Should cycling helmets be made compulsory as called for by BW and what's the policy at your business?

If the wearing of helmets by cyclists were to be made compulsory, I hope that the police would be able to devote an appropriate level of enforcement to it - and also to cyclists who seem to think that somehow they are exempt from traffic regulations and any consideration whatsoever for other road users.

In addition to cyclists who ignore red traffic lights, I detest the increasing numbers of cyclists of all ages who think it acceptable to cycle on pavements, including ones which are busy and narrow, and also at considerable speed. Furthermore, some of them expect pedestrians to move out of their path and/or assume that any pedestrian not looking in their direction will always hear them. As for warning bells, most of these errant cyclists evidently don't have the brains to fit them on their bikes, never mind use them. Phew - I feel better for having written that, so rant over for now. Also, to avoid any confusion, I'm not against cyclists - far from it - as I am a cyclist myself at times just as I am a pedestrian or motorist at other times.

Though the current and highly understandable Wiggomania will subside, hopefully Bradley Wiggins' enormous success will spur more people to take up cycling - and in a safe and considerate manner. In this regard it's possible that the expression "on your bike" will mutate from being a derogatory one to a positive one! :-)

I am in the minority who abide by the highway code and have 3rd party insurance.

It's a free country. If people choose not to wear a helmet then why force them. I'm sure the police have much more important things to do than enforce it

Is there an argument for not wearing one? Well not really, but that is not the same as an argument for making them compulsory. It's education v rules again. However, before we all hit the vote 'yes' button, what are the stats in terms of the effectiveness of helmets? In relatively minor incidents I would say they probably stop you from getting cut up a bit. But being run over by a bus? As many incidents stem from vehicles turning left crushing riders, I seriously doubt that wearing one or not really makes a difference. As I say, not an argument for not wearing one, but are they truly life saving? teh-boy - I can see that you have had this experience so I can't gainsay that, but it's a general point not a comment on a specific incident. If we have rules they have to be the right rules for the right evidence based reasons. We do have a pretty good history of making these type of snap rulings.

Jericho

I'm fully with the comments about red lights, pavements and bells, but......

Making helmets compulsory could probably result in an increase in serious accidents and a reduction in national health.

Experience in New Zealand and most of Australia has shown a correlation between compulsion and a reduction in cycling.

Any benefit in terms of accidents outweighed by reduction in longevity arising from less healthy population.

Also, there's a correlation between increasing cycling population and reduced likelihood of accidents per mile

Links to various research at

http://en.wikipedia.org/...e_helmets_in_New_Zealand

and in the UK......

www.bath.ac.uk/news/arti...ve/overtaking110906.html

Just come back from a pleasant 2 hour ride, sans magic hat but abiding by the Highway Code. Saw 5 drivers using hand held mobile phones, 2 motorised red light jumpers, dozens of pavement parkers (I guess they drove on to it). All cyclists well behaved except for 1 pavement jockey.

Would welcome better enforcement.

Well you safety chaps do seem to be risk averse

I thought there had been much well researched, peer reviewed work - perhaps more in motoring safety field - that safety devices do have an "unintended consequence" namely that they tend to encourage riskier behaviour.
Phil

Picking up a few comments:

"No real difference between a push bike and a motor bike" is clearly nonsense - most motor bikes will easily exceed 70mph, a large proportion can do twice that. A cyclist is also undertaking strenuous exertion and (much of the time) needs to shed as much heat as possible.

"Is there an argument for not wearing one? Well not really," There are several good arguments, though none proven beyond reasonable doubt. Risk compensation suggests the helmeted take more risks (there's study looking at damage to bikes - bikes in accidents ridden by helmeted riders have more severe damage, on average, than those of unhelmeted riders, suggesting they were going faster or being riskier). There's also the issue that a high proportion of life-changing head injury is due to torsional brain injury, and helmets probably make that worse, not better.

There are even more arguments against compulsion - mainly relating to compulsion reduces numbers cycling, which reduces population fitness (you kill more by obesity than you save from head injuries) and makes it more dangerous for the remainder. Most places that have adopted compulsion have seen head injury numbers fall, and cyclist numbers fall by more. Cycling regularly is more likely to extend your life than shorten it, whether or not you wear a helmet.

Some points that no-one has made yet here:

Cycling is safe. The risks of being killed are about the same as when walking (cycling is slightly safer per mile, slightly more dangerous per hour). If you think it's obvious that cyclists should wear helmets, you presumably think it's obvious that pedestrians should too. Do you? Where are the campaigns for walking helmets?

What racing cyclists do on closed roads is pretty much irrelevant to 'normal' cyclists. Those that say because racing cyclists wear helmets so should ordinary cyclists don't normally advocate that all drivers wear full nomex and crash helmets, nor that you dress as a spaceman to put fuel in your car.

The fact that Bradley Wiggins thinks cyclists should be forced to wear helmets has no more influence on my views than if Ursain Bolt wanted to pontificate about the dangers of walking in Trafalgar Square. I also observe that after he won the TdF Bradley was happy for himself and his son to ride bikes unhelmeted:
http://cdn2.media.cyclin...o_0117900_1_full_600.jpg

And finally one for H&S professionals:

How often do we turn to PPE as the first solution for a safety problem? Why is it then that the first (and normally only) way suggested for tackling the issue of cyclist safety is to demand that a particular item of PPE be made mandatory?

Well done Wiggo.

Hat and gloves for me when on the roads or up-the-wall at Afon Argoed etc.

What should be banned are the dangerous seats that children are put in. The ones that fit behind the rider. The numbers of times that the rider has lost balance and the front wheel lifts of the floor and the whole show tips.

And who is this 'they'? Are they people just like you and me? As a cyclist, motorcyclist, mountain walker, motor car driver and sometimes microlight passenger... do 'they' mean me?

As a keen road and MTB'er might as well give my opinion:

- Can we stop all this nonsense about it being a free country and free choice. It's not a free country we have a rules and laws that we have to abide by. Car drivers have to wear seat belts, motorcyclists have to wear helmets, all to reduce injury rates (which are a burden on the NHS).

- Ask the poeple who pick up the peices after cycle accidents (doctors, nuses, paramedics) and they generally are the ones who advocate helmets as saving lives.

- The debate about whether helmets cause more injury, which is also debated in other sports, is also inconclusive.

- You cannot compare stats in other countries to the UK as geography, populations and cultures all vary and affect that research enough to make it questionable in application to the UK.

- Cyclists can be travelling up to 50mph down hills.

- You can come off for so many reasons - hit by another car, hitting a pot hole, slippy roads and road markings, gusts of wind. I was even forced into a wall by a car drive on a country road.

- I wear helmets for cycling (road and MTB), skiing, climbing, kayaking. Why? Becuase I only have one head. I've had numerous friends have bike accidents and have seen helmets save people from death or serious injury (just watch someones head hit a wall or the road as I have on occasions and it'll make you think). In fact my neighbour is currently in hospital recovering from a road bike accident that left her with brain injury despite wearing a helmet, she would probably be dead without the helmet. She is retired and was cycling slowly with friends. It can happen to anyone.

Me. I'll protect my head every time. If you're stupid enough not to then you're gambling with your life but also with lives of your friends and family who will have to pick up the pieces afterwards.

-

I agree that helmets save lives, what I disagree with is being FORCED to wear one.

If I was hurtling down a mountain at high speed past trees and roots and rocks etc then I would be an idiot not to wear one. If I wanted to go for a leisurely bike ride on safe roads or through a park, then I'd wouldn't bother with the helmet and I'd like to be able to enjoy myself without fear of incurring a fine, or a telling off from the police.

Surely our job is to educate and inform people into making the correct judgement for themselves, rather than using legislation to ram it down their throats?

