Helmets – possibly the last word?

For now?

The cycling silk writes a really nice review of the evidence from a legal point of view. Well written and concise but mainly referring to road of course

interesting reading and I have posted it as I thought it might be worth going to a wider audience that the FF helmet threat it was posted on

No comment 😉
😀

Oh the irony TJ 😆 really you and the last word are constant bed fellows

🙂 I set ’em up………..

It is a piece well worth reading tho

Q – Will this Article be the Last Word on the subject of Helmets?

A – No. No, it will not.

🙂

BD, you’re ALIIIIIVE! 🙂

its about road stuff and reduced liability though and the conclusion is

It is suggested that it is neither right nor wrong for a cyclist to wear or not wear a helmet. It should be a matter of personal choice leaving the blame to lie with the person or persons responsible for the collision.

so if you crash MTB without a helmet it is your fault …pretty sure that has ended the debate about whether they work or not

It is a piece well worth reading tho

No it isnt. Not sure why you are so determined to push this issue.
You are wrong and the BMA disagrees with you.
I’ll take their word over yours and any politician.
I have reviewed the original medical evidence myself and it is non existent.

Hugor – you need to read the BMA debate. Its was very contentious the reversal of policy in favour of compulsory helmets.

Its a well written piece summarising the debate from a legal viewpoint. thats all it is.

There is evidence that helmets protect people from head injuries.
There is also evidence that making people wear helmets causes some people to not cycle anymore. This may cause people to die from cardiovascular disease related to inactivity.
The public health debate is whether the trade off of severe head injury prevention is offset by more people dying from not exercising.
Its nothing more than a law of averages debate and nobody knows the answer.
As an individual you are safer with a helmet on than without.
This is not debatable in the literature.

Levels of cycling are not likely to meet the hopes of government and local authorities until people in large numbers feel safe on bicycles. This requires confidence that they will not be run down by a motor vehicle.

Great stuff. 😀

Not debatable? Aye, right.

Latest update. Down from 590,000:

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/would-you-helmet-nazi-content#post-3139927

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/psa-another-study-on-the-efficacy-of-bike-helmets#post-3128520

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/thank-god-for-helmets#post-3071801

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/so-i-decided-to-write-off-my-helmet-today#post-3015561

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/will-the-uk-every-be-like-this#post-3001646

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/no-helmet#post-2983986

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/my-helmet-is-very-deformed-graphic-photo-content#post-2963127

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/the-woman-who-tragically-died-in-dent-on-the-letjog-ride#post-2956453

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/helmets-2#post-2941835

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/cyclist-hit-15-times-with-hammer-by-driverfor-riding-too-slow-up-a-hill#post-2943106

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/this-really-makes-you-want-to-wear-a-lid#post-2919841

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/good-or-bad-advert#post-2894537

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/james-cracknell-wear-a-helmet-video#post-2783611

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/bmxers-idiots#post-2758996

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/motorcyclist-protesting-helmet-laws-dies-in-bike-crash-while-not-wearing-helmet/page/3

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/wear-a-helmet-kids#post-2705179

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/psa-helmet-debate-on-radio-2-now#post-2584202

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/if-helmets-were-to-be-made-compulsory#post-2573922

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/helmet-on-your-child-always#post-2482018

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/some-very-sad-news#post-2476001

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/the-great-helmet-debate#post-2432920

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/kids-cycling-to-school-without-helmets-is-it-me-or#post-2368335

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/compulsory-helmet-law-in-ni#post-2236497

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/how-smug-will-tj-be

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/helmets-possibly-the-last-word

The one thing reading that has done is made me consider buying a more heavy duty helmet! Any suggestions?

As an individual you are safer with a helmet on than without.
This is not debatable in the literature.

It is debatable. You are not safer if risk compensation means your increased risk of crashing outweighs the protection.

There is no evidence of risk compensation for cycling in the literature. Next….

