I may have found a good reason for a bike helmet!

allez neg wrote:Well,

allez neg wrote:

Well, notwithstanding that there’s usually a disparity between what the speed on the tomtom says and what the car speedo says, we’ll agree to disagree in that I don’t see creeping a few mph over the NSL is much of a big deal, and you seemingly think it is.

As alluded to in an earlier post, ACPO seem to be of the same opinion as me.

Well yes the speedo is normally slightly under (by law http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2001/25/contents/made#sch3) which means if you aim for dead on the limit then unless you’re really slack then you’re unlikely to go faster than the limit.

But if you aim for under 80 as suggested above then there’s a fair chance you’re going too fast. Speeding is a big deal because the extra speed makes everything worse: more congestion, less reaction time, more crashes and more damage when crashing. Remember the adverts with children getting knocked down at 30 and dying compared to 20 and living? Same theory, but bigger crashes with much more kinetic energy at 70 and 80.

Yet another thing that ACPO is out of touch with reality about, then!

allez neg wrote:a.jumper

allez neg wrote:

a.jumper wrote:

Indeed. Able to check the speedo enough to stay below the limit + 10% + 2mph but not enough to stay below the actual limit without doing a load of maths? :loll: Pull the other one, it’s got bells on!

It’s the difference between glancing at the speedo and seeing the needle between 70 and 80 (in the UK) and knowing that’s ok as opposed to having to take a longer look to ensure its dead on 70 or below. Not much of a difference but if you’re wanting motorists to be attentive to the outside world then it’s another distraction.

Reading the speedo does not take a different amount of time depending which side of which line it is… and seeing the needle between 70 and 80 is not OK. It means you’re going faster than the speed at which that road is considered safe, so you’ve less time to react and it’ll take longer to stop – and you’re breaking the law, even if you are unlikely to be prosecuted by our pathetic law enforcement system.

I’m sick of how almost everyone now seems to believe that road laws don’t apply to them because they’re an above-average driver with a better-than-average car and how much disruption, death and destruction is caused every day by cars ploughing into houses, trees and other road users, providing graphic disproof of that belief!

md6 wrote:a.jumper wrote:Not

md6 wrote:

a.jumper wrote:

Not definitive, but when I’m a pedestrian, I get more wing mirrors passing me than when I’m on a bike, plus the mirrors pass at greater relative speed. This is obvious because I’m moving about 10mph faster when riding.

Do you walk in the road a lot then? Because when i am a pedestrian there are lots more wingmorrors passing me, but they are generally MUCH further away. So far away in fact that its a non issue 99.95%* of the time. Its only when i am waiting to cross the road that they are awaywhere near me, and even then unless I’m stood right on the edge of the curb they are still an additional 18 to 24+ inches further away than they would be on the bike.

Yeah, I live in a village so I walk in the road every time I want to walk anywhere from home. My previous home had an off-road footpath to its front door, but at one end was a roadside pavement that was parked on and the other was a road out of the village which had no pavements. I suspect most roads in this country now are either rural roads with no pavement or urban roads where the pavements can’t be used because of parked cars. Those who are fortunate enough to be both outside London (where I understand they’re tougher on parking) and able to walk their entire journey on footpaths are rare freaks.

And that’s before I start on my pet hate of the number of tyre tracks along the only pavement in the village, alongside the main road: many drivers won’t wait behind a right-turning vehicle and simply drive along the pavement a bit. If you’re walking there, it doesn’t matter, they expect you to get out of the way. Unsurprisingly, relatively few people walk in such a hostile environment. 🙁

Re helmets, if you want to wear one do, applying the same logic to pedestrians and cyclists is, in my opinion, stretching the logic used to an absurd point. But i guess thats the intention. Make a decision based on the risk you percieve, your acceptance of that risk and the knowledge that a helmet is likely to lessen the severity of any impact to your head, how much difference that will make is again up to you to decide.

Even better, make a decision based on the measured risks and the knowledge that it’s still unproven that helmets will “lessen the severity of any impact to your head” – they help in 0mph falls from the bike onto a flat surface or a kerb (not even onto a stone unless you’ve got the better Snell-standard helmet), but many have stickers in them saying they’re not designs for car crashes, hitting spiky objects and so on, while there are also accusations that they may concussion and strangulation more likely.

I don’t wear dayglo and helmets for walking or cycling, except for extreme conditions. They’re almost irrelevant. It would do far more good to stop motor traffic running riot.

