Never mind all the usual arguments for and against helmets that article is wrong headed (pun intended) in so many ways that I don’t even know where to start criticizing it.

I’m sure the point’s been made above but I can’t believe that helmets are a major barrier to participation. It’s the lack of infrastructure, the attitude of a minority of drivers, the potholed roads, the British weather (or our perceptions of it), our love of car convenience, long habit and people’s worries about their own fitness that keep them off bikes.

The helmet thing is very much a side issue and a matter for personal choice.

A quick poll of the people sat around me at work reveals that the the overwhelming reason for not riding a bike is they “probably should but can’t really be arsed”. Nobody mentioned helmets.

IMO the significant difference between the Dutch and British is mentality, the Dutch see a bicycle as a viable form of transport for short to medium journeys because that’s how they have been brought up, the default mindset is ‘I will use my bike for this journey’. Brits see bikes as toys for lycra clad freaks.

Nobody mentioned helmets.

Of course not.

People don’t say that they don’t cycle because of helmets – they say they don’t cycle because it’s not safe (how can it be if everyone insists you need a helmet even for tame traffic-free pootles?), or because they don’t want to arrive sweaty and dishevelled at work (with helmet hair), or because they think they need special kit (Lycra and helmets), or because they see bikes as toys for lycra clad (helmeted) freaks.

(how can it be if everyone insists you need a helmet even for tame traffic-free pootles?)

and if you repeat that often enough it might become true.

How exactly do you know that it is the helmet wearing that makes people think cycling is unsafe and not the sense of danger which makes people wear helmets? And while we are at it, if it is just a simple case that helmets puts people off cycling and that by simple reasoning means that the population as a whole is more unhealthy, why does the Netherlands not have a significantly greater life expectancy than the UK?

My experience is more similar to Edukator, cycled a lot in the west part of Jutland and generally if you’re on the road Danish drivers give you a lot less space than the average UK driver

I’ve also cycled in that part of Jutland, and thought the driving was absolutely fine.

People don’t say that they don’t cycle because of helmets – they say they don’t cycle because it’s not safe………….

They didn’t though, none of the people said any of those things, they just couldn’t be bothered. No amount of infrastructure is going to change things for the vast majority of people in the UK, they don’t see bikes as a viable form of transport and prefer the apparently simple option of jumping in the car.

An example; my daughters best friend lives about 1 mile away. Whenever I take her over there the mum always asks if we’ve been on a bike ride, we haven’t, we’ve just used bikes to get from A to B because it’s the most convenient mode of transport. Whenever her friend comes over they bring her by car.

why does the Netherlands not have a significantly greater life expectancy than the UK?

Broodje krokets and Olliebollen! The vast majority of people who ride bikes in Holland are not cyclists in the sense that it is used as a form of exercise, they don’t charge around at aerobic threshold, the pootle along at a similar level of excursion as walking.

how ever in doing so – said dutch people exerting them selves as much as walking can get up to a fair clip of speed because they are fit due to their mentality and routine !

Broodje krokets and Olliebollen! The vast majority of people who ride bikes in Holland are not cyclists in the sense that it is used as a form of exercise, they don’t charge around at aerobic threshold, the pootle along at a similar level of excursion as walking.

Yes. Precisely. An awful lot of people on the internet seem to want to claim that if we had Dutch levels of cycling everyone would be massively more healthy, and yet at the same time ignore the fact that most Dutch cyclists aren’t doing any significant cardio-vascular exercise. ‘Normal’ people don’t like to over-exert themselves while going from a to b. The Dutch aren’t any different in that respect. So the health benefits of ‘normal people cycling in their everyday clothes’ yadayadda are pretty minimal.

and if you repeat that often enough it might become true.

If you follow any cycling organisations in social media then you’ll see that almost any photo of helmetless cycling they use, no matter how gentle a traffic-free leisure pootle it might be, will attract hoardes of comments about how “they should be wearing helmets” and how “irresponsible” the organisation is for daring to use such an image. 🙄

On the flip side the cycling organisations use images like that because they want non-cyclists to relate to the people in the photo and imagine themselves cycling in the same way.

