Paediatricians in Canada are putting pressure on the government to legislate for mandatory cycle helmets, saying that forcing adults to wear them could protect children who copy their behaviour.
Currently only currently only four of thirteen Canadian provinces and territories have full helmet legislation, but the Canadian Paediatric Society is calling for them to be made mandatory for all ages.
In a paper entitled Bicycle helmet use in Canada: The need for legislation to reduce the risk of head injury, the CPS argues:
Bicycling is a popular activity and a healthy, environmentally friendly form of transportation. However, it is also a leading cause of sport and recreational injury in children and adolescents. Head injuries are among the most severe injuries sustained while bicycling, justifying the implementation of bicycle helmet legislation by many provinces. There is evidence that bicycle helmet legislation increases helmet use and reduces head injury risk. Evidence for unintended consequences of helmet legislation, such as reduced bicycling and greater risk-taking, is weak and conflicting. Both research evidence to date and recognition of the substantial impact of traumatic brain injuries support the recommendation for all-ages bicycle helmet legislation.
"Bicycle helmets reduce the risk of head and brain injuries significantly and studies show that legislation increases the use of helmets," said Dr. Brent Hagel, statement co-author and member of the CPS Injury Prevention Committee.
"Everyone is at risk for head injury, regardless of age group.
"Children see adults and often adopt similar behaviours, so if we can get helmets on adults then children and adolescents will be more likely to wear them too."
Six provinces and territories currently have no legislation at all on bike helmets:
- Saskatchewan
- Quebec
- Newfoundland and Labrador
- Yukon
- Northwest Territories
- Nunavut
Three provinces have bike helmet legislation that only applies to children:
- Alberta
- Ontario
- Manitoba
Four provinces meet CPS recommendations for all ages bike helmet legislation:
- British Columbia
- New Brunswick
- Nova Scotia
- Prince Edward Island
The report found that in those places that had legislated, helmet use had gone up.
“Systematic reviews have… demonstrated that legislation increases the use of helmets in children and youth.
“One review showed that bicycle helmet use increased postlegislation, with more than one-half of the included studies demonstrating an increase of at least 30%.
“One Ontario study noted a 20% increase in helmet use among children five to 14 years of age two years after passage of helmet legislation covering riders younger than 18 years of age, demonstrating larger increases in low- and middle-income areas.”
Despite evidence from countries including Australia, showing that helmet legislation reduces the number of people riding bikes, Dr Hagel insists that this is not necessarily proven.
“We definitely don’t want to stop people from cycling, we want to increase cycling,” he said.
“If there’s more education that needs to be done and perhaps more environmental changes to increase cycling, I think that’s where we need to look next rather than target legislation for mixed evidence.”
The report added: “While some individuals may avoid bicycling due to helmet legislation, it would need to be shown that they do not replace it with other physical activities for helmet legislation to be considered to have a negative effect on overall health.”
The report said: “There is… ample research indicating that legislation reduces risk of bicycle-related head injury. Evidence of the potential negative effects of bicycle helmet legislation, such as reduced bicycling, is mixed, and a direct cause-and-effect relationship has not been demonstrated.
“Head injuries rank among the most severe injuries in bicyclists, representing 20% to 40% of all bicycling injuries.
“Overall death rates in Canada are estimated to be 0.27 per 100,000 population.”
74 thoughts on “Canadian doctors call for mandatory cycle helmets for all ‘to reduce head injury’”
It’s the weekly helmet / hi
It’s the weekly helmet / hi viz nonsense.. woop woop!
When you say that six
When you say that six provinces have no legislation at all on bike helmets (including Québec) this excludes municipal by-laws.
To the shame of Québec , and despite the good educational lobbying carried out by Vélo-Québec, the town of Sherbrooke has a mandatory under-18 helmet law, complete with fear-mongering posters around the town showing the helmeted top of a head sliced off and the contents (cartoons of memories, e,g. the Eiffel tower, sports) leaking out. This retrograde initiative seems to largely have been the work of a local pediatrician.
What’s interesting about the Canadian Pediatric Society paper above is that they acknowledge that they intend to compel adults to wear helmets as a way to persuade children that a huge lump of beer cooler on your head is normal.
What’s also interesting is that they’ve retreated slightly from their citing of Thompson, Rivara & Thompson’s 85% claim and now are speaking of “head injuries” while leaving the impression that they’re talking about serious brain injuries. Sneaky.
And all this time they drive around in cars.
Ah, tiresome. Man finds one
Ah, tiresome. Man finds one side of a two-sided argument and has an opinion.
Paediatrician wants adults to wear helmets. Just send the kids out in bubblewrap and leave the adults be.
Mandatory helmet laws, be
Mandatory helmet laws, be they for children and/or adults, achieve nothing in terms of preventing population wide head injuries. While at the same time they do *terrible* damage to cycling as an ordinary, everyday, normal activity – cycling rates decrease. E.g., see this overview of the data and studies on the Alberta helmet law:
http://cyclehelmets.org/1250.html
And there are similar trends in Australia.
If your solution to cycling safety is mandatory helmets laws (for any age group), then you’re doing it wrong. You’re either quite badly informed, or killing cycling is actually your *goal*.
Helmet laws: Bad for cycling safety, bad for cycling.
First instal mandatory
First instal mandatory speed-limiters in all cars, then get back to me.
Mandatory helmet laws are an
Mandatory helmet laws are an assault on the basic human right of freedom of movement.
They are about suppressing cycling and pandering to the petrolheads, that’s the whole point of them.
“those discouraged from cycling by helmet laws may move to alternative sports”
Slight flaw in this moronic argument is that cycling isn’t a “sport”, its a means of travel.
“those women discouraged from walking outside by burka laws may move to alternative sports”
FluffyKittenofTindalos
Don’t be ridiculous. No one is trying to ban you from running or walking, which let us not forget, are the only natural method of transportation that have zero impact on the environment.
Motorcyclists are obliged to wear crash helmets. Drivers are obliged to wear seat belts. No one considers these to be ‘an assault on the basic right to move’. Well I guess there may be one or two oddballs out there but the argument has largely been won that quite frankly it would take an absolute dingbat to disagree.
For what it is worth, I think it should be mandatory for children under 16. They are too young to make an informed choice on this issue and as the data is at present inconclusive, it is better to err on the side of caution.
