A road safety organisation has come under fire for its latest campaign, which urges cyclists to wear a helmet and has been criticised for “victim-blaming” and failing to tackle road danger “at source”.
Bedfordshire Road Safety Partnership — a group “working together to reduce road casualties” and is made up of representatives from the council, police, fire and rescue and the Bedfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner — launched the campaign, which has since been shared on Road Safety GB’s website, a national road safety organisation.
In the video, which can be viewed on the Bedfordshire group’s website, viewers are shown an animated story of a cyclist called Ted, who didn’t wear a helmet on his head. “Whilst riding real quick, he hit a big stick, and now he’s in a hospital bed,” the rhyme ends.
The campaign was also shared on Road Safety GB’s website, the national road safety organisation that is run in association with THINK! and representatives from groups across the UK, including local government road safety teams.
Road Safety GB said the campaign aims to make wearing a helmet “the norm”, drawing on comparison with Australia where helmet use is mandatory and cyclists breaking the rules can be fined.
It was also revealed that all schools in Bedfordshire have been sent the resources to add to their social media accounts and pass on to parents in newsletters.
Promoting the three-week campaign, a spokesperson told Road Safety GB: “We are trying to make wearing a helmet the norm, as it is in Australia. To do so, we are targeting all age groups to change their habits – as has happened with the wearing of seatbelts over the years.”
The campaign was shared on social media by one Twitter (X) user simply saying, “Oh dear”, while another joked about the comparison to Australia a country “famous for so much cycling”.
> Why is Dan Walker’s claim that a bike helmet saved his life so controversial?
Another reply shared a link to an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report which showed one in five people injured on Australian roads and paths is a cyclist while the rate of hospitalisation for cyclists increased by 1.5 per cent per year over the 17-year period of the report, 4.4 per cent year-on-year in the final six years of the report.
“If this approach works why do the stats show cycling is getting more dangerous in Australia? Stop victim-blaming and tackle road danger at source,” they said. “If you really want to make the roads safer for people on bikes campaign for proper infrastructure. Helmets and personal protective equipment are not and never will be the answer.”
The reply also tagged England’s cycling and walking commissioner Chris Boardman, who famously said back in 2014 that helmets are “not even in top 10 of things that keep cycling safe”.
In June, an Irish children’s hospital consultant spoke out making the case for cyclists to be legally required to wear a helmet, arguing accident and emergency units see a spike in crash-related injuries during the summer months.
The UK government has repeatedly shut down occasional calls for cyclists to be required to wear a helmet, most recently in December of last year when a minister of state from the Department of Transport said the matter had been considered “at length” during the cycling and walking safety review in 2018.
They said: “The safety benefits of mandating cycle helmets for cyclists are likely to be outweighed by the fact that this would put some people off cycling, thereby reducing the wider health and environmental benefits. The Department recommends that cyclists should wear helmets, as set out in the Highway Code, but has no intention to make this a legal requirement.”
77 thoughts on “Road safety organisation accused of “victim-blaming” over cycling helmet campaign”
OMG! Another “road safety”
OMG! Another “road safety” organisation that knows the sum of the square of not much at all about road safety. Surely someone on their staff pointed out that helmets only reduce minor injuries and that the death rate of cyclists doesn’t fall as helmet wearing rates increase. Or that in Australia, the place they want to emulate, it went up after the helmet law.
We can all make mistakes, but if you’re running an organisation and publishing stuff, you really ought to know what you’re talking about. It’s hard to believe the level of competence that is now the norm in this country.
EDIT: I went on to their website to leave a scathing but polite message, but got this:
2Have your say , until the 11th June 2023 we would like to hear your views on Road Safety in Bedfordshire please follow the link below.
Thank you, the survey has now closed”
So how long has this utter crap been up?
2nd EDIT: They’ve actually used two CUK safety videos, but didn’t think to ask them about helmets!
And seatbelts don’t save you
And seatbelts don’t save you if your car is crushed in an 80mph impact with you inside, so anyone who suggests you should wear one is a paid shill for Big Strap.
Idiot!!!!!!