So yeah I do think it is a factor.

the health benefits of ‘normal people cycling in their everyday clothes’ yadayadda are pretty minimal.

Maybe. But it looks like they are doing something right to me:

all the old school lads i ride out with –fellas with racing experience ,greta handling skills–on social rides none of us wear helmets—i am not arguing that you should not , but one of the reasons i like cycling is the freedom to go where you want, wearing whatever you wish, not being forced to wear equipment for ‘your’ own safety– no doubt there willl be tales of woe -how a helmet saved so and so –ever had a wasp stuck in it ??

I did lejog with a mate last year. I didn’t wear a helmet. He feels he has to and entertained me with helmet related stories from his last lejog. Various insects etc, including one that burrowed into his head and required digging out.

This time helmet head was the main story. He wore stripes into his head. Something very similar to this:

& does that obesity graph correlate with rates of cycling?

Problem with these articles is they only look at the only outcome being death with regards to helmets. Personally I don’t care what other people do, the reason I wear a helmet is for overall safety and I know wearing a helmet has saved me from what could have been a serious injury, the concussion was bad enough.

& does that obesity graph correlate with rates of cycling?

There certainly seems to be a correlation between active travel and obesity rates:

Go on, why don’t you try. Reference to bits of the article would be good, which would of course require that you read it properly. How about starting with this bit:

Yes, it’s a small thing, but enough small things make a difference

Yes. Precisely. An awful lot of people on the internet seem to want to claim that if we had Dutch levels of cycling everyone would be massively more healthy, and yet at the same time ignore the fact that most Dutch cyclists aren’t doing any significant cardio-vascular exercise. ‘Normal’ people don’t like to over-exert themselves while going from a to b. The Dutch aren’t any different in that respect. So the health benefits of ‘normal people cycling in their everyday clothes’ yadayadda are pretty minimal.
[/quote]

Plenty of health benefits of walking rather than driving if that’s all the exercise they’re getting. You don’t have to get out of breath and sweating buckets to be exercising.

People going from a to b under their own power is a good thing, whether that’s walking, cycling, skateboarding, whatever. Good for their health, good for air quality and city quality of life.

The chances of any kind of injury while city cycling are very low, the chances of it being a head injury where a helmet would make a significant difference are much lower than that. So even if the effect of helmets in discouraging cycling is very low, it will still overwhelm any positive benefits of cycling.

Go on, why don’t you try. Reference to bits of the article would be good, which would of course require that you read it properly. How about starting with this bit:

Some crushing sarcasm there which of course adds nothing to the point you are trying to make.

Do you believe, like the writer clearly does that fewer cyclists wearing helmets will encourage others to ride?

Yes, it’s a small thing, but enough small things make a difference

the health benefits of ‘normal people cycling in their everyday clothes’ yadayadda are pretty minimal.

That’s true for your normal, average EU citizen. But for a nation of Gregg’s-botherers like us, 20 minutes a day of low impact movement could be a big difference.

The chances of any kind of injury while city cycling are very low, the chances of it being a head injury where a helmet would make a significant difference are much lower than that.

Care to guess the only time outside of DH riding I’ve sustained concussion?

Great George Street, clear road, green light, family of morons, avoid, smack into the back of a stopped van. Luckily my pisspot took the brunt of it and was compressed about as far as it could go. The impact was probably only at about 15mph by the time I had scrubbed my speed but was enough to convince me that I’m better off with a helmet than without.

the chances are still low no one said it was impossible and its unlikely a 15 mph head but would have killed you so it stopped the severity of the injury it,most likely, did not prevent your death so we cannot be certain it made a significant difference.

NB i am not claiming it made no difference jsut saying it probably did not save your life.

Care to guess the only time outside of DH riding I’ve sustained concussion?

Care to guess the only time I’ve sustained concussion, in 30 years of riding bikes?

I fell out of a tree.

