Bike helmets and Boris bikes - BBC Radio 4 debates the issues

Rding a motorcycle speeds are much higher and the need for helmet wearing somewhat greater. As a result helmets were made compulsory in the UK for motorcycle riders in 1976. Data published before and after this date showed the benefits to safety.

But bicycle helmets are a different matter. Most are rather more flimsy than motorcycle helmets, indeed the one pictured in this thread is one to my mind of questionable benefit. Making helmets compulsory amongst cyclists would make only a minimal difference to accident statistics amongst cyclists. As the expert witness commented, the real question is why the roads aren't being made safe for cyclists. Riding to the supermarket the other day I had to contend with a van and a car stopped in the box supposedly reserved for cyclists at a junction as we waited for a red light, a common occurence. Why aren't these properly enforced?

Perhaps we could recommend helmets for pedestrians but only while they are crossing roads, as I'm sure that is where many of the fatalities occur.

Being a pedestrian isn't without risk, certainly, but in terms of deaths per pedestrian journey compared with deaths per cycling journey, it's probably safer; unless of course you are saying that there are only about two to five times as many pedestrians as cyclists.

Life is a risk and I certainly feel that it should be up to the individual to decide whether or not a helmet might mitigate some of that risk for them. Ask James Cracknell what he feels about wearing a helmet and I think that I'd probably agree.

Here is an extract from the Government report in 2008/9 "Improving road safety for pedestrians and cyclists in Great Britain"

[i]In 2007,over 30,000 pedestrians and 16,000 cyclists were injured, with 646 pedestrians and 136 cyclists killed.[/i]

This would suggest that being a pedestrian is a dangerous occupation, and arguably more dangerous than cycling, so why no need for head protection? Speed a pedestrian travels doesn't appear to be the deciding factor on whether they get killed or not...

"The same argument could be used if you were to trip on the pavement and your head is sent toward the kerb"
That argument doesn't really follow as you are seldom travelling in excess of 4 mph while walking and you aren't generally sharing the pavement with other traffic.
Having worked in neuro intensive cares both in this country and in Australia I now always wear a helmet and having come off and broken one while descending from the Cat and Fiddle it almost certainly saved me from a significant brain injury. Where a helmet will make no difference is where you are taken out on the inside of a turning truck or similar but in many ways a death on a bicycle is not the worst possible outcome. I'd say that a severely disabled adult, unable to work or function without constant care is a worse outcome and that is where a hemlemt may make a difference. It will certainly make more of a difference than no helmet.
I am very much pro helmet but I'm not pro compulsion for helmets as I do feel that that may put many off cycling.

Helmets are often uncomfortable at first but you get used to them. I didn't wear one for years but after busting my shoulder and suffering concussion for 3 days (my shoulder took the brunt and is still all wrong 18 years later..) I took to wearing a helmet whatever.

All the stats saying they make little difference are just pointless massage. If faced with being flung at a curb head first even the most cynical anti helmet pontificators would suddenly opt for an inch of polystyrene. There are two sorts of people who don't wear helmets: those who haven't fallen on their heads yet - and those who have once too often.