Idiot!!!!!!
Krd51 wrote:
Thank you for that helpful interjection.
You lot are classic conspiracy theorists. There’s literally nothing that could convince you helmets might have uses, nor even that anyone who thinks differently might do so for valid reasons.
I’ve hit the ground from 20mph, and the bits that were protected came off a lot worse than the bits that weren’t. I’ve hit my unprotected head in falls from height, resulting in temporary blindness and dizzy spells. I’ve never met a doctor (including ones working in trauma centres) who (when asked) doesn’t strongly recommend helmet use. I’ve seen the damage to my brother’s helmet from a fall onto a kerb, and was very glad it wasn’t his skull that took the impact.
And you lot will just bleat “that’s anecdote” and “doctors don’t know everything” and “but Australia” and “you don’t wear a helmet when you’re walking”, and you just don’t get it.
Nobody sane thinks a helmet will help if you’re run over by a truck. Not many people think they should be a legal requirement (and I don’t either). There absolutely should be better infrastructure, better drivers and harsher punishments for the bad ones. But helmets are inexpensive, easy to use, and stop your head from hurting as much or as long if you hit it at speed. I honestly don’t understand why you wouldn’t wear one, still why it’s so psychologically-important for you to posit some grand coalition of doctors and road safety campaigners who are trying to conceal The Truth.
Whilst I agree that the
Whilst I agree that the previous poster’s comment wasn’t particularly helpful, you are unhelpfully conflating two things – (1) what makes sense for an individual and (2) what makes good public policy. We are discussing the second.
Do I think safety campaigns focused on helmet use are a good idea? No. Do I wear a helmet when I ride? Yes. If you can’t see why, then you need to do some more thinking.
I guess it’s a bit of a
I guess it’s a bit of a stretch to expect busy A&E staff to say “if only whoever hit this poor cyclist had been more careful”
Conspiracy is over-stating it, but there are plenty of drivers who seem to want to (i) suppress cycling generally and (ii) continue the transference of the myriad consequences and costs of driving on to others.
Sounds like you’ve been
Sounds like you’ve been shafted by big strap-on
Any cartoons of motorists
Any cartoons of motorists with head injuries who didn’t wear a helmet?
“Don’t be like Ted, get
“Don’t be like Ted, get drivers to slow down instead”
Ted campaigning…
Ted campaigning…
This is stupid. It’s not one
This is stupid. It’s not one or the other. Drivers being held accountable is a good thing. More helmet use is a good thing. We can, and should, campaign for both.
Why should we be campaigning
Why should we be campaigning for cyclists to wear helmets? We should spend our time campaigning for things that reduce collisions and encourage more people to cycle (like proper infrastructure), not trying to mitigate the failure of the former and in doing so increasing the perceived risk of cycling and putting people off riding.
Losd wrote:
People choosing to wear helmets might be a good thing, but campaigning for cycle helmets is not a good idea at all. The more that you emphasise the danger of cycling, the more that people are put off from it (one of the most common reasons people quote for not cycling is that they are afraid of the traffic) and of course the health benefits of cycling vastly outweigh any risks from cycling (statistically, that is).
Currently, it’s slightly more dangerous for someone to walk a kilometre than it is to cycle a kilometre, so it would make more sense to campaign for pedestrian helmets. For some reason, that idea never seems to be discussed, yet people are always happy to be pushing the cycle helmet agenda instead.
hawkinspeter wrote:
— hawkinspeterNot one of the most common, the most common reason.
Having a mishap with an
Having a mishap with an obstacle is an example of when a cycle helmet can be beneficial and might be within its design capability. If you’re hit by a driver, then not so much.
Ah yes, that danger I face
Ah yes, that danger I face every day on the roads… big sticks.
I’m wondering if sticks will
I’m wondering if sticks will actually make cycling safer, at least for me, particularly if I always cycle with a big conspicuous bundle of them strapped sideways on to my rack sticking out either side.