For adults, I believe that a substantial impact to the NHS of accidents involving cyclists not wearing helmets needs to be conclusively demonstrated before compulsion can be contemplated.
GoingRoundInCycles
I disagree entirely with you (except maybe the bit about children – children are a separate case entirely) but have had this argument so many times already I can’t be arsed with it. Cycle helmets have nothing whatsoever in common with seat belts, so why bring that up?
GoingRoundInCycles
Also, just because someone doesn’t share your ideology, doesn’t make their argument “ridiculous”. Though if we are going there, I find your comparison with seat belts to be daft.
FluffyKittenofTindalos
Also, just because someone doesn’t share your ideology, doesn’t make their argument “ridiculous”. Though if we are going there, I find your comparison with seat belts to be daft.— FluffyKittenofTindalos
Your point is ridiculous, not at all because I disagree with it, but because it is self-evidently a hysterical over-reaction to this article.
How could being compelled to wear a hat on your head while cycling possibly “assault your human right” to move?
In such a circumstance, you could either choose to:
a) comply with the law
b) if wearing a hat is too onerous for you, you could use an alternative method of movement, (walking, running, crawling, hopping, jumping, skipping, public transport or dare I say it …. the car 👿 )
c) break the law and accept the consequences (hopefully without complaint)
So, yes, I stand by ridiculous.
As for the comparison between the laws compelling drivers and passengers to wear seatbelts and a potential law compelling cyclists to wear helmets …. if you cannot work out the connection for yourself, I really don’t know what to say.
GoingRoundInCycles
Also, just because someone doesn’t share your ideology, doesn’t make their argument “ridiculous”. Though if we are going there, I find your comparison with seat belts to be daft.— GoingRoundInCycles
Your point is ridiculous, not at all because I disagree with it, but because it is self-evidently a hysterical over-reaction to this article.
How could being compelled to wear a hat on your head while cycling possibly “assault your human right” to move?
In such a circumstance, you could either choose to:
a) comply with the law
b) if wearing a hat is too onerous for you, you could use an alternative method of movement, (walking, running, crawling, hopping, jumping, skipping, public transport or dare I say it …. the car 👿 )
c) break the law and accept the consequences (hopefully without complaint)
So, yes, I stand by ridiculous.
As for the comparison between the laws compelling drivers and passengers to wear seatbelts and a potential law compelling cyclists to wear helmets …. if you cannot work out the connection for yourself, I really don’t know what to say.— FluffyKittenofTindalos
OK, as you are into throwing around rude comments…
If you don’t understand the moral difference between laws compelling people to take precautions against risks they impose on themselves, and laws compelling people to take precautions against risks imposed on them by others you are a bit hard-of-thinking and I feel a bit irritated at having to do your thinking for you.
The former are contentious and always open to argument, but only a hard-line libertarian would regard them as always being necessarily unacceptable (such libertarians exist of course, and fair play to them, but that’s not my position). Most people would say each case depends on its merits and on what degree of consent there is and on how inconvenient the precautions are.
Seat belt laws are the former case, cycle helmet laws are the latter – as the vast majority of the risk faced by cyclists is not intrinsic to cycling its a result of the presence of fast-moving motor vehicles on the road (plus bad road design and almost non-existent road policing).
Hence the two cases are morally very different. Compulsory helmets are more like compulsory stab-proof vests for anyone living in the inner city. Its the knives and those wielding them you need to be dealing with, not imposing restrictions on the potential victims.
Additionally, having personally witnessed a high-speed car crash, it made me rather skeptical that a plastic hat would help much anyway if it had been me being hit rather than a crumple-zone-and-airbag protected driver. If you put that much trust in yours you may have a false sense of security.
I wear one myself (most of the time) as a desperate attempt to minimise victim-blaming if I ever get hit (a hopeless endevour I suspect) and because I think it just _might_ help if I get doored and hence hit the tarmac at cycling speeds (as opposed to being crushed by a HGV or hit by a car at 50mph, when it will likely be completely useless). But making it compulsory would be YET ANOTHER marker that the car is king and everyone else has to accommodate it. Your ideology is car-centric, I don’t share it.
A further, more minor difference, that compounds the fundamental one, is that seat belts offer very little inconvenience to motorists or disincentive to drive and we already do everything possible to encourage driving. Cycling is far more vulnerable to further disincentives, and a helmet is yet another thing to forget when setting off, and would kill bike hire schemes dead. Not to mention that seat belt laws, like no-mobile-phone laws, are rarely enforced as you can’t see what a driver is doing inside the vehicle, while a helmet law would probably be much more rigorously enforced.
For children the issue different, both because children are probably far more likely to come off the bike themselves, at the sort of speeds cycle helmets are actually supposed to help at, and because the moral rules about what you can compel people to do work differently when talking about children.
As it happens I don’t really care about compulsory seat-belt laws either way, except for child passengers who should indeed be obliged to wear them. Adults can make up their own minds for all I care.
edit – in fact I might even be against compulsory seat-belts for drivers, because there is both a logical argument, and apparently evidence for, the notion that they _increase_ the risk for everyone outside the vehicle.
Incidentally, another reason
Incidentally, another reason why the seat-belt comparison is silly is that in the UK the seat-belt argument had already pretty-much been won by the time the law came in. Less so in the US, which is why the airbag was invented I believe, because American drivers refused to wear seat-belts.
I challenge you to find a single person who decided to give up driving because of compulsory seat-belts. But many people are put off cycling because of all the palavar about helmets and high-viz. Make it compulsory and we’ll never get above this dismal modal share.
@FluffyKitten
Good grief! One
@FluffyKitten
Good grief! One last attempt and that is it!
We live in a democratic society that is governed by the rule of law. Apart from a matter of conscience, it doesn’t matter why the law exists, whether the reasons for its existence are sound or not, the duty of a good citizen is to obey the law. If you believe the law to be wrong, the correct thing to do is to do your research and then lobby parliament to change the law. Until that time, if you cannot or will not obey the law then you have to accept the consequences of your lawlessness.
There are laws governing what you are compelled to do to operate a contraption on the road. For a driver of a car, he must have a valid licence, insurance, the car must be roadworthy and all passengers have to wear seatbelts. Why they have to wear seatbelts is totally irrelevant! Who they protect is totally irrelevant! If you want to drive a car, you either obey the rules or suffer the consequences.
