Plans to make cycle helmets compulsory in the North.

tunney

Lumen wrote: »

Why? In my experience (of observing whilst driving) drivers give these unhelmeted convoys much more space.

An impact with a car on a main road will almost certainly be fatal regardless of headwear.

Also, the expression is "gets my goat" or "gets my hackles up".

Someday you'll post something sensible. Until that day.

Jawgap

tunney wrote: »

Someday you'll post something sensible. Until that day.

....that's the day he stops being a mod.......:)

Lumen

tunney wrote: »

Someday you'll post something sensible. Until that day.

Your attitude is starting to get my goat up.

tomasrojo

tunney wrote: »

Reference.

Ian Walker, University of Bath. It's a small study-- just Ian Walker cycling around with helmet, without, and wearing a blond wig.

Edit:
Walker, I. (2007). Drivers overtaking bicyclists: Objective data on the effects of riding position, helmet use, vehicle type and apparent gender. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 39, 417-425.

seamus

tunney wrote: »

Reference.

http://www.drianwalker.com/overtaking/
http://www.drianwalker.com/overtaking/overtakingprobrief.pdf

tomasrojo

My new-found interest in Google as a unit converter just received a fillip from visiting Ian Walker's blog.

http://bamboobadger.blogspot.com/2009/06/public-advice-we-need-more-information.html

Finally, big cheers to Google. When I searched for "five a day" its top result was "five a day = 5.78703704 × 10-5 hertz". Superb!

doozerie

If they bring in a mandatory "wear yer helmet ye reckless feckers" law, will they also employ someone to check and make sure that everyone wears their helmet correctly, that everyone replaces their helmet after it has had a bad knock, etc. After all, if we are so stupid that we ride our bikes without helmets despite knowing that we will apparently die from doing so, can we be trusted to ensure that our helmets are actually in good enough condition, and fitted correctly, to make the slightest difference in a crash?

My father always wore a helmet when he used his battered old Honda 90 to get to and from work. That helmet lasted him well over a decade. The helmets inner padding disintegrated after a few years, but he replaced it with newspaper (well known for it's ability to absorb the shock of a collision). Never let it be said that he went out without his helmet, sure that would have been reckless... He is still alive too, which I'm sure could be twisted by the deluded into some kind of proof that helmets save lives.

Canis Lupus

Jawgap wrote: »

..... and water melons

Helmets are a good idea, but compulsion isn't. I wear a helmet, the kids wear them too unless it's races around the local roads with their mates!

The most dangerous thing I've seen them attempt on a bike (jumping off the garage roof) wouldn't have had a better outcome if they'd been wearing a helmet.

haha. Awesome. Jeez I wanna go back to that age of near invincibility when jumping off something stupidly high was: Fun and if it all went wrong resulted in a scraped knee.

DaveyDave

I've had my fair share of falls and crashes and have never worn a helmet and never suffered a head injury because I do a little thing with my hands to protect myself. You know, putting your hands out instead of landing on your head.

A helmet isn't going to stop me breaking my hand/wrist or crushing my balls, and they look gay. Except full face helmets they look deadly. I don't feel the need for a helmet for recreational cycling on wide, empty cycle paths. Obviously, when I go mountain biking I'll wear a helmet.

Rob A. Bank

Jawgap wrote: »

.....

Helmets are a good idea, but compulsion isn't....

.

I really wonder if they are such a ‘good idea’…

(1) Statistics show that in countries where helmet wearing is the norm cycling is more lethal. http://www.cyclehelmets.org/index.html

There is a very good reason why boxers hit the chin when trying to knock someone out.. it is the farthest point from the center of the head. A blow there has more leverage to produce significant rotational brain injury… thus rendering the recipient unconscious.

Severe rotational brain injury is the factor which causes death or disability in many road traffic head injuries.

The cycle helmet effectively makes the head into one BIG chin.

(2) Cycle helmets have been around since the mid 1970’s and as yet there is no good evidence that they reduce cyclist deaths (in fact the opposite seems the case).

If they were any good at all, the evidence for their use should be overwhelming by now.

niceonetom

Rob A. Bank wrote: »

The cycle helmet effectively makes the head into one BIG chin.

QED helmetmongers! Q. E. D.

SerialComplaint

DaveyDave wrote: »

A helmet isn't going to stop me breaking my hand/wrist or crushing my balls, and they look gay.

Are you 13 years old?

Dandelion6

Stark wrote: »

Plenty of reports of kids getting strangled by helmet straps when playing in countries with mandatory helmet laws.

Any links?

