearing a helmet will not help you much if you do not know how to ride at an appropriate speed according to the prevailing conditions.
utm_swest wrote:Seriously? Do
I was out the other week and came down after hitting an unseen pothole. I hit my unhelmeted head on the road and I was just fine – and after a bit of fettling to fix my bike was able to ride the 50-odd miles home.
I fell quite hard and had I been wearing a helmet I’m pretty sure I’d have smashed it up. Were I so inclined I might even be telling people right now it had saved my life. But I’d have been talking out of my arse.
I don’t have to replace a helmet and my wife is still stuck with me.
Good for you. It’s great to
Good for you. It’s great to live in a society where we can all hold our own opinions and beliefs isn’t it.
utm_swest wrote:Good for you.
I’m sorry Sir, I have been authorised to stop you on this public internet way and advise you that your belief is actually illegal. Take it off… now.
Motor vehicles, a
Motor vehicles, a disproportionately high percentage of them large motor vehicles, ie, lorries and buses, are the real problem here, not cyclists failing to wear hi viz and helmets, neither of which are a legal requirement.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, if the driver is not paying attention, they will not see you whether you are wearing hi viz or not, and a piece of polystyrene on your head is not going to save you.
The Met need to get a grip and sort the real problem, not harass the victim. ~X(
For those advocating choice
For those advocating choice making you a criminal, what is the minimum standard of helmet you will be hoping to be made law?
Surely you all have a minimum set standard in mind? And what happens if you buy a helmet from a European manufacturer that isn’t certified to the British standard required? Will you be handing yourselves in as criminals too?
Or are you happy that as long something is on your head you are magically protected? If so, can I just wear one of my casquettes?
There’s a problem with too
There’s a problem with too many people being killed or injured on the roads. Stopping cyclists who are riding dangerously to advise them accordingly is not a bad idea.
That does not take away from the fact that dangerous driving must be addressed and prosecuted wherever possible.
Instead, everyone has started up the helmet debate again (|:
700c wrote:
Instead, everyone
It was the police who started it up. Myself, I only talk about helmets when someone tells me I should wear one, or says that they should be compulsory.
700c wrote:
That does not
Whilst the police are harassing cyclists they cannot be addressing dangerous driving.
well, just to re-visit this
well, just to re-visit this thread – look what they’re doing now.. (massive operation to catch careless drivers)
I strongly believe that education and enforcement needs to apply to all road users in order to promote road safety.
Need to look at the bigger picture here, rather than getting hung up on one small aspect of the debate (poor cyclists being picked on by nasty policeman who has the cheek to suggest I should be wearing a helmet, how dare he?!)..
Anyone know a location where
Anyone know a location where this is happening? I’m currently under doctors orders not to wear a helmet (seriously!) and quite fancy a chat on the way home.
Here in amsterdam/holland day
Here in amsterdam/holland day to day cycling traffic is so slow that helmets would not really help with a crash – above 30kph a helmet is more useful, and from that speed it’s racing bike speed.
Keeping your eye on the road, and thinking a few steps ahead is the way to go! cyclist should be aware of the dead points in the mirrors of car drivers, even if they can car drivers often don’t look back or sideways. I’m always standing in front of the cars and not next to them on a traffic light.
Also have proper lights on your bicycle, when dark a car can hardly see cyclists. (the Bike-lights is were the focus of police should be, that worked well in amsterdam a few years back forcing a fine or buy a light on the spot.)
Also i don’t know how it’s in london, but forcing cars to go at slower speeds on small roads is a good thing – most of amsterdam centre is 30kph max zone – with that cars and cyclist move at more similar pace. roads with separate bicycle lanes have higher speeds for cars.
For me as a cyclist the road to work is still the most dangerous route each day – for me with speeds up to 45 in town i should wear a helmet, but for most town-cyclist this is overkill and a killjoy for the benefit of cycling.
I would implore your policy makers to enforce slower speeds for cars in town, tax parking spaces in town higher per hour, that has also the benefit of getting more people out of cars and with larger numbers on the bike, car drivers have adhere to the power oft the cycling masses as the dominant form of transport.
(that said, cyclist could be more social on the road also (looking at myself) but with my behavior on the bike i don’t endanger anybody, while a car is a potential murder weapon)
One can trip on a paving slab
One can trip on a paving slab and the head will be doing the same speed when it hits the ground as it would falling off a bike.
Why not get everyone to apply for a license to go outside on a bike if they can prove they will be wearing 2 mm thick cowhide leathers with carbon fibre inserts on the elbows and knees and up the back, thick gaunlet style gloves, armoured boots and a full face helmet.
Oh hang on, thats motorcycling…..im getting the two confused. 🙂
Quote:Seriously? Do people
Every time I’m in London I use a hire bike to get around. Never worn a helmet then. Although I do carry gloves and a hat and a couple of little LEDs – should I wish to hire a bike I don’t want cold hands or a cold head and I’d like some additional light so an Exposure Flash/Flare combo is perfect to carry round.
They have no power to do this
They have no power to do this whatsoever, ignore them and ride on.
I would never wear a helmet.
I would never wear a helmet.
If they stop someone who
If they stop someone who isn’t wearing a helmet, does it automatically count as wasting police time?