Again the issue of road
Again the issue of road safety by a “safety” group has scored an own goal! Till drivers are retested and re-evaluated every 5-10 years. I’ve several friends who drive for a living (they still two wheel at the weekend, haha) and there employers have them retested as part of standard H&S. So it’s more of a case the government doesn’t want to make an enemy of drivers in general, just look at the police support for drivers whilst uniformed aggression to riders is climbing….. Though I will remind EVERYONE here driving is a privilege not a right something the courts need to be reminded of!…..Any one up for mass car tyre valve removal? (Kidding ?)
I completely agree regarding
I completely agree regarding re-testing regularly. Having driven mobile plant, yes it’s dangerous machinery but in an extremely controlled environment. We do one test in a 2T death machine, likely in our teens and go, “there we are, I don’t doubt you’ll be fine even with all the regulation changes and life circumstances that will influence how you fling this metal box about in the open”
I’m surprised the gov hasn’t thought, “we’ll see an increased income her with re-testing” ?♂️
This is not victim shaming it
This is not victim shaming it is trying to persuade cyclists to do something to protect themselves instead of expecting everybody else to do it for them
himmelsturmer wrote:
So, does this molly coddling of cyclists just mainly consist of not driving into us?
I dunno, that seems like a reasonable requirement to me.
himmelsturmer wrote:
By driving safely around vulnerable road users? Or is that too much to ask?
There once was a cyclist
There once was a cyclist named Mandy,
Who was plowed down by a speeding Audi,
The driver got off Scot-free,
As Mandy’s children mourned she
Who died and was blamed so unfairly.
She wore something bright,
Had two working lights,
With polystyrene MIPS fitted tight!
Alas! No helmet would change
The two-ton impact by Shane,
Who said,
‘honest, Guv, I ain’t to blame.’
I recently had a car pull out
I recently had a car pull out in front of me whilst I was cycling at about 19mph I managed to get the bike slowed down but not me so the bike was pretty much Ok. I smashed my head twice once into the car that had stopped right across the road and then on the tarmac when I was unconscious. I have a very badly bruised shoulder, a broken rib, a black eye, a broken tooth, and a sore neck. I also lost about 8 hours which I remember nothing about including the incident, the ambulance, the scans, and the first few hours in hospital. My helmet had broken the eps in two places at the front from the initial impact and the second impact on the road had broken the back in three places. The CCTV was the only way I could tell you what happened. Without the helmet I would most likely be dead. They are not known as purposes they are accidents. Nobody wants to have them. Doesn’t matter who is at fault. If you come off at any speed and hit your head a helmet might just mean you stay alive. Incidentally the Police will be prosecuting the driver who failed to give way.
The issue with this argument
The issue with this argument is, you could remove a number of things to prevent injury, such as not going out, an increased headwind on the day, slower riding, or the most obvious, if the car driver was trained better, more attentive and hadn’t pulled out, you wouldn’t have required a helmet in the first place. Yes it’s great as a motivation tool but the next rider they take out might not be so lucky
Don’t be dim. Sooner or later
Don’t be dim. Sooner or later you will have a collision with something it may be your fault, someone else’s, it doesn’t matter when it happens and you are dead your wife mother father other will think you a selfish twit for not bothering to make a chin strap go click. By and large cycling is not dangerous nor are 99.9% of the other road users. But 0.1% are and everybody but everybody makes a mistake from time to time. People will never be 100% perfect. Most mistakes cause no harm or damage to anybody every now and then one will. I guarantee you are no more perfect than anyone else. Tell me you have never thought I shouldn’t have done that about something and I will call you a fool to your face because you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you believe you have always done everything perfectly. You don’t think I know that one second would have made a difference but consider this that one second didn’t happen. As for the next rider they take out well let me put it another way if another rider without a helmet had been in my place they would not be telling you to wear a helmet, they would be pushing up the daisies.
JLasTSR wrote:
It’s amazing how the effectiveness of helmets is so exagerated in the minds on the faithful. The number of people whose lives have been saved by helmets according to annecdote far exceeds the number of cyclists who were dying to head injuries before helmets.
So either most people “who would have died” without a helmet would not actually have died.
OR
Drivers are now knocking cyclists down far more frequently safe in the knowledge that their helmets protect them.