Jawgap

Rob A. Bank wrote: »

I really wonder if they are such a ‘good idea’…

(1) Statistics show that in countries where helmet wearing is the norm cycling is more lethal. http://www.cyclehelmets.org/index.html

There is a very good reason why boxers hit the chin when trying to knock someone out.. it is the farthest point from the center of the head. A blow there has more leverage to produce significant rotational brain injury… thus rendering the recipient unconscious.

Severe rotational brain injury is the factor which causes death or disability in many road traffic head injuries.

The cycle helmet effectively makes the head into one BIG chin.

(2) Cycle helmets have been around since the mid 1970’s and as yet there is no good evidence that they reduce cyclist deaths (in fact the opposite seems the case).

If they were any good at all, the evidence for their use should be overwhelming by now.

Apologies - I should've made clear that when I was stating that helmets are a good idea, I was expressing a personal opinion rather than an objective fact.

I think it's really up to people to inform themselves and then make a decision and if someone doesn't want to wear a helmet, then that's up to them.

doozerie

Dandelion6 wrote:

Any links?

These links don't necessarily support the view that plenty of children have died as a result of strangulation by helmet straps, but they do support the claim that it has happened and is therefore a known risk:

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet#Strangulation_by_helmet_straps
* Evaluating bicycle helmet use and legislation in Canada (Word document], or the same document in HTML form

More generally, there are a lot of resources available online which discuss helmets and the measurement of their effectiveness, or not, and at least some of these touch on associated risks such as strangulation too. This page gives a timeline of significant events along the route of helmet development and promotion. It is an interesting read generally but also mentions that 1988 was the first report in Sweden of a child being strangled by their helmet straps. The same guy who put together that page has this page of links to further info on helmets.

There is a wealth of information on the topic of helmet safety, covering both sides of the argument for and against helmet use. Some of the info is clearly contradictory, on both sides, some of it is clearly just insane and completely uninformed, and some of it is very informative. All of it should be read with an open mind, which obviously means not swallowing it all wholesale and actually questioning some of the claims that are made on both sides. What seems clear though is that neither extreme of "wear your helmet or you will die" or "wear your helmet and you will die" has ever conclusively proven their case, despite both of those extremes being able to point at anecdotal evidence to support their stance. As such, introducing mandatory helmet usage laws seems ill-informed at best and downright stupid at worst, and would be on a par with any attempt to make helmet usage illegal. At least in this country right now it's up to the individual to decide for themselves whether a bike helmet offers them useful protection, and that's as it should be, in my view.

It's difficult to have a meaningful discussion about the merits, or not, of mandatory helmet usage laws though. Instead of the implications of the law itself being discussed any such debate very quickly descends into an argument over whether helmets are useful or not and the whole thing goes round in circles. Which just highlights the fact that there is no conclusive evidence to support the argument that helmets are necessary to keep you safe while cycling, so there is no compelling reason to make their usage mandatory.

galwaycyclist

Hi

Whatever about the cycling lobby in the South having limited resources and swimming against the tide the situation is arguably worse in the North.

We have been asked to help our Northern counterparts fight this idiocy.

If you think you can help PM me.

People with contacts in Sinn Fein might be particularly useful. Contacts within the DUP may be too much to hope for, but are just as vital - if difficult to exploit with a Southern accent!

Regards

gman2k

Why is there such a bias here against wearing helmets???
Of course there is no difference if you get a smack from a car or HGV at high speed!

It might be macho to not want to wear a helmet (in case it makes one look gay - nice one daveydave:rolleyes: )
In the case of a brain injury, it's not you who has to pick up the pieces, it's your family.
It's the same in all sports when mandatory use of protective gear is introduced, the usual spiel is trotted out about it increasing risk etc.
There was huge opposition to seatbelts in cars, air bags, helmets in hurling etc etc
I don't know of anyone who has taken a fall from a bike who was wearing a helmet and said - 'I wish i wasn't wearing a helmet'

SerialComplaint

gman2k wrote: »

Why is there such a bias here against wearing helmets???

There is a difference between being against helmets, and being against mandatory helmet use.

Rob A. Bank

gman2k wrote: »

Why is there such a bias here against wearing helmets???....
In the case of a brain injury, it's not you who has to pick up the pieces, it's your family.

There is evidence to suggest that a helmet may actually exacerbate brain injury rather than preventing it.

Helmets may turn what would have been a nasty bang on the head into severe rotational brain injury which leads to diffuse axonal injury (DAI) and subdural haematoma (SDH). These are the most common brain injuries sustained by road crash victims that result in death or chronic intellectual disablement.

