An Irish children’s hospital consultant has spoken out making the case for cyclists to be legally required to wear a helmet, arguing accident and emergency units see a spike in crash-related injuries during the summer months.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Radio 1 programme Dr Carol Blackburn, a paediatric emergency medicine consultant at CHI Crumlin, argued that the data from Australia is “well demonstrated” and said a mandatory helmet law would likely see “hospitalisations for significant head injuries reduced”.
“The data that we have would demonstrate that the safety of bicycle helmets for cycling collisions can reduce the instance of serious brain injury by up to 80 per cent and can reduce facial injuries by around two thirds, and that’s in children and young people colliding with other vehicles or just falling off their bicycle,” she said.
Asked if she wished to see Ireland follow Australia’s lead and introduce a requirement for cyclists to wear helmets, she said: “I think so. We know there is data in Australia that after the wearing of bicycle helmets was made a legal requirement, hospitalisations for significant head injuries reduced so there is an impact of it.
“Also compliance increases and it is a good thing for children to see and a good habit to get into. In many ways it is a simple intervention, helmets are not expensive any more, I think for most people if they can afford a bicycle a small additional cost for a bicycle would not impede them. The benefits are really quite well demonstrated internationally, so yes we would love to see it become a requirement in Ireland.”
As the weather improves through spring and into May, Dr Blackburn reports “we start to see children who come in having sustained injuries from road traffic accidents where they’ve come off their bicycles or scooters, but mostly bicycles”.
“Some of these injuries would include fairly significant head injuries; like moderate severity concussions, perhaps skull fractures or indeed facial lacerations and other injuries, a certain number of which would certainly be prevented if these children and young people have been wearing properly fitted bicycle helmets.
“On a bicycle a child is very exposed, there really is nothing protecting them from the elements if they are to collide with something or to come off their bicycle.”
The helmet debate is a well-trodden path, the science around wearing helmets complicated. A 2017 review by statisticians at the University of New South Wales found that, based on 40 separate studies, helmet use significantly reduced the odds of head injury, and that the probability of suffering a fatal head injury was lower when cyclists wore a helmet although, the authors noted, helmets cannot eliminate the risk of injury entirely.
Another study from the same year, from Norway’s Institute of Transport Economics, concluded – based on an overview of almost 30 years’ worth of analysis – that bike helmets reduced head injury by 48 per cent, serious head injury by 60 per cent, traumatic brain injury by 53 per cent, facial injury by 23 per cent, and the total number of killed or seriously injured cyclists by 34 per cent.
However, while they are certainly useful when it comes to lessening the potential severity of a serious head injury, helmets have proved markedly less effective when it comes to preventing concussion, a reality of their protective limitations recognised by only one in five competitive cyclists, according to a recent study.
“Our conclusions are not that cycling headgear doesn’t afford protection, but that more independent research underpinning new technologies marketed for reducing concussion is needed,” said the study’s lead, and former racing cyclist, Dr Jack Hardwicke last year.
In 2020, Eric Richter, the senior brand development manager at Giro also spoke out clarifying some of the “many misconceptions” about helmets, explaining how they “do not design helmets specifically to reduce chances or severity of injury when impacts involve a car”.
Away from the science of injury and helmets’ effectiveness, campaigners have argued that in the hierarchy of methods to protect cyclists, legal requirements for personal protective equipment should not be prioritised over reducing dangerous driving and building safe cycle routes, Chris Boardman in 2014 calling helmets a “red herring”.
Speaking to road.cc he suggested widespread use of helmets spreads the wrong message and “scares people off”.
“We’ve got to tackle the helmet debate head on because it’s so annoying,” Boardman said. “I think the helmet issue is a massive red herring. It’s not even in the top 10 of things you need to do to keep cycling safe or more widely, save the most lives.”
Research from Dr Ian Walker also found that drivers gave cyclists wearing helmets less room when overtaking, while last week we reported a new study from Australia that found that cyclists wearing helmets were seen as “less human” than those without.
That research came just days before Conservative MP Mark Pawsey raised the question of mandatory helmets in Parliament, suggesting: “If mandatory safety measures are acceptable for car drivers, they should surely be acceptable for cyclists.”
As recently as December his own government had shut down similar talk, the Department for Transport saying it has “no intention” to make wearing a helmet while cycling a legal requirement.
108 thoughts on “Call for mandatory cycling helmets from children’s hospital consultant”
Has he consulted with
Why stop at banning cycling by proxy when directly banning it would see even more people saved from the consequences of crashing or falling off?
Has he consulted with colleagues who deal with obesity and its consequences, mental health, etc? All we’ll see is his numbers going down a little whilst theirs go up further.
The trick to making helmets actually save lives [b]overall[/b] is to encourage their [b]voluntary [/b]adoption, so that no one is dissuaded from cycling owing to [b]compulsory [/b]compliance.
Also – since this is a
Also – since this is a children’s hospital – we need much more controls around those kids running about and playing. Lots of injuries from that…
It’s about sensible balancing of overall health risks both from doing certain activities AND not doing others. Currently the environment we live in promotes sedentarism / restricts the independent movement (and indeed interactions) of children.