The plural of anecdote isn’t data.

Yes, it’s a small thing, but enough small things make a difference

I am sure there are people out there who do not bike because they think it is too dangerous. I would be surprised though if they based that decision on the proxy measure of helmet wearing. I think it much more likely that they base their decision on what they see on the roads and in the media.

Helmet wearing is a response to a perceived level of risk. If you want to get those people who site risk as a barrier into cycling then it’s the risks (actual and perceived) that you need to tackle not the response to those risks.

Helmet wearing is part of the media thing, and part of the perceived risk. Yes, it’s a small thing, but enough small things make a difference.

You don’t get how subtle some effects are?

Indeed. Some are so subtle that it’s impossible to see them.

…if you’re not looking

How would you look for evidence of that effect?

I presumed you were going to tell me, given you’re so certain it doesn’t exist

I’ll take that to mean you don’t know! 😉

Depends if you want your once in 100 year freak accident to make you cabbage or not i guess .

Even on my” city “bike i can get up a head of steam that far exceeds that of walking without exerting much effort. Say – on a hill.

In my younger days i never wore a helmet , then i had a scare when a chain snapped on leaving some traffic lights – i went over the bars and hit the ground hard enough to wake up in hospital and under go 6 months of epilepsy tests and came close to having my license suspended on medical grounds.

Another mate lost 6 months memory from a similar low speed freak accident.

Enough for me to wear a helmet. Although im pro choice , it should not be compulsory.

But equally they should not promote the not wearing of a helmet.

One of my best frinds died of a head injury in a shower when she slipped and died

Will this knowledge change your opinion of showering without a lid?

We can trade anecdotes all day but cycling is no more risky than many other activities we would never wear a helmet and much less dangerous [ head injury wise] than many activities – a car for example- where would never wear one.

I am pro choice and i wear it when i think it warrants it. Pootles are helmetless as are some road rides. off road is almost always with a helmet

No, and neither do you. Only one of us is certain about whether or not there is an effect…

It certainly isn’t me who is certain. I’ve been posting based on my beliefs which as dear old Bertrand never tired of saying might be wrong.

Yes I realise it’s anecdotal, I’m not a complete mug. But my point was that for every person who says wearing a helmet is pointless for x there will be another who can make a claim that it made a difference to the outcome in a similar incident. It’s about mitigation rather than prevention, defence in depth if you want to go there. I’ve sustained more neck injuries at work from wearing a helmet (ducking to avoid things and not clearing them or standing too soon) than I ever did when I didn’t wear one but do you honestly think not wearing it would pass any sort of robust risk assessment?

I never claimed the helmet saved my life that day, I went to college and managed to pass an end of module test that afternoon. What it did do was reduce the severity of the injury such that I could make it to college. In any case I’ve probably sustained more injuries pootling around over the years than I ever have when riding seriously. Slipped/snapped chains and slips on pedals have ruined more rides than tree hugging ever has. In fact the only other concussion I got was from a stationary swan dive (hung up on a rock trying to turn, the big one round the tree just at the edge of the woods on the French National if anyone is familiar with it).

Well no. For every n people for whom it wouldn’t make a difference there is one who has an anecdote. The point is that n is large enough that there only needs to be a very small reduction in cycling due to helmet wearing (small enough that it would be very difficult to measure) for helmet wearing to be detrimental to society as a whole.

In case anybody reads between the lines and thinks I’m claiming something I’m not – I’m not claiming that helmet use is detrimental to society as a whole – I’m not sure, but I don’t think there is sufficient evidence to be sure that isn’t the case.

In case anybody reads between the lines and thinks I’m claiming something I’m not – I’m not claiming that helmet use is detrimental to society as a whole

I will then 😆

All this fear of non existant risk is making society worse. Helmets are just one of the symptoms. Stop being such fannies.

Saw a comment on another site regarding legislation of compulsory helmet usage.

It was regarding the irony of having to force those people dumb enough to not want to wear helmets to protect what little grey matter they have.

Is that a comment you agree with? 😕