I don’t pay my taxes to have the Police handing out pamphlets – they should be out catching criminals!
Putting a helmet in between a
Putting a helmet in between a Cyclists plus Heavy Vehicles campaign is a bit of a nonsense.
So they stop 20 trucks and
So they stop 20 trucks and uncover 60 offences, or an average of three offences per truck, and now you know why trucks are the main killer of cyclists, because clearly these guys do not give a **** about the law or road safety.
This is a PR stunt with the
This is a PR stunt with the police following Boris’s lead, suggesting there wouldn’t be deaths on the roads in London, if only cyclists wore helmets. It’s complete bollocks and a waste of time and they know it. X(
utm_swest. How the hell did
utm_swest. How the hell did you manage to land head first if your bike slid from under you? Normally your arms break your fall unless you hit the kerb or a pothole and perform a face plant. Learn to fall mate.
Darrenmoore – am genuinely glad your brother is ok. Can I ask though. What other injuries did he have. Normally when hit hard enough to throw somebody onto the bonnet. Their legs and torso take the initial impact and forces. The head injury is secondary and involves less forces. In fact more people probably die from internal injuries and crush injuries caused motorised vehicles hitting them.
Well done the Met on what they’ve achieved in his crackdown. But in regards to their poorly thought out approach regards head gear and out wear a big massive FAIL.
Their time would be better spent picking up on ASL and cycle lane encroacher’s as well as the thugs who indulge in punishment passes.
giff77 wrote:Their time would
The slight problem with ASLs, as GMP handily revealed last week, is that whilst PCSOs can pull cyclists for all sorts of bullshit reasons including “dangerous weaving”, a PCSO can’t do anything about a car in an ASL.
It needs to be a proper police officer, and he needs to be able to see that the light was on red and be able to see the driver as he enters the ASL. At the same time.
CCTV footage can’t be used.
In short, there is no way of nicking someone for this offence.
Mint!
(This may only apply to Greater Manchester though).
farrell wrote:giff77
Saw a police car drive into an ASL while the lights were red just last week. Third time I’ve seen this at the same junction in the last couple of months.
When are the police going to ‘crack down on’ the police?
farrell wrote:giff77
If they can stand by the roadside and flag a cyclist down to advise then to wear a helmet they can bloody well stand beside a set of lights and give the driver a bollocking for encroaching the ASL.
farrell wrote:giff77
Convenient… ; )
giff77 wrote:utm_swest. How
Thanks for the advice, I’ll bear that in mind next time.
utm_swest wrote:giff77
No problems mate. 😀 I’ll not even charge you for it.
giff77 wrote:utm_swest
No problems mate. 😀 I’ll not even charge you for it.— giff77
Nahh, real pro’s land on their butt – clenched of course 😀
Ha, well done the Met, nowt
Ha, well done the Met, nowt like stirring up a hornets nest lol.
It’s just what we needed, another helmet debate. =))
I hope while they were busy
I hope while they were busy telling riders not to ride with headphones on they stopped every car with it’s windows rolled up and asked the driver to roll them down and don’t even THINK about turning on that car radio…..at least that way they might hear the cyclists screaming at them as they cut us up!
See, it’s worked hasn’t
See, it’s worked hasn’t it?!
Everyone here is all in a tizzy about helmets, there’s the usual anecdotal bollocks of “my helmet saved my life”, there are calls to make helmets compulsory…
Meanwhile, out on the streets, the police are stopping cyclists who are riding entirely legally and “advising” them that they should consider helmets.
While they’re busy doing that, another cyclist was killed today in Camberwell by… yep, you guessed it a left-turning lorry. If anyone can show me how 300g of polystyrene on my head can protect against an eight-wheeler weighing 10 tons going over my legs then go for it.
Put all your efforts into emailing the Met, TfL, Boris, the PM and telling them where the REAL issues lie – shit infrastructure and poor driving standards.
Wouldn’t they be better
Wouldn’t they be better served stopping those who are actually clearly breaking the law rather than those who aren’t?
On the assumption that every
On the assumption that every single one of those lorry offences was insurance or mechanically related then none of them should have been permitted for onward travel
As these latest spate of
As these latest spate of unfortunate accidents and deaths have taken place in London, and London is the centre of the universe, it will follow that new country wide laws shall be passed to enforce helmets and YJA’s and daytime running lights on bikes, sad but true. I am all for free choice and common sense however.
Oh for crying out loud. The
Oh for crying out loud. The Police should know better than this. Perhaps the cyclists not wearing helmets should educate the police on why helmets don’t provide much protection for some types of collision and contribute to head injuries for some others.
I am going to assume the best here though. If they are stopping cyclists with earphones in riding stupidly that are also not wearing a helmet, that’s one thing. But if they are stopping experienced cyclists behaving properly and giving them half baked advice on wearing a helmet then that is not on.
Some useful questions for a police officer giving advice on cyclists wearing helmets.
Q How common is head injury when cycling?
A Less common than for pedestrians
So should pedestrians particularly joggers wear a helmet
Q What protection do cycle helmets offer?
A Hardly any. In fact they offer less protection now than they used to in the 1990s because the standard has been diluted to make them easier and cheaper to manufacture.