Do you wear a helmet when out walking? why not? head injuries per billion km are higher for pedestrians than for cyclists.
Nope don’t wear a helmet when
Nope don’t wear a helmet when walking I do wear a coat and hat if it looks like rain though. Only hit my head once while walking when I was a boy I walked into a lamppost while chatting to my father.
Well as well as the consultant the copper also thought it saved my life so you who know very little about this are heavily outweighed by those that have seen the accident and what was left of the helmet.
Don’t bother arguing with the
Don’t bother arguing with the usual helmet muppets on here – it’s not worth your time.
I completely agree that wearing helmets, in general, is a good thing, and those here who are involved in the inexplicable campaign against wearing them, and bullying/intimidating/shaming those who do wear helmets should be ashamed of themselves for promoting a pathetic agenda of falsehoods and intimidation.
Unfortunately their IQ doesn’t yet meet their age.
Left_is_for_Losers wrote:
Don’t bother arguing with the usual helmet muppets on here – it’s not worth your time.
I completely agree that wearing helmets, in general, is trivial, and those here who are involved in the inexplicable campaign for wearing them, and bullying/intimidating/shaming those who do not wear helmets should be ashamed of themselves for promoting a pathetic agenda of falsehoods and intimidation.
JLasTSR wrote:
You’re missing the point, statistics show that walking is at least as dangerous as cycling for head injuries, you admit in a previous post that you are not 100% perfect. Sooner or later you will have a collision with something it may be your fault, someone else’s, it doesn’t matter when it happens and you are dead your wife mother father other will think you a selfish twit for not bothering to make a chin strap go click.
“People will never be 100%
“People will never be 100% perfect.”
Then all driving of 2 tonne high speed vehicles must cease.
For goodness sake. The fact
For goodness sake. The fact is, they did go out, the car driver pulled out, they were riding at that speed whatever reason, and in their opinion the helmet helped to reduce the level of injury and possibly even prevent death. Yes, it is probably subjective. But wearing a helmet is common sense. It certainly isn’t going to do you any harm. I am fed up with cyclists bleating about how they shouldn’t have to wear one and how they may not protect you as much as you think. No, you shouldn’t have to. Yes, the real world should be more considerate when it comes to cyclists. But it often isn’t and accidents happen so just wear the damn thing.
ooblyboo wrote:
Someone else missing the point.
We don’t have an issue with wearing a helmet, but we do have an issue with people that think they are the only conversation to be had over road safety. It’s obviously great for people that don’t like cyclists as they can just blame anyone that chooses to not wear a helmet and call them an idiot (it’s common sense after all).
There are downsides to wearing a helmet and places that mandated helmet wearing saw a reduction in the number of cyclists – a so-called safety measure that instead increases the chance of heart disease etc. through inactivity. It’s far better that we just get people on bikes and shut the hell up about helmets.
“Accidents happen” – that’s the siren song of incompetent drivers that don’t believe that drivers have any agency in crashes. Not paying attention and not driving to the conditions is by far the biggest cause of crashes, but hey, accidents happen yeah?
It’s insidious when we get cyclists simping to the helmet manufacturers and singing their praises, when they are way down the list of safety measures we need to be talking about. We’ll never get to Vision Zero by just putting a helmet on everyone, but that’s all that “safety” organisations seem to be willing to talk about. Banging on about helmets and ridiculing the adults that actually want a more intelligent conversation about road safety is counter-productive and makes you look like an idiot, just repeating the same old cliches.
https://road.cc/content/news/111258-chris-boardman-helmets-not-even-top-10-things-keep-cycling-safe
I don’t think I am missing
I don’t think I am missing ‘the point’ at all. The point of this campaign is to get more cyclists to wear helmets to protect themselves against injury or death. No, it doesn’t address all the other causes of accidents/collisions. So what? Campaigns to get people to wear seatbelts or to not drive while using a mobile phone didn’t/don’t either. They encourage or discourage certain behaviours with the aim of making incremental improvements in safety. Perhaps the simplest thing to do would actually be to make helmets mandatory. It robs anti-cyclists of an argument against us and we can fund a campaign to encourage more cycling to compensate for the supposed decline in participation and combat inactivity instead.
ooblyboo wrote:
Speculation by me without numbers but I’d take a bet that both of those had a much greater potential for serious harm reduction overall, plus (according to the ads…) the first partially but certainly phone use is a threat to others…
Also I haven’t checked for a while but how’s mandatory helmets doing in making motorists more sympathetic toward cyclists in Australia? (I actually don’t know … eburtthebike probably does though… or grog).