For a motorcyclist, similar legal requirements exist in terms of licensing, insurance and roadworthiness but instead of seatbelts, motorcyclists are compelled to wear a crash helmet. Why they have to wear crash helmets is totally irrelevant! Who they protect is totally irrelevant! If you want to drive a motorcycle, you either obey the rules or suffer the consequences.
For a cyclist, there are already some legal requirements. You must have working lights front and rear after dark and also reflectors at the rear and on your pedals. You must not cycle on the pavement or on the road under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Why these rules exist, who they protect is totally irrelevant. If you want to ride a bicycle you must obey the rules or suffer the consequences.
Let us imagine that the UK government has just passed a law making it mandatory to wear a cycle helmet at all times when operating a bicycle. Why this new law exists, who it is designed to protect is totally irrelevant. You simply have the choice to obey the law or suffer the consequences.
Now to what I described as ridiculous which is your utterly hysterical claim that such a law would be “an assault on the basic human right of freedom of movement”. How?
Being obliged to wear a hat by a law passed by a democratically elected government is no infringement or encroachment of your human rights. It would just be another rule added to the already long list of rules that govern the operation of road vehicles.
Obey it or don’t, that would be your choice but please, hat wearing is neither a matter of conscience nor a matter of human rights. If you don’t mind, I will save my sympathy for those millions of people around the world for whom a human right to a political life without the threat or murder of torture is still a pipe dream rather than a first world fashion victim who someday might be required by law to wear an ungainly hat on his/her head when cycling.
I am not sure whether you need Specsavers or reading comprehension lessons but I cannot see any comments in this article published by me or anyone else for that matter that even vaguely corresponds with this claim.
GoingRoundInCycles
We disagree fundamentally so there’s not much else to say.
Democracy is never perfect. We live in a society full of imbalances of political, social, and economic power. I don’t regard “democracy” as a magic word that over-rides basic rights.
You are also going off on a complete tangent – what law are you talking about? Your hypothetical helmet one? You are now accusing me of flouting a non-existent law? Bizarre.
You believe in the tyranny of the majority (actually ‘majority as weighted by economic power’). I don’t. Not much more to say, really.
Btw that “apart from a matter of conscience” rather undermines the entirety of your point! That’s the whole point – these things _are_ a matter of conscience!
GoingRoundInCycles
_You_ say it’s irrelevant. You provide no supporting argument, so you will have to forgive me if I don’t take your attempt at ‘proof by assertion’ seriously.
Again – you are just stringing together assertions and then demanding I accept them. If you have no actual argument why are you bothering?
Still more imperious assertions with no supporting argument. Yawn. Plus a bit of might-is-right at the end there!
GoingRoundInCycles
So you don’t seem to think that adults and children alike being killed and maimed by cars on a regular basis, or having their freedom of movement eroded and suffering from obesity-related health problems (including premature death), or the disastrous effects of CO2-driven global warming on the world’s poor, or the propping up of morally-bankrupt regimes in the middle-east due in large part to our demand for fuel for cars, are ‘serious issues’ or related to basic human rights?
These are all just trivial things compared to the ‘real issues’?
Again, we just differ on that, sorry.
GoingRoundInCycles
Actually the constant pandering to cars does indeed make it harder and harder to walk anywhere. Which is why children are now ferried to school in 4x4s.
Restrictions on cyclists are just the start – we already have restrictions on pedestrians, in the form of roadside fences and parking bays painted on pavements. Anything rather than actually tackle the problem at source.
No one is arguing about the
No one is arguing about the effectiveness of helmets in general (although their usefulness in most of accidents involving cars is debatable). On an individual level it’s better to wear one than to not to.
As it’s been said many times before, the problem is evaluating wider implications of a compulsory helmet wear, especially the perception of cycling as an everyday mean of safe transport by “normal” members of the population.
Obesity, lack of physical activity and pollution will be still killing more people than cycling without a helmet.
It appears that doctors, coroners or cyclists whose lives were “saved” by a helmet display a very narrow minded way of looking at things and are TOO CLOSE to the problem to maintain any degree of objectivity. I would kindly ask those people to stop talking nonsense.
There is no strong evidence
There is no strong evidence to suggest helmet laws help child cyclist safety. However, there definitely is strong evidence that such laws *discourage* children from cycling. Young teenage girls being one particular demographic that it affects badly.
Given the lack of evidence (which you acknowledge for adults) for injury reduction, the clear evidence for the damage it would do to cycling rates, and given children *already have* adults who are meant to help make decisions for them, why, why on earth would you choose to impose on them with a helmet law?
Paul J wrote:There is no
There isn’t a lack of evidence, the evidence is inconclusive. I would rather err on the side of caution where children are concerned because (in general) children being less experienced than adults are not as good at assessing risk and more likely to have accidents.
The law does take decisions out of parents hands in matters that could have a long term impact on a child’s future. A child cannot have a permanent tattoo, even if his/her (highly irresponsible) parent consent, until he/she is 18 years old.
It strikes me that the consequences of getting a tattoo when you are immature are not so difficult to reverse compared to trying to reverse the kind of permanent brain injury that can occur when a still immature teenage skull meets a cold unforgiving kerb at high speed.
So yes, I would err on the side of caution where kids are concerned and take the matter out of the hands of parents on this issue.
The consequences of getting a
The consequences of getting a tattoo are fairly clear.
Inconclusive evidence for the efficacy of helmets in the real world IS a lack of conclusive evidence. On the other hand, we have *clear* evidence, from several jurisdictions, that the laws you advocate significantly depress cycling rates. Further, decreasing the rates of cycling would go *against* stated government public health policy goals for active transport (not that they’re really doing much otherwise to try achieve those goals).
Introducing laws because some people *feel* it is prudent, despite a lack of evidence for that view and in the face of clear evidence of harms, is not good for society.
GoingRoundInCycles wrote:I
You believe wrong, then.
In spite of any potential risks from head injury, cycling has a net health benefit for the individual concerned, in terms of longer life and general well-being, and also for the wider community. So the costs of treating head injuries resulting from cycling are more than compensated for by the overall health benefits that cycling brings.