The FIM standard helmet for Moto GP would still be insufficient to protect a cyclist from lethal head injury in a 30mph impact by a car. That’s a standard of head protection as high as it gets.
Q Is there any significant difference between the number of cyclists suffering head injury who die as between those that wear and do not wear a helmet?
A No there isn’t
See above about Moto GP helmets. That’s why. and a piece of plastic laminated polystyrene is no use at all. It helps to stop minor head injury (grazing /gouges) in cycle sport. It almost no protection in vehicle crashes of any significance.
Q How many of the recent deaths in London have been as a result of a fatal head injury as opposed to being crushed?
A Most cyclists killed on the road die as a result of multiple trauma including crushing, not exclusively head injuries.
I bet the police officer trying to educate cyclists doesn’t know much about cycle helmets themselves.
Like most posters on here I
Like most posters on here I think they are talking shite to start the “you should be wearing a helmet” and “high vis” I’d like to see the scientific evidence to support this assertion.
Should an eight or eighteen wheeler turn into me I’m fecked, wearing my helmet ain’t going to help me.
If they want to do something to benefit me nail those driving such vehicles who are committing offences on a regular basis.
They have no right to stop you whilst riding a cycle unless you have committed an offence, running red light etc, politely say thanks but no thanks and go on your way.
If they MUST have a go at
If they MUST have a go at cyclists, I’d rather they pulled over those who cycle after dark with no lights. There seem to be a hell of a lot of those in London. And that one is actually covered by a law, unlike helmets. No need to fine them, just point out to them that it is actually a legal requirement (and direct them towards the nearest 99p/poundshop!)
Besides, I’m never going to accept the police hassling cyclists until they actually start doing something about the utterly absurd levels of dangerous and illegal parking. It constantly amazes me where motorists think its OK to park.
FluffyKittenofTindalos
Agreed. Though, just like the lorries, that illegality should see them also prevented onward travel.
Why do UCI sanction the
Why do UCI sanction the mandatory use of helmets for competition use? What evidence anecdotal or not did they base the regulations on?
darranmoore wrote:Why do UCI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabio_Casartelli
If you google his name and look at ‘images’ associated with it, you can see why.
I rode the Col de Portet d’Aspet this year, and to be honest you need a lid going down that, especially on a wet day.
However, interestingly the wiki link shows that there continues to be debate about whether a helmet would’ve helped. Certainly there have been no deaths in the Tour since.
But just to show how finely balanced the argument is Woulter Weylandt died as a result ‘due to facial and basal skull fractures, as his injuries were too severe to allow resuscitation’ after crashing at 50mph, and he was wearing a helmet.
I personally am not necessarily convinced that they are necessary, but I do think that they would do a job in some cases (and wear one). Ultimately I would recommend them, but don’t want them to be compulsory.
I would have preferred if they had focused on telling RLJs about blind spots, especially the sort the Met were promoting where you can sit in the cab of a truck.
Colin Peyresourde
Thanks Colin much appreciated…
Poor ol’ Met. Damned if they
Poor ol’ Met. Damned if they do and damned if they don’t. At least they are trying, albeit a tad misguided…
For the belligerent and
For the belligerent and ignorant flamers of my earlier post…
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130613092421.htm
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/10/02/impact-tests-show-bike-helmets-protect-kids-in-crashes
darranmoore wrote:For the
Your first link is for a study by the University of New South Wales, which doesn’t really help your cause as since as since they have introduced mandatory helmet laws the levels of cycling in Australia have plummeted, I believe NSW themselves saw an almost 50% drop in young people cycling and there are probably just as many studies from Australia that contradict the study you have posted as there are studies to support it. There is no conclusive proof either way.
Cycling in Australia hasn’t become safer, however, the mandatory cycle helmet laws have created a whole heap of criminals.
So, rather than calling myself and others ignorant, to go along nicely with your earlier comments of stubborn and stupid, perhaps you could explain to me why you are so keen to turn me in to a criminal for not wearing one of your super magic hats?
Please, take the time to read this bit: I am not telling you that you shouldn’t wear a helmet, I’m not telling you that you can’t wear a helmet, I want you to explain why exactly you want to take away my right to choose, why is it that you would like to criminalise my daily routine because you have placed all your belief in to something that has not been conclusively proven to be of benefit?
farrell wrote:darranmoore
Your first link is for a study by the University of New South Wales, which doesn’t really help your cause as since as since they have introduced mandatory helmet laws the levels of cycling in Australia have plummeted, I believe NSW themselves saw an almost 50% drop in young people cycling and there are probably just as many studies from Australia that contradict the study you have posted as there are studies to support it. There is no conclusive proof either way.
Cycling in Australia hasn’t become safer, however, the mandatory cycle helmet laws have created a whole heap of criminals.
So, rather than calling myself and others ignorant, to go along nicely with your earlier comments of stubborn and stupid, perhaps you could explain to me why you are so keen to turn me in to a criminal for not wearing one of your super magic hats?
Please, take the time to read this bit: I am not telling you that you shouldn’t wear a helmet, I’m not telling you that you can’t wear a helmet, I want you to explain why exactly you want to take away my right to choose, why is it that you would like to criminalise my daily routine because you have placed all your belief in to something that has not been conclusively proven to be of benefit?— darranmoore
Your ignorance is displayed clearly in your dismissal of scientific evidence irrespective of it source? FACTS chosen to be ignored unless it suits the anti-helmet debate.