Confession time – when I (re
Confession time – when I (re)started cycling, I thought it was compulsory to wear a helmet, so I have always worn one.
I came off once (I had run my chain wayy too long) head first onto the pavement. The helmet had a nice dent that otherwise would have been in my head. Was happy to be wearing a helmet that day.
However, I am fully aware that the helmet will do next to nothing for me when a drivist hits me.
Cycling is a sport. Yes, people cycle their commute (I’m one) but it is primarily a sport. I have also fallen when running – should runners need helmets? How about rugby players? Football players? Should swimmers have to wear life jackets?
(by the way – I’m not actually clumsy, despite the evidence)
HoldingOn wrote:
In the UK, that is probably true, but it shouldn’t be.
If we want to encourage more people to cycle in order to improve general health, deal with the obesity crisis and cut the use of motor vehicles for stupidly short trips across town to reduce air pollution and our contribution to the climate crisis then we need to not be placing further barriers on uptake and making decisions that reinforce the ideas that (a) cycling is inherently dangerous and (b) you can only do it if you use specialist equipment.
Also, Mark Pawsey falls into the classic trap of making an argument based on the erroneous assumption that cars and bicycles are basically the same.
Firstly – if it wasn’t clear
Firstly – if it wasn’t clear – I am most definitely in favour of leaving helmets as a choice.
The “dangerous” aspect – do lights* have the same impact? About half of my commutes legally have to be done with lights so I can be seen – I would argue that lights represent a bigger danger, as they are there to prevent metal death boxes from ploughing into me. (yeah – that’ll stop them…) Whereas a helmet is there in case I topple over.
*lights and reflectors
I find it weird that helmets are generally seen as representative of “danger” – but humans are a weird creature.
Your body: your choice
Your body: your choice
To be honest, I’m not sure I
To be honest, I’m not sure I’d agree that in the UK cycling is primarily a “sport”, if by that we mean “competitive”. It may be true of the demographic on road.cc, but as I sit here just of Russel Square in London, all of the cyclists going past are definitely not racing anyone. What metric are we using to classify UK cycling as “sport” (and hence an out group for the majority of the population) when I’d have thought it would serve us all to avoid exaggerating that classification.
And in the interests of full disclosure yes I fled the country to South Australia in 2005; we’re back for a holiday.
I have no metric to support
I have no metric to support my wild claim that cycling is primarily a “sport” – it’s merely how I was brought up with it.
I am classifying it as a sport in much the same way I classify running as a sport (also how I was brought up to see it) Running is in the Olympics, but I certainly don’t run at Olympic level. I used to run competitively, but don’t anymore. I have even run my commute before.
As for whether or not it would be beneficial to classify it as a sport – my point was to liken it to football/rugby/swimming to point out that these are other “dangerous” activities, that don’t require legal intervention for safety.
I was certainly not attempting to force an unwanted classification on cycling. I am keen to encourage everyone to cycle and wouldn’t want to exclude anyone by calling it a sport.
Thanks for the clarrification
Thanks for the clarrification. As you’ve experienced, many things* can exist as both sport and “passtime”, and I think most cyclists sit in the latter category, or as commuters, at least most of the time. I tend not to count the occasional ad hoc race I would fall into with another commuter as “sport”, just good fun :).
* I accept that javelin throwing, and it’s ilk, may be less often seen as passtimes 🙂
Sriracha wrote:
For adults, yes. For (small) children though, everything is compulsory to an extent. My 6-y-o has to wear her helmet when riding her bike or scooter, because I won’t let her ride otherwise. It’s never stopped her, and it’s one of the few things we’ve not yet argued about, but there is a force for little kids in “look, it’s the law: we’ll get in trouble if we don’t do this.”
Obviously this won’t work when she’s much older, let alone a teenager who will be delighted to see me clapped in irons. But by then, I’d hope she’d have grown into the sort of moderately-resilient person who isn’t going to abandon an enjoyable and useful activity because a helmet might mess her hair up or need locking to her bike or something.
I’m firmly against mandatory helmets for adults, because although I don’t like banging my head very hard against the road I feel that the overall balance might not be clear-cut enough to justify compulsion. I probably wouldn’t vote for legal compulsion for children, either, largely because I’m not sure it’s workable. But having grown up wearing a helmet while cycling and not once finding it the worst inconvenience of a journey, I don’t fully understand why people (other than Martin73’s imaginary wife) would find it such a problem.
Brauchsel wrote:
There’s a strong argument for not getting kids to wear helmets as it gives them a false sense of security and increases their risk appetite as well as giving them the impression that riding a bicycle is an inherently dangerous activity. However, if you do choose to make them wear a helmet, then ensure that the chin strap can come apart under stress to avoid any strangulation risk.
“There’s a strong argument
“There’s a strong argument for not getting kids to wear helmets as it gives them a false sense of security and increases their risk appetite”
Have you ever met any small children? Pretty much all they have is a false sense of security, and their appetite for risk is enormous for even a tiny potential reward. If you’re advocating a Darwinian thinning of the ranks, so be it, but kids can make pretty much any activity inherently dangerous which is why they often have safety equipment that adults might not choose for themselves.