Paul J wrote:fukawitribe:

Paul J wrote:

fukawitribe: It’s not fallacious. I’m taking the precise logic that commentators have used (“your life was just saved by a helmet, and you’re still saying they’re a daft idea?”, “it’s better than nothing”, “without a helmet you’d almost certainly have [medical details]. … I’d be shopping for a replacement lid.”, etc., etc.) and am simply applying it in another context, where the only difference is “pedestrian” instead of “cyclist”. If it is fallacious to draw the same conclusion, then *bingo* – you’ve got the point!

..but I don’t agree with the over extension of their claims either, I never said I did. That the helmet may have made a difference here, I think is not unreasonable here assuming the damage on the helmet was all caused by the strike, i.e. energy was adsorbed by the helmet. It was that over-extension that I objected to, the presumption that the one anecdote would prove the rule, that fallacy – perhaps I should have equally gone after those over-eager to promote the miracles of helmets.. but that jobs seemed to have been done already in this case.

Paul J wrote:

The question then is *why* is it fallacious? The only possibilities are that there is some significant difference between “pedestrian” and “cyclist” that makes it an error to swap one for the other, or otherwise that the logic is simply inherently flawed. If the logic is flawed, then it must be flawed for *both* cyclist and pedestrian!

Firstly, the fallacy i’m alluding to is the extrapolation from one incident, even given the injury rates of each group – a cyclist is hit with a wing mirror, a pedestrian is hit with a wing mirror therefore the risk of being hit by a wing mirror is the same or similar in both groups (and hence, the group supporting helmet wearing should argue for both). If the risk were not similar, you could not reasonably expect the group to make a similar risk assessment and e.g. argue for helmets in both cases.

I’m was also maintaining there is a significant difference the cyclist and the pedestrian. My logic was along the lines of – consider the environment in which they are normally to be found, viz the road vs the pavement, consider the average speed of both, the nearness of other vehicles travelling at speed close to them, even the average height of the head above the ground. What I am *guessing* is that the chance of head injury, in particular caused by a wing mirror, is higher, and of a more profound effect, in one environment than the other. That may not actually be as realistic as I thought in general, more on that later…

Paul J wrote:

You say the error is that the cyclist, in the specific case of wing mirror strikes, is more exposed to this risk than a pedestrian. Though, I don’t know how we could evaluate this as I doubt statistics are kept on the numbers of pedestrians and cyclists hit by wing mirrors.

True, but unfortunately incredibly relevant as that is the only thing I was really objecting to. My supposition was based in part on the relative number of wing mirrors that might be found on the pavement and on the road, and an estimate of their average velocity relative to cyclist and pedestrian and an estimate of the proportion of pedestrians within a wing mirrors distance from the edge of the road…. i’m sure you can see where I was going with that (even though completely unproven, statistically)

Paul J wrote:

Statistics are available for head injuries admissions though and, AFAIK, though there are some small differences, there isn’t a large difference in risk of head injury overall between the two groups[1].

That’s very interesting, as are the conclusions, thank you for the link. What I can’t find there, however, is the incident rate (e.g. head injury per group per mile or journey) which is directly related to my point about proportional risk (what risk per mile / journey of the injury) – that’s what i’m looking at now. The conclusion was also a tad over-reaching for my liking, at least without further qualification, but pertinent to the wider debate perhaps..

Assuming that the difference between cyclists and pedestrians (3.6%) is attributable to helmet wearing, and with helmet wearing having increased by 5.8%, we estimate that helmets prevent 60% (3.6/5.8) of serious head injuries. An estimated efficacy of 60% is very consistent with that of 63%–88% obtained from case-control studies of cycle helmet efficacy. As evidence continues to mount, and consistency emerges between different study designs, the position of the sceptics becomes increasingly untenable.

That said, I had no idea that the rate of pedestrian head injury was so high, so learnt something there, tah.

Paul J wrote:

Increased use of helmets may have lead to a small decrease in rates in cyclists though, however the decreases in head injury tend to be accompanied by increases in other injuries[2]. It is not clear that helmets actually make cycling safer, indeed there is evidence the reverse may be true – KSI rates have not decreased amongst cyclists in the UK appreciably, and KSI rates in AU and NZ increased after helmet laws. All these high-helmet-use countries have significantly worse safety than low-helmet-use/high-cycling-rate countries like NL.

Agreed.

Paul J wrote:

So here’s the fallacy: If you argue that helmets make a difference to head injuries, and “every little helps”, then, presuming you accept the evidence that pedestrians face quite similar risks, you *must* also argue that pedestrians should wear them.

As above, I don’t agree the risks are similar, so I would maintain it is not a fallacy. I’m open to persuasion though, which is why i’m looking more closely at the figures following your comments.

