Absolutely gutting for all concerned, young lad biking to a local water park is knocked off his bike and killed.

http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Police-12-year-old-cyclist-died-collision-Jake/story-22018129-detail/story.html

Worth mentioning he was not wearing a helmet.

Worth mentioning he was not wearing a helmet.

would he not have been knocked off if he was wearing a helmet?

excellent 1 post and we have shit slinging starting – good to see standards are not slipping.

RIP fella.

[edit]

hardly shit slinging. just questioning the relevance of that statement.

TBH, the OP brought up that the poor kid wasn’t wearing a helmet. As cyclists we should avoid the whole concept of talking about helmets being a safety panacea as the media/judiciary tend to view it as a fact and blame cyclists for their own injuries.

Thoughts are with his family and friends.

The Nissan was travelling along Bosworth Road towards Market Bosworth when it was involved in a collision with the bicycle, which was also travelling in the same direction.

This is the bit that caught my eye.
How much notice do you need when a rider is front of you before you hit them?

RIP lil one

I don’t know why anyone would even post up this story; it’s a tragic, yet inconclusive accident at the moment.

Nothing good can come from posting views.

Who cares about views. He’s dead. Poor guy. My thoughts are with you.

Erm, nice

The poor lad died from injuries to his head, the comments section below the article contains a comment from the bloke who was first on the scene who believed he would have been saved if wearing a helmet.

If people want to angle these comments towards beginning a **** blame game then so be it, that was not the purpose of the comment.

🙄

Indeed, the bike was “in a collision with” a car, no, some **** hit him because they weren’t paying attention.

RIP.

Helmet is entirely irrelevant, certainly isn’t “worth mentioning”.

Nothing good can come from posting views.

what difference will it make to the kid or his family if there’s another helmet argument on this thread? It’s hardly starting a fight at his funeral.

What gravitysucks said.

Bearnecessities, are you new here?

my point was, and still is. While the injuries may have been made worse by not wearing a helmet, that is largely irrelevant. There wouldn’t have have been any injuries if a car hadn’t knocked him off his bike.

I’ll leave it at that.

Poor kid very sad.

Do people really think some 15mm thick polystyrene is going to save you when 2 tonnes of cars drives over the top of you?

comment on the story:

hwoarang2009 | July 30 2014, 3:33PM
I was there seconds after it happened and it looked like a accident. Without goin into detail it was a wrong time and wrong place and nothing could of changed it

Curious to know if the car was giving the cyclist as much space as he’d give to another car when passing.

Two cars involved. As the comments say, sounds horribly like an ill-judged overtake.

And what if the car doesn’t actually run over you but knocks you to the road and your head is the first thing that takes the impact?

I’m quite sure a helmet taking that initial impact in many cases would result in a better outcome than if it were your skull.

I never realised this was such a huge bone of contention on here, admittedly I should have realised that everything is.

Do people on here allow there kids to ride bikes on the roads without a helmet (genuine, non sarcy question)

I was there seconds after it happened and it looked like a accident. Without goin into detail it was a wrong time and wrong place and nothing could of changed it

?? Did the car fall from space and hit the kid?

I never realised this was such a huge bone of contention on here, admittedly I should have realised that everything is.

As I said, there’s sensitivity as more than one injured or killed cyclist has borne the blame for a car hitting them because they weren’t wearing a helmet.

RIP Jake…

Worth mentioning he was not wearing a helmet.

If it is, then its also worth Mentioning a 2.0 dCi Nissan Qashqai weighs 1400~1600kg and can touch 120mph…

Or we could put all that crap to one side for the minute maybe…

I never realised this was such a huge bone of contention on here, admittedly I should have realised that everything is.

It’s not about pro/ anti/ helmet opinions

It’s about the way stories are reported and commented on by the mainstream media (and people on here it seems who should know better)

The narrative we get is “person knocked off bike in an accident, killed due to failure to wear a helmet”

when it should be

“person knocked off bike by a another person driving a car and killed”

the helmet debate is an unhelpful distraction from the real issues

“Do people on here allow there kids to ride bikes on the roads without a helmet (genuine, non sarcy question)”

at 12 Y/O i sure i hell rode my bike without a helmet.

i would leave the house with it and ditch it once out of view…helmets are not cool when your 12.

How ever as i matured and spent time in hospital from concussion induced epilepsy attacks i now dont leave the house without it. My attitude may change when if we ever get segregation from cars but until that day with the speed differential between other road users and bikes ill stick to my helmet.

but i wont look down on you for not wearing one , and im certainly not pro compulsory helmet.

none of this helps that there are people on the roads using phones , in too much of a rush ,overtaking in bad places , speeding , desperate to get to the next traffic jam a few second earlier.

trail rat +1

my kids have seen me in hospital post crash twice in last year, with head injuries that would almost definately have been worse had I not been wearing a lid. They always wear theirs, through their own choice now…

How much notice do you need when a rider is front of you before you hit them?

Indeed, the bike was “in a collision with” a car, no, some **** hit him because they weren’t paying attention.

Many years ago I was overtaking a cyclist, leaving plenty of room (all four wheels over the white lines) and well below the 30mph speed limit. As I passed he turned to look at me. As his head turned so did the bike. He hit my nearside front wing and rolled over the bonnet, cracking the windscreen with his head.

Eye witnesses said there was nothing more I could of done, the police were adamant my lack of speed saved his life and my insurance company rejected his claim for personal injury and a new bike.

I realise this forum is heavily weighted on the side of the cyclist but sometimes it’s us that make the mistake.

r.i.p jake 🙁

TheOtherJamie – How much did he swerve?

would he not have been knocked off if he was wearing a helmet?

Just thinking about this,

Is it not the same as saying ‘If an armed response officer wasn’t wearing a bullet proof vest would they not be shot’

If you know there is a risk of being shot at work, or hit whilst cycling, do we not make it our own responsibility to use the protection available to us, regardless of blame?

I understand the issue of the media using it as the be all and end all of the argument, but that argument is not an immediate concern when you are in hospital or worse with head injuries.

bet your life the armed response officers work instruction says wear bullet proof vest.

the highway code only says its advisable – and so it should be. if i was only tootling down the shops on the segrigated cycle path where the speed differential between my self doing probably 12-13mph and pedestrians/horses – at 3-6mph oh and the occasional racer wannabe at 20mph is much less than my 12-13 on the way to the shop and mr VRS doing 75 along side me.

Across the whole lane.

Like I said my entire car was in the oncoming lane when he hit me.

The whole width of his side of the road according to his post…

Just wondered if he was riding in the middle of the lane, say, as it seems a long way to move across an entire lane.

If you know there is a risk of being shot at work, or hit whilst cycling, do we not make it our own responsibility to use the protection available to us, regardless of blame?

when I ride my MTB I wear a helmet, gloves and sometimes pads incase I fall off. When I ride on the road I wear a helmet not because I expect to fall off or because I think it will help if I am run over*, I wear it coz some **** of a defence team and likely the judge will say “well he wasn’t wearing a helmet”

*a little plastic and polystyrene isn’t much defence against a shitload of high speed ali and steel

“cyclist in collision with a car”
“Wasn’t wearing a helmet”
2 driver exemption titbits that are painfully common in reports like these, when “hit by a driver” and naff all about what headgear the cyclist was wearing would be more appropriate.

Poor kid.

as it seems a long way to move across an entire lane.

It was the best part of 20 years ago so the memories are a little hazy but I remember thinking the same at the time.

It must have been target fixation – look at something and that’s where you end up.

rip

It must have been target fixation – look at something and that’s where you end up.

Something which very nearly caused a 3 man pile up on last nights mtb ride, very easy to drift into where you gaze.

RIP young man,

I don’t know why anyone would even post up this story; it’s a tragic, yet inconclusive accident at the moment.

Nothing good can come from posting views

Because if just for one second it makes us all think wether on a bike foot or in a vehicle , how vulnerable we all are and to take care for each other on the roads.

Silly coments about wearing a helmet or not have place in offering condolances to his family, because one day they will be thinking if only we had made him wear a helmet .He may have lived.

RIP young fella

+1 for the lazy reporting of “cars colliding with cyclists” as if it was an inevitable consequence of their coexistence.

I watched my 12 year old tonight perform a bunny hop off a kerb, into a road, out to the white line, without a thought or look that a vehicle would be coming.
Bollocking doesn’t even come close to what I said.

RIP lad from the OP’s link.

That is so desperately sad. Pretty much impossible to comprehend what the parents of this lad are going through at the moment, but I hope they are getting through each day as best they can.