Anyhoo I suspect the best point to go for that kind of suggestion would be perhaps where the Dutch are at now. Cycling is reasonably established as a normal transport mode, they’re getting to the point where just falling off is the most frequent accident type (the event most current cycle helmets are designed for) AND they seem to have a more robust data-gathering and evaluating approach to road safety compared to the UK. Albeit apparently there’s been a recent increase in bad outcomes from collisions with motor vehicles. (They’ve not declared a truce…)
ooblyboo wrote:
My point is that a road safety organisation should be focussing on road safety and bike helmets are way down the list of what actually works. They could be running a campaign to teach drivers about leaving enough space around vulnerable road users, or not using mobile phones, or not speeding. They could be campaigning for effective infrastructure or driver re-testing or law changes to allow cyclists to use traffic lights more flexibly. But no, it’s just bike helmets.
Mandatory helmets have been shown to reduce the number of cyclists on the roads and thus tends to make cycling more dangerous!
I don’t think you understand the basics of road safety.
JLasTSR wrote:
Quite a wild conclusion you have jumped to there. Will you admit that the driver caused the collision and that not wearing a helmet does not lead to having a collision?
Nope. They are known as Road Traffic Collisions. Have you ever seen Hot Fuzz?
They are still accidents
They are still accidents whether you call them collisions incidents or anything else we don’t mean to have them.
So what if it was the drivers fault. The helmet didn’t make them do it. It merely helped me survive it, that is the very point.
You really are being willfully naughty about this. If you saw the collision and the helmet and how I ended up you would I guarantee say you are bloomin’ lucky to be alive.
The helmet I was wearing allowed me to have this conversation. The consultant’s observation was that I should thank the helmet for saving my life or my life as I know it.
You need to realize that at some point you will have an collision with something. Your fault their fault it doesn’t matter. When it happens if you are better prepared and equipped you have a better chance of walking away.
JLasTSR wrote:
No, they are collisions – that’s the only description we can be certain about. A driver may not mean to hit you, but by not paying sufficient attention they did so nonetheless. That’s a decision on their part, not an accident.
I’m not going to get into a debate about whether the helmet saved your life in this instance. I also wear a helmet when cycling, but I don’t think that it should be front and centre of a road safety campaign, which is what is actually being debated here.
Campaigns for road safety should primarily focus on decreasing collisions, not mitigating their effects. By making cycling out to be inherently dangerous (nearly killed by a big stick? Seriously?) this campaign helps to put people off cycling. That does more harm to people’s health, as the benefits of cycling greatly outweigh the risks.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t wear a helmet. I’m saying that campaigns should not be focused on helmet wearing as they are counter productive and take away space from more effective campaigns.
AidanR wrote:
Exactly this.
Imagine if your car flipped onto its roof every time you hit a stick. Seatbelts, airbags and SIPs wouldn’t encourage you to drive!
Seriously who is put off from
Seriously who is put off from doing something by something that makes it less likely that you hurt yourself if you have an accident. If seatbelts airbags etc wouldn’t encourage you to drive then companies would not promote them but Volvo virtually based their entire marketing campaign around safety for decades.
And yet Volvo was only
And yet Volvo was only popular amongst elderly drivers are safety conscious drivers. As I said to Holding On. All the modern features on today’s vehicles encourage irresponsible driving.
Ah – I think my comment has
Ah – I think my comment has been taken to mean I believe helmets discourage people from cycling. Not my experience at all. I happily wear a helmet – it doesn’t bother me and if there is a chance it will prevent some damage, why wouldn’t I wear it? At the same time, if someone else chooses not to wear a helmet – I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.
