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news
White cycle helmetScotland’s active travel minister criticised – for not wearing a helmet while cycling
Scotland’s newly-appointed active transport minister – the first person to be appointed to such a position in any national government in the UK – has faced widespread criticism after he was photographed riding a bicycle without wearing a helmet.
Patrick Harvie was appointed the Scottish Government’s minister for zero carbon buildings, active travel and tenants’ rights after the Green Party, for which he is MSP for Glasgow, entered a shared agenda agreement with the Scottish National Party last month.
Pictures of the MSP emerged after he attended Glasgow Pride on Saturday, with some road safety campaigners, including from the charity Headway which backs compulsory cycle helmets, insisting he should have worn one, reports Express.co.uk.
While the Highway Code recommends that cyclists should wear helmets, there is no legal compulsion to do so, and Harvie has said that sporting one is “not my style,” adding that it made him feel as though he were participating in an extreme sport.
But Peter McCabe, chief executive of Headway, said: “Using negative language that discourages the use of helmets puts lives at risk.
“As a charity that helps people to rebuild their lives after sustaining brain injuries, including those acquired through cycling accidents, we would welcome the opportunity to discuss with Mr Harvie the overwhelming body of peer-reviewed scientific evidence that proves the effectiveness of helmets in reducing the risk of brain injuries and fatalities.
“Rather than tweeting anti helmet messages suggesting their use neither looks nor feels normal, we should be working together to normalise cycle helmet use, as has happened in numerous countries including Australia and the USA.”
While some states in the US do in indeed require cyclists, and in particular children, to wear helmets while riding their bikes, there is no nationwide law compelling people to do so.
It is also well documented that the introduction of mandatory helmet laws in Australia led to fewer people – and younger ones in particular – cycling at all. Opponents of compulsion maintain that the benefits to public health by encouraging people to ride bikes outweigh any perceived benefit of making them wear a helmet while doing so.
Some have also claimed that wearing a cycle helmet may in fact increase the risk of sustaining a head injury, as asserted in a paper presented in 2019 at the National Road Safety Conference.
> Wearing a cycle helmet may increase risk of injury, says new research
But Neil Greig, policy and research director at the road safety charity IAM Roadsmart, also hit out at the Scottish Green Party co-leader’s choice not to wear a helmet while riding his bike, insisting: “Even a low speed fall from a bike can lead to permanent brain damage so it’s simply not worth the risk in our view, and particularly for growing young children it’s vital to protect the head.
“Many activists claim helmets put people off cycling and we are all for choice but choosing to avoid lifelong disability seems the right one to make,” he added.
In the UK, wearing a cycle helmet is of course a matter of choice, and under EU and UK safety standards, at best they are rated to protect against a head injury while falling from a bike at a very low speed – and certainly not to protect against those sustained in a collision with a motor vehicle.
There are regular calls for them to be made compulsory in the UK – something successive governments have said they have no plans to do – and the issue often deflects from other interventions that could make the roads safer for people on bikes.
Indeed, back in 2014, British Cycling policy advisor Chris Boardman, now Greater Manchester cycling and walking commissioner, told road.cc: “I think the helmet issue is a massive red herring.
> Chris Boardman: "Helmets not even in top 10 of things that keep cycling safe"
“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,” he said.
A 2015 study from Canada found that rather than force cyclists to wear helmets, putting protected infrastructure in place would make a far greater contribution to their safety.
> Study finds no link between cycling helmet laws and head injury rates
Which brings us full circle to the policy Mr Harvie is tasked with implementing after his party agreed shared policy goals with the SNP – namely, putting into effect the biggest investment per head per year in active travel ever seen in any part of the UK.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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89 comments
I don't think anyone's ever said (and I certainly haven't) that helmets will protect you from all injuries. That said, if you told me a car was going to drive into me at 30mph and asked would I like a helmet, I would still say yes.
Yeah, I'm sure this is a contributory factor to many of the "a helmet saved my life" anecdotes!
Chris' position is that Helmets are not in the top 10 things that would make cycling safer, he has never said (to my knowledge) that they provide no benefit.
It's easy to get carried away with the "I had a crash and the helmet saved my life", but the numbers do not bear this out. The reduction in deaths when helmets are used more widely (if there even is one) is a tiny fraction of the people who claim they have been saved by one.
While he's never said they provide no benefit, by the time you get to the 8th, 9th and 10th thing on the list of things that make cycling safer, those things have very little effect at all, so anything less than their efficacy is going to be, by definition, not very effective.
Can we stop giving airtime to those helmet fanatics at headway.
Remember
If a driver kills a teenager on a bike who isn't wearing a helmet, there is a campaign for cyclists to wear helmets.
If a cyclist kills a pedestrian there is a campaign to regulate cyclists
If a driver kills a pedestrian - no reaction at all.
Why are we not consistent in all cases in looking at the cause of the harm?
I see the story quotes Neil Greig of the "road safety charity IAM Roadsmart" (otherwise known as the Institute of Advanced Motorists). I believe that Neil is the person leaning out of the car in this photo, and helping to launch the dreadful "Nice Way Code" campaign by showing how to park your car over the stop line when stopping at a pedestrian crossing:
https://d193ppza2qrruo.cloudfront.net/production/images/nicewaycode2.jpg
I googled the "Nice Way Code" and wished I hadn't. As already pointed out here, there isn't much mutual respect between a rhino and a mouse, and expecting drivers to suddenly become respectful of other, lesser, road users is probably rather optimistic; but I hope I'm wrong.