The head is a sphere perched on a universal joint at the top of the neck (the atlanto occipital joint). It is practically impossible to hit it without causing some rotation. Making the head bigger with a helmet gives more mechanical leverage to the bang and thus causes more severe rotational brain injury.

This bicycle helmet fad started in the USA in the 1970s when the powers that be didn’t want cycling to go the same way as soccer in the USA…. and become virtually a ‘women only’ sport.

In order to pander to the peculiar white American male fetish for sports where helmet wearing is necessary (American Football, Baseball), cycle helmets were introduced to increase the ‘macho’ image of cycling. This effort was (and is) gleefully supported by the polystyrine lobby and those with an interest in selling useless gadgets to cyclists.

They have been grubbing around in vain for 35 years now, trying to find evidence that helmets actually work.

Never mind the FACTS… that cycling is more lethal in countries where helmet wearing is common… that the only thing mandatory cycle helmet laws are proven to do… was not to encourage cyclists to wear helmets, but to discourage cycling.

Dura Ace

From Cycling Weekly

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest/496725/controversy-over-helmet-law-proposal-in-northern-ireland.html

Helmet compulsion is back in the news. Who wants it? An MP in Northern Ireland does. Who doesn't? Britain's largest cycling organisation, the CTC, doesn't want it and is on permanent standby to speak against compulsion whenever the issue arises.

Melbourne cyclists don't want it. There, in the State of Victoria, the helmet law is said to be killing off the new cycle hire schemes in Melbourne and Sydney. Mexico recently revoked their helmet laws fearing it would deter people from hiring bikes.

And on mainland Britain, a report by the Department of Transport, after a review of the available research, says there is no clear evidence to support the view that helmets protect from serious injury.

To wear a helmet or not to a wear a helmet - let the individual, parent or guardian decide. That remains the stance of the CTC - the national cyclists' organisation. One good reason is that the health benefits far outweigh the risks.

Notwithstanding this position, the island of Jersey recently passed a helmet law, and now Northern Ireland MP Pat Ramsay's Private Members bills seeks to do same.

There is a connection. It's called Headway, the brain injury charity, acting with the best of intentions but, according to cycling safety experts, exaggerating the risks and being selective in the use of statistics.

The gospel according to Headway was at work in both Jersey and Northern Ireland.

Ramsay refers to 42 serious incidents of children falling off their bikes and being rushed to A&E.

"It is clear and obvious from brain injury group Headway that there is an increasing number of young people having serious accidents on their bikes," says Ramsay. "We must legislate for this at the Assembly, particularly when some accidents sustained by young people can easily ruin their lives permanently, then every effort must be made."

CTC's campaigns and policy director Roger Geffen says that the viewpoint behind proposals for a helmet law in Northern Ireland rests on three unfounded hypotheses:

"The first is that cycling is a particularly 'dangerous' activity. You are as unlikely to be killed in a mile of cycling as a mile of walking. Pedestrian helmets anyone?"

The second, says Geffen, is that helmets are ineffective at preventing the risks which cyclists face. In fact, cycle helmets are (and can only be) designed to withstand minor knocks and falls, not being hit by moving traffic.

The third is that helmet use cannot be promoted, let alone enforced, without reducing cycle use,
with all the health, environmental and other benefits it brings. "In fact there is good evidence that enforcing helmet laws substantially reduces cycle use," says Geffen.

John Franklin, author of How to be a better cyclist, and a cycling expert in court cases, says that the recent Department for Transport study showed there was no clear evidence of benefit from helmets in serious crashes.

"It's also a paradox that most people seem to know of someone 'saved' by a helmet although very
few people know of anyone badly hurt through not wearing one. The claims and the hard evidence just don't add up."

The one thing proponents of helmet legislation seem to ignore is that the fact that helmets do nothing to improve road safety, say the CTC.

What Helmets have done for cycling's image, however, is to create the perception that cycling is inherently dangerous, which it was never considered to be before the arrival of the ubiquitous shiny hard hat.

Chips Lovell

Mod Note: Threads merged

tomasrojo

John Franklin, author of How to be a better cyclist, and a cycling expert in court cases, says that the recent Department for Transport study showed there was no clear evidence of benefit from helmets in serious crashes.

I was wondering what study was being referred to, and it's this one, apparently:
TRL Report PPR 446,.The Potential for Cycle Helmets to
Prevent Injury: A Review of the Evidence, by D Hynd, R Cuerden, S
Reid, and S Adams

Abstract here:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/research/rsrr/theme1/ppr446.pdf

The bit John Franklin is referring to is this, I think:

Overall, there appears to be a clear difference between hospital-based studies, which tend to show a significant protective effect from cycle helmets, and population studies, which tend to show a lower, or no, effect. This is likely to be due to the difficulties in adequately controlling for confounding variables, as well as limitations regarding how representative the cyclists are in the samples used compared with the whole cycling population.