I didn’t die or have permanent life-changing injuriesfrom any of the stupid things I did as a kid, but a fair few I knew did and it doesn’t feel like as many do nowadays. H&S culture isn’t wholly bad.
Brauchsel wrote:
I think the idea is to let them explore their limits with the occasional crash being a teaching moment rather than it being all or nothing. There must be some optimal strategy between covering kids in as much PPE as practical and letting them cycle on the edge of a volcano.
hawkinspeter]
And that’s what I aim for. She doesn’t wear elbow/knee/wrist protectors, as road (pavement) rash and a few bruises are learning experiences and even the odd fracture wouldn’t be the end of the world. If she falls and catches her head the wrong way on a kerb or bollard it could be the end of my world, and even “just” a brain injury could seriously limit the absorption of future teachable moments. So she wears a helmet as partial mitigation of that risk, and I don’t see any downside beyond it being another fucking thing for me to carry when she gets bored or distracted.
Brauchsel wrote:
Have you ever met any small children? Pretty much all they have is a false sense of security, and their appetite for risk is enormous for even a tiny potential reward. If you’re advocating a Darwinian thinning of the ranks, so be it, but kids can make pretty much any activity inherently dangerous which is why they often have safety equipment that adults might not choose for themselves.
— BrauchselResearch was done on kids risk taking during play, and it turned out that they were just like adults, in that the more ppe you gave them, the bigger the risks they took. So it seems likely that giving them a helmet does give them a false sense of security: just like adults.
As a child of the 60’s/70’s I
As a child of the 60’s/70’s I don’t think I ever came off my bike and hit my head. I did though sprain wrists and loose skin on my hands, elbows and knees on various occasions. I did though learn to take it easy in order to avoid further damage. Even the handful of times I’ve come a cropper as an adult it’s been my hands and wrists that have taken the brunt.
I would much rather these experts demand that motorists demonstrate greater care on the roads as it is the doctors who have to put the victims back together.
“I would much rather these
“I would much rather these experts demand that motorists demonstrate greater care on the roads as it is the doctors who have to put the victims back together.”
It’s not either/or. I don’t let my child cycle on many of the roads around me, because I don’t trust the motorists to drive safely around a six-year-old. I push for expansion of LTNs and School Streets for that reason (and others). But I also make her wear a helmet, because I think about the time my brother fell and his helmet split like an egg on the kerb when he was eight. It’s an unlikely risk, but one with catastrophic consequences if it was realised. As there are zero downsides to putting a mitigation in place, I simply don’t understand why I wouldn’t do so.
What are the stats for broken
What are the stats for broken limbs and dog lead related injuries?
Do they go up when more activities are undertaken?
Can I just say, that in the
Can I just say, that in the picture of the article above, and in keeping with alot of my observations on the roads of NL and London, when looking at the fitting and especially the adjustment of the helmet straps, in around 2/3rd of cases of helmet wearing I observe, the straps are flapping around, and that helmet is gonna do sweet FA in the event it is needed. In fact, its more dangerous to wear a loosely adjusted helmet than no helmet at all.
The idiots (the Dr in today’s case) that advovate for mandatory use are likely themselves ‘helmets’.
One chap I see regularly in
One chap I see regularly in my area never does up his helmet when cycling. I just saw someone wearing her helmet back to front, protecting the rear of her head.
“We know there is data in
“We know there is data in Australia that after the wearing of bicycle helmets was made a legal requirement, hospitalisations for significant head injuries reduced so there is an impact of it.”
Um, we also know that the number of people cycling was DECIMATED by the introduction of mandatory helmets in Australia. No wonder the hospitalisations decreased.
Or is the good doctor trying to pull the wool over our eyes?
Whoa! Whoa! Hold up, hang
Whoa! Whoa! Hold up, hang on a minute….
https://i.imgur.com/rOKpi1L.gif
She might want to check with
She might want to check with this chap…
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cycle-helmets-don-t-provide-protection-says-neurosurgeon-9465257.html
Quote:
Why would they need helmets at the Hay Festival?
HoldingOn wrote:
Books falling off shelves?
https://beerhelmetaction
https://beerhelmetaction.wordpress.com/
I assume beverages are available at the Hay Festival?
Presumably the each-other
Presumably the each-other-hating authors having fights.
Should mandate a cycle bog-snorkeling competition.
“We know there is data in
“We know there is data in Australia that after the wearing of bicycle helmets was made a legal requirement, hospitalisations for significant head injuries reduced so there is an impact of it”
The introduction of helmets to troops in WW1 resulted in an increase of head injuries – but with a commensurate reduction in deaths, as a soldier who would have previously been killed now ended up with a head injury. Shouldn’t something similar have been seen with cycle helmets if they work?
Deeferdonk wrote:
The greatest effect of mandatory helmets in Australia was to reduce the number of cyclists and to enable police to target poor communities and racial minorities.
