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Maximum safety (licensed CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 by Lionel Tinchant:Flickr)Cambridgeshire's 'cycling champion' calls for compulsory helmets for children
A local authority 'cycling champion' has called for helmets to be made compulsory for children — but conceded that Dutch-quality cycling facilities would make helmets unnecessary.
Cambridgeshire County Councillor Noel Kavanagh told Cambridge News: "I am aware that most primary schools run the Bikeability scheme where they are trained to gain road sense and they always seem to have helmets on.
"That made me think why not expand that because at that stage they are at their most vulnerable.
"If they wear them all the time as children hopefully they will carry on wearing them throughout their teenage years and into adulthood."
Observation suggests that helmet use in Cambridge among under-16s is quite low. Enforcing such a law would involve pitting the police against a large number of the city's bike riders.
The councillor went on to say: "I am aware it would be difficult to enforce considering how hard it is for police to enforce bike light laws.
"If we did have comprehensively segregated cycle lanes like in places such as Amsterdam it would be safe to cycle without a helmet.
"We are getting there as there's been a huge investment in cycling but until then my advice would be to wear helmets."
Cllr Kavanaugh's remarks come after Baroness Sharples (Conservative) asked in the Lords on October 23 whether the Government had any plans to force cyclists to wear helmets. After being told by Lord Popat that it did not, Baroness Sharples said she had recently assaulted a cyclist.
She said: "Is my noble friend aware that recently, on a crossing outside the House, I hit a cyclist on the back because he did not stop."
She was congratulated on this vigilante action by two of her fellow Lords. Lord Popat (Conservative) said: "If we had more people with the courage and decency of my noble friend, the world would be a better place."
Lord Lord Berkeley (Labour) said: "I congratulate the noble Baroness. I would not like to meet her when on my bike on a dark night."
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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29 comments
'She said: "Is my noble friend aware that recently, on a crossing outside the House, I hit a cyclist on the back because he did not stop."'
I do wonder how these ignoble bastards would react if someone slapped one of them every time they committed a driving offence. Unless she is vastly different from every other cager, she will commit at least one a day.
Isn't that advocating vigilantism?
I'm pretty sure that you are not allowed to hit a stranger just because you think that they broke a law in some way...
"Pick up that wrapper, good sir!" "No, f-off!" *whack*
"Excuse me, but I think you pushed in line there" "So what?" *kerpow*
"Could you please stop using your mobile telephone whilst driving, ma'am?" "Er, no" *smash*
Hmm...
Perhaps in this case we could excuse it
Is your *smash* the sound of the vigilante action or the driver crashing? 
Wait a minute....
"If we did have comprehensively segregated cycle lanes like in places such as Amsterdam it would be safe to cycle without a helmet."
If ever there was an official acknowledgement that helmets are useless it's that sentence. He's basically saying that where there's no risk of being run over, the effects of which not even the helmet manufacturers will claim their products can protect you from, then there is no need for a helmet.
sounds like this 'cycling champion' wouldn't know which end was the front if he ever got closer than 'you don't pay road tax!' shouting range to a bike.
Pretty sure he has cycled to all the events I've ever seen him at. He's a long-standing member of the local campaign, regularly attends campaign meetings, and is very good on the importance of infrastructure. The fact that he even mentioned it, unprompted, in the statement should suggest that he has some grasp of this issues.
He's utterly wrong on this, of course.
If Noel Kavanagh is a "cycling champion" then we need to get a new one. Having lived in Cambridge for 12 years I fail to see how "we are getting there". A new crossing island at one of the busiest junctions is certainly a positive but in the grand scheme of things it's nothing. And until attitudes and priorities change it's largely moot anyway.
Has there been any follow up to the Baroness admitting assault in a rather public forum?
"We are getting there as there's been a huge investment in cycling but until then my advice would be to wear helmets."
"If we did have comprehensively segregated cycle lanes like in places such as Amsterdam it would be safe to cycle without a helmet.
I would be highly suspicious of a government that suggests helmet law going by our experience in Melbourne.
In 1977 a report came out here in Australia which suggested better separated infrastructure, better laws, and this other idea, helmets, might improve safety for cyclists.
At exactly the same time in the Netherlands bicycles were being prioritized with infrastructure and law but no helmets.
The Dutch achieved a reduction in deaths of between 90% and 95%.
We achieved 29% reduction and its still being argued over because there was a concurrent decrease in deaths of pedestrians of 31% while a reduction in cyclists of 40% was also recorded.
