kids cycling to school without helmets… is it me or?

i cycled to school, as everyone else did, without a helmet. heck you could’nt even buy a helmet then (left school in ’82). but now i wouldn’t even consider riding my bike without one.

so my kid’s school (infants/junior) has gotten in with cyclewise, runs training, and has just spent quite a lot of cash on an enclosed bike shed. the result is that a lot (well, 20 or so) of the older juniors now ride whereas before no-one did. congratulations for that.

but the majority do not wear helmets.

is it me or is that a bit crazy, i mean surely the school should insist on compulsory helmets or at the very least be very pro-active in promoting their usage? they have to wear helmets to do the training so they have them.

Impossible to enforce.

Once they cross the threshold the school has no control over them and helmets aren’t cool in the eyes of some youth.

Is there an epidemic of kids getting killed from preventable brain injuries?

i mean surely the school should insist on compulsory helmets or at the very least be very pro-active in promoting their usage

compulsion, no. Encouragement (postive) yes.

TandemJeremy – Member

Is there an epidemic of kids getting killed from preventable brain injuries?

and so it begins.

Please step away from the thread tj – you know this won’t end well even if you are correct.

Back on topic, at my child’s school the police just turned up at the school one day with a box of flouro vests and helmets. If you rode in to school and wanted one there was a free helmet for you. Sorted

Wot -the epidemic of brain injuries?

And another helmet thread.

Just a reminder that it’s the brain hitting the inside of the skull that does it damage and a helmet doesn’t chnage that much. Even if you land on the helmet rather than your face.

Rather than worrying about helmets haow about some measures that might make a difference such as a 1m overtaking law, 20mph speed limit in all residential areas, a mobile phone jammer in all vehicles… .

Impossible to enforce.

Once they cross the threshold the school has no control over them

A couple of years back our youngest ones school stopped him cycling to school because he hadn’t done the cycling proficiency [or whatever it’s called now]
It started getting all silly so I backed down in the end [to save the lad getting grief]

I am, personally, pro-helmet, for some personal reasons. However, I’d rather see kids riding to school without them, than driven half a mile in a mummy wagon or chelsea tractor.

how about some measures that might make a difference such as a 1m overtaking law, 20mph speed limit in all residential areas, a mobile phone jammer in all vehicles… .

Hear hear

And another helmet thread

yes maybe, but more that i knew i would get some reasoned arguments from many trains of thought and wanted to weigh the views up and see if i was blinkered or no in my view.

i am biased, in the 80’s when i started riding mtb i refused to wear a helmet for years. i finally bought one because i had begun to ride with a lovely girl who then said she would’nt ride with me any more unless i wore one. within a few weeks of getting one i had a huge head first stack at speed, split the lid, and i’m fairly sure my life would be very different if it had’nt been for that bit of polystyrene on my head.

don’t get me wrong i’m all for the kids actually riding more than whether they have a helmet or no, lord knows there are some criminally lazy parents in that school who live within a half mile and always drive. that too me is a worse thing by far.

20mph speed limit in all residential areas

totally agree. i fought for 7 or so years when i lived in the village for that. i can go on chapter and verses about traffic calming et al. but the biggest barrier issue, in cornwall, is the highways department who are inept to say the least.

the village is 20 btw, but no calming measures so largely ignored.

As much as I don’t like them I suspect that the reflective vests are more important than helmets as cars are in such a rush in the mornings I’m not convinced that they see very much at all 🙁

I am, personally, pro-helmet, for some personal reasons. However, I’d rather see kids riding to school without them, than driven half a mile in a mummy wagon or chelsea tractor.

+1

I’m with TJ (sort of) on helmets, it should be entirely a personal choice. My lad often goes out in the field next door without his helmet, he only ever seems to come back covered in mud with a big grin on his face, no major head injuries yet. However in the skatepark it’s always helmets and pads.

Agree with reflective vests too, brilliant things on the road.

School’s have the ‘loco parentis’ issue to think about. It runs to getting kids home on the bus so why not to vests helmets etc for pupils who ride home?

What are the stats from Australia?

Rather than worrying about helmets haow about some measures that might make a difference such as a 1m overtaking law, 20mph speed limit in all residential areas, a mobile phone jammer in all vehicles… .

I like those ideas. I vote for you as secretary for transport (or whatever).

duke – I think a pinch of salt is needed as you visit this site but it collates / links to much data on what has happened in Australia
http://www.cycle-helmets.com/helmet_damage.html

No reduction in head injury rates, many less people cycling basically

Won’t someone please think of the children.

TJ we all know your well documented views on this issue from here. Some think you have a point here [or the debate is not as clear cut as prima facie it would appear], myself included. However I will wear one and insist my kids do as well
it does your on line persona/image no favours to engage on this issue.
Encourage an deducate yes but enforcement is no more possible than enforcxing the parents dont park on the zig zags and they all wear seatbelts etc

Cheers TJ

I assume it takes a generation for it to not seem an issue. Look at seatbelts. Like a seatbelt in a car I feel wrong on a bike without my helmet.