I can’t remember the details, but I recall that the number of head collisions needing treatment reduced less than the reduction in cyclists which would mean that it was likely more dangerous to cycle after the law was introduced (probably due to the “safety in numbers” effect with cycling).
‘The greatest effect of
‘The greatest effect of mandatory helmets in Australia was to reduce the number of cyclists and to enable police to target poor communities and racial minorities’.. only a Guardian reading lefty would believe this nonsense.
Looks like you are wrong:
Looks like you are wrong:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/nov/26/queensland-police-allowed-sexist-and-racist-attitudes-to-flourish-advocates-are-worried-about-its-100m-reward
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/nov/13/queensland-police-service-qps-leaked-audio-recording-tape-brisbane-city-watch-house
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/08/victoria-police-force-apology-first-nations-chief-shane-patton-apologises-systemic-racism-discrimination-indigenous-australians
Proud to be a Guardian reading lefty.
And yet you fail to show any
And yet you fail to show any counter argument or data or a link.
Best to throw in mild insults.
grOg wrote:
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/cycling-without-a-helmet-in-these-suburbs-the-quickest-route-to-police-search-20200514-p54svz.html
Quote:
Is that because they want to be treating an obese population with sedentary diseases?
How do these people avoid looking at any statistics for causes of death and just randomly decide that cycling must be a massive problem that needs PPE intervention? Why did she just look at Australia and not all the various European countries that have enabled larger numbers of cyclists?
I can’t believe that she’s that stupid, so I reckon she’s been put up to this by some oil/motor consortium.
I am pretty sure medics have
I am pretty sure medics have vastly over-inflated opinions of themselves. These consultants are treated like gods within their little worlds, and they feel like god
– don’t they use their incredible skills to save people’s lives every day?
They then conclude they are indeed all but god like beings. This confidence they carry over when making pronouncements on all other aspects of society.
As a result, when you compare their _confidence_ in their own knowledge and judgement, to what they /actually/ know, they are basically utter idiots.
What’s the difference between
What’s the difference between god and a consultant?
God doesn’t think he’s a consultant.
Wouldn’t it be more effective
Wouldn’t it be more effective just to ban bicycles, rather than mandate helmets?
mattw wrote:
Ah, but they don’t want to be seen to ban bicycles, They’d rather just put a situation in place where the number of cyclists reduces whilst being able to say, “But it’s all to do with safety!”
brooksby wrote:
I don’t think it’s even about wanting to reduce cycling, but more of a distraction tactic. Whilst people are arguing about the pros and cons of bike helmets, they forget about all the motorised vehicles that frequently cause death and mayhem and the companies behind them that are destroying our planet in the pursuit of some profits.
hawkinspeter wrote:
I don’t even think it’s a distraction tactic; people “don’t see the cars for the traffic” and more-or-less take the current situation as a given *. Few would really question the status quo any more than they’d ask “what if we just removed all the supermarkets / ready-meals though?”
* In my experience if people think about it at all it’s probably seen as a positive – “freedom” / “independence” / “what keeps the economy going”. The negatives are seen as “congestion” – or maybe “smoky exhausts”. Things like “suppression of independent mobility”, “vast use of public space (and money)”, “increase in centralisation (of amenities)” or “increase in requirement to travel (due to centralisation / because we expect people to be able to)” don’t often figure.
First rule of hazard
First rule of hazard management is to remove the HAZARD – ie cars.
swldxer wrote:
“The first rule of hazard management”
Been watching Fight Club have you?
In the context of road safety
In the context of road safety, you’ve got a point! “The first rule of political discussions about road safety is don’t talk about engineering. Invert the hierarchy of hazard management and discuss PPE / administrative control measures instead”.
Make political sense obviously – cheaper and less change for drivers!
Engineering is 3rd level,
Engineering is 3rd level, first is elimination of motorized traffic in our case.
So first rule of road safety fight club is simply: Don’t ever question motorized traffic.
Shh! Don’t even think it…
Shh! Don’t even think it…
It feels to me like the first
It feels to me like the first rule of political discussions about road safety is “over-simply a complex problem in an absurd manner that suits your agenda while demonstrating a complete ignorance of relevant subject matter”.
“Remove the HAZARD – i.e. cars” is a great example, suggesting that an inanimate and unthinking object is in any way a hazard.
Elimination does tend to be the most effective type of control, but eliminating the hazard of collisions between cycles and motor vehicles would be accomplished with far less effort by banning cycling in the roads. Banning cycling would affect far fewer road users than banning motor vehicles, so the effort is lower. People calling for elimination of the hazard should be careful what they wish for.
I don’t see cycling killing
I don’t see cycling killing loads of pedestrians every year, most of whom are killed either on or next to the carriageway and who are not told to wear helmets constantly for protection.
AlsoSomniloquism wrote:
Are you suggesting eliminating the hazard by preventing people walking? Seems to me to be even further beyond a ‘reasonably practicable’ control than “BAN ALL THE CARS!!!!”