As an aside, consider the injuries incurred by victims of motor collisions, or those who play contact sports – are you happy to underwrite those costs? They are just as unnecessary and just as avoidable. Head injuries from cycling are a drop in the ocean by comparison.
Also, in any debate on protecting people on bikes from head injury, it needs to be remembered that bike helmets are the least effective safety measure and should not be held up as the answer to all the questions about cycling safety.
FluffyKittenofTindalos
What, like mandatory seatbelts? Like mandatory motorbike helmets? Stop being so precious.
Road.cc is becoming the Daily Mail of cycling news: Non-stop helmet / hi vis / bike-cam / rabble rousing pap. I’m off to order some Rapha deep winter tights in order to make people even angrier.
ajmarshal1 wrote:
What, like
Unlike seatbelts, in that seatbelts have been clearly demonstrated to reduce deaths, while helmets have not.
No need to get angry just because you don’t know what you’re talking about.. reminds me of the stereotype of readers of a certain paper.
Yours etc,
Outraged, Woking (Clnl. Ret., Mrs.)
Ush wrote:ajmarshal1
That cuts deep, I’m upset now. If this was a paper I’d ruffle it and harumph loudly. Anyway, I know enough that in the event that I get t-boned by a car at 25mph on my bike I stand a better chance of survival or escaping lifelong debilitating injury when my noggin hits the concrete wearing a helmet than not. That’s proof enough for me and in the event you wish to argue otherwise, go try it and come back to me with the results. It can count as a serious scientific test if you like, I’ll even fund it.
Cheers.
ajmarshal1 wrote:Ush
That cuts deep, I’m upset now. If this was a paper I’d ruffle it and harumph loudly. Anyway, I know enough that in the event that I get t-boned by a car at 25mph on my bike I stand a better chance of survival or escaping lifelong debilitating injury when my noggin hits the concrete wearing a helmet than not. That’s proof enough for me and in the event you wish to argue otherwise, go try it and come back to me with the results. It can count as a serious scientific test if you like, I’ll even fund it.
Cheers.— ajmarshal1
Or you could actually do something to stop yourself from being ‘t-boned’, Use a very bright front light, have lots of reflectives, wear bright clothes, stick an air-zound on your bike, join cycling organisations, write to your MP and express ideas on how to make the roads safer.
Especially the air-zound:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIOyzyBmRlg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgTde_J9fCw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ2t-9M3VN8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwvFdHeZOuU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvNfGwT6gA8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B6aSrLqtGI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jx_wFrbmPo
Or you could spend £60 on a piece of polystyrene, stick it on your head and pretend that there’s some evidence that it makes a difference.
kie7077 wrote:ajmarshal1
That cuts deep, I’m upset now. If this was a paper I’d ruffle it and harumph loudly. Anyway, I know enough that in the event that I get t-boned by a car at 25mph on my bike I stand a better chance of survival or escaping lifelong debilitating injury when my noggin hits the concrete wearing a helmet than not. That’s proof enough for me and in the event you wish to argue otherwise, go try it and come back to me with the results. It can count as a serious scientific test if you like, I’ll even fund it.
Cheers.— Ush
Or you could actually do something to stop yourself from being ‘t-boned’, Use a very bright front light, have lots of reflectives, wear bright clothes, stick an air-zound on your bike, join cycling organisations, write to your MP and express ideas on how to make the roads safer.
Especially the air-zound:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIOyzyBmRlg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgTde_J9fCw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ2t-9M3VN8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwvFdHeZOuU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvNfGwT6gA8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B6aSrLqtGI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jx_wFrbmPo
Or you could spend £60 on a piece of polystyrene, stick it on your head and pretend that there’s some evidence that it makes a difference.— ajmarshal1
Or better yet, ride out in the middle of the lane as you approach side roads so you can see drivers pulling out earlier (and they may see you), cover the brake levers so you are ready to stop if the driver doesn’t, and keep a look out as you ride along.
All of this could reduce the likelihood of being t-boned.
My concern is that a substantial number of cyclists tend to put too much faith in personal protective equipment such as helmets, and indeed hi-viz, rather than using their own skills as a cyclist. I used to be a cycle instructor and I recall a comment a more experienced instructor made on the subject. Minimise all other risks first of all by your actions and then if you still feel that some risks remain then resort to PPE.
Or better yet, ride out in
Absolutely, in the last week alone, I’ve felt that riding further out caused a driver (on a side road) to see me and wait when they otherwise wouldn’t of, because of parked vehicles obscuring the view.
A good cycle lane here:
http://goo.gl/maps/IFux9
And still many cyclists ride left of the cycle lane in the door zone… A lot of cyclists need educating.
ajmarshal1
What, like mandatory seatbelts? Like mandatory motorbike helmets? Stop being so precious.
Road.cc is becoming the Daily Mail of cycling news: Non-stop helmet / hi vis / bike-cam / rabble rousing pap. I’m off to order some Rapha deep winter tights in order to make people even angrier.— FluffyKittenofTindalos
There’s no comparison with seatbelts – why do people keep bringing that up? Its quite a “Daily Mail” point to make, in fact.
There are no health benefits
There are no health benefits to driving a car, or riding a motorcycle (indeed, quite the reverse – there are considerable risks) to offset against any reduction in car or motorcycle use.
To compare seatbelt or helmet laws for motor vehicles with helmet laws for cycling is to compare apples with oranges, and to miss the big picture:
1. Cycling is, population wide, an overwhelmingly beneficial activity for public health, with or without helmets.
2. Helmet laws demonstrably *discourage* people from cycling.
3. The benefits of helmet laws on injury are somewhere between low and negligible.
Thus helmet laws *damage* public health. Thousands of hearts damaged, to save one or two heads.
Paul J wrote:
2. Helmet laws
Really? Is there evidence for this? We are not compelled to wear helmets yet the majority of cyclists I see during my rides around the Cheshire lanes wear them.
My theory is that it’s because people like to emulate their heroes and as long as Cav, Wiggo etc wear helmets so will us lesser road cyclists.