Stupidity is exhibited in the believe that your thick head will be better protected by a merino cap than a engineered protective helmet? And I look forward to probably reading the probable “as many” contradictory scientific studies (not statistical manipulations or anecdotal papers)
My original post was quite benign but I respond with rhetoric relative to the flaming I received. Thank you for validating my subsequent post.
Continue with your choice to not wear a helmet but DO NOT impart your ill informed believe up on others that a helmet will not improve safety or indeed make unsafe.
darranmoore wrote:Your
If you are going to make swipes at my intelligence, you should probably learn the difference in spellings for belief and believe.
Secondly, writing the word ‘facts’ in capital letters doesn’t actually prove anything, it doesn’t actually confirm the veracity of what you have said or written or make it “more true”. At best it’s lazy, like putting “end of story” or similar, at worst it makes you look like someone on the verge of a meltdown, like Rafa Benitez when he had his “fact” wibble.
I also noticed that you ignored my asking you to explain what it is that is driving your desperation to make it illegal to get on a bike without wearing a polystyrene hat. Just why is that?
farrell wrote:darranmoore
If you are going to make swipes at my intelligence, you should probably learn the difference in spellings for belief and believe.
Secondly, writing the word ‘facts’ in capital letters doesn’t actually prove anything, it doesn’t actually confirm the veracity of what you have said or written or make it “more true”. At best it’s lazy, like putting “end of story” or similar, at worst it makes you look like someone on the verge of a meltdown, like Rafa Benitez when he had his “fact” wibble.
I also noticed that you ignored my asking you to explain what it is that is driving your desperation to make it illegal to get on a bike without wearing a polystyrene hat. Just why is that?— darranmoore
My degree is in mechanical engineering not English, I apologise for my poor grammar. I won’t apologise for supporting the use of bicycle helmets in the vain hope of a reduction of injury (not a reduction of accidents which is a different debate and equally if not more important) I thought my posting of links quickly garnered on a google search with positive results of the reduction of severity of impact through wearing of helmets was answer to your question? Why exactly do you think we shouldn’t? Answer me that?
Challenging discussion with no right/wrong answer that you and I will resolve and sadly with or without helmet this will not stop the tragic devastation on our roads.
darranmoore wrote:
Continue
You know, you’ve completely convinced me. Like you and your brother I will be always wearing a helmet when I undertake activities as risky as riding a bicycle: going down stairs, crossing the road, getting out of bed etcetera.
I hope you will join me in my campaign to awake other head users out of their dangerous state of ignorance? I will be posting links which I don’t understand onto pedestrians that I meet in the street (using PostIt notes) and will be assisted in this by similarly educated police officers. I expect that we will meet a good deal of resistance to the SCIENCE FACT which we will be sharing, but that’s how it always is with martyrs like me.
By the way, did you know that masturbation makes you go blind?
Ush wrote:darranmoore
Risk assessment yields a factor based on severity of injury x likelihood of occurrence x exposure. You work out where and when to wear a lid?
Why such strong flaming towards the support of use of helmets? Lets take away the civil liberty infringement in mandatory wearing and please explain to me why someone would not wear one given choice? Is it believed they are less safe or no percieved improvement in safety? I would welcome a straight understanding without sarcasm, please.
darranmoore wrote:
Risk
Yes. That’s the point. Exactly.
And by the way, where do you and your brother get your pedestrian helmets? Have you ever considered motorcycle helmets?
Ush wrote:darranmoore
Ush I’m afraid I’m missing your point?
Exposure at home = low
Exposure cycling = high
I got my cycling helmet @ LBS and I always wear motorcycle helmet on my motorcycle, I find too hot for cycling, not enough vents. I wear AM or DH lid when hitting the gravity muddy stuff if you interested in?
darranmoore wrote:
please
Do helmets make it safer to cycle?
Answer: No one knows.
There is evidence to show that people who feel they are safer take more risks, thus making the chance of an accident higher, there is evidence to say that other road users are more careful around cyclists who do not wear helmets, because they are less protected.
So maybe helmets make the wearer less safe because they take more risks because they percieve themselves as safer.
Maybe Helmets make the wearer less safe because car drivers see them as more protected and so less important to be careful around.
But the evidence isn’t really conclusive so well it is as much down to opinion.
What if instead we think; What is the efficacy of a helmet?
First read up the information about helmets you get with one.
A helmet will only help you if it fits, if it is worn correctly, if it is in-date, and if you land on your head (at a velocity within the helmet’s ability to dissipate the energy which is not infinite.)
That is a lot of ifs.
It also means that we don’t really have any way of telling if helmets are effective.
If someone has a crash dies and was wearing a helmet, is it because helmets are not useful in crashes?
It could easily be because they weren’t wearing it correctly. (I see plenty of incorrectly worn helmets every day when I ride) Often it can be because they are the wrong size.
Helmets are good for a few years after that they need to be replaced, how many helmets do you think are in use that are out of date?
And maybe the crash was just not survivable with or without a helmet.
Most of these issues mean that in any accident where a helmet fails to protect the cyclist means that its not the helmets fault it didn’t, its because the helmet wasn’t used correctly.