ShutTheFrontDawes wrote:
Shurely “the first rule of
politicaldiscussion…?”Quite right – the semantics have it. Cars don’t kill people, people kill people – so we just need to remove the drivers. On the other hand, all those cars now sitting motionless everywhere (barring a few under the control of our future robot successors) do get in the way a bit.
I’m sure banning road cycling has been regularly considered since cars were on the horizon (IIRC Carlton Reid dug up some quotes from ministers in the 1930s along those lines during his research). However once the direction of travel became clear most sensible politicians probably assumed it would naturally disappear. Which it essentially did in the UK.
Having mentioned the machine intelligences though perhaps we should eliminate people full stop? They seem to be both the source of many issues affecting the world and also complaints about it. The internet need not be troubled though – we’ve got enough data there so that AI can continue to fill it with similar content.
chrisonatrike wrote:
Shurely “the first rule of
politicaldiscussion…?”Quite right – the semantics have it. Cars don’t kill people, people kill people – so we just need to remove the drivers. On the other hand, all those cars now sitting motionless everywhere (barring a few under the control of our future robot successors) do get in the way a bit.
I’m sure banning road cycling has been regularly considered since cars were on the horizon (IIRC Carlton Reid dug up some quotes from ministers in the 1930s along those lines during his research). However once the direction of travel became clear most sensible politicians probably assumed it would naturally disappear. Which it essentially did in the UK.
Having mentioned the machine intelligences though perhaps we should eliminate people full stop? They seem to be both the source of many issues affecting the world and also complaints about it. The internet need not be troubled though – we’ve got enough data there so that AI can continue to fill it with similar content.— ShutTheFrontDawes
People don’t kill people. The number of drivers that have been involved in a collision involving a death is vanishingly small. The number that have caused a death (e.g. due to their own negligence) is even smaller. The number of drivers on UK roads is huge.
It’s far more true to say that people don’t kill people.
ShutTheFrontDawes wrote:
Statistically, only about 93% of all humans have died…
hawkinspeter wrote:
Amazing isn’t it?
ShutTheFrontDawes wrote:
Another good point – we should certainly have some perspective on this. For what it’s worth I’m as much interested in all the other negatives of mass motoring and how to reduce / mitigate those. But then I’ve not known anyone who died in a car crash – I’m sure that might have an effect on my perspective.
Anyway, your statement is true – in exactly the same way as helmets don’t save lives *runs for cover*.
chrisonatrike wrote:
Another good point – we should certainly have some perspective on this. For what it’s worth I’m as much interested in all the other negatives of mass motoring and how to reduce / mitigate those. But then I’ve not known anyone who died in a car crash – I’m sure that might have an effect on my perspective.
Anyway, your statement is true – in exactly the same way as helmets don’t save lives *runs for cover*.— ShutTheFrontDawes
Me too. I’m pro segregated infra, although i wouldn’t use it unless it was more convenient and a better overall solution that using the road. I’m pro mass transit. I’m pro driver training. I’m pro enforcement of driving laws. I’m pro helmet use. There are lots of reasonably practicable things that we can do to improve the safety of human beings on highways (and in general) and I think it’s gross negligence that the government doesn’t utilise developments in processes and tools available to reduce risk.
When we deal in absolutes like “cars are hazards” or “people kill people” (and yes, “helmets save lives”) we oversimplify the issue to the point is not helpful. We could say “people don’t get KSI’d crossing the road” (they don’t far more often than they do, after all) and do away with crossings, traffic lights, etc. I don’t think anyone is suggesting that.
And yes, the benefit of helmets is small. They reduce/prevent only some injury to only part of the body in only some circumstances; the reduction in the quantum of risk is small. But the quantum of effort to use one is also small, in general at least. I put my helmet on as part of the routine of getting my bike out. It adds maybe 10s to my routine. It’s there and it didn’t cost a lot (to me). And I don’t mind at all it being on my head. For me, it’s worth it. Low reward yes, but also very low cost.
For some people the quantum of effort is higher. Some people can’t afford a helmet (though in many cases they also can’t afford a bike) and some people just straight up don’t like having a helmet in their head.
The issue I have is when people quote the hierarchy of controls as though PPE is worthless. The fact is that PPE in the workplace is sometimes necessary and indeed if the quantum of risk reduction is not disproportionately small compared to the effort required, the PPE is necessary to comply with UK Law (HSAWA 1974 s 2(2)).
Yes, PPE rarely the only control applied but it is sometimes a necessary control to comply with UK law.
“The number of drivers that
“The number of drivers that have been involved in a collision involving a death is vanishingly small.”
That’s quite an astonishing argument coming from a helmet advocate, who per definition is willing to oblige everyone to do things for infinitesimal gains.
marmotte27 wrote:
It’s not an astonishing argument at all. The benefit outweighs the cost, for me at least. I’ll say it again for you:
Ok, so lets get going with
Ok, so lets get going with motor traffic reduction. The benefits will be huge since motoring is an enormous net cost to society.
