Wiggle rides into Twitter storm over 'make helmets compulsory' blog

Demazter wrote:

Are you for real? How many more people are you going to call morons?

How is a bag of crisps a safety device? How many safety standards does it pass?

It's sad you can't have a decent debate without insulting people. Or without giving a proper rationale.

You are probably one of those cyclists that ride in the middle of the road just to annoy other road users and give the rest of us a bad name.

I asked a genuine question and you called me a moron. I think you need to take a real look at who the moron is.

Mate, quit whilst your sort of ahead and read all the previous posts about helmets, its constant name calling by both sides - i hold my hands upto this -. Just accept that no matter what you type there will always be someone who disagrees from both sides.

Demazter wrote:

Listening to what?

I genuinely don't understand what the issue is with wearing a helmet? I've asked for it to be explained but all I get is called a moron!

Read one of the many existing threads on it.

Maciej001 wrote:

Seriously, I don't understand all you people.

I cannot think of any reason why helmets should not be required by law. I cannot think of a single reason why one would not want to wear a helmet (Oh, sorry, I can think of one: it will ruin your coiffure!).

You've almost got it. Feeling the wind in your hair is surely one of the main reasons to cycle. Maybe you've never experienced that pleasure? Go on _ take your life in your hands and try it (just the once mind)!

Do you really want/need a namby-pamby state to take all decisions for you and stop you potentially hurting yourself? Where should they stop? Should they ban smoking, drinking, fatty foods, sugary drinks, restrict all motor vehicles to 25mph? After all far more lives (including those of cyclists) would be saved by restricting motor vehicles to 25mph than making cyclists wear a ridiculous piece of foam on their heads.

kcr wrote:

I really think you can crack it this time, folks.

Spell it out here. I don't want to trawl through other threads. I want to read it here in the one I'm already posting in!

Yes, I was asking for reasons not to wear one.

Even if they don't reduce the number of deaths, they may help reducing other injuries. As mine did. So don't tell me they aren't any good.

Seriously? I am less likely to hit my head? Going over the handlebars, my head will stop the inch or so away from the road, the thickness of the helmet? Come on.

So if my head in the helmet hits the road the right way, it will save me, if the wrong way, it won't. Maybe. But if my head without the helmet hits the road, it doesn't make a difference which way it hits.

Is cycling far less dangerous then, let's say, golf?

So you give me these arguments against helmets and you still wear one, usually?

ColT wrote:

Every time someone mentions helmets, the same old stuff gets trotted out by...

...oh, never mind, I can't be bothered.

Move on. Nothing to see here.

Are you familiar with John Adams's work? Do you know it all already? Do you understand risk homeostasis?

I suppose you have made up your mind and will not change it.

Nzlucas wrote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/31/newsid_25050...

Playing devils advocate here but substitute 'Motorist" for 'Cyclist' and 'seatbelt' for 'helmet'. Anything sound familiar ; 0 )

Certainly does sound familiar.
There is as much unsupported assertion in favour of seat belts as of helmets now.
In the run up to the parliamentary vote there was a lot of controversy.
John Adams of UCl looked at the results of the seat belt laws in those countries where they were already compulsory. He found that seat belts did not save lives. The DoT tried to ignore him.

"However within the Department of Transport, the promoters of the seat belt bill, my study had raised concerns. The Department commissioned a critique of my report by J E Isles. His report examined evidence from eight European countries (a subset of the 18 examined in my report) that had passed seat belt laws. He concluded that a law making the wearing of seat belts compulsory “has not led to a detectable change in road death rates”. For promoters of the bill this was an inconvenient truth. The Isles report was dated April 1981, more than three months before the parliamentary debate that led to the passage of the legislation. But it was suppressed. It was not published, and was not allowed to inform that debate. The Isles Report did not see the light of day until its existence was disclosed by New Scientist in an article published on 7 February 1985 – more than three years too late."

Isles agreed with Adams but his work, though commissioned by the DoT was suptressed because it was not what they wanted to hear.

http://www.john-adams.co.uk/2007/01/04/seat-belt-legislation-and-the-isl...

There is much more here on seat belts. Read what he has to say on the record of seat belts since legislation.
That belts have cost the lives of cyclists is now agreed by the Pacts. See my post above.

700c wrote:

... Or when you come off unexpectedly. in a proportion of these accidents you will hit your head. And in a proportion of these head impacts the helmet will lessen the damage to your head.

What is wrong with you helmet-wearing types that makes you keep falling off your bikes? What particularly amazes me is the matter-of-fact way you describe such events as if they were entirely normal and routinely encountered multiple times per day/week/month.

Why don't you just look where you are going and ride at a speed appropriate to the circumstances rather than strapping a piece of foam on your head? Then you won't "come off unexpectedly". It's not difficult.

Forester wrote:

I have only had one fall in many years of cycling and due to the head injury can't remember how it happened- front wheel may have slipped off the edge of the tarmac into a gravel gulley. A cracked helmet in my shed is testimony to the severity, a CT showed a subarachnoid haemorrhage, as well as fractures into double figures. I am now cycling again, this time on a stable hybrid with big tyres, at a slightly slower speed. And with a new helmet (personal choice).