The study isn't exactly helmet-sceptical on balance, I'd say from glancing at it.

monument

tomasrojo wrote: »

I was wondering what study was being referred to, and it's this one, apparently:
TRL Report PPR 446,.The Potential for Cycle Helmets to
Prevent Injury: A Review of the Evidence, by D Hynd, R Cuerden, S
Reid, and S Adams

Abstract here:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/research/rsrr/theme1/ppr446.pdf

The bit John Franklin is referring to is this, I think:


The study isn't exactly helmet-sceptical on balance, I'd say from glancing at it.

The full report is available here, you have to register, but it seems to be free:

http://www.trl.co.uk/online_store/reports_publications/trl_reports/cat_road_user_safety/report_the_potential_for_cycle_helmets_to_prevent_injury___a_review_of_the_evidence.htm

Rob A. Bank

monument wrote: »

The full report is available here, you have to register, but it seems to be free:

http://www.trl.co.uk/online_store/reports_publications/trl_reports/cat_road_user_safety/report_the_potential_for_cycle_helmets_to_prevent_injury___a_review_of_the_evidence.htm

This report has a very important caveat attached :-

“It does not include detailed consideration of whether wearing (or not wearing) a helmet influences the likelihood of being involved in an accident, either through behaviour changes in the rider or in other road users.”

The BIG BIG problem the polystyrine fancy hat fans have is to explain why cycling is more lethal in countries where helmets are commonly worn and safer in countries where helmets are rarely worn. And also why cycling became MORE lethal for the remaining cyclists in Australia after the introduction of mandatory helmet laws.

I really can’t understand why anyone in their right mind would want to legislate for an unproven so called ‘safety device’ which definitely strangles children and seems to be associated an increase in cycling deaths.

tomasrojo

Well, my personal attitude was set once the Robinson papers appeared in the BMJ. If you can make that many people adopt a safety measure and then not be able to point to any real improvement on a graph, you really have to wonder what the point of the laws was. And that the law's major effect seems to have been to reduce the number of cyclists and make the Melbourne bike-share scheme die at birth is rather sad really.

And I feel bad about this, but I really have serious doubts about Headway, because they keep pushing that figure of helmets preventing 85% of head injuries. It's just not true. Even the authors of the paper that number comes from don't claim that anymore. Either Headway aren't keeping up to date or they just want to push the most impressive figure they can find, even if it's wrong. Neither scenario speaks well of them.

Victor

jimbo32123 wrote: »

should be the law and fineable to everyone no matter of age or location

Then you'll have no problem forcing them on pedestrians and motorists?

tomasrojo

Interesting development in Australia:

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/heady-freedom-as-judge-agrees-helmet-laws-are-unnecessary-20100827-13vz2.html

Heady freedom as judge agrees helmet laws are unnecessary

IN 46 years of bike riding, Sue Abbott has never worn a helmet. So when the highway patrol pulled her over in country Scone and fined her for a no-helmet offence, she decided to fight.

...

Judge Roy Ellis happily admitted his own doubts about the laws.

''Having read all the material, I think I would fall down on your side of the ledger,'' the judge told Ms Abbott after she had spelt out her case against the laws that exist in few countries other than Australia and New Zealand.

''I frankly don't think there is anything advantageous and there may well be a disadvantage in situations to have a helmet - and it seems to me that it's one of those areas where it ought to be a matter of choice.''

Whatever one's opinion about MHLs, Sue Abbott's tenacity is remarkable.

CramCycle

tomasrojo wrote: »

My new-found interest in Google as a unit converter just received a fillip from visiting Ian Walker's blog.

http://bamboobadger.blogspot.com/2009/06/public-advice-we-need-more-information.html

Slow day today, I had to investigate why it gave this as an answer, so after 30 seconds on google I found the very reasonable reason:

so if it's 5 times during a 24 hour day, that gives us 4.8 hours (288 minutes) for one thing to happen. that is 17280 seconds. now how many times does a thing happen during a second...when you strech it over 172800 seconds ? 1/17280 = 5.78703704 × 10^-5

SIMPLES

Fighting Irish

It's sh1t like this that makes me laugh at the human race, we are so pathetic

monument

Bicycle helmets should be mandatory – Ramsay -- Clip of him on Highland Radio
17/Aug 08:23

Ramsey: 42 crashes - need for legislation
Mon 16th August 2010

Ramsey Calls For Cycling Law Change
Wed 13th May 2009