How much energy can a bicycle helmet disspate? In a simple impact in the most idealised situation on a flat surface no sharp edges, with a normally massed person, how much energy can be disspated, and hence, what is the maximum velocity that a helmet can absorb the energy from a crash?
Does anyone know. Is this data available somewhere? I guess its defined by the BS standard for bicycle helmets.
In an idealised low speed crash where you land nicely on your helmet, and there are no spiky bits, no corners, then I expect there is a chance a helmet can help.
Is this what the mandatory bike helmet is required for, idiots falling off bikes at slow speeds? No the helmet is being touted as a solution for riding in traffic where speeds of cars are 30 mph+, cars weighing 2 tonnes, busses, and lorries even bigger. That can impart a greater amount of energy to you and your head that a bike helmet will not help you survive. Well maybe I mean maybe your body gets run over but by some fluke your head only has a slow impact with the ground thus saving your brain cage. Alas this is not the kind of safety we were looking for. If you die of other injuries it is no good if your brain is OK.
So what we have then is a bicycle helmet which has no proof that is is actually making cycling safer. Of course everyone knows wearing a helmet makes things safer. Just like we all know the earth is flat, the sun goes around the earth. and all those other patently obvious things we don’t need to question.
Plenty of people wear a helmet to be safe whilst simultaneously not wearing them correctly, wearing then when they are out of date, if they’ve been accidently damaged (they’re expensive man) Or in conditions that they don’t help.
Helmets are as often a safety placebo as anything else.
What if we consider the likelihood of experiencing a fatal head injury?
Most fatal head injuries happen in the bathroom, more fatal head injuries occur to car drivers and pedestrians than to cyclists.
So our situation is this.
We don’t know if helmets are safer.
We do plenty of more dangerous things without wearing a helmet.
We typically do not use helmets in a way which actually allows them to work anyway.
The illusion of safety can cause helmet wearers to take more risks and car drivers to take more risks around cyclists.
We know that many people do not cycle because they feel they should wear a helmet.
Yet we have no proof that helmets are actually beneficial to cycling.
See this is the argument.
There is no proof or data and little chance of it occur, there is plenty of opinion, and poor studies.
In the end the more important thing is to cycle like a small god on wheels, so even if there is a SUV with an person with an attitude problem in it, they wouldn’t dare hit you as they can see as you ride, you are a bronzed colossus who stands astride, not only them,but all of mankind, indeed you may in fact be the very personification of god in human form, and so they will completely not run you over and may even give you a thumbs up because you are so awesome.
All you need to do is ride a cool bike, wear a silly hat and smile a lot.
These things will save you from death on a bicycle.
Darran,
Note those studies
Darran,
Note those studies are of impacts on helmets in constrained laboratory conditions. There is no doubt that helmets can be shown to reduce forces transmitted in lab impacts. Also, there is little doubt that some real-world accidents will be similar to those lab impacts.
However, safety and injury prevention in the real-world is about *much* more than just a head-form striking a flat surface or an anvil in a drop test. There are *many* more factors at play:
– the heads have brains that can control the situation, and also can respond in unexpected ways to perceived changes in risk.
– the environment contains other actors who also have brains, and can show similar odd adaptations to how they perceive others and risks.
So there are quite a few reasons why results seen in controlled, drop-test lab studies need not transfer to the much more complex and variable world of human reality. Indeed, because the humans may adapt in strange ways due to risk compensation, the reliance on helmets can even lead to perverse results, contrary to what would be hoped from the lab studies.
Now, the *real-world* data overwhelmingly shows that helmets DO NOT solve the problem of cyclist safety. Indeed, there is actually an *inverse* correlation between levels of helmet use and cyclist safety, and cycling participation. Helmets laws in particular have a devastating effect on cycling participation, but the correlation exists even in non-law countries (e.g. UK).
That’s not to say wearing a helmet, of itself, can make any single cyclist less safe, but certainly at a broad, societal level, strong cultures of helmet use are a clear symptom of *failure* when it comes to cyclist safety. The real-world experiments have been done now, and the results are crystal clear:
Helmets WILL NOT fix cyclist safety problems in a society.
To advocate otherwise is to advocate against extremely clear data from those countries that have tried, be it with helmet laws or with strong cultural pressures on cyclists to wear helmets (e.g. the UK). To advocate for helmet laws is to advocate for a measure that has been *proven* to be useless at saving cyclists, but proven to be excellent at *destroying* cycling.
It’s a pity for your argument
It’s a pity for your argument that cycling rates haven’t plummeted in Australia, and NSW didn’t see a 50% drop in young people cycling because the study you are presumably, vaguely, quoting from in a kind of folklore way, was done in Melbourne and showed only a minor drop for school age kids (and no study of why that might’ve been the case) and the other Australian study beloved of anti-helmet activists in the UK was withdrawn by the journal that published it after it was proven to be completely wrong.
As for cycling not being safer in Australia after mandatory helmets the facts say otherwise.
Sakurashinmachi wrote:It’s a
There are no anti-helmet activists in the UK. I have heard a lot or people claim helmets should be compulsory but never ever heard anyone say they should be banned. There are just folks who are pro-choice, such as myself, and folks who are anti-choice, as I take it you are. This article is not, in any case, about whether helmets are any good or not, or whether they should be compulsory or not, it is about the police stopping people for doing something which is entirely legal and where there is no suspicion that any crime has been, is being, or is about to be committed.
Sakurashinmachi wrote:It’s a
I just googled “cycling levels Australia” and found these:
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2012/11/australian-cycling-levels-prepost.html
http://cyclehelmets.org/1194.html
Could you provide your “facts” that prove that cycling in Australia is now safer than it was before mandatory helmet laws?
darranmoore wrote:For the
Seriously? Data from a nation where cycling plummeted after legislation! I’ve no problems with folk choosing to wear helmets and hi viz. knock yourselves out. But when we have the police stopping and ‘advising’ cyclists what they should wear. Where those who choose not to wear helmets are called idiots and dickheads. And the chain retailers pressing you to buy a helmet when you buy a bike. It all becomes a bit ridiculous.
I’ve been cycling for near enough 40 years. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve fallen off and never on my head. In fact, in the last 7 years (50,000 commuting miles) I’ve fallen of once and that was when a ped stepped out in front of me and I pulled my shoulder.
The authorities are incredibly reticent to deal with the real issues at hand – speeding, tailgating, punishment passes. And even when it does come to the courts the judges/sheriffs would sooner blame the victim for their attire rather than deal with the motorist appropriately.
darranmoore wrote:For the
On the same page as your first link is a report saying “Benefit of Cycle Helmet Laws to Reduce Head Injuries Still Uncertain”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130514213148.htm
I note that you are very selective in your ‘research’. If you find something that supports your pet theory about polystyrene hats then you promulgate it __ if it doesn’t then you ignore it.
first things i was asked when
first things i was asked when i got to hospital after being injured in a hit&run RTC last week:-
“were you wearing a helmet?” (answer: yes!)
“were you wearing high-visibility clothing?” (answer: yes!)
how about the driver who made an illegal and very dangerous manouvre, caused the RTC and fled the scene; and has left me typing slowly with my left hand whilst my right hand is in plaster for 6 weeks….helmet and high-vis have f*ck all to do with my incident considering it was 10am, sun was shining and i did not fall (or hit my head)
every day for past 15 months whilst commuting in London I see motorists in ASL, texting / checking social media on smartphones, pushing through red lights. Sadly i also see HGV, black cabs and public vehicles like LONDON buses trying to push the boundaries as they well know traffic police numbers have been drastically cut.
of course see cyclists RLJ, riding on pavement, up one way streets, but with perspective 15kg of bike and 70kg of bike rider do nothing like the damage of 1500kg of motorcar with energy moving at 40mph!
time for the old bill to also get some true perspective and start policing motor vehicles with as much zeal as some of the recent “cycle blitzes”
….well this is the sort of
….well this is the sort of ‘seen to be doing something while not spending any money, and not really doing anything’ that you can expect after last week.
For all those that were demanding immediate action before any sort of investigation can happen this is what you get….a pointless half measure.
Until they determine what happened what else can they do? Being reactionary doesn’t help and wastes money. This way TFL and the Major APPEAR to be drumming home the message on safety – even if they are doing nothing.
Oh dear God is this STILL
Oh dear God is this STILL going on?!
STOP. TALKING. ABOUT. HELMET. LAWS.
Anecdotal shit about whether or not a helmet would or wouldn’t have helped in any one accident isn’t the point here. That debate has been had.
The point here is that the police seem to be stopping cyclists to advise them to wear helmets in a week where 6 cyclists have been killed by lorries/buses as a way of getting round dealing with the main problem – tons of lethal metal! And that’s not upsetting anyone? Oh no, we’d rather have an argument about a bit of polystyrene. Epic fail.
crazy-legs wrote:Oh dear God
CL but the article is “London police stopping cyclists without helmets in “advice & education” exercise” so it is a relevant discussion in the theme of article, plenty of scope to discuss the other factors leading to this police measure.
I knew this link was
I knew this link was somewhere. Not a bit of polystyrene anywhere. Lookout for the brilliant recovery around 1’41” or so. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqo4hwnJt6Y
Walking paced comedy falls to
Walking paced comedy falls to justify the non-use of cycle helmets? Howay come on 😉 Haha…
Great vid though, drift was awesome!
Quote:This article is not, in
Thank God someone else gets it!!
Anyone discussing helmet compulsion in Australia, anecdotal stories of how their helmet once saved their life when they slipped on some ice…GO AWAY.
Don’t get angry about that, it’s been done to death!
We’re talking about police stopping people who are committing no crime whatsoever and those people being advised to wear helmets and hi-vis. All while, in the background, lorries and cars are thundering past.
crazy-legs wrote:Quote:This
There’s plenty of people who “get it” long before you waded in but as per usual these comments section divert into a free for all by people who should know better…
The police stopping cyclists
The police stopping cyclists for not wearing helmets?
No, you’re right, I can’t see how anybody has made the gargantuan mental leap from that to helmet compulsion.
I can see why people are
I can see why people are irritated by the “advice and information” stops, as it seems to put the onus on cyclists to be entirely responsible for their safety. At the same time, I don’t think an outpouring of anger at these measures is particularly helpful.