I find it a little odd, particularly on a h&s forum, that so much emphasis is placed on ppe. Wiggins comment was made after a cyclist was killed by a 20 tonne bus. Seems a lot of faith to put in a few cms of polystyrene and I’ve not seen anything in the reports about whether the cyclist was wearing one or not. Victim blaming suits the motoring lobby, of course.


According to the foreword to BSI Standard 6863:1987 read as follows: ‘It (the standard) specifies requirements for helmets intended for use by pedal cyclists on ordinary roads, particularly by young riders in the 5 years to 14 years age group, but which may also be suitable for off the road. It is not intended for high-speed or long distance cycling, or for riders taking part in competitive events. The level of protection offered is less than that given by helmets for motorcycle riders and is intended to give protection in the kind of accident in which the rider falls onto the road without other vehicles being involved.’

You are correct that cycle helmets only offer low speed impact protection of up to 10 mph which is the equivalent of someone hitting their head from a stationary bicycle fall. They are not designed to absorb the likely impact of being hit by a moving vehicle!

Helmet use amongst cyclists in Holland and Denmark is considerably lower than us at 1% & 5% however the incidence of head injury per kilometre cycled in these countries are also considerably lower than the UK. The trouble with the UK cycle helmet debate is that it avoids the politics surrounding the more complex issues of cycle safety such as vehicle speed in urban areas and cycle priority.

Indecently I cycle approximately 3 to 4,000 mile per year and I do wear a lid.

Totally agree with what achrn says.

As a bit of background, I ride around 5000miles a year both on and off road and I teach cycle skills to adults and children.

The notion that a cm or so of polystyrene will save your life if you are hit by a lorry or hit a lamppost at 20mph is laughable. A cycle helmet is designed to work at speeds of up to 12mph where the impact is between a head and an object. If you are squashed by a truck, the polystyrene will make no difference at all.

As pointed out above, cycling is safe. You would save substantially more lives by making the occupants of cars or pedestrians wear them. As soon as you mandate helmet wearing, you increase the perception that cycling is dangerous so fewer people do it to the detriment of all. Cyclists live longer than non cyclists.

The red light jumpers and pavement riders always gather the attention, but at least outside London they are in the very small minority. I do not condone this behaviour at all, but certainly in some cases cyclists ride on the pavements because the roads are totally unsuited for riding and riders lack the skills to reduce the risks and get fed up with abuse from drivers yelling things like "get road tax", "get insurance" etc. Although of course there is no such thing as road tax it's vehicle excise duty and as a cyclist I pay the same as any other low emission vehicle and most household insurance includes third party liability (I have separate insurance anyway).

In my town, car driving red light jumpers are very common as are drivers on the phone. However general riding skills are very poor. Riders often ride in the gutter and in road positions which invite collision. I also regularly see a rider going along a busy road, in twilight wearing grey clothing, with his hands in his pockets and earphones in. Needless to say he doesn't wear a helmet, but frankly that's the least of his issues. If he was forced to wear a helmet, would that make him any safer? I think not.

There is also the issue of the "Boris Bikes". If helmet wearing was compulsory, how would this work? Does everyone have to carry a helmet around with them, or do you use one which a thousand other people have sweated in, dropped, and which doesn't fit properly.

IMO it's more important for cyclists to wear protective glasses. I treat many more eye issues from people getting dust/flies/grit etc in their eyes than I have seen helmets damaged through crashing.

Improved safety for cyclists will not come about through increased PPE. It will come about through improved cycling skills, improved driving skills (along with more patience and less aggression) and a road network which is suitable for cyclists to use. This may involve cycle lanes, but these need to be proper lanes. Not a line of paint on the side of the road which everyone parks on. Just search for "cr*p cycle lanes" to see what stupid ideas some have had to try and "help" cyclists move around safely.

Having said all of that, I virtually always wear a helmet as I feel naked without it and my customers have to wear them for my insurance to be valid. I don't wear one though if I'm just bimbling along cycle paths as frankly I'm more likely to fall over when walking as I am to fall off my bike.

In summary, I totally agree with the experts (CTC and British Cycling). I'm pro use, but very anti compulsion.