I used to play cricket and retired about 30 years ago before batting helmets came in. When I watch my old club now every batter wears a helmet (and arm guards and chest protectors). Why? In village cricket there’s very little chance of being hit on the head as the bowlers are not fast or strong enough to produce the quick steep bounce that professionals achieve, so it must be emulation of the star players they see on TV.
so what the author is
so what the author is suggesting is that those people put off cycling, may take up other sports, fair enough, until you think how they are going to get to the ice rink/football pitch/swimming pool/etc. by CAR….
So the author is suggesting making the roads less safe by forcing everyone wear helmets.
AND WHEN ARE WE GOING TO SEE A CALL FOR MANDATORY HELMETS FOR CAR DRIVERS AND PASSENGERS!!!!!!!
To your last point (YOU KNOW,
To your last point (YOU KNOW, THAT ONE), airbags achieve the same effect as helmets, by reducing deceleration and spreading the load.
You might like to be a bit more up to date when you shout (assuming there’ll be a next time).
Summer before last I was
Summer before last I was sitting on wall by a beck on a warm afternoon mid way through a bike ride when a canadian lass wandered along the road hoping to hitch a lift with a driver going over the hill I was headed for next. We got chatting and she said back home hitch hiking was illegal. I made a joke about what a hardened criminal I was talking to but she then told me I would also be breaking the law for riding my bike without a helmet. Had the two of us had been passing the time of day on a sunny afternoon on the side of a country lane in her home province we both would have been criminals. I aways thought of canadians as rugged independent types, pioneer spirt and all that, but actually you seem to need permission from the government take a piss over there. Let’s not go down that route here.
Helmets for car drivers would
Helmets for car drivers would save more lives… There have been studies, I can provide science on request
.
.
Agendas, agendas *yawns*
Agendas, agendas *yawns*
“Motorcyclists are obliged to
“Motorcyclists are obliged to wear crash helmets. Drivers are obliged to wear seat belts. No one considers these to be ‘an assault on the basic right to move’. Well I guess there may be one or two oddballs out there but the argument has largely been won that quite frankly it would take an absolute dingbat to disagree.”
Are you mad? Of course they are exactly the same. The laws that make these compulsory do restrict our right to do as we please. There is no way that you can disassociate cycle helmets from the same argument.
And to make any of them compulsory is wrong. Its my head and no government should have the right to say what I do with it. I’ll agree with the additional costs argument but only when every other “self inflicted ” injury is treated the same.
mattsccm wrote:There is no
I am not trying to! It is the same argument! and ultimately helmets will become compulsory if/when the data is as conclusive as it was in the case of motorcycling helmets and seatbelts.
It is not there yet which is why my preference (as clearly stated in my original post) is for children under 16 to be compelled to wear helmets while over 16s should be allowed to make an informed choice.
We do not have the right to do as we please. We never have and I hope we never will.
GoingRoundInCycles wrote:
I
In the run up to the vote in Parliament to make seat belts mandatory for drivers, those who were anti belts made enough noise for the government to ask for a report from J.E.Isles about the efficacy of seat belts in the countries where they had already been made mandatory. Unfortunately Isles’s conclusion was that no benefit could be shown.
This report was not published and only became known when a copy was leaked to the New Scientist.
http://www.john-adams.co.uk/2007/01/04/seat-belt-legislation-and-the-isles-report/
There is much more on this website about seat belts, helmets, and risk generally.
If you imagine that politicians examine the evidence before legislating, all I can say is, you have not been paying attention.
GoingRoundInCycles wrote:
We
And yet here you are doing everything you can to defend the motorist’s right do do as he/she pleases and insisting its everyone else’s responsibility to try and minimise the consequences of his/her choices!
Let’s look at some
Let’s look at some statistics.
A quick Google and on the US Government website for the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (which I think is a sorta independent scientific group advising the government) it found the following ;
Looking at sports related (i.e. doing sport or doing a recreational activity) and traumatic head injuries for the Under 19 age group in the period 2001 – 2009
It found, of all severe head injuries treated ;
15% of traumatic head injuries were due to bicycle accidents
15% of traumatic head injuries were due to playing American Football
9% of traumatic head injuries were due to playground accidents
6% of traumatic head injuries were due to playing ‘Soccer’
etc, etc
The statistics don’t give any estimates of time spent doing each activity so you can’t rank the activities on risk per hour which would indicate the most dangerous activities.
Golf accounted for 1% of traumatic head injuries, but as Under 19s probably ride their bicycles far more often than they play golf it could be argued that golf has a higher risk of head injury than cycling.
Here is the report ;
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6039a1.htm?s_cid=mm6039a1_w
Doing anything in life has an element of risk. We take steps to minimise the risk until we are comfortable with the balance between doing something and not getting hurt.
So the Canadian doctors have called for mandatory helmets in their favourite hobby-horse activity, cycling. It is just so easy to do.
Yet the statistics show that for children there are other at least as risky, if not more risky, activities that can cause head injuries. Why do they not also call for mandatory helmets for playing in the playground, ‘Soccer’, and golf.
So there we are:
Accident
So there we are:
Accident prevention is better than dressing up in preperation for an incident the chance of which happening is less than other risks we find acceptable.
In fact preparing for this risk may actually increase the likelyhood of it happening.
So if this is a “cycling” problem you really want to fix, campaign for reprioritising outside spaces for people over vehicles.
If its a “head injury” problem you feel strongly about perhaps start with car drivers, footballers and drunks who constitute the majority of injuries.
The problem with the bicycle
The problem with the bicycle helmet debate in a nutshell is that those that propose mandatory helmets don’t seem to listen to or understand the arguments of those that are against the mandatory wearing of helmets.
The problem with comparisons
The problem with comparisons to seatbelt and motorbike helmet laws, is that both of those items are designed and tested to protect you in higher speed motor vehicle collisions. Bicycle helmets are not. They’re being proposed as a compulsory measure to protect you in an RTA, while there is not one helmet manufacturer who will claim that their product is designed to do that.
If cycle helmets are to made compulsory, they will almost certainly have to offer better protection to be considered fit for purpose. If cycle helmets become a compulsory safety measure for public road use, then both the manufacturers of the helmets, and the standards to which they have to conform will be subject to potential legal challenges, so they will need to make sure they measure up. This happened when motorbike helmets were made compulsory. New standards were set to define what constituted a legal safety level, and many of the helmets on sale at the time became illegal overnight. To pass the standards, motorcycle helmets had to become stronger, and heavier.