Some attention is finally being paid to cyclist safety – it is on the agenda and resource has been diverted to considering the safety of cyclists. Let’s make sure it stays on the agenda and help to guide the thinking on safety to get the right resources & actions put in place. We won’t gain credibility by shouting and swearing.
My personal preference is to wear hi-viz and use lights most of the time. I’d rather do as much as possible to ensure drivers see me. If a driver is dangerous around me I can quite happily challenge them on the basis that I’ve done everything possible to keep myself safe. I sometimes choose to ride on the road instead of cycle paths, where those cycle paths are rough, unlit, busy with a high volume of pedestrians or require me to negotiate more junctions than the road would etc. Freedom of choice is important, but we need to tell the authorities what we need them to do, not simply shout at them about what not to do.
BikeBud wrote:
Some attention
Well, shouting and swearing where the police are involved will get you arrested, so I agree its not the best way to respond to this!
But its not about ‘paying attention to cyclist safety’, because the helmet issue is not what causes road-related deaths. This is about making a show of doing something, but making sure it looks”even handed” so as not to antagonise motorists. It looks like a case of just joining in the victim blaming and looking as if they are doing something.
That’ll be the “guide the
That’ll be the “guide the thinking” bit, and the “get the right resources and actions put in place” bit ;o)
I would hazard a guess that
I would hazard a guess that the bulk of people who have bothered to look at this here website, register as a user and post a comment would identify as cyclists, is that a fair assumption?
(I have not done so at train.cc.com despite me using them as a means of getting to work)
I like bikes, I use trains. There’s a difference.
How many of the people plod stopped identify as cyclists as opposed to people merely using a bike to get around. I don’t see the harm in what plod are doing, especially as the article also says they are stopping those they see committing offences and also HGV drivers too.
As an aside, I wonder what accident rates are like in Cambridge in comparison? Lots of bikes and cars, all nationalities, narrow roads etc.
allez neg wrote:
How many of
To be honest, I’d say ‘using a bike to get around’ makes you a cyclist. Much more so than using a bike as a kind of sport does. To my mind a ‘cyclist’ is someone who uses a bike as their primarly means of transport, rather than as a sport, hobby, or weekend leisure activity.
But that’s pure nit-picking.
But your point shows the problem – you refer to stopping those COMMITTING OFFENCES. Cycling sans helmet is not an offence. Its akin to ‘driving a motorised vehicle’, in terms of choosing to create a possible risk of adverse health outcomes. So why are the cops not stopping all those who choose to drive a motorised vehicle and asking them to reconsider their choice to do so?
Quote:
To be honest, I’d say
That’s quite an odd definition and probably the opposite of how I would define a cyclist. A cyclist is someone that appreciates the beauty in cycling, and knows it for the joy of descending 14km down a mountain, the thrill of putting 2 wheels through its paces on a dirt track and has learned the craft of riding in a group.
A cyclist is not some that spent £300 on hybrid to get from A to B. That is the least romantic and enjoyable way to use a bike, and the most perfunctory. Even just using the bike to go to a coffee shop or supermarket is a more romantic and enjoyable. You’ve made much more of an effort to use your bike in a fashion which isn’t workman like.
The problem that ‘commuters’ (and by that I mean people who only use there bike for perfunctory matters) is that they don’t see their bike as much more than a means when actually is it so much more. Also, you lose out on the social aspect, learning from other riders and enjoying the experience in a social way. Have a chat on the club run is far better than the abuse you’ll get riding in commuter traffic.
Most people who ‘use it as weekend leisure hobby’ would love to use their bike all day everyday. Weekends are just the times when you get to express that by getting up early when there’s less traffic to bother you and cycling becomes less fraught.
Every working day I see
Every working day I see hundreds of people on the London underground, on autopilot, headphones in, iPhone taking their full attention and apparently unaware that standing on the edge of a platform with a 3 foot drop onto 650v rails and big trains coming through is dangerous.
The hazards should be obvious but the everyday routine if it seems to blunt their awareness.
Equating this to cycle commuters is it unimaginable that a percentage of them are equally on a form of autopilot? Does anyone teach you to ride in traffic? Could it not be that a few moments speaking to plod may be beneficial? It should be perfectly funking obvious that riding with headphones is a bad idea but clearly to many people it isn’t.
What I’m trying and failing to say is that first of all, common sense isn’t all that common, and also that there are possibly many people who use bikes but apply little thought to it. Much the same as the differences between the petrol head speeders, the super straight IAM types and the distracted school run mum type drivers, could there not be the same diversity in cycle users?
Besides, I doubt that plod are as persistent as your average high street chugger if you aren’t interested and if you’ve not committed an offence then I’m sure they’d hardly run after you if you didn’t want to stop.
Had plod done nothing then they’d be criticised for that too.
allez neg wrote:Every working
There is a lot of truth to what you say. We all need a Tyler Duerden character to smack us in the head with a bicycle pump to make us wake up to the reality and demands of cycling.
Seems to me the most
Seems to me the most important thing here is that they didn’t find any cyclists to give a ticket to, but 60 lorry offences across 20 lorries. Scary!
The UK has higher helmet use
The UK has higher helmet use than the Netherlands yet has three times the casualty rate.