If helmets are as effective as people suggest (the 85% figure frequently bandied around, all the 'helmet saved my life' anecdotes), why is it that over a period when helmet use has gone from zero to 50% or more, cycling in the UK has gone from about as dangerous as being a pedestrian to, erm, about as dangerous as being a pedestrian?

That is, both pedestrians and cyclists are subject to the same UK road conditions. I would expect the relative danger of the activities to stay about the same (changes like speed limits, drink-drive enforcement, vehicle improvements, medical advances and so on will affect both classes of road user similarly).

If in the good old days (that will be the 80s - when only twits wore cycle helmets) both walking and cycling were equally dangerous, now that 50% of cyclists wear them and they prevent 80% of head injuries, cycling should be 40% safer (80% of 50% of the injuries should be being prevented).

Actually, cycling has got proportionately very slightly less safe than walking (but still about the same - within the confidence levels).

There's simply no good population-level statistics that cycle helmets do prevent or mitigate life-changing head injuries.

That 85% figure, for example, was based on a sample of just three children - 143 hospital admissions of whom three (2.1%) were wearing helmets. The logic is also flawed. If you were told that children wearing helmets and cycling on paths in the park were 85% less likely to be killed than children not wearing a helmet cycling in the road amongst traffic, would you say that helmets prevent 85% of fatalities? The authors of that paper did.

When I ride my bike I wear a helmet because drivers are so dangerous and seem to ignore cyclists, I've been knocked off a few times.

When I drive my car I see how bad cyclists are and the way they flout the law, including red lights, pavements, one way streets etc.

When I walk I see how bad both cyclists and drivers are.

There was a road safety cartoon many years ago with Goofy as both Mr Driver and Mr Walker. It was brilliant to see the change in the same person (cartoon character) when he went from walking to driving.

Have you looked at how they reached the 10-16% conclusion? They guessed. The paper states that they guessed.

They assumed that 50% of head injuries following a fall would be prevented by the wearing of a helmet and 10-30% when in collision with a vehicle. It then used these guesses to estimate that helmet-wearing would have prevented 10-16% of 113 cyclist fatalities investigated. The paper itself says "However, it should be remembered that there was no specific evidence to support these estimates”. (page 37)

So, if you assume (without specific evidence) that helmets are quite effective at preventing injuries, then you conclude that they prevent some proportion of injuries.

No, that does not convince me.

(Most of the rest of the paper was a literature review. It was probably the best literature review yet, and it concluded that the literature was inconclusive. It included some biomechanics, but assumed that all impacts are perpendicular, with no torsional effects. It assumed that helmets are always a good fit and are always worn correctly. It ignored the TRL research from a year earlier that concluded that helmets make some in juries worse.)

For those who argue that a few millimetres of foam and plastic wont save your life when hit by a HGV, therefore what's the point of helmets? I have to say that I am surprised by such a blinkered opinion.

You could say a motorcycle helmet wont be a lot of use if a biker hit a tree at 70mph, or a seatbelt will be next to useless if a car performs multiple rolls down an embankment at 100mph. But all these measure are extremely effective for the tens of thousands of lower speed average shunts and have helped make roads safer in recent decades.

It's uncomfortable, hot and a pain to carry on the tube etc, but I would never cycle (on my bike, or a Boris bike in London which I do occasionally) without my helmet. Furthermore I do think wearing such PPE should be compulsory. If the law changed and some people choose sulk rather than cycle, well it's their choice which they are allowed to do in a so-called free country.

Finally, last week, I witnessed a cyclist get side swiped by a HGV (tipper lorry) on a roundabout in Westminster at about 20mph (the usual cycle lane had been erased to allow an Olympic lane to be introduced). The guy landed with quite a bump at my feet, his head just missing the kerb. He was wearing a helmet and despite cutting his face and ear, he bravely or stupidly continued cycling (ignoring the advice of others, including me to seek medical help).

So yes, you can be saved from a direct HGV RTC by a helmet.