Importantly, and most pertinently to this question, in the years after the helmet law almost nothing else regarding law or infrastructure was done. Helmet law was enforced fiercely and still is with ever increasing fines.
It is only now, 24 years on from the introduction of the law and 37 years from that report that any effort is being made to address law and infrastructure concerns.
Helmet law is proving hard to even get politicians to even consider amending or modifying now let alone removing as the behaviour of cyclists has adjusted to the helmets due to the illusion of safety.
I suggest dont go for this very counterproductive solution.
You will be stuck with helmets and an excuse for your government to do nothing else.
I bet you it's not schools. I bet you that some parents are the worst offenders for stuff like this. It's some parents who choose to drive their kids to school instead of walking and cycling, because they think it is safer. It's some parents who are all over the school if anything happens to wee Johnny and consequently force schools into a risk averse culture.
So it's not just schools, it's women as well, eh?
So Baroness Sharples is pleased because she committed an assault on a cyclist because the cyclist did not stop? Err, I'm pretty sure assault is a more serious offence than red light running on a bicycle.
Bikeability doesn't require helmets, it's the schools that insist on them. I have suggested that as places of education they should consider educating themselves, but unsurprisingly it falls on deaf ears and we are forced to deliver Bikeability as if cycling is a dangerous fringe activity.
Then don't. Not just you but all of you. Tell the schools that they are contributing to obesity because their attitude creates fear about kids cycling. Schools are definitely the worst offenders for stuff like this. I was incensed once when they cancelled the Primary School district games because the temperature soared to a whopping 24 degrees and it might be dangerous. Maximum distance involved at that age was 75 metres. Then we had the idea that cricket would be safer if we used a tennis ball instead. It's mainly women because teaching is a feminised profession and not just women but generally the sort of women (PE teachers Excluded) that are a bit bookish and don't like exercise much. ie the very sort of people that shouldn't be deciding on anything to do with exercise, health and well being.
Kick up a fuss. Refuse to deliver bikeability at school until they start to treat cycling as a normal everyday activity that is perfectly safe and needs to be encouraged.
Who would benefit from that and who would lose out? I make more money fixing bikes than doing Bikeability courses, I do that because I want more people riding bikes and I don't want these kids to miss out on the training because I'm trying to push my agenda of having people look up the facts and make an informed choice.
My kids' primary school tried to ban kids from riding to school without a helmet, I spoke to the headmistress pointing out the folly and the fact they have no legal authority to do this but when this was ignored they prevented kids with bikes but no lid from entering the premesis. The following day as the headmistress turned away kids at the gate I gave out free locks, after a few days of having some 40 odd bikes locked to the fence and the police informing them that it is not illegal to lock bikes on a footway they backed down. That was worth it because most of those kids would have stopped cycling if they were forced to wear helmets but often it's not worth the battle.
Chapeau!
Words nearly fail me. Thank you for doing that. I hope that this deeply misguided person has had the chance to educate herself since then.
Fuck.
Me.
Rigid.
There has been some utter shite written on this site recently but you've excelled yourself here.
You need to keep up with current issues in pedagogy my friend.
There's a shed load of academic research on the feminisation of teaching as a profession. Ooodles. The particular concern has been the effect on boys school performance. Want a starting point then try Skelton 2001 but there are hundreds.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09620210200200084#.VFDt9fmsV8F
or Carrington and McPhee
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02607470801979558#.VFDuzfmsV8E
Or Tony Sewell of the learning trust who in particular criticises it in relation particularly to black boys.
Or Unesco via the Commonwealth Secretariat. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002122/212200e.pdf
The phenomena is well documented academically. In relation to PE it has been characterised by a move away from competitive sports or those that may involve physical contact. For example Rugby was a normal sport at my secondary modern in the 1970s. It hardly exists as a sport in the state education sector now and only does so in the face of resistance. Contact and competitive sports have been in decline in state schools. Surely you know of that issue even of you think that rhythmic movement is far better than competitive sport.
So yes my friend the increasing feminisation of the teaching profession in the last 30 to 40 or so years is a real phenomena and one which the Department of Education has policies to counter which have had variable success. It started in the 70s in the USA with the ECAW (every child a winner) program which also had some traction in the UK but under the now perjorative slogan "all shall have prizes". The effect on PE as part of the curriculum is quite pronounced. It is now about non competitive exercise and risk avoidance rather than competition and risk management.