My comment was to point out that in a world where we are trying (supposedly) to encourage people to cycle, we are also in a world where we are telling people that a stick could put them in hospital.
If we reduce that to absurd levels and put it in the context of drivists, I was trying to point out that most drivers would be put off driving if they were told a stick would flip their car – even if they were also told a “helmet” (or in their case seatbelts, airbags and SIPs) would mean they didn’t end up in hospital.
As for the safety features in cars – yes, I definitely agree. It is a cause of irresponsible driving. If you made cars so they exploded at the least touch, there would be a lot more cautious drivers out there!
HoldingOn wrote:
Well, quite. As if there wasn’t already enough to think about.
It’s great, Steve, that you’ve decided to come for a bike ride. Now, have you got everything: gloves, toolbag, pump, gilet, money, charged your lights, charged your ‘phone, hang on, mate you need your helmet, your helmet cam, is it charged up and got lots of mem – oh, he’s buggered off, damn me he’s backing his car out.
Except none of that is
Except none of that is compulsory…
It’s great, Steve, that you’ve decided to come for a daytime* bike ride. Now, have you got your bike? Excellent – lets go.
I am against helmets being compulsory. I am against a campaign that makes cycling look like a stick could endanger your life. I would prefer time and money spent trying to push helmets on cyclists was spent trying to encourage drivists to see us as vulnerable humans.
I am a cyclist that chooses to wear a helmet because it might offer some protection in some situations and I don’t believe people look at me and think “I’m not going to cycle because they are wearing a helmet”
*Obviously at night Steve will need to bring lights
JLasTSR wrote:
Again, this needs to be separated into two strands:
1) The effect on people already doing the activity; and
2) The effect on people not currently doing the activity.
I’m not going to be put off by a campaign for helmet use in cycling, because I already cycle.
My wife, on the other hand, already fears cycling because of the perceived danger and campaigns which highlight that danger will only put her off more.
The Volvo example is not useful, because that was aimed at the former group. Their advertising campaign aimed to get existing drivers to switch to their cars.
I’m pretty convinced that
I’m pretty convinced that many motorists drive more irresponsibly due to these features. I’m sure that they would be more cautious behind the wheel of a 1970’s mini.
I’m pretty convinced that
I’m pretty convinced that many motorists drive more irresponsibly due to these features. I’m sure that they would be more cautious behind the wheel of a 1970’s mini.
JLasTSR wrote:
Duplicate post
JLasTSR wrote:
Duplicate post
JLasTSR wrote:
Sorry. They are collisions or crashes. Investigations consistently identify speed and inattentiveness as the cause of them. I’ve been caught up in a number of crashes over the years. One of them was my fault. I was distracted by the radio and shunted the car in front when I panicked and braked harshly. Lesson learnt. Radio stays off. All the others were down to the other drivers not paying attention. The only incident that could be described as an accident was having a blowout on the motorway. Tyres were fine at start of journey and may have developed a slow puncture resulting in the crash.
An accident is a tree blowing over or a wall collapsing or something like that. Something that is totally out of your hands and control.
When I drive I’m observing a mile up the road on motorways and a good 100yards on urban roads as well as directly ahead of me. I’m watching pavements and extra cautious exiting junctions. Problematic junctions I often turn left and detour rather than right.
100% of crashes can be avoided through being more attentive.
Until you are not attentive
Until you are not attentive or the other guy isn’t. I am not saying they are without fault. They happen all the time, look around nobody means to have them. They happen precisely because of some of the reasons you say and others. You will never get everyone to be perfect. They may have all sorts of reasons why they are distracted. Doesn’t make it right but neither is it their intention to crash. Neither is it a decision that they consciously make to take more risks because of visiting Mummy in the hospital who is dying and it is stressing them out. They are distracted.
JLasTSR wrote:
It’s choices all the way up. Your choice to make that journey when you’ve got the kids in the car, or are overwrought, or are tired, or it’s night and the weather’s awful. Your choice to drive at that speed. Your choice to buy the car in the first place.