There’s a good chance this will happen if bicycle helmets are made compulsory, because sooner or later there is going to be a court case. You legally compelled my father / son / daughter to wear a cycle helmet that did naff all to protect them from brain injuries when they were hit at 40mph. Who do I sue first? I’m a little surprised it hasn’t happened already in one of the countries that has already adopted compulsion, and the fact that no one is addressing the issue of what level of protection that cycle helmets actually offer when mandating them just shows how little real thought is being put into the campaign to make them law. But as it spreads, and if it succeeds, I think it’ll just be a matter of time. And at some point, cycle helmets will have to be stronger, heavier and less comfortable if they are to be considered suitable for road use, and that will deter people from getting on their bikes.
Then there’s the political of effect of passing a mandatory helmet law. Forcing riders to wear helmets is easy. It’s about the quickest, easiest, cheapest and most visible thing that any government can do to address cycle safety issues. Unfortunately, it’s also way, way down the list of things that are going to make any real difference. Now, call me cynical if you like, but it seems that pretty much any government will take “quick, cheap, easy, visible and superficial” over “complicated, expensive but actually effective” (like providing better infrastructure, or changing driver attitudes and behaviour) every single time if they can get away with it. So what we have to look forward to if helmet use is made compulsory, is a day when we ask our politicians, “What are you going to do to make the roads safer for cyclists?”, and their answer will be, “We’ve made it compulsory for them to wear helmets”.
The helmet law is a distraction, it’s a red herring. While it remains the focus of the cycle safety debate, it makes the chances of real effective change even more remote.
@GoingRoundInCycles
In
@GoingRoundInCycles
In general you seem to regard issues of right-or-wrong as ‘irrelevant’, and think that all that matters is power. So in your view its ‘right’ if someone of sufficient power tells you to do something? OK, I get where you are coming from. But we differ on that.
And you really don’t argue in a coherent fashion. I realise you have gone off on a hypothetical tangent about the merits of obeying a helmet law should one be introduced. That’s a different argument (I’d almost certainly just give up cycling, but I certainly would respect those who chose to openly defy such a bad law, just as I respected those who disobeyed racial segregation laws in the US civil rights era).
What we are actually arguing about is whether such a law is morally justifiable, not how to respond to it if it existed.
From now on I’m going to
From now on I’m going to stick to one simple argument:
Pedestrians are in as much danger of head injuries per mile as cyclists, there are far more pedestrians so it makes sense to enforce mandatory helmets upon all pedestrians first.
kie7077 wrote:From now on I’m
There was a study I saw [Im trying to re-find it] about head injuries among pedestrians, cyclists and car passengers and cyclists actually come out having the slightly lower number of head injuries per km of the three.
If medical practitioners wish to make calls for mandatory helmets then they should base their calls on evidence and expand it to all people, all the time, in every environment.
zanf wrote:kie7077 wrote:From
There was a study I saw [Im trying to re-find it] about head injuries among pedestrians, cyclists and car passengers and cyclists actually come out having the slightly lower number of head injuries per km of the three.
If medical practitioners wish to make calls for mandatory helmets then they should base their calls on evidence and expand it to all people, all the time, in every environment.— kie7077
Have you considered that the statistics in the study you reference don’t include a large number of cyclists who DIDN’T have head injuries, because they were wearing a helmet when they had their accident? It would seem that most data is based on information from A&E departments etc, so it only includes those cases where a head injury occured. Hence, arguments in favour of helmets tend to be more anecdotal, as in “I fell off my bike last week and cracked my helmet, but my head was fine”.
JeevesBath wrote:
Have you
Most developed countries (including GB) publish annual figures for the amount of car, lorry, bicycle etc. miles ridden in the year. These have various inaccuracies no doubt, but as long as the method of collecting remains the same the figures will certainly capture trends.
Figures for cyclist head injuries treated in hospital are generally collected too. When helmets are made mandatory in a country the proportion of cyclists wearing them goes up suddenly, often to above 90% from 30 or 40%.
If the number of cyclists treated goes down (or up) but the number of miles or kilometres ridden remains the same when the rate of helmet wearing doubles or trebles we can deduce that helmets may have saved injuries and lives (or cost them).
In Oz, NZ and other mandatory helmet states the figures show no reduction in rates of injuries or deaths to cyclists. The number of casualties declined in proportion to the decline in miles cycled. This failure of helmets to reduce casualty rates has happened in all states where foam hats are mandatory. In states where helmets are not obligatory the figures seem to show the same, though because the increase in wearing is not so sudden it is more difficult to detect any effect or lack of effect.
As a control we can look at say pedestrian casualty rates and see whether they have moved in the same way as cyclists’, in order to allow for other changes in the road environment.
The anecdotal evidence you mention is not very useful, but is often used by those in favour of compulsory helmets.
There is a large amount of information and discussion at
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/
Watch this video and count
Watch this video and count the helmets:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWf5fbSUNAg
This video totally makes the
This video totally makes the point that many are trying to make: it’s not about helmets, it’s about making a road culture that promotes, expects, and above all respects people on bicycles. A helmet law would not help this cultural shift at all, and in my opinion would actually make it worse.
Like many others here I frequently choose to wear a helmet, but usually don’t when I’m ‘utility cycling’ (normal clothes, short journeys of a few miles). As a society it is this kind of cycling that needs to increase. The lycra and strava fuelled obsessives of this site are not relevant, it’s your neighbours, your parents and grandparents, and your colleagues at work who don’t cycle in the UK because there is such a car-bias that would be helped by a Danish/Dutch cycling attitude and structure. I’ve cycled in both countries, and seen that rate of helmet use is almost non-existent in both, and the odd person in HiViz is looked upon as though they’re an alien. Yet they seem happy and healthy and the streets aren’t littered with bodies.
The solution, is to make it easier to bike to the shops, station, work, school etc, helmets are at best a distraction from this.
Excellent comment,
Excellent comment, 3cylinder.
There is a very strong association between helmet laws (and high rates of wearing and of pro helmet propaganda), low levels of cycling and high rates of casualties for cyclists.
USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa have dangerous roads, few cyclists and high helmet wearing rates (and/or laws).
Denmark and Netherlands have low casualty rates, low helmet rates and many cyclists.