ShutTheFrontDawes wrote:
Again you’re correct – and that is exactly what has happened in some places in NL. Sounds like a terrible imposition! But before put-upon UK cyclist / angry “vehicular cycling” roadies shouting “over my flat 18mm tyres!” get triggered – in NL a) this is only compulsory where better infra for cycling on has been provided and b) it turns out that far from being an impediment cycling can actually be faster there. It doesn’t stop the roadies or those going even faster.
Common good not your forte.
Common good not your forte. But then we knew that.
marmotte27 wrote:
Reducing risk not in the common good? My mistake.
ShutTheFrontDawes wrote:
If reducing risk also reduces the health benefits by acting as a barrier to getting people to cycle, then it could easily end up causing more harm than it prevents. Society is better off with getting as many people onto bikes as possible if only for the health benefits (there’s also the pollution and congestion issues that would improve), so that should be the focus and one of the biggest reasons that people don’t cycle is because they perceive it as being dangerous. Focussing on PPE rather than driving standards only enhances the view of cycling as a dangerous activity.
hawkinspeter wrote:
I would be interested in any data to back up the assertion that I think you’re making (along the lines of “trying to make cycling safer by suggesting or mandating helmets makes them think it’s more dangerous” -please correct me if I’ve misunderstood). We as human beings seem to do things more readily if we think it’s safer. Eburt has explained a logical argument that some people take more risks when cycling with a helmet because they think their helmet makes them more immortal than reality.
If mandating helmets (for the sake of example, I don’t advocate for that) made people think that cycling is dangerous on the basis that “they’re trying to make it safer – it must be dangerous”, wouldn’t the same logic apply to other ways of making cycling safer? E.g. infra improvements? (I should clarify I’m all for infra improvements and not suggesting for a moment we shouldn’t improve infra)
ShutTheFrontDawes wrote:
I’ll have a look for some data in a bit, though I suspect it’ll be hard to find as it’s more to do with people’s attitudes.
It’s a different scenario with segregated infrastructure as that tends to emphasis the danger that drivers pose and it fits in with people’s expectations as we have a segregated environment for walking (i.e. pavements) and certainly walking is not seen as a dangerous activity.
I think the danger aspect is often emphasised by well meaning cyclists/helmet advocates that declare things like “you’d be an idiot to cycle without a helmet” or “you’ve only got one head” etc. (not accusing you of saying that, by the way). That makes people think that the danger from drivers is mainly encountered when cycling although there’s a similar danger level posed to pedestrians. By promoting cycle helmets and not pedestrian helmets, there’s a bias introduced into people’s attitudes towards cycling.
Edit: found this which is close: http://rachelaldred.org/writing/reframing-safety-an-analysis-of-perceptions-of-safety-clothing/
There’s also this which is semi-related to your point about cycle lanes increasing the perception of risk: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260266221_Safe_Cycling_How_Do_Risk_Perceptions_Compare_With_Observed_Risk
Thanks for sharing. They both
Thanks for sharing. They both seem to suggest that when people feel less safe, they cycle less, and when they wear helmets and high Vis, they feel safer. There’s interesting outliers regarding observed vs perceived risks too.
Promoting cycling is in the
Promoting cycling is in the common good, motoring is not.
As I’ve said before:
As I’ve said before:
– Even if it’s true that helmets somewhat reduce the harm from some collisions/falls, it’s definitely true that by far the most important thing for increasing cycling safety is improving infrastructure/attitudes/enforcement related to road usage. If you really care about the safety of cyclists, focus on those things; helmets are just a distraction.
– As a matter of personal choice, it’s probably a good idea to wear a helmet, as 1) they can likely reduce the harm from some collisions/falls and have little downside *when chosen to be worn on an individual level*, and 2) even if infrastructure/attitudes/enforcement related to road usage *should* be improved, I think we can all agree that *in reality* they are woefully inadequate–and, after all, the way things should be doesn’t protect us from dangers that actually are.
(However, if for whatever reason you personally don’t want to wear a helmet, go ahead and cycle anyway! Although cycling isn’t as safe as it should be, it’s still easily safe enough that your mental and physical health will be better overall for doing it.)
– As a matter of public policy, it’s not a good idea to insist on helmets, because 1) since helmets are nowhere near the most important thing for increasing cycling safety, helmet requirements simply divert our limited resources (including attention) away from the most useful improvements and toward relatively trivial ones, 2) helmet requirements have a negative impact *when enforced at a policy level* due to point number 1 above plus the likelihood that helmet requirements decrease the amount of cycling overall, which has a number of drawbacks for city design, the environment, public health, and the safety of the remaining people who do cycle, and 3) it’s none of your fucking business what I choose to do on a personal level in this case because it doesn’t relevantly affect you on a public level–and if you don’t want my helmet-less head to get splattered all over the pavement, then maybe don’t drive like a fucking asshole, and focus your attention on making sure other people don’t either and that cycling infrastructure gets improved instead of worrying about what I do as a matter of personal choice.
Eloquent and well thought out
Eloquent and well thought out points, that took a sudden sweary turn at the end.
Made me chuckle.
Of course, according to the
Of course, according to the police I’m a very naughty boy who’s just committed an offense worse than running someone over with a 2 ton killing machine. Good to know they’ve got their priorities straight.
