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news
White cycle helmetBicycle Helmet Initiative Trust becomes Cycle-Smart
The Bicycle Helmet Initiative Trust (BHIT) is to be renamed Cycle-Smart. The change is intended to reflect broader aims for the charity, which was created in 1998 by chief executive Angela Lee, a nurse consultant in paediatric trauma and orthopaedics.
In 2009, BHIT won a European award for its Headsmart campaign and has distributed more than 50,000 free and cheap cycle helmets. However, the organisation has also courted controversy due to its position that helmets should be mandatory.
The rebranding is set to be announced tonight by comedian Hugh Dennis at BHIT's annual gala dinner in Reading. In a statement, Lee explained:
“The charity will still be working to protect young cyclists but we believe the new name reflects the fact we encourage not only the use of cycle helmets but other safer cycling measures such as high visibility clothing, bike lights, cycle training and bicycle maintenance.”
The Cycle-Smart name is not unique, however. Various organisations have made use of it and both Surrey and Stoke currently run Cycle Smart campaigns.
Under its new name, Cycle-Smart has outlined its three-year action plan. This will involve ensuring that personal road safety – including cycling safety – is incorporated into the national school curriculum by 2017; producing and launching a new safer cycling DVD and guide for parents and carers next year; ensuring all children get access to affordable safety gear; and ensuring the rights and needs of child cyclists are kept in the political forefront.
According to Lee:
“More and more children are being encouraged to cycle and whilst we recognise the huge health and environmental benefits of cycling there are also risks involved and Cycle-Smart is committed to highlighting and minimising those dangers.”
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
Latest Comments
- chrisonabike 5 min 29 sec ago
Of course, depending on when it was created, it's also legal to park in a mandatory cycle lane! (not that people pay any attention to laws about...
- chrisonabike 40 min 41 sec ago
Also don't forget - Sustrans are a charity *....
- chrisonabike 52 min 19 sec ago
Yes ... but (just due to the large numbers of people affected) this likely would only proceed in the UK at a very ... cautious ... pace....
- hawkinspeter 57 min 39 sec ago
A handful of acorns should be enough to keep you going
- EK Spinner 1 hour 9 min ago
Arsehole in the van not with standing, how did they manage to get a risk assessment allowing a race (a group not a TT) group to be competing on ...
- RafaDy 1 hour 5 min ago
I think reviewer completely missed the point here trying to match bike's name with what it can do. Ribble is namin git's bike weirdly, the...
- Moist von Lipwig 4 hours 30 min ago
Bit of googling gone wrong in the article - the JAT is the Junction Assessment Tool, the Joint Approval Team appears to be a coutner terrorism...
- HKR 5 hours 45 min ago
Can't believe that child threw his bike on the floor at the end of that. Young people today have no respect... ;))
- Griff500 4 hours 33 min ago
Its not the same stem fitted to the two bikes though, and we aren't talking about HTA we are talking about stem inclination or "stem rise" to use...
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28 comments
I wrote a blog post a while ago about helmet compulsion, and dug out the figures below from http://www.patient.co.uk/doctor/head-injury
Statistics for hospital admissions where head injury was the primary diagnosis in 2002/2001 totalled 112,978
75% of these were male admissions and 33% were children under 15 years of age.
70-88% of all people who sustain a head injury are male.
10-19% are aged ≥65 years.
A breakdown of those admissions on the same study showed the following main causes
Falls (22-43%)
assaults (30-50%)
road traffic accidents (25%).
Alcohol may be involved in up to 65% of adult head injuries.
they are targeting the wrong thing.
They are not bothered about saving children, but making cycling look so dangerous & risky by demanding the same level of PPE as a building site (hard hats & hiviz) that parents will continue to ferry them about in the back of a 2 ton armoured personnel carrier, and risk all sorts of complaints though inactivity and pollution.
The focus needs to be on getting more children and parents cycling more and driving less. Estimates for inactivity deaths range from 40,000 to 90,000+. Air pollution kills another 30,000 a year, but they are invisible long term killers, and it is much easier to focus on visible but ineffective crap that attracts publicity and funds
Sick and tired of people saying helmets doesn't work just because some statistics doesn't show it does. Statistics can be very misleading.
But try this yourself. Hit yourself on the head against a brick wall and see how much that hurts you. Then wear a helmet and do the exact same exercise again and see how that hurts you.
Every little helps.
That's right, you would have to be really silly not to look at the evidence but then to ignore it because it didn't show what you hoped it would show wouldn't you?
anything up to 1% of the total NHS budget? mmm.
How does that compare with the number of children killed in road traffic collisions?
What, you're saying motor traffic is the single biggest killer of people in the UK who are 16 or under?
Well, I guess more plastic pisspots will solve that one, yes sirree!
There are dozens of things that are done and could be done better to prevent child death from car accidents. However, you may have noticed that I'm talking about cycling!