We are somewhere between. Why on earth do we want to copy the foam hat wearers? They are more dangerous for cyclists even though they make us wear helmets.
I think helmets are an alibi or substitute for measures which might actually make the roads safer for cyclists.
felixcat wrote:Excellent
+1
Now can we just move on? It gets boring reading the same old comments regarding cycle helmets.
OldRidgeback wrote:
+1
Now
Well don’t read them then. But don’t try to censor others.
felixcat wrote:OldRidgeback
Well don’t read them then. But don’t try to censor others.— OldRidgeback
I’m not trying to censor anyone. But the comments in this thread are going round and round and round in circles. And these are the same old circles we’ve seen in every other thread debating helmet use. There comes a point when you have to look back at all the comments in a thread and admit that the discussion has reached the point that it can’t move on any further. Those in favour of wearing bits of plastic on their heads won’t back down and those against won’t back down either. It is pointless to continue.
You may not agree with some of the other news items or forum topics attracting comments right now, but at least they’re taking discussions in a different direction for once. Vasectomies and cycling – well that hasn’t been talked about here before that I remember. Is Jon Snow right or not? Also something that hasn’t been looked into much, and the same is true as to whether or not a piece about an armed robber escaping by bike is or isn’t a cycling story, or the discussion over the piece by Lucy Kellaway. But helmets? ZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
Carry on if you want. But it won’t get you any further ahead. And in a few weeks, we’ll have another news item kicking off another helmet debate and then pretty much the same string of comments. And then a few weeks after that…
OldRidgeback wrote:
Carry on
I can tell you from experience that some people are open minded enough to change their minds when acquainted with evidence and arguments from a different viewpoint. They are usually scientists trained to look at statistics. I well remember discussing helmets on a newsgroup with a helmet believer who is now prominent on cyclehelmets.org.
Given the helmet propaganda and misinformation so widespread in the media there is a place for the other point of view. That this side of the argument needs putting is apparent from the number of ill informed cyclists who say, “I crashed and a helmet saved me.”
Not everyone who reads these threads has read previous helmet threads. For some cyclists it may be news that there are people who don’t believe in helmets, and that there is strong evidence they do not work.
There are indeed topics and forum discussions here which do not interest me. I do not read them. I don’t bother to add my comment to say that the people who do find them interesting should shut up.
Of course some people are big
Of course some people are big enough to change their minds when they come across evidence that their previous assumptions were not correct (and indeed decent science is all about evidence based decisions and opinions).
Of course there are some who faced with evidence that previous assumptoins were not correct choose to disbeleive the evidence and try to discredit it or come up with contrary evidence. In the pro-helmet world that tends to involve quoting lots of frequently repeated “evidence” in the form of anecdotal information which is not actually “evidence” at all.
In the 1980s I became convinced that the helmet was a good idea – my opinion at that time wasn’t evidence based but the modern type of helmets were appearing on the pro race scene and they seemed like a good idea.
Has anyone else noticed that the number of pro racers getting killed since helmet wearing was required hasn’t reduced? (Note in most countries in Europe professionals could choose to wear helmets or not, and generally chose not to, until the UCI rules made them wear helmets in 1993)
Evidence since has indeen enabled me to change my mind and realise that no helmet, even a full motorcycle type offers nearly as much protection as changing the way people use the roads. I still tend to wear a helmet, it is a good place for my extra lights and it reduces the amount my wife worries (she’s worked in casualty and has the usual anecdote based view on helmets and safety).
The real cost of helmet
The real cost of helmet legislation is an opportunity cost. Theres only a finite amount of time and money available. Goverment, police and law courts would save far more lives putting their time into reducing the liklihood of being run over people in the first place, rather than ensuring those who are hit have a helmet on.
The question isn’t “Would a helmet law save lives?”, its “Could we save more lives by doing something else with the time & money it would take to implement and enforce a helmet law?”
Dr. Hagel suggests that
Dr. Hagel suggests that cycling might be replaced as healthy exercise by other sports.
The beauty of transport cycling is that it keeps you fit as a byproduct of getting around.
I can’t see anyone swimming to school, not many of us could row to work, working out in the gym does not get you to the shops.
It’s not just emulating our
It’s not just emulating our heroes. Cyclists both old hands and new comers are under huge peer pressure to adopt the wearing of helmets and hi viz because of the ‘perceived risk’ on the roads. It comes from chain stores with the you will need this to friends and family saying I really wish you would wear one.
I have lived in Nova Scotia,
I have lived in Nova Scotia, one of the Canadian provinces that has complusory helmet laws and it has (or had – I lived there 14 years ago) a very different cycle culture to here in the UK and I don’t know if the results of reduced injuries would be replicated here.
I moved to Halifax (the provincial capital) and bought my bike from Cyclesmith on Quinpool and I was told firmly that I needed a helmet but I was surprised when I asked for some lights and they said – “oh you don’t need those – it’s not a legal requirement”
Cycling was very much a leisure pursuit. I and some of my colleagues (from the Netherlands) used bicycles as utility transport and we were seen as a bit odd, though treated with respect. I once asked at a sailing club I cycled too ( I crewed on a yacht) if there was somewhere I could leave my bike and was told “people don’t normally cycle” and a couple of drivers drove beside me and asked how easy it was to cycle round Halifax, they seemed genuinely surprised somebody would cycle just to get from one place to another.
Gavin
In other news:
Police in
In other news:
Police in Kentucky the place with the highest levels of firearms ownership have called for body armour to be compulsory. They claim that when people are recklessly shot, it prevents some but not all of the injuries and that this was a sensible measure to prevent injuries. Asked why they didn’t seek to stop the reckless use of guns that caused the problem in the first place the spokesman for the Kentucky State Police merely looked puzzled.
I’ve been a member of this
I’ve been a member of this forum for just over a year, quite long enough to realise that the helmet debate is road.cc’s answer to Groundhog Day.
The debate generates a lot of heat every time, but is there actually any serious possibility that a mandatory helmet law will be introduced in this country? I can’t help feeling that the topic is a good excuse for people to mount their favourite hobby horse.
Most of my riding is in a rural setting and at this time of year especially lots of things fall out of trees, so I wouldn’t go out without a lid. It saves me from being bruised by conkers and stray branches, but I’m under no illusion that it would prevent serious injury if I was hit by one of Cheshire’s 4 x 4’s.
