The cycle helmet debate continues

Organon wrote:

Rapha Nadal wrote:

Griff500 wrote:

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

The problem is helmet promoters/wearers won’t give it a rest…….

Seriously???  You are very keen on evidence and stats, so just take a look at the various helmet threads and see who’s name crops up most.  

He just enjoys screaming into the void and banging that oh so tired drum whenever his carer let’s him use the laptop.

It does seem that when ever this debate comes up again, the same few people are shouting down others, comparing helmet advocacy with compulsion, dismissing any personal experience as acecdotal. How many people need to tell you that a helmet saved them from injury or reduced their injury in a situation that was not of their own making to suggest there might be a link? Strange we do not hear from those that went without helmet and hit their heads. The stats quoted always seem to be a bit ‘off’ and aimed at proving points not related to hitting you head off metal or concrete. To me they sound like conspiracy nuts who think they have cornered to the board. One day reality is going to hit them, or a Ford Fiesta.

What bugs me about helmet advocacy is that it seems to concentrate on cyclists as being the only at risk group for accidental head injury.

Cyclists are already an out-group and demonised by the media and the focus on helmet use just seems an awful lot like victim blaming to me. It seems that rather than focus on what actually would make the roads safer, instead there’s far too much blaming ‘idiot’ cyclists that choose to not wear a helmet.

I got pre-empitively victim

I got pre-empitively victim blamed  for not wearing a helmet today by another cyclist. 

We (me, wife and child) were out on a popular cycle path probably averaging literally about 8-10 mph as my lad is a small 8 and still only on a MTB with 20″ wheels. He had a helmet, me and the wife didn’t as I really didn’t think doing 10mph on a car free path warranted it as I mostly just arsing about trying to pull wheelies and the like. 

Anyway we are going along (slowly) keeping to the left and a pair of walkers are coming the opposite direction walking on their left. Behind them a fast moving older cyclist and his wife are approaching. 

We maintained our speed as the approaching cyclists were on the walkers’ side and they should have slowed if needed. They didn’t and overtook the walkers into our path and we had to stop to avoid his idiot overtake. He then shouts at me that I should be wearing a helmet!! Yeah just in case I hit by cunts like him overtaking when he should have slowed for 2s. 

Stupid old cock. If you wouldn’t do it in your car don’t do it on your bike. 

Rapha Nadal wrote:

Griff500 wrote:

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

The problem is helmet promoters/wearers won’t give it a rest…….

Seriously???  You are very keen on evidence and stats, so just take a look at the various helmet threads and see who’s name crops up most.  

He just enjoys screaming into the void and banging that oh so tired drum whenever his carer let’s him use the laptop.

It does seem that when ever this debate comes up again, the same few people are shouting down others, comparing helmet advocacy with compulsion, dismissing any personal experience as acecdotal. How many people need to tell you that a helmet saved them from injury or reduced their injury in a situation that was not of their own making to suggest there might be a link? Strange we do not hear from those that went without helmet and hit their heads. The stats quoted always seem to be a bit ‘off’ and aimed at proving points not related to hitting you head off metal or concrete. To me they sound like conspiracy nuts who think they have cornered to the board. One day reality is going to hit them, or a Ford Fiesta.

Griff500 wrote:

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

The problem is helmet promoters/wearers won’t give it a rest…….

Seriously???  You are very keen on evidence and stats, so just take a look at the various helmet threads and see who’s name crops up most.  

He just enjoys screaming into the void and banging that oh so tired drum whenever his carer let’s him use the laptop.

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

The problem is helmet promoters/wearers won’t give it a rest, it’s every single day that non wearers are been ostracised, refused entry to cycling events, refused to be allowed to ride in a cycling club so no inclusivity, victim blamed, shouted at and abused. it’s added up to psuedo mandation in many quarters including increasingly and worryingly compulsion to wear for cycling to school, motions put forward in parliament every now and again and even police action to push helmet wearing.

And what has that done in this country (and every other country and sport)? Since 2005 which is when helmet wearing started to increase significantly in the UK post UCI rules Because BC had to change also), injuries have not improved, deaths are pretty much exactly where they were. Increases in cycling, well no there isn’t (just a small incremental mileage increase and the injury rate compared to pedestrians has continued to get wider, child cycling hasn’t increased.

All the while more children die solely of head injuries in motorvehicles than total number of children riding a bike, hundreds of thousands more from the general population have hospital stays due to serious head injuries that dwarf the number that are from people on bikes.

If the largest number of serious head injuries occur due to criminal activity (we know this for a fact), then putting the onus to protect –  even when we know that that protection is nowhere near enough to prevent the serious injury, is simply heinous and in no other quarter in society do we do this, nor come close to the victim blaming for those not ‘armouring’ up. Nowhere else does society chide and exclude due to people not wearing a garment that is factually misrepresented and that this causes more harm in the grand scheme of things than it could ever resolve.

I presume you understand the social implications, the human rights breaching implications on top of the bending of the law due to the effects of ‘force majeure’ with regards to cycle helmets.

The group that needs to give it a rest is the one wearing/promoting helmets, only that group forces others to bend to their will or be attacked in various forms including discriminatory action in law and removing freedoms others experience.

Insidious doesn’t even cover it!

This is a lie.

UK Helmet wearing increased rapidly from 1994.

Cyclist KSIs have fallen significantly since 1994.

AFAIK there is no good data for UK helmet wearing rates from 2005-present.

Why do the most vocal anti helmet posters have such difficulty posting the truth?

RafatheRed wrote:

Cant see any reason not to wear a helmet,  My story is i always told my kids to wear a helmet,they would moan,they would whine. Then one day i have to go into work for a meeting on my day off. I jump on my bike (BMX) and off i cycle,then whoops i’ve forgotton to put my helmet on. well i think to myself i’ll be ok.i ride slower,miss the drains and pot holes,no jumping off the kerbs! So i get to a staggered crossroads and im waiting at the junction. Then bang! a car on the opposite junction hit me because he cut over to my side of the road. i was lucky,the back of my head did not hit the road,Saved by the ruck sack on had on my back. The one time i never wore my helmet!

RafatheRed wrote:

Cant see any reason not to wear a helmet, 

Makes it tricky to wash your hair, though.  Or are you prepared to take the risk of taking it off for that?

Sounds as if in your anecdote the problem was the presence of the car and a crap driver, not the absence of a helmet.  Maybe that’s the more important issue, as you anecdote demonstrates?

RafatheRed wrote:

Cant see any reason not to wear a helmet,  My story is i always told my kids to wear a helmet,they would moan,they would whine. Then one day i have to go into work for a meeting on my day off. I jump on my bike (BMX) and off i cycle,then whoops i’ve forgotton to put my helmet on. well i think to myself i’ll be ok.i ride slower,miss the drains and pot holes,no jumping off the kerbs! So i get to a staggered crossroads and im waiting at the junction. Then bang! a car on the opposite junction hit me because he cut over to my side of the road. i was lucky,the back of my head did not hit the road,Saved by the ruck sack on had on my back. The one time i never wore my helmet!

So, what yor are saying there is that there is no need to wear a helmet, a ruck sack is good enough to save you if you are hit by a car.  If I were you I wouldn’t use that little story to convince your kids that they should wear a helmet.