If you want to make direct comparisons between the two and the way we prevent injury then I assume that by your own logic you wear a seat belt while riding a bike and have an airbag installed on your handle bars.
Just because you do 1 thing in a car doesn't mean you'd do the same on a bike. Likewise just because you wouldn't do it in a car doesn't mean you can't do it on a bike!
Should have been re-named the Safety Helmet Initiative Trust.
There are two changes which should be made to dramatically reduce cycling accidents. Firstly adopt the Presumed Guilt approach, and secondly reduce and rigidly enforce 20 mph speed limits in all residential areas.
Well they aren't getting any charitable donations form me no matter what they call themselves.
I hope that the name change is a sign of trouble for them and that the whole things get wound up before they do any more damage.
No but assuming you are a tax payer you'll still be helping to fund the 100's of millions spent by the NHS on treating kids with head injuries resulting from coming off their bikes
hundreds of millions spent on kids falling off bikes? seriously? you may be right of course so perhaps you could point to where you got your figures from and this would help you narrow your 100 million to 999 million range which makes you sound like you don't actually know what the figure is at all
http://www.makingthelink.net/costs-head-injuries
115 million for all head injuries resulting in hospital treatment. No data in your link on how many were due to a child falling, unprovoked, from a bike. The example given is a child hit by a car.
Since many of us started riding at 5 or so, without helmets, and survived unscathed, I'd guess the number of unprovoked falls is actually small, and probably a minor fraction of the costs. But maybe you have relevant data next?
What a load of wank. If Cycle-Smart wants to protect cyclists it should focus on infrastructure and driver training. Simple.
Unbelievable. Thoughts of improved infrastructure and a safer cycling environment are all very admirable but considering the starting point, any significant change will be massively expensive and very far into the future. People (including children - and me) however, will be riding their bikes tomorrow, next week, next year, so any campaign that aims to protect them, is just fine by me. Well done BHIT / Cycle-Smart!
And how does this protect them? Helmets, Hi Viz, are all an irrelevance, and from the limited evidence don't work.
The only thing that will work, today, is a zero tolerance approach from the police and courts. Longer term the solution may well be infrastructure, for know look how many laws exist and ask yourself the simple question of why drivers routinely ignore them killing and maiming thousands of people?
Any organisation pandering to the elephant is the problem.
An unnecessary distraction from the real issues me thinks.
I guess they got tired of being called BeHIT.
at least the Daily Mail and UKIP and the like are honest about where they are coming from in their anti-cycling pronouncements but a bunch of 'make the bastards all wear helmets and high viz' nutters masquarading as a cycling charity is quite disingenuous; it would be like an episode of Top Gear starting with an anouncement 'there follows a party political broadcast for the green party'
So the victim-blaming gets extended. Essentially their campaign consists of reading out the excuse list provided by the average killer driver's liar. No mention of safer infrastructure, no mention of proper enforcement and punishment, no mention of improving driver training, no reductions in speed limits, no attempt to reduce traffic volume and speed.
Just blame the victim. God forbid Hugh Penis should upset a car driver. Having this shit read out by a comedian is about right though.
There campaign is based on the fact that children are far more likely than adults to be injured away from the road in low speed accidents that don't involve another vehicle. What you suggest above are all great ideas for helping us commute safely to work in the morning but you have missed the point re children's use of bikes
Like being able to ride to school???
A journey that despite your best efforts at re-shaping the environment will still lead to an unacceptable number of head injuries for children
Probably wishful thinking, but the charity might have realized the near insignificant role cycling helmets play in the context of a safe cycling environment. Hence the name change, and of course the shift of goals, step by step. Time to infiltrate and change the mind set?
So now as well as helmets, it's hivis, training, & maintenance.
All fluff & nothing that addresses real road safety or inactivity.
slowclap
Agreed. Any time or money spent campaigning for anything other than improved infrastructure and legislation to protect cyclists is a waste, in my opinion. Give people a decent environment to cycle in rather than forcing them to protect themselves against the cruel joke of a road system they're dealing with now.
So in your mind helping children learn how to cycle safely isn't important? Teaching them how to maintain their bikes properly is unnecessary and won't make them less likely to have an accident?
Cycle-smart appear to be evolving as an institution that is taking a more holistic approach to cycle safety for kids- they should be commended for their efforts!
And by the way if you knew anything about them as an organization you would know that they also run schemes that do tackle the issue of inactivity.
Shift your goals, change your mindset. Start with lobbying for a law change. What really upsets me is the FALSE sense of security you want to cultivate in children by making wearing helmets compulsory. Anyone should be able to go about his/her errants on a bike safely, wearing a helmet or not. Your helmet obsession pervertly makes cycling LESS safe (by reducing the number of cyclists on the road, which initiates a downward spiral, check out the disastrous NZealand? Australian? experiments).