Yawn. 😆

The last time I came off my bike, at walking speed on a cycle path, my head hit the Tarmac leaving gouges in my Xen’s visor; on previous occasions I’ve hit low-hanging branches hard enough to make my ears ring, and a couple of offs have left tree bark and dirt on my lid. Personally, I’ll continue to wear one every time I’m out on the bike. If TJ has no issues with being someone else’s care problem, being fed through a tube and having his arse wiped regularly, well, that’s up to him.

I want to kill myself whenever I read anything that remotely resembles law jargon. Sorry TJ.

These studies are all centred around road riding. If you fall off a mountain bike on a normal trail and hit your head without a helmet on you are going to get hurt. Even I can understand this TJ and I’m not particularly intelligent by stw standards 😯

Hugor risk compensation is a well known and researched phenomenon and it seen in such things as ABS brakes in cars.

It must play some part in bicycles and helmets. How big? Who knows. As example on the FF helmet thread – the chap felt more confident with it on.

You are wrong to say it has no place – why would cycling be any different from driving or climbing in that respect?

I’m not going to read it. I’m happy with my full face, it’s already hit several rocks and a couple of tree stumps. I don’t give a **** what you put on your head.

Surely a top hat is the safest thing to wear when flogging a dead horse?

Great, lawyers apply basic common sense. Conclude evidence is unclear (but why the obsession with contact with moving vehicles?) and essentially take a libertarian view re compulsion p22. What’s new!?!

Herman, that picture is most ore sum! 🙂

Herman, that picture is most ore sum! 🙂

Risk compensation with bicycle helmet use has never been demonstrated so it is merely a hypothesis. Its a moot point and your clutching at straws here.
Just because somebody feels safer with some protective equipment does not mean that they will take extra risk.
They may just be more aware of the dangers involved and exercise greater caution.
I’ve never been overtaken by a Volvo at 100 miles per hour, but I have have been by loads of small Audi’s and BMW’s.
Why don’t we just legislate against any kind of protective equipment?
Being frightened is safe!
Its stupid logic.
The other thing to note is that everybody keeps quoting the Australian helmet study to support the anti-compulsion stance, and yet Australia has made it legislation for 20 years now!
Are they/we stupid or do you think there is more to it?

As I said earlier this is just a public health argument.
The question is:
If they made helmets compulsory in Britain would we save more people from head injuries, than we would lose from people quitting cycling and dying of cardiovascular disease?
If nobody quit cycling as a result of changing the helmet laws then there would be no trade off and it would be enforced.
Nobody is arguing that helmets don’t offer protective benefit.

TJ – do you have children? If so do you encourage them to ride on road and off road without a helmet?

Thats not a sarcastic comment by the way, I’m genuinely interested.

If compulsion was introduced, would it only apply to road use ?
Hard to imagine trails being suddenly overrun with helmet cops and I can’t recall the last time I saw anyone riding on the roads without a helmet, and that’s as a non car owner who use bike for almost all my journeys.

So perhaps compulsion (which I’m personally against) may not affect that many people ?

If compulsion was introduced, would it only apply to road use ?
Hard to imagine trails being suddenly overrun with helmet cops and I can’t recall the last time I saw anyone riding on the roads without a helmet

If compulsion was introduced it would be unenforcable, much the same as seat belt/mobile phone use in cars, which patently does not seem to be enforced due to a lack of Police.

Every ride I do I see people without helmets here in the Nederlands, I get stared at as I am the ‘wierd one’ wearing one.

It is down to personal choice, it should remain that way and we should accept that there are polorised views on the subject.

Great, lawyers apply basic common sense. Conclude evidence is unclear (but why the obsession with contact with moving vehicles?) and essentially take a libertarian view re compulsion p22. What’s new!?!

It’s not that at all. It’s a review of the (mostly absent) case law, a rehashing of some scientific study followed by an assertion based on the author’s preference/prejudice.

The “obsession” with contact with moving vehicles is because that’s where most of the case law on contributory negligence is going to come from.

The one thing reading that has done is made me consider buying a more heavy duty helmet! Any suggestions?

Just treated myself to a new one. I went for the 661 Recon, which seems to give a lot more protection around the back or the head. I wear it on and off road, and have done for years – force of habit now and I wouldn’t ride without one.