Australia has compulsory helmets and almost nobody cycles in that country, so whether or not the law has reduced cycling still further (people seem to keep arguing about this), there is no way you can cite that country as a model to follow. Its transport culture is disastrous.
They suffer the much more significant health problems caused by car-centricity (Australians are the fattest people in the developed world after the US, apparently, even worse than us, something which surprises me).
What keeps getting ignored in all this is that the major health risks are all associated with car use. The health damage caused by car use (via accidents, physical inactivity, _and_ pollution, both local and global) dwarfs any tiny difference in health outcomes that come from cyclists wearing or not wearing helmets.
Why are the police not stopping drivers and asking them if their journey is really necessary and do they really need to do it in a car? That would be the equivalent of challenging non-hemleted cyclists.
I don’t see why people are unable to see how silly it is to keep banging on about helmets for cyclists while ignoring the much more urgent problem of stopping people from driving so much. A culture of driving is a health emergency, a culture of cycling-without-helmets is not.
This blog is well worth a
This blog is well worth a read:
http://primlystable.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/dead-cyclists-missing-helmets-and.html
(not my blog by the way, I saw it linked to on Twitter).
crazy-legs wrote:This blog is
Good piece. Thanks.
Excellent piece. Sums up my
Excellent piece. Sums up my thoughts exactly.
I think helmets should be the
I think helmets should be the law im quite sure it would save a lot of lifes . I myself is a very keen cyclist and go out in all weathers (not ice) and im always wear a helmet I don’t feel save without one.
Annabella wrote:I think
A good test of helmet efficacy would be to make them compulsory, so that the wearing rate went up by a large amount, say 30% to 95%. We could then see whether the cyclist casualty rate went down.
If the claims by helmet enthusiasts are correct, claims of up to 85% efficacy, it would show. there could be no dispute about whether helmets work.
This “experiment” has been tried, in Oz and NZ, on large numbers of cyclists. The result was no change in casualty rates.
You may be sure helmets would save lives but the evidence is against you.
If you want to force me into a foam hat you need better evidence.
The Ontario study is the most
The Ontario study is the most interesting. A mandatory child helmet law doubled child helmet wearing and the child head injury rate fell. But the police didn’t bother enforcing it so over the next three years helmet wearing fell back to the pre-law levels. And the child head injury rate continued to fall. In fact a doubling (to almost 100%) of the helmet wearing rate and then a subsequent halving of it made no discernible difference to the long term trend in child head injuries.
Can anyone tell me where to
Can anyone tell me where to get one of these cycling helmets that the police are promoting that can ward off a 30 ton truck if it runs over me? 😕
Tony wrote:Can anyone tell me
So far in London this year
So far in London this year –
Cyclist deaths: 14
Deaths caused by the pollution: 3,550
I think we’re all looking at the wrong thing.
I want a mask that still works when I cycle hard, they tend to fit bad and get soggy from breath moisture.
Everyone seems to think you should be wearing a helmet, but you are 273 times more likely to contract a lung disease and die.
Do we have regular big protracted arguments here on road.cc about how bad London’s pollution is?
How many times have Met Police stopped vehicles in London because they were belching clouds of black smoke. Buses and cabs are particularly guilty of doing this. Cabs account for 30% of inner London’s pollution.
How many traffic wardens does London have?
How many vehicle pollution checkers does London have?
Agree with kie7077. Plod has
Agree with kie7077. Plod has to be seen to be fair in a ‘crack-down’ such as this. Handing down advice on helmet-wearing may be exasperating to bike riders, esp if you are late for work. But surely we can live with it if it puts a weed up the ass of all those piece-work contractors hurtling around town in dodgy trucks?
harman_mogul wrote:Agree with
Would you be happy if, at the same time, they also gave out advice to women about dressing appropriately to avoid sexual assault?
I’ve no problem with the
I’ve no problem with the police stopping me and providing me with some sound advice about staying safe but in this case some of the advice they are giving is not necesarily sound.
The advice about headphones is good, advice about being visible (not necesarily high-vis) is also good, as has been discussed on here many times, helmet wearing is a double-edged sword which reduces risk in certain circumstances and increases it in others.
To be fair, its not the police at fault here but the highway code. The advice they are giving is based on the highway code and they don’t have anything else to go on.
It does worry me that this enforces the creaping compulsion that we are seeing. If this sort of thing becomes a regular occurance riders will recognise that wearing a helmet = not getting stopped. Although this doesn’t ammount to compulsion it could modify cyclist behaviour to some extent.
I’ve no problem with the
I’ve no problem with the police stopping me and providing me with some sound advice about staying safe but in this case some of the advice they are giving is not necesarily sound.
The advice about headphones is good, advice about being visible (not necesarily high-vis) is also good, as has been discussed on here many times, helmet wearing is a double-edged sword which reduces risk in certain circumstances and increases it in others.
To be fair, its not the police at fault here but the highway code. The advice they are giving is based on the highway code and they don’t have anything else to go on.
It does worry me that this enforces the creaping compulsion that we are seeing. If this sort of thing becomes a regular occurance riders will recognise that wearing a helmet = not getting stopped. Although this doesn’t ammount to compulsion it could modify cyclist behaviour to some extent.
(No subject)