Of course that choice is encouraged by the choices of our manufacturers, our road designers, our politicians local and national etc. No one is fully culpable but everyone has made choices to facilitate mass motoring. And we all help this being perceived as a very necessary, yet fairly trivial and mundate activity. That we can (mostly) do in a way which perhaps we shouldn’t, when we shouldn’t, and that all of us do perhaps more than we should.
JLasTSR wrote:
— JLasTSRA claim made thousands of times, but the death rate of cyclists doesn’t fall as helmet wearing rates increase, so the likelihood of your “helmet saved my life” story being true is as close to zero as makes no difference.
You think a helmet makes no
You think a helmet makes no difference. Well you are entitled to your opinion. I will keep my fingers crossed that you never have the same collision. Personally I think suggesting people do not wear a helmet because it is not necessary, is a little crass.
JLasTSR wrote:
Nobody is suggesting that you do not wear a helmet if you want to but we question why you wouldn’t want to wear one when partaking in equally risky activites. We just don’t want you trying to force others to wear one when their effectiveness is unproven. Personally I find then hot, noisy and uncomfortable and feel that I am more aware of my surroundings without one.
Your anecdote about your own experience with a cycling collision is interesting because the eps is supposed to deform in order to cushion your head and reduce the forces on it. By breaking it was probably unable to do this effectively and may have been faulty, have you considered suing the manufacturer for their contribution to your injuries?
JLasTSR wrote:
My helmet had broken the eps in two places at the front from the initial impact and the second impact on the road had broken the back in three places.— JLasTSR
So the helmet cracked instead of deforming and reducing the rate of deceleration of your head like it was supposed to…
I also lost about 8 hours which I remember nothing about including the incident, the ambulance, the scans, and the first few hours in hospital.— JLasTSR
…thereby failing to protect your brain (it might have helped with scrapes).
You need a physics lesson
You need a physics lesson
Perhaps Bedfordshire Road
Perhaps Bedfordshire Road Safety Partnership might like to read this about helmets.
https://www.rwcpulse.com/blogs/peeking-at-plans/bike-helmets-01-7533472
Interesting read doesn’t
Interesting read doesn’t entirely agree with the BMJ.
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/9/9/e027845
Mind you give me enough time and I can find you one lot or another that will produce findings that argue the exact opposite using the same basic data.
That’s basically a large
That’s basically a large hospital study and therefore suffers from the same methodological short-comings.
Wearing helmets is cultural.
Wearing helmets is cultural. In countries where it is normal to cycle the people do not where helmets. However in these countries cycling is not dangerous as everyone (including car drivers) are cyclists. I would not consider the UK a safe country to cycle and until more people cycle I’m wearing a helmet.
Good points but as a resident
Good points but as a resident of rural Netherlands for many many years now i can promise you that far from all drivers and probably not even most drivers are cyclists. That idea is a myth.
neilmck wrote:
One problem with your position is that the helmet does not protect you from the things most likely to cause harm – large, heavy, fast-moving vehicles.
Cycle helmets are designed to prevent/reduce injury if you fall from your bike at low speed and hit your head on a hard surface. That’s not anything like the same being hit by 2 tonnes of metal that’s moving at 30 mph.
It’s a bit like wearing a lightweight stab vest when someone shoots you with an AR-15 assault rifle.
If 90% of pedestrians wore helmets do you think that the number of peds being hit and killed or injured by drivers would change? It wouldn’t. Helmets do not prevent collisions so they won’t solve the real problem for everyone – driver behaviour.
Can someone please point me
Can someone please point me in the direction of Bedfordshire/GB Road Safety’s three week campaigns aimed at drivers on:
– overtaking cyclists respecting safety distances
– not overtaking cyclists when there isn’t the space (oncoming traffic, blind bends, traffic islands…) or time (crossroads/traffic lights… coming up)
– driving within the speed limits or slower when around cyclists
– not making left turns immediately after overtaking a cyclist
– not tailgating, honking at, yelling at cyclists you cannot safely overtake
– not driving into advanced stop boxes or into crossing cycle lanes
– and generally not making lots of unnecessary car journeys?