I think the whole 'respect' issue is just misdirection. What I'd like to see is a focus on driver competency and better education about how to safely drive around cyclists.
The big problem is that our society has bet all-in on personal motor vehicles as a mass transit solution, but it's just not scalable beyond a certain population density. However, as there's so much money invested in making and promoting cars, it's an uphill battle to persuade people that our best interests lie in promoting active travel and instead there's a huge pushback by drivers that are scared of change (not to mention media outlets pushing a divisive us v them narrative).
Exactly. This is not about "why can't we just ...get along". This is a public health issue. The current controls are simply not sufficient to prevent the road carnage that this country experiences daily, and "cyclists! wear a helmet" will not reduce 5 deaths a day
The Nice Way Code was an ill conceived waste of public money (which Cycling Scotland should hang its head in shame for). It was ripped to shreds at the time by anyone who actually rode a bike, and quietly forgotten about as soon as possible.
I just like dredging it up whenever I see Neil Greig pontificating about cycling on behalf of the Institute of Advanced Motorists. I think the photo illustrates the tone deaf nature of the whole thing quite nicely.
"Now make sure you stop your bike at the line, because we know that cyclists are always riding through pedestrian crossings, and we don't want to send the wrong message. Oh, we can't really see Neil properly. Why don't you drive the car forward over the dotted line until it is almost touching the crossing? Perfect"
Was the Nice Way Code that awful Scottish campaign a couple of years ago?
(or was it the one about cyclists=horses?)
If someone gets put off from cycling due to helmet shenanigans, then surely that's a lifelong disability
Good for him, they're way ahead of us, the Scots
Oi many of us Scots are here too, please don't make us into an "out" group with your "them and Us" attitude
Might want to re-read that bit.
Well, it does say "asserted". One can assert anything one likes.
On a respectiable evidence base with most head injuries presenting at A&E coming from car occupants, what is headway's position on car helmets for all?
Hee, hee, hee. Great idea. But they'll be too busy, and anyway, they know all the answers so why should they bother talking to anyone else?
"Even a low speed fall from a bike can lead to permanent brain damage so it’s simply not worth the risk in our view"
I guess we should all be wearing helmets every time we use the stairs or a vehicle. And always walk on the flat, don't try walking on hills without a helmet.
Definitely wear one when playing rugby.
Why do people go for PPE as the first step ?
Only for cycling, which is no more productive of head injuries than walking, but hey, they've got a multi-billion dollar helmet industry to support.
don't forget the shower
If people want to wear a helmet, that's fine by me or if they do not want to, the same. But to say it isn't worth the risk ignores people's own risk appetite.
How many people use vehicles despite the risk of death or injury? In that instance, they have decided it is worth the risk.
If anyone is serious about road safety, we would have repeat training and testing and a change in vehicle design coupled with infrastructure changes.
Of course all of those would be strongly resisted.
Presumably the minister's role is to normalise cycling and walking, not helmet wearing. He should be congratulated. As to health risks, I think the case is overwhelmingly proved; you stand a better chance of staying alive if you cycle regularly than if you wear a helmet!
Peter McCabe, Headway "...we would welcome the opportunity to discuss with Mr Harvie the overwhelming body of peer-reviewed scientific evidence that proves the effectiveness of helmets in reducing the risk of brain injuries and fatalities."
Funny, I've been asking for that for the past twenty years, but they haven't been interested. Headway only looks at evidence that supports their pre-determined position that helmets are effective, and refuse to look at or feature research that doesn't support it. If they were really interested in preventing brain injuries and deaths, they'd be demanding the wearing of helmets for the biggest class of head injuries; car occupants, but their agenda is nothing to do with safety, it's to attack cyclists.
That they use Australia to prove their case is the perfect demonstration of their failure to look at the data, facts and peer-reviewed research, as it is the quintessential example of how helmet laws don't work.
They seem to think that because they are seeking to reduce human suffering, they are beyond criticism, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions, except that I'm far from convinced their intentions are good. Ignoring the reliable evidence and blindly following your chosen path even when proved wrong is showing arrogance and stupidity, not humanity, and their intentions seem to be to stop people cycling, not to make it safe.
I'm betting if Mr Harvie were to take up their offer, in a public forum where their evidence could be challenged, they'd suddenly decide that they had something better to do that evening, like take out the bins, or wash their hair.
Depends on what the actual intention of those helmet laws was...
Is Headway also campaigning for high quality, segregated, Dutch-style cycling infrastructure? I had a quick glance through their website, and there is no mention of this. Which is odd, given that it would have a far bigger impact on head injuries than mandatory helmets.
Well, they have said they are in favour of such infra, but all their campaigning goes into helmets. So they ignore the evidence and campaign for the least effective option while ignoring the highly effective ones, completely reversing what any rational, logical organisation would do. Does that make them hypocrites?
If you just called Peter McCabe & Neil Greig non-helmet-wearing-while-driving-a-car sanctimonious hypcritical tossers, I am right behind you and applaud you!
Brilliant! I'm stealing that too.
I seem to remember seeing a breakdown of how much headway spent on cycle helmet promotion vs every other measure to prevent/treat head injuries...
It made their claims that they are trying to reduce all head injuries (of which cycling head injuries are a rounding error) rather than a campaign group for cycle helmets look insane given cycle helmet promotion was the majority of their expenditure...
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