So yes, I was quite cross a few years back when a teacher at the PTA sought support for the idea that because a lad had a bruise from a cricket ball that we have a policy at school of playing cricket with a tennis ball. She even commented that it wouldn't be so frightening if the boys knew the ball wouldn't hurt them, not understanding the point of the game.
But if you like that sort of thing be my guest.
Or was it that your knee jerked upward when someone criticised the some female teachers and the effect that the currently skewed gender balance in schools has on the attitude to risk and in the case of this issue on adopting policies that give everyday cycling the status of a dangerous activity requiring specialist protective equipment.
I'm not quite sure you see whether you approve of the feminisation and it's effect or that you just didn't know it was so well documented.
Enlighten me
I watched a bikeability course that started outside my house. Helmets and hi-viz abound which isn't a great message. The day after, I dropped my wife off at the primary school where she is a governor. I got talking to a teacher and it turned out that he was the instructor from the day before. He assured me that helmets and hi-viz were a requirement for liability insurance, and driven by the risk assessment that has to be completed whenever you take the kids off the school premises. Blame the H&S culture, blame safeguarding, blame Ofsted, blame the litigious nature of society, but the head and the bikeability instructor are just making the best of what they have.
As for women avoiding exercise, well the headteacher is a triathlete and rode C2C last year with her husband.
I would be willing to put fifty quid on it that the insurers do not require helmets. Clubs have made similar claims in the past and when the policy is examined it turns out not to be true. It's the old "it's not me gov, it's $some-higher-authority" lie that people trot out.
The councillor went on to say: "I am aware it would be difficult to enforce considering how hard it is for police to enforce bike light laws.
Nothing is difficult to enforce. This one, though, needs some discretion. If you're properly visible then you are within, at least, the spirit of what the lighting regs wanted. They are from a different time.
But, enforcement. Enforcing regulation requires the will of our elected leaders ensuring that the laws that they write are adhered to. Enforcement is currently a mish mash of seasonal campaigns that focus on whatever issue is the issue of today. It would be nice if, before, or, at the very least, whilst we are being enforced against, that we look much more widely and closely at the more dangerous road user. We lack true enforcement.
What a confused statement.
Kids are best off using a helmet, they're likely to simply fall off the bike at times, esp when learning. All well and good: Use a helmet.
In the Dutch infrastructure example, this assumes that the kids are transport cycling, no? Then they're old enough not to simply fall off, and speeds are likely to make the helmet simply a useful plastic helmet that may reduce grazing the scalp.
In any other case, i.e. vehicle/cyclist interfacing..., the helmet is near as useless.
Anyway, it's up to the parents, not gov't.
All the times my kid fell off without a helmet (which wasn't often because she started with a balance bike) she did not hit her head. Except for once when she landed on her face ... it wasn't pretty but she didn't die and the cut lip subsided after a couple of days.
Helmets are pretty much useless for stopping anything except minor injuries. They are excellent at putting people off cycling though.
It's exactly for kids learning to ride that I'd say a helmet is a good thing. Can stop some cuts and bruises, i.e. minor injuries, which is good. Also, kids that age are unlikely to refuse wearing a lid, we're talking 4 year olds here!
Yeah, I hit about every single part of my body learning to ride... including scraping up my head. No, not life threatening in any way, but certainly hurt.
Compulsion is B.S. however, it's up to the parents discretion.
oh FFS, really what is the point. Why is it so hard to see the elephant.
Thread title fail. Noel Kavanagh is certainly no champion.
Not the cleverest idea to admit to assaulting some one ……..
I thought the dinosaurs were extinct. Obviously not, they just took refuge in the nasty Tory party.
I despair at the stupidity of the people we let make decisions on our behalf
"If we did have comprehensively segregated cycle lanes like in places such as Amsterdam it would be safe to cycle without a helmet.
"We are getting there as there's been a huge investment in cycling but until then my advice would be to wear helmets."
In what alternate reality are we "getting there"? The cycling infrastructure, even in a town like Cambridge where a high percentage of journeys are made by bicycle, is falling laughably short of a 'Dutch' model - where cyclists are given priority, segregated routes to minimise contact with motorised traffic and safe, well-maintained routes to cycle on. The investment, when it is there, is in near-useless bits and pieces, and in Cambridge it most often involves painting the edge of the road a different colour or making a shared-use path so that pedestrians are then put in harm's way.
Noel's comments show me only that he is deluded about the situation in Cambridge in multiple ways.