This is not a debate about whether helmets can make a difference to an individual who has an accident and hits their head, this is a debate about making helmet wearing mandatory and criminalising those that don't wear helmets.

If you make helmet wearing mandatory the population's overall health will suffer - obesity, heart disease, stoke, cancer, these are the big killers, if you deter people from one of the easiest safest forms of exercise, then you are condemning some of them to early deaths. The deaths from non exercise would be 30x - 100x that of the deaths from head injuries. And another thing, all this over-reaction about helmets is also scaring people off of cycling, regardless of whether they would wear a helmet when cycling, it is very wrong.

I had a nasty accident, my head hit the tarmac damn hard, I was knocked unconscious and like someone else's relative was mentioned on this thread, was dragged off the road to safety, I wasn't wearing a helmet, I'm not brain damaged, I'm not dead. And this is all irrelevant because anecdotal evidence means nothing and whether or not helmets protect peoples heads is besides the point - the point which I made in the previous paragraph.

Pedestrians also have accidents, they are at the same risk from head injury, why is it that no-one is demanding they wear helmets, shouldn't we also criminalise pedestrians that foolishly choose not to wear helmets?

I defy anyone to read this report (fully) and still support law on the issue:
http://www.ctc.org.uk/sites/default/files/file_public/cycle-helmets-evid...

stumps wrote:

Personally i cant believe people would give up cycling because the law is changed, they obviously are not keen cyclists and to insinuate that the countries overall health will fall is on a par with people saying a helmet will save your life.

If it becomes law you will still get thousands of people cycling without a lid because it would be nigh on impossible to regulate and to honest we, as Police due to govt cutbacks, dont have the man power to effectively regulate it.

Whether you can believe it or not, helmet laws do reduce cycling. Why this is so is speculation, but the figures given upthread show that the miles cycled in Oz and NZ reduced after the law.
In New South Wales 23000 cyclists were fined in two years. From 2000 to 2003, South Australian cyclists paid AUD500,000 in fines for not wearing helmets. The Australian police have no problem with catching helmetless cyclists.

I know my helmet saved my skull so I'm going to carry on wearing one.

I've been in an accident where I was able to roll so taking the damage on my clothing and the skin of my back rather than my head and neck. If I'd have been wearing a helmet I may have suffered more head or neck injury, and may even have come away saying I was "saved" by my shattered helmet. Interestingly the small scratch to my head would have counted as a "head injury" in some of the statistics bandied around in helmet debates. (I did regularly practice Judo at the time, so was used to rolling safely if unexpectedly catapulted towards the ground. This may have helped in my case.)

Helmets are not rated to protect against the kind of collisions you'll get in a road traffic accident, or a fall at speed.

That said, I do wear a helmet. It's especially useful in this weather to keep my head warm and dry. It has a reflective "Night Vision" shower cap on it. I just don't worry if I'm not wearing it for some reason. I'd rather they not become law. Culture is having the desired effect anyway. Some people don't like them and it's better to have people cycling.

I think my biggest reason to avoid collision, as well as the inconvenience, would be damage to my limbs.

stumps wrote:

I wear one, i look like a numpty, it does not make me feel any safer nor will it stop a runaway car if i try to stop it with my head nor does it make me think i can go even faster now i'm wearing me lid. What it does do though is IF i come off and bang my noggin on the road, street furniture etc it MIGHT stop me getting a concussion or a split head and thats enough for me to wear one.

That's exactly what I say about the bag of crisps sellotaped to my head! Some people think it makes me look silly, but I don't care.

And, exactly like a helmet it's not designed to stop me getting a concussion, and the manufacturers are clear to point this out. But it MIGHT stop me getting a concussion.

So I wear it. And I can't understand why other people do not. Fools.

And I get to have a snack at the end of the journey.

@700C

Helmet manufacturers have never claimed that their helmets reduce serious head injuries. Never. In fact, if you read the label inside your new Snell-B90 tested helmet you'll probably see a statement to the contrary.

Good luck sueing anyone when there's basically no evidence that helmets do anything besides take money out of the pocket of the gullible. Has anyone been sued for selling homeopathic medicine in the UK?

Helmets: homeopathy for the head

msfergus wrote:

I'm happy to offer you a simple lesson in GCSE physics and then an even shorter lesson in probability. Whether you decide to wear a helmet or not will then up to you. Legislation will have no effect on these lessons at all - decide for yourself.

It's all about the chances of a helmet saving you from damage, which may be temporary, permanent or fatal compared to the identical scenario you encounter without a helmet.

If we removed the seatbelt legislation tomorrow, would you drive without wearing your seat belt?

My thoughts exactly regards the seatbelt ruling.
Back to the topic at hand though...
I find it curious at the amount of negativity towards helmets in the posts above...When out riding I very rarely see a cyclist NOT wearing a helmet these days, so clearly if it were to become law to wear a helmet we are already conforming. Well apart from the cyclists who are too cool for school