Ta for the link to the TRL review. It will make interesting reading. TRL is known for its evangelical approach to mechanistic passive road safty - leg protectors for motorbikes and so on
a quick glance tells me two things - they have just ignored / discounted risk compensation and have ignored studies that clearly show rotational forces having an adverse effect.
How would they have ignored the studies, when they have introduced the topic for discussion?
This registers about 1.5 on my give a toss meter [it goes to 11]
I wear a helmet 95% of the time
If they made it law to wear one all the time - I wouldn't change my ways for a couple of reasons
They'd have to catch me
They'd have to get valid ID details from me
a £60 fine wouldn't be the end of the world
I haven't got a password to get to the full thing but this
Curnow WJ. The efficacy of bicycle helmets against brain injury.
Accident Analysis and Prevention, 2003,35:287-292.
Very much questions the facts about prevention of rotational injury
I think anyone who does not have one / use one is a clown
I'm a clown then. I don't think they are as effective as a voice. I do have a VERY loud 'ding dong' bell on my commuter though - Bloke in front of me this morning managed to ignore 2 uses of that on a quiet offroad cycle path......
I have no problem with compulsory bells - I think anyone who does not have one / use one is a clown - what is the downside of having one? All my bikes have a bell
Then that makes me (and most other people, I suspect) a clown.
What I object to is compulsory this, compulsory that - I always wear a helmet but I wouldn't advocate it being made compulsory. Same with bells - if I meet anyone else out on the trail and I think that they haven't seen or heard me then I slow down and speak. Works for me.
Coffeking - the TRL review clearly states that they are not considering any behavioural effects into crashing and weather helmets have any effect on this.
Studies in the past have shown significant alterations in behaviour when passive safety measures are taken. it does not invalidate the review totally but it is a limitation on it.
The TRL review also dismisses rotational effects with a very limited discussion of limited sources.
Edit - I just found in one of the appendices a comment which explains some of the doubts over rotational injury.
Typically a linear impact causes a focal brain injury and a oblique impact a diffuse axon injury. None of the studies separated these two types of brain injury so we don't know if the helmeted folk had a higher rate of difuse axon injury or not
Both of these are in line with previous TRL reviews and research on this.
Its a good review but a clearly slanted one - thus as with all research and reviews don't forget your pinch of salt.
I’m going to go against the grain here and say I’m in favour of compulsory helmet wearing in the UK, I do think the law should go further and applied to all age groups…
I can’t see why so many people are anti compulsion…
I know the same studies get wheeled out each time and we’re told that “Statistically” helmets make you no safer, and cycle use goes down with compulsion to use one, but in all honesty I think it’s cobblers, no such law would ever be properly enforced anyway, but if it were I think we would see a reduction in fatal and serious head injuries for cyclists involved in RTAs …
Anyone who’s hairstyle and image matters more than trying to minimise (not mitigate) the risk a brain injury shouldn’t really be riding a bike on UK roads anyway; where the drivers are angry and careless and the signage, road markings and cycle lanes are apparently designed to help kill those who are not alert when it comes to their own safety, so pull em over and fine em, get them off the road or force a helmet on their heads, it may save them from themselves…
I for one will never ride on a UK byway or highway without a helmet, while I agree cyclists shouldn’t feel that unsafe on the roads, the fact still stands that they are not, they are at the mercy of other road users anger management and lack of attention, and as such a cycle helmet should be compulsory in this country…
TJ - the helmets in the test (the paper you quoted, I have access to that source) that that report highlights are from 1987. Does anyone remember the helmets of 1987?
Massive wide items, generally poorly designed with poor coverage and limited internal padding. While the question is a good one, I'm not convinced that that report does anything more than throw doubt at soft-shell helmets impact friction and question their weight. Significant questions arise as to how much helmet-floor grabbing has any effect (and that's what the TRL report says) as the helmet tends to rotate around the head on impact, massively reducing the rotational force that the head actually sees.
Anyone who’s hairstyle and image matters more than trying to minimise (not mitigate) the risk a brain injury shouldn’t really be riding a bike on UK roads anyway; where the drivers are angry and careless and the signage, road markings and cycle lanes are apparently designed to help kill those who are not alert when it comes to their own safety, so pull em over and fine em, get them off the road or force a helmet on their heads, it may save them from themselves…
Perhaps we should make the roads safer and get rid of the angry and carless drivers first? You know, since a helmet will make naff all difference if you're hit by a car anyway...
Cookea - when the evidence base for it is so poor? There really is no significant evidence head injuries would be reduced significantly and serious concerns that some more serious head injuries would be increased?
there is also the basic fact that it would put people of riding thus reduce the health of the population as a whole
Coffeeking - there is lots of other research on this and the effects have been seen in other sports where helmets have been adopted.
There really needs to be better research done - even another TRL report found this effect was there but questioned how much relevance it had.