We haven’t had a proper
We haven’t had a proper helmet debate for ages.
OldRidgeback wrote:
Debate?!
I think most of the comments
I think most of the comments have been quite reasonable apart from the odd poster who has to make inane insulting comments about other peoples IQ
Oh, you’re back again? Been
Oh, you’re back again? Been on holiday?
It’s been at least a
It’s been at least a fortnight.
I’ve tried to send them this
I’ve tried to send them this email, however it bounced back. Clearly a professional organisation ?♂️
Hi,
I’ve been made aware of your recent campaign on cycle helmets. I see your website also uses CyclingUK videos to help educate cyclists on how to stay safe on the road. I’m a member of CyclingUK myself. I would like to point out CyclingUK’s well thought out page on cycle helmets, which can be found here.
I’m of the strong belief that while cycle helmets can make a rider safer in certain circumstances (rarely collisions involving drivers), there are a multitude of measures and campaigns that can be undertaken rather than encouraging helmet use that are more effective. I have a few questions regarding your cycling campaigning activities:
Before starting this recent campaign, did you consider asking CyclingUK, the UK’s leading charity on safety for cyclists, what the best campaign to run to improve cyclist safety would be?
Have you ever considered running a Dutch reach campaign for when people open their driver side door?
Have you ever campaigned for any carriageway improvements such as 20mph zones, or segregated cycle lanes?
It won’t surprise you to learn I do think this cycle helmet campaign is ill-advised, and I’ll be interested to hear your responses to my questions. How you answer them will help me decide whether I think you as an organisation genuinely care about the safety of my friends, family and myself while riding bikes, or whether you just see it as a box ticking exercise.
Thanks for your time,
Tom
Cycle helmet wearing
Cycle helmet wearing arguments in the UK often ignore the disgusting toxicity of the UK driver insurance industry.
If a driver crushes your body, not wearing a bit of polystyrene on your head, designed for cycle racing impacts, will find you with contributory negligence. Your claim against a dangerous driver will be vastly reduced or kicked out.
So tell me, on balance, what are cycle helmet campaigns about?
If the claim is for injuries
If the claim is for injuries other than head then the lack of a helmet is neither here nor there. The claimant will receive full compensation.
As for head injuries then it becomes a bit greyer. If you have a low speed impact as in <12mph for which helmets are designed for then contributory kicks in and will be based on type of head injury. If there is a collision at say 30mph plus with a vehicle the claim should be full and a decent legal team should be able to argue the case that said piece of protection would not have prevented or mitigated a head injury.
Helmets are designed to protect fully the head at low speed, oblique impacts and not the forces placed by 2 tonne vehicles being driven at speeds greater than 30mph. Your ‘racing’ helmet is designed to the same spec as standard helmets and even the manufacturers state that the helmets aren’t up to the job in their small print.
The whole contributory negligence claim by insurers is a bit of a scam to get out of paying full compensation. And is using fear to force people to taking measures that won’t necessarily help in high speed impacts
I would much rather various authorities put greater effort into reminding motorists of their responsibilities when driving and for them to actually look where they’re going.
Here’s a link from a Scottish law firm discussing the issue.
https://morayclaims.co.uk/if-you-were-not-wearing-a-cycle-helmet-can-you-still-claim/
Cycle helmet wearing
Road CC server repeat. Again.
At this point road.cc is
At this point road.cc is straying into becoming a clickbait publisher on this topic. Hint that isn’t a good thing.
Whilst it might get more eyeballs and uninformed comments, these kinds of articles are typically Black or White logical fallacies. If the author doesn’t understand this, then they really should be looking for another job.
I tend to agree that after
I tend to agree that after being here a while you start wishing the world would lay off the helmet. And to paraphrase Chris Boardman it’s a sideshow in terms of cycle safety and even “public image”.
Unfortunately that is one of the topics that both those who wish to “make it better” AND those who would rather cyclists just disappeared reach for first and often. I’m not sure I want to see road.cc solely reporting on drivetrain compatibility and the details of bike races.
It’s also rather easy to fall into a trap while pointing it out…