TJ, as a pretend expert on anything and everything you might want to check English grammar books and learn that it’s fewer people, not less people.
Back to OP, I’m there with you. I ride with a helmet on my head, so does my daughter. I don’t care what statistics TJ provides given a tenth of a chance say, a slow-speed spill without one will mean unnecessary pain and injuries if there’s nothing between the head and the surface.

My nipper and me for that matter don’t wear helmets unless we go and play in the woods. Don’t know why and never really give a thought.

You stand more chance of avoiding head injury wearing a helmet in a car than on a bike, Duke. Enforcing helmet wearing in cars would save lives and the statistics are there to prove it unlike the stats for bicycles. There’s a Bath uni study to show you’re more likely to be knocked off your bike when wearing a helmet as drivers take less care around helmetted riders.

junkyard – merely giving duke the info he asked for.

I won’t enter the debate beyond that honest injun

We all rode bikes as kids. I don’t remember anyone dying. When we got motorbikes (and helmets) I do remember people dying. Then we got cars, and more died. I remember one kid dying playing rugby. Same applies to my lad’s generation. A few dead from cars. None from bicycles (and they didn’t wear helmets either).

So on balance I think kids tend to die of things other than bicycles.

That’s an idea. Everyone should wear helmets apart from cyclists.

Wearing helmet to go on his bike is just a natural thing for my kid. Instilled in him (not enforced) from the start. Anyone who thinks their child would be safer without a helmet is an idiot in my book. Seem to recall the “top” poster to this thread has no children of their own. Hmmm.

edukator the study shows that cars give you a wider berth if you are unhelmeted no one was actually hit doing the research.
iirc it is because drivers assume a lycra helmted rider is less likely to swerve and more skilled etc. A long blonde wig gave the largest gap as well iirc.

Depends what you’re riding like and where.

If I was out alone caning it through the trees and rocky stuff I’d be wearing one. Out with my young nephew taking it steady maybe not, unless I was showing him what he should be aiming for. I remember riding with older, fast lads when I was younger and thinking fk yeah I’ll have some of that when I’m older.

Any time spent on the roads at all then yeah I’d be wearing one 100% of the time. There are some total, total sh1tbrains on our roads immersed in their living-rooms-on-wheels.

Recovering from a bad motorcycle collision as a result of a farmer breaking the law while driving.

The ctc think wearing helmets looks dangerous and can discourages people from taking up cycling.

I’ve heard that nonsense in Junkyard’s post before. Well, I actually ride regularly on the roads in busy traffic, unlike these effin researchers. I see (and have video evidence of) many fools without helmets almost being driven off the road by motorists, cut up, pulled out on and the rest. Makes not the blindest bit of difference.” Blindest” because so many motorists are completely blind to there even being a bike there, let alone whether rider has a bloody helmet on or not.

[edit] many many things are more discouraging to cycling then helmet wearing eg. The amount of traffic; being a lazy bastard. Helmets come way down the list.

Riding in town? Nobody in their right mind would let a child ride in traffic would they? Not that I see how a helmet helps when you get run over by a truck.

I don’t really think that a kid pootling down the pavement to school really warrants a helmet. I never really insist on my son wearing one unless I reckon there is a risk of him crashing, and he is not going to do that on his way to school.

I’m not saying people should force their kids to wear helmets, I just think some of the arguments against it are total bolox

Let nature take its course …

unless I reckon there is a risk of him crashing, and he is not going to do that on his way to school.

Can you let me know when/where I will have an accident next as i find them a bit diificult to predict

Sorry if this has been posted before, I don’t make it through most of the helmet threads.

I think this TRL research is pretty even-handed and thorough. If you’ve got time to read it, it’s free but you have to login. It’s “in favour” of helmets.

I read a few things after reading a thread here a few months ago that had some thoughtful posts by LHS amongst others.

From what I can gather, there’s still a a good deal of research being undertaken about the long-term impact of ‘minor’ concussion – the type that a cycle helmet might prevent.

Seeing all the wrongly-sized, ill-adjusted helmets being worn by children I wonder to what extent they are actually protected.

I think there’s a whole area of promoting parental responsibility here rather than compulsion. Cycle more often and wear helmet!

Why do people always talk about death or brain damage with the helmet debate. Isn’t it enough that even a slow speed bump on the head really hurts without a helmet but often doesn’t with one.

I used to cycle on my paper round, then to school and never wore a helmet. The speed limits around schools were 30 as well. I still seem to be alive.

Used to hide my helmet in the plants at the end of the road and pick it up coming home!

The idiots that will drive too fast near a school will still do it with lower limits, speed cameras don’t get bad drivers off the road and traffic police only seem to sit where money is to be made.

When schools are coming in or out what’s the chances of being near the limit anyway?

Anyway helmets – why the hell should the school be providing them? If the parents aren’t forcing the child to wear them it’s nothing to do with the school. Some communication may be needed with the parents though to insure they’re not hiding the helmet like me!