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=72434

Hugor why are you so biased against compensatory risk? There’s every reason for it to be real and plausible.

If I ride without one I go way slower. Not sure if that’s the same thing though, or whether seasoned riders like us aren’t an extreme group in this respect-I’ve not ridden without one regularly since I was 19.

If compulsion was introduced it would be unenforcable, much the same as seat belt/mobile phone use in cars, which patently does not seem to be enforced due to a lack of Police.

Almost all laws are “unenforceable” [ cant think of one that banning something stops t ever happening again tbh] like speeding, parking,drugs etc – if we used that as a basis for making law we would have none

If they made helmets compulsory in Britain would we save more people from head injuries, than we would lose from people quitting cycling and dying of cardiovascular disease?
If nobody quit cycling as a result of changing the helmet laws then there would be no trade off and it would be enforced.
Nobody is arguing that helmets don’t offer protective benefit.

this is pretty much the debate do the perceived reduction in numbers from compulsion mean t would be overall worse [more deaths from health related disease v more deaths from injury] for society if it was introduced
It is fairly obvious that a helmet offers some protection in the event of a crash – though it has an impact force at which it is useless much like seatbelts airbags and a 2 ton box of steel called a car.

I am not a huge fan of compulsion but the only people I generally see without helmets are kids, those who own a bike but are not cyclists and older riders.
Maybe once a year I see someone off road without a lid
Pretty sure most riders on here have had a crash where a helmet reduced the injury , I know I have but I was still knocked out and split the helmet. Would i have died probably not but I would rather not find out

@ cynic-al
It bugs me cause I don’t think legislation and matters of public health should be made by assumptions and long extrapolations from other scenarios.
Your comparison to yourself is not appropriate as you obviously wear helmets most of the time and feel strange/vulnerable without one.
So do I for that matter.
When people accept that whenever you take your bike out you also take your helmet it becomes normal.
It would be interesting to see if regular Australian road cyclists take any more or less risk than regular British cyclists.
That would setttle the argument.
Personally my opinion is that their risk behaviour would be identical.
I don’t think the average Aussie roadie takes more risks because they feel safer with their helmet. They just think its normal. They don’t even consider not wearing one.

It must play some part in bicycles and helmets. How big? Who knows. As example on the FF helmet thread – the chap felt more confident with it on.

I’ll agree with this to some extent. When I used to make some very poor attempts at mincing downhill on the Patriot 7 in FF and body armour I definitely tried things and went faster than on the Cotic with only an XC lid on. Sure, some of it was obviously the bike, but a lot of it was the security of protection. I found having the FF on really focussed me on line choice as much as anything else.

That said, the absolute opposite is true on the roadie – without helmet and with wind in hair I seem to want to go faster than with helmet.

EDIT: I should add it’s compulsory to wear a helmet here in Oz – There seem to be many more cyclists here in Adelaide than I remember in Manchester (similar population, but I guess somewhat crummier weather!)

Risk compensation with bicycle helmet use has never been demonstrated

it never will be either
Personally, my fastest ever lap of the red at Dalby was sans lid, after I forgot to pack it and I’ve done a lot of laps around there
I also go out with a small road group, a couple of the guys don’t wear hats, they don’t obviously ride any slower than the rest of us

When people accept that whenever you take your bike out you also take your helmet it becomes normal.

It certainly seems to be far more normal than it was when I was younger. I cycled a lot in my teens and never wore a helmet, and no one I knew wore a helmet, including in the (road) club I was in. At school you were seen as a bit of a whip if you wore one. Now I don’t know anyone who doesn’t use one.

Hugort – you are absolutely wrong on risk compensation.

It occurs commonly and is well demonstrated. Why should cycling be exempt?

Personally, my fastest ever lap of the red at Dalby was sans lid, after I forgot to pack it and I’ve done a lot of laps around there

There’s the counter to all the “I ride more carefully without a lid” comments.
I see these roadies round my way absolutely blasting down these descents without lids.
I don’t think risk enters their minds.

Hugor. Not exercising does not automatically put you in the queue for CHD! A sedentary lifestyle, 40 fags and 20g of sat fat a day may do.