I’ll assume the photo at the
I’ll assume the photo at the top of the article is the consultant in question?
For a woman of significant intelligence to reach the level of consultant you’d imagine that she would ensure her helmet was fitting properly when being photo’d.
Such loose straps as that would do the square root of fuck all in keeping her polystyrene life saving equipment in place in the event of an accident.
You might be a consultant, but that doesn’t offer you leeway to not doing it right.
Some people really should put their brain into gear before opening their mouths.
You assume wrong.. that photo
You assume wrong.. that photo is not of the consultant.
Why not just skip to the
Why not just skip to the ultimate solution and ban kids from riding bikes? That will eliminate ALL bicycle related injuries.
I’m guessing that around half
I’m guessing that around half of the patients that the consultant in question treats are drivers and passengers involved in car crashes. Any helmet recommendations form them?
Cycling, scootering, playing
Cycling, scootering, playing football at the park, accidents around the home, being a passenger in the family car. Maybe all children should have a helmet glued to their head as soon as they start to crawl?
And pedestrians – why does
And pedestrians – why does the medical profession and politicians never demand that motorists and pedestrians wear crash helmets? after all most head injuries happen to them.
Cause they’re part of the
Cause they’re part of the usual anti-cycling tendency in society, except they’re falsely using their (irrelevant) clinical qualifications to claim (or be ascribed) authority over social issues they have fuck all qualification to pontificate on.
Which all feeds into the god complex many medics have.
BBB wrote:
I hope not
Why do we keep giving any
Why do we keep giving any time to these people simply because they have a Dr in front of their name.
If they aren’t quoting from a top grade medical study they are just another arsehole with a opinion .
Most doctors know the theory of how to run a treatment or prevention study but get the support of experts when they actually run one.
Secret_squirrel wrote:
The anti-helmet brigade don’t want to hear about studies on the efficacy of helmets at preventing head injuries (“the worst of bad science” if I seem to recall), they don’t want to hear from doctors who specialise in cranial injuries and surgeries on the basis they don’t know anything about helmets (despite a total lack of knowledge about what the doctors do and do not know about helmets), they don’t want to hear from helmet manufacturers on the basis that it’s all just some big conspiracy.
I think they just don’t want to hear about helmets.
Why do people keep giving these people time? Because they are knowledgeable in their field.
The anti-helmet brigade?
The anti-helmet brigade?
Most of us are simply against mandatory helmet regulations. Indeed, many (I’d wager most) of us who oppose such regulations nevertheless choose to wear helmets personally. We acknowledge that helmets can do some good; we just argue that the drawbacks of mandatory regulations overwhelm the benefits of helmets.
LookAhead wrote:
Some are, that’s true. I myself am against mandatory helmets, but every time you mention rule 59 of the highway code on this website it starts an argument.
ShutTheFrontDawes wrote:
Every time you mention rule 59 of the highway code on this website
ityou startsan argument.ftfy?
LookAhead wrote:
Every time you mention rule 59 of the highway code on this website
ityou startsan argument.ftfy?— ShutTheFrontDawes
That’s fair.
Not forgetting that
Not forgetting that compulsory helmets and the victim-blaming of hi-viz and hats for vulnerable road users will be worse than useless and solve nothing.
But instead let’s pompously malign the people pointing out this folly.
You sound very prescriptive.
You sound very prescriptive. That is not OK.
joe9090 wrote:
Oh boo. The bigot disagrees with me.
ShutTheFrontDawes wrote:
Maybe give your straw man a rest? You are wasting your time arguing with your imaginery friend, you can carry on doing that in private if you wish but do us all a favour and take your straw man elsewhere.
ChrisB200SX wrote:
One of the things about straw men is that they’re quiet. Lots of comments on this article alone though…
“We know there is data in
“We know there is data in Australia that after the wearing of bicycle helmets was made a legal requirement, hospitalisations for significant head injuries reduced……”
This article, and many others like it, prove that intelligence doesn’t prevent you being misguided. If the well-intentioned doctor had done even the merest smidgeon of research, she would have discovered that the reason why hospital admissions of cyclists fell after the helmet law was because there were fewer cyclists, and that cycling actually became more dangerous.
As others have pointed out, preventing one injury isn’t much use if the side effects are a hundred times worse than the injury. In this case, the only proven effect of helmet laws is to deter people from cycling, so that they lose the overwhelming benefits, and they get sicker quicker and die younger in poorer health.
I wonder when the BMA is going to have the promised review of the kangaroo court decision to support a helmet law? It’s only been ten years or so.
I cycle commute in Australia
I cycle commute in Australia and have done for decades; it’s a furphy that having to wear a helmet discourages people from cycling and as for cycling being more dangerous because cyclists wear helmets, that’s up there with all the outlandish conspiracy theories I’m sure you’d scoff at.
Except it’s true.
Except it’s true.