One interesting thing is the adoption of a test for rotation for motorcycle crash helmets and the alterations to the design of them since.
limited internal padding.
internal padding does nothing to reduce impacts - infact it can make it worse. You need to unerstand how a helmet works
If there is lots of research, why is none presented here (or in any of the review papers) as worthy and conclusive? Yes rotation is considered in motorbike helmet design, and hence stiffer shells were included to allow the helmet to slip more on impact, but we are talking significantly different situations, the mass and speed of a motorbike is generally higher than that of a general bike user (it seems that most on here struggle to even reach an average of 15mph on road). Cross comparison from one sport to another does not make for good science IMO. Yes more research needs to be done specifically, but I do not believe it makes sense to actively work against helmets until it is proven to be a problem rather than a question. Having crashed multiple times with a helmet I can conclude that every time my head hasn't rotated as the helmet hasn't grabbed the floor - it's grazed along the floor and shaved the surface off. This in itself (while not scientific) questions the validity of the tests performed in 1987 that show helmet-floor grabbing (primarily because of the different helmet construction etc I'd say).
re the internal padding comment, the point was that it was seen that one possible "good" thing about bike helmet design is that its relatively low internal padding helps to decouple the helmet from the head during rotational impact. I know how the helmet works thanks.
For example the only studies that show large benefits fro helmet wearing are after the fact statistical studies on A&E admissions. These are a self selecting sample - no one who hits their head without a helmet and has no injury is included, no weighting for experience can be done as they do not know what the comparison between the relative experience of the A&E attendees and non attendees are and so on.
There is actually no study of the effectiveness of helmet to reduce injuries. Do get one would mean that everyone that crash, write off an helmet and walk away, will have to send the helmet to TJ so he can do the stats
That or on a more serious way I think the number of helmet sales should be taken into account.
Cross comparison from one sport to another does not make for good science IMO.
Unlike TJ I think there is a lot of effort put into increasing helmet efficiency. If you look to "new" helmet and early 90's helmet you'll see they are fairly different.
Simple solution:-
The Law makers trying to pass this act have to get on a bike wearing a helmet.
They are then all mown down by a 40ton truck, if they survive, then they can pass their law. Something tells me they would not be willing volunteers for that experiment (may be popular with the masses though).
Theoretically I can ride my motorbike at 70mph whilst wearing just flip flops, swimming trunks and an approved helmet. Thus proving that the law is an ass. Helmets if & when you want to, compulsion definitely not.
'just back (again)from approx 50ish helmetless miles round some of central Scotlands most dangerous roads and...I'm still ..alive!
Unlike the usual arguments, this law means compulsion for uder 18s doing ANYTHING on a bike, not just scary bodacious-to-the-max MTBing but riding to the shops, sitting on the bike in the street etc.
A lot of you think us 'non' types are playing some kind of libetarianist intellectual game with our attitude, but trust me I'm not.
This kind of law represents yet another attempt to move the goalposts with regard to road safety, away from those who should have a duty of care -motor vehicle drivers, and onto the back of the cyclist, but politicians wont rock the boat when it comes to such things.
Ever notice its always regions with the most bad driving, aggresively car-centric infrasructure that push for compulsory helmet wearing?
Far easier to enact a useless token law like this, than ask the voters to slow down and look where they're going...
Indeed - the best way to improve cycle safety and reduce risks is
1) adopt the continental laws on cycle priority
2) engineer roads for cyclist safety not car convenience.
These two measures will do far more than helmets would - and that is backed by a lot of research.
Don't forget - the maximum speed limit on Jersey is 40MPH, Likelihood of a helmet being important in a crash is higher...
Don't forget - the test speed for helmets is 12MPH, Likelihood of a helmet being important in a crash involving a car is minimal...
It’s not the impact with the car that kills you it’s often the secondary impact, when that primary contact sends you rag-dolling into a tree/wall/lamp post or any other piece of street furniture.
The rotational injury point seems to get spouted every time, and to be quite frank from what I can gather (I’m sure you’ll all correct me) it seems to be a pedants point; concerned with the specific geometry of an imaginary crash, where a rider travelling to the (smooth but hard asphalt) ground on a certain trajectory with their head/shoulders at a certain angle, and a helmet shaped and covered such that it provides increased leverage about the cyclists neck and greater coefficient of friction with the ground, transmitting more force into this arrangement of bodies than a bare scalp would, thus spannering the individual in question, when was this study conducted out of interest, and what specific test pieces and were looked at in testing to prove the theory?