I’m sceptical about some of the arguments presented earlier. There was a claim that helmet wearing put teenage girls off cycling, but the fact is that once compulsory school sport ends most teenage give up physical exercise.
Then there was the assertion that riders who went helmetless would be a target for police, but the police routinely ignore riding without lights after dark and riding on pavements so I’m not sure why they would choose to enforce a helmet law while ignoring other infractions.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to the next lengthy thread on this subject which should be due shortly after Christmas.
Crosshouses wrote:is there
There was talk some years ago of a pledge by one UK party or another to introduce mandatory helmet laws once the base rate of wearing exceeded a particular percentage (not sure which party or what percentage). And now Sir Bradley Wiggins has joined a helmet law campaign (which sadly trots out the discredited 88 per cent figure).
Helmet wearing rates in central London are already quite high. Some years ago I did my own tiny survey (one commute to work about 5 miles in length on one route on one morning). Of 100 people on bikes I counted, 82 were wearing a helmet (I stopped at 100 because it’s not easy to concentrate on traffic when you’re juggling numbers). With no other evidence to back it up, I’d guess that figure is on the rise, thanks to the continual drip feed of pro-helmet propaganda and regular scare stories carried in the press. I think the spectre of helmet laws is going to be with us for a long time to come.
I prefer to see it as refining and sharing the argument against bike helmet laws.
Instead of making cycling safer by introducing continuous, dedicated and segregated infrastructure, which requires investment (investment which will eventually be recouped) and time, politicians prefer to seek out a fast, cheap fix, and helmet laws are it.
Those of us who love to cycle are far from convinced, and would prefer not to go down the path taken by countries which have enacted helmet laws, but made no other provision for safe cycling. As a result, cycling rates drop and remain low, bike hire schemes languish and the few people who dare take their bikes on the roads are no safer than before the laws were made.
Crosshouses wrote:Most of my
Is it safe to assume that when you go for a walk at this time of the year you don a safety helmet???
giff77 wrote:Crosshouses
Fair point, but I don’t walk in the country and I can’t walk at 15/20mph.
Also, I generally wear my trilby when I’m out and about at this time of year. (I am an OAP)
Crosshouses wrote:giff77
Fair point, but I don’t walk in the country and I can’t walk at 15/20mph.
Also, I generally wear my trilby when I’m out and about at this time of year. (I am an OAP)— Crosshouses
If you could walk that fast would expect to see you in the next Olympics 😉 my preferred walking head wear is a duncher. I think it is better known as a flat cap down your way!
Interesting to read reactions
Interesting to read reactions to this article. I am writing this post having crashed on Monday morning. I have a fractured pelvis, dislocated and broken collar bone, cracked ribs and multiple lascerations. What I don’t have is a fractured skull because my Kask Mojito took the impact of my head on the road. Most of the right frontal lobe area has collapsed inside the helmet as it absorbed the impact. I was travelling at over 20mph when I crashed on black ice. The ambulance crew,doctors and specialists agree that I was saved from serious head trauma and possibly brain damage or even death by that helmet. Anyone who argues that the protection of a helmet is not necessary should stop and think about those around them. If I had not had a helmet on I may have orphaned my 5 year old boy, widowed my wife and caused more distress for my widowed mother. We have a responsibility to set standards for all and be a good example to younger people. If wearing a helmet became the norm then it would not be an issue. My brother in law has been trying for ages to ensure my nephew wears a cycle helmet. He has shown him pictures of my Kask to show the benefit of wearing one. It is accepted that if you ride a motor bike you must wear a helmet. Why should it not be the same for us on two wheels sharing the roads as well?
A month or two ago I was
A month or two ago I was going down a hill. It had rained that morning, after a dry period, and the road was greasy. The lights at the bottom of the hill went red and I braked a bit too hard. The front wheel locked and folded up. I was going about 45 km/h. I had a bad gash to my elbow, and problems moving it, and went to hospital for X-rays. Luckily nothing more than severe road rash and a bruised nerve. I wasn’t wearing a helmet. The natural human instinct to lift the head away from a fall prevented mine from hitting the ground (note: helmets sometimes can defeat this instinct, their extra weight and width turning what would be no-contact or a glancing blow into a heavy blow).
Aside: For every anecdote there is an opposite anecdote. Which is why we should let our views be guided by the output of science instead. E.g.: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000145751100008X (a meta-analysis, so systematically analysing a number of primary studies).
1. E.g. as demonstrated by some of the cyclists in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqo4hwnJt6Y
cinelli Dave wrote:I was
With such responsibilities in your life, I’m surprised that it didn’t occur to you not to take risks such as cycling at 20+mph on black ice.
No one was to blame for your crash but you, but you seem to want everyone else to pay the price.
Round and around and around
Round and around and around we go.
Cinelli Dave, I wish you a
Cinelli Dave, I wish you a speedy recovery. I also have a crashed helmet in my garage that is used to scare kids into wearing one, but I still don’t think that helmets should be compulsory. If you’re tearing round roads on skinny-tyres then wearing a helmet makes sense. If you’re rolling down to the shops at 6mph on a dutch-bike the likelihood of hitting your head is tiny and a helmet makes no more sense than full downhill body armour.
This is where Wiggins and Trott’s pro-helmet views come from too. The kind of cycling they do means they have crashed many times and been glad to be wearing a helmet. When that is your experience it’s hard to imagine why anyone wouldn’t wear a helmet. It’s also why if you see a cyclist in the Cheshire lanes they are probably wearing a helmet. But their cycling is abnormal, and the kind of cycling anyone who follows this site does is probably abnormal (when compared against the total population of people who ride bikes).
As has been said previously, the problem with helmet laws is that they reduce cycling, which produces more risk for the remaining cyclists, and a cost to society from increased car use (congestion and pollution), increased diabetes etc etc.
Head injuries are also no
Head injuries are also no doubt contributing to motorist and pedestrian deaths.
If cyclist MUST wear helmets, surely car drivers and pedestrians should too?
And what about people who live near coconut trees?
Golf… All those small white missiles. A nice tweed or argyle golf helmet will make that game safer
I’m mocking a serious subject here, but it illustrates some sort of point..