Paul J wrote:

I just don’t understand people who try claim that “every little helps” and hence cyclists – and *ONLY CYCLISTS* – should wear helmets when on the road. I’d love to hear them explain their logic, or show *evidence* as to how the general cyclist faces different risks to pedestrians to justify the different safety approach (and merely speculating that cyclists might face some risk that pedestrians doesn’t cut it, given we have actual statistics).

Fair point, although personally i’ve not – and never had – argued for helmets for cyclists. I am guilty of not checking the statistics closely enough however.

Paul J wrote:

Otherwise, it just seems hypocritical and perhaps part of the UK’s “single out the cyclist” culture (usually for hate) that’s so ingrained, even the cyclists themselves propagate it! Even if that is unintentional on the part of the commentator here, and they are well-meaning. Perhaps it’s some kind of Stockholm Syndrome?

🙂

allez neg wrote:Ticketing for

allez neg wrote:

Ticketing for such minor infractions is a bit harsh though – less than 10kph (6mph) over the limit – surely encouraging drivers to spend more time looking at speedos and correspondingly less time looking at the road ahead.

It’s the rules. I don’t understand why you think you can choose which ones to ignore. How many pick’n’mix sweets can you take before it becomes stealing? Victimless crime, blah blah blah.

I can’t see why it is really so difficult to drive 5 or 10 km/h slower so you’re BELOW the 110 km/h limit.

Is that ‘watching the speedo’ excuse the best you can come up with?

Simon E wrote:atlaz

Simon E wrote:

atlaz wrote:

French speed limits are really aggressively enforced. One trip down to the Vosges to ride for a weekend I got 3 tickets, all in 110kmph zones… 6, 7 and 9 over the limit.

There’s a speed limit for a reason.

Too many dickheads think they are much better drivers than they really are.

I went through a speed trap a few years ago and took the offer of a driver awareness course rather than points on my licence. It was really good, a useful refresher after having a car licence since I was 18 and a motorbike licence since I was 24.

Since then I’ve been careful to keep my speed down and guess what? I use a lot less fuel and I seem to get where I want to go in the car just as quickly as before. I keep my speed down on the motorbike too (which is a bit harder) and the savings on fuel have been noticeable there as well. The reduction in wear and tear is noticeable as well as the brake linings last longer for both the car and motorbike.

I still like to drive fast though and I did a track day at Silverstone last year and plan to do one at Brands this year. If you want to drive fast, there are places to do it; either on a race track or the German autobahn network. Anywhere else is plain stupid.

I don’t drive a BMW in case you didn’t guess.

Paul J wrote:You say the

Paul J wrote:

You say the error is that the cyclist, in the specific case of wing mirror strikes, is more exposed to this risk than a pedestrian. Though, I don’t know how we could evaluate this as I doubt statistics are kept on the numbers of pedestrians and cyclists hit by wing mirrors.

Not definitive, but when I’m a pedestrian, I get more wing mirrors passing me than when I’m on a bike, plus the mirrors pass at greater relative speed. This is obvious because I’m moving about 10mph faster when riding.

Glad the OP is OK after what
Glad the OP is OK after what must have been a scary incident

There’s nothing contentious in the post I don’t think – although the H word manages to provoke debate whether the OP wanted to or not!
– he got hit on the head, his helmet took some of the force and broke, he thinks it saved him from an otherwise more serious injury than he would have had with the helmet on. Seems reasonable?

We’ll never know for certain about the efficacy of the helmet in preventing injury this time of course, unless on another day the same van driver got pissed again, had another go at going for that ‘gap’ which didn’t exist, with the OP in the same position on the bridge, both going the same speed, this time without the OP wearing a helmet!

The statistics about road safety and helmet efficacy are pretty useless in informing the debate. Not least because they can be manipulated to back up any argument. The road death rates quoted here say less about the safety of cyclists and more about the safety of cars for their occupants.

Helmet safety statistics are pretty useless as you will never be able to control variables, e.g. behaviour and riding styles, you can’t compare injury rates for the same incidents under the same conditions for the same population when wearing helmets vs not wearing helmets.

People then rubbishing helmet supporters’ views by saying they *must* believe that pedestrians should wear them after one got hit by a bus mirror once whilst on the pavement are trying to polarise the debate and ignoring that risk and probability must be factored in to anyone’s decision as to weather or not to wear one.

For these reasons, there’s insufficient evidence to introduce a helmet law IMO (not that that would stop a government!), and conclusions drawn to support one side or the other are always fallacious, it’s just the nature of this beast.

So I think that sums up where I’ve got to with helmets: I wear one, as like in this incident, it’s possible that it could help. But do your own thing, factor in risk and probability and don’t rely on statistics to keep you safe or inform your decision making!