I don’t know about you, but I ride in a world littered with hard, blunt, immovable objects all waiting to cause Blunt force trauma to the cranium of an un-helmeted cyclist bounced off the bonnet of a Range rover…
Would that life were so simple that we could all have text book RTAs…
I don’t wear a helmet because I know it will save my life, I wear one because it might save my life, I feel the balance of odds are more in favour of it having some positive effect, studies conducted 20 years ago in a foreign country without our road layouts or street furniture are almost valueless as the incidents they describe aren’t the one’s I’m most likely to get involved in here and now are they…
Perhaps we should make the roads safer and get rid of the angry and carless drivers first? You know, since a helmet will make naff all difference if you're hit by a car anyway...
Good luck with your campaign to rid Britain of the motor car, I will happily sign your petition, but I doubt you’ll change much…
No-one is suggesting ridding the roads of cars, cookeaa, just that forcing people to wear a polystyrene hat is not a substitute for the responsibility of motorists to be lessened, which is what these laws result in.
If you're are serious about compulsion you should be campaigning for the adoption of lightweight, fiberglass, motorcross style helmets, incuding for car occupants.
After all, if it saves just one life its worth it , right?
cookea - the rotational injury thing - some studies have shown up to 50% of death causing brain injuries in cycle crashes are attributable to rotational forces. Sample sizes are low tho as there are so few of these.
Its not a mythological thing - its real although more research is needed into it.
Rotational forces happen with oblique impacts which is common.
The reason I keep banging on about this is that its clear the tendency of cycle helmets to make rotational impacts worse is dangerous and limits the usefulness of the helmets significantly. Better design of cycle helmets could make them much safer without any other penalty
I never said it was a substitute for others good practise, but legislation that forces people to take some sort of consideration for their own safety is hardly nanny state stuff really, how many people don’t use their seat belt these days based on the logic that “other people shouldn’t be crashing into me”?
Obviously drivers should be more considerate, but the fact is they’re not, and while I agree with your sentiment, I wouldn’t fancy proving the point with my own skull, feel free to head butt a speeding car if you feel the ends justify the means…
In my own job I’m required to go to various work sites from time to time where protective equipment is required, due to the nature of the environment and the increased possibility of some sort of accident, I don’t opt out of wearing a hard hat or toe caps because “other people shouldn’t drop things on me” the fact of the matter is regardless of peoples intention or behaviour accidents can and do happen.
Enforcing measures to reduce risk is pretty standard in most spheres of life, IME being in an environment where PPE is required actually makes the wearers more mindful of potential risks and action/measures to avoid them, being compelled to wear a helmet sends a message;
You are not in a safe environment, you are not engaged in a safe activity… pretty much sums up cycling on UK roads…
I suspect most falls from bikes don't involve other road users anyway
You are not in a safe environment, you are not engaged in a safe activity… pretty much sums up cycling on UK roads…
This is the misunderstanding - actually cycling is a very safe activity - with serious accidents very rare indeed in terms of journeys made or miles cycled.
Wearing helmets reinforces the myth that it is a dangerous pastime / activity
You do realise cookeaa, that your construction hat is more protective than your precious cycle helmet?.
and please, stop trying to find some equivalence between seatbelts and cyclehats- there is none.
Cycling on even Britains roads is not, believe it or not, statistically dangerous, why send out the message that it is with a substandard ineffectual piece of crap perched on your head?
one death per 4 million hours cycled.
West Kipper - I have to disagree with you about the construction helmets tho - not much use in cycle situations. Different styles of helmets for different protection - construction helmets are to protect against walking into things and things falling on your head.
..and all those people who give up cycling due to the inconvenience will go on to live a less healthy lifestyle that puts a burden on the taxpayer way in excess of those who suffered 'savable' head injuries.
one death per 4 million hours cycled.
That's an odd way of presenting the data - most forms of transport would use deaths per miles for stats
TJ, I cant see much difference between a brick dropped from a height, to the oft claimed cyclists injury of a head hitting a kerb.
A lot of the argument about the added safety of wearing a helmet seems to miss the point. Yes a helmet wont necessarily save you if hit by a car, as a head injury may not be the most serious injury inflicted.
One of my wifes running friends was hit by a dump truck turning into a building site. She suffered a crushed pelvis, two broken legs, almost had her right arm amputated. However none of these were life threatening - they could have been, but weren't.
If she had not been wearing a helmet she would have died, her head was almost pulled under the rear wheels of the truck. The paramedic who saw to her at the scene and doctor who operated on her both said, considering the damage to her helmet she would have died if her head had been subjected to the forces the helmet took. Oh and she is almost back to full health, still cycling, stil running and definitely wearing a helmet.
Of course there will be many cases where wearing a helmet wont be a factor in reducing an injury or helping evade death, however their effect on helping reduce head injury and death through head impact can not be ignored, no matter how one choses to interpret the statistics.
Edward, you, and the paramedic are actually claiming that an inch and a half of polystyrene, counteracted the forces of being run over by a dump truck?
WOW!, helmets have improved then!
(or it could have been sheer luck that she survived)
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