1) what’s a furphy? Not sure
1)
what’s a furphy? Not sure whether this is a typo or some Australian colloquialism. nevermind “A furphy is Australian slang for an erroneous or improbable story that is claimed to be factual.”2) what was the number of km travelled by bike before mandatory helmets and afterwards
3)what was the number of deaths per billion km cycled before mandatory helmets and what was it afterwards?
wycombewheeler wrote:
Scoffing at aussies coz they
Scoffing at aussies coz they often spout a load of old BS. The most preachiest bunch of bores I ever encountered.
joe9090 wrote:
Classic bigotry. I would love to see any evidence/data to back up grog’s point (I have looked for it and haven’t found it) but whether grog is right or wrong is irrespective of grog being Australian.
grOg wrote:
Taking your own single case and expanding it to the whole population isn’t really all that scientific, and has the rather inconvenient fact of being contradicted by the data. Not really up there with fake moon landings.
We’re onto another version of
We’re onto another version of the cat-with-buttered-toast-attached-to-its-back perpetual motion machine here. The spinning continues indefinitely…
Summer -> more people cycle –
Summer -> more people cycle -> more people get injured while cycling.
Give that woman a Nobel prize!
marmotte27 wrote:
Wasn’t there some study a few years ago which said that collisions happen on roads more frequently in summer because drivers are basically ogling people wearing their summer clothes…?
brooksby wrote:
Yeah, but they’ll be driving more slowly
“Conservative MP Mark Pawsey
“Conservative MP Mark Pawsey raised the question of mandatory helmets in Parliament”
but since he has a ten minute Private Members Bill those ten minutes will not result in a Vote so nothing will happen beyond some well meaning but misinformed virtue signalling.
Yawn…
.
.
Head injuries are a small
Head injuries are a small fraction of serious cycling injuries.
If you reduce a small fraction by 50%, you turn a small fraction into (in absolute terms) another marginally lower small fraction.
E.g., if you have 2 head injury in 200 injuries (and based on stats I heard from Irish Cycling’s doctor on /race/ injuries this may be over-stating head injuries), and you reduce these by 50% with helmets, then you now have 1 head injury in 199. The “50% effective!” helmets have reduced your injuries overall by… 0.5% overall. (Ignoring that head injury is likely to correlate strongly with incurring other injuries).
This is simply not the answer to cycling injuries, overwhelmingly due to dozy motor vehicle drivers. Helmets utterly fail to do anything about all the other injuries and deaths. They are useless as a systematic intervention.
Worse, the Australian experience is that cycling participation *plummeted* after mandatory helmet laws. *Especially* amongst teens and *even more so* amongst teenage girls – they care about hair.
This idiotic medic effectively wants to damn hundreds of hearts and cardiovascular systems, in order to save 1 head.
Oh, and when cycling
Oh, and when cycling participation plummets, the roads get _less_ safe – in terms of risk per exposure time – for the remaining cyclists. Australia is no safer overall for the (remaining) cyclists. They might see slightly lower head injuries (pro rate) but their overall risk of injury or death per km has *increased* since mandatory helmets laws.
Well done idiotic medics, who are simply *NOT QUALIFIED* on the broader epidemiology of cycle helmets, health and well being.
Paul J wrote:
This medic does not work in the dardiovascular department, they are only interested in reducing the workload they see.
Paul J wrote:
No no no no no. In the study done by Thompson, Rivara and Thompson, the grandaddies of helmet promotion and lies, it was found that helmets not only protected the head, but the rest of the body as well. Incredibly, that study is still being quoted, even though it has been disproved.
Paul J wrote:
RoSPA says “Head injuries […] are very common injuries to cyclists. Hospital data shows that over 40% of cyclists […] suffer head injuries” and that over 70% if cyclist fatalities in London have moderate or serious head injuries (80% in rural).
I wouldn’t call that a small fraction.
https://www.rospa.com/media/documents/road-safety/cycling-accidents-factsheet.pdf
It’s certainly worth a read
Of course just because there are lots of head injuries that doesn’t mean that helmets would have helped (especially in the case of motor vehicle involvement / fatalities)… but getting a fair measure of that from the data seems a difficult task.
Anyway, thanks, it’s certainly worth a read of that RoSPA doc.
…which to me points pretty clearly to the main source of danger in the UK. Of course that doesn’t mean that addressing this (danger from motor vehicles) would bring the most reduction in casualties per pound! Indeed I’m sure fixing that would be more expensive and certainly more political effort than other possibles. However it would bring a host of other benefits e.g. facilitating mass cycling. Data suggest that would have a net positive health impact on the population (even allowing for more cycle crashes).
A Dutch analogue of the report might be of interest. (I think VeiligheidNL are analogous to RoSPA – note though there is a separate specific Road Safety organisation, SWOV). There the main cause of death and injury is cyclists crashing on their own. Head injuries are also high there and in the NL case that is most likely exactly where head protection might make a significant positive difference (e.g. relatively low speed falls and crashes).
chrisonatrike wrote:
Indeed, I’m not going to say that all/most/some/none of those head injuries would have been reduced/prevented by helmet wearing. And indeed some of those cyclists would have been wearing helmets anyway. I was merely pointing out that head injuries do not appear to be a “small fraction” of cyclist injuries.