http://www.cyclehelmets.org

I like this site.

I wear a helmet when I want to, usually to stop others saying ‘why aren’t you wearing a helmet?’

I remain to be convinced of the amazing protective powers of an inch of polystyrene.

I see a number of head injuries at work, in 10 years I’ve seen 2 cyclists, and god knows how many falls down stairs, trips over cats, slips on ice, and motor car related head injuries.

accidents happen, not every car driver purposefully knocks some one off.

They might not have meant to do it, but they’ve doubtless been grossly negligent if they’ve ended up killing somebody.

I remain to be convinced of the amazing protective powers of an inch of polystyrene.

I remain to be convinced about the amazing protective powers of a exploding bag of gas inside a big rubber condom that is the car airbag?

god knows how many falls down stairs, trips over cats, slips on ice, and motor car related head injuries.

I presume they were all clumsy or stupid, unlike perks?

😉

Crikey are you an A&E consultant or a (road) sweeper like your profile says?

High Viz jackets: Florecent bit doesn’t show up at night, the reflective bit does.

I have reflective material on my shoes, backpack and jacket. The road bike is bright yellow – not that this makes a huge difference.

Hi-viz jackets are a sensible thing to wear and only cost a couple of quid, but there is always the option of a properly tailored hi-viz cycling top/ jacket for daytime riding. Buy the kit and don’t look like a twit!

In my view, riding at night on rural roads is safer because there is less traffic – most people are watching telly or going to bed. You can see when a vehicle is coming (in either direction). If i’m on a fast bit of road, it gives me warning and the opportunity to get out of the way, or stop. The downside of night riding is the drunken yob element driving back from a night out.

They might not have meant to do it, but they’ve doubtless been grossly negligent if they’ve ended up killing somebody.

my housemate’s brother in law was killed by some one getting out of the way of someone being grossly negligent. the “killer” was trying to save themselves and hit him by accidental. the “killer” has to live with that every day even though no charges were brought against them being that they really did nothing wrong, it was some one else’s fault. OK maybe that’s a freak accident, one chance in a million that wouldn’t make any difference helmet or not but all the same it was an accident.

next time you hit some black ice, think “did I leave enough space, had there been a cyclist at the side of me?”

all i’m saying is all these people crying because they believe their civil rights are being taken away from them piss me off.

BigDummy – Member

i never said i was perfect

You didn’t, but you’d need to be to get away with that kind of hysterical clither. [:wink:]

Quite. I mean….

what about the mental stability of your mates who shouldn’t have egged you on to go down the bit you weren’t comfy with but did anyway and saw you smash your head in on a rock and now have to live with seeing you disabled.

…that’s not a helmet debate. That’s a Darwin Award.

Anyone who has held a brush can call himself sweeper, but does he get right into the corners, young Grasshopper?

I work on ITU.

You really think it’s simply a civil rights issue?

Well I am a Consultant (animal) Pathologist – Just was wondering about your qualification to make the statement

I see a number of head injuries at work, in 10 years I’ve seen 2 cyclists, and god knows how many falls down stairs, trips over cats, slips on ice, and motor car related head injuries.

😉

As a consultant animal pathologist foxyrider, how many cats that get tripped over by clumsy pedestrians would you say die as a result of their failure to wear helmets?

😉

no i think its a selfish issue as i said in my first post.

so what, the government may or may not decide that you should or should not wear a helmet. i’m sure people will start saying its the thin end of the wedge but its hardly Nazi Germany is it?

its mostly dogs statistically, BigDummy, but the Helmets made for cats are not very effective 😉 LOL – I laugh at my own joke Ho Ho Ha Ha

Consultant animal pathologist?

That sounds like an extremely interesting job….

What kind of work do you do then? Is it mainly livestock?

I’m a vet specialising in pathology. I look at biopsies and cells from dogs and cats mostly to tell people what is wrong with their pets so the vet can treat them effectively. Same as medical pathologists do for humans. And before anyone thinks otherwise I do not work in research industry!

Sounds really interesting as a job.

My main observation after 20 odd years as a nurse, 10 in ITU, is that the best way to reduce the rate of head injuries is for alcoholics to be forced to live in bungalows.

Cheers Crikey – Hmm yes I can well believe that – Hopefully we will not see a rise in alcoholic cyclists 😉

See not wearing the right hat!

You become someone else problem if you come off and sustain a head injury that could have been avoided by a helmet.

I’ve refused to ride with guys that haven’t worn a helmet in the past, I don’t paticularly want to be scooping up bits of skull and brains when I could be riding my bike.

I’m still surprised how many riders on or off road still refuse to ride with a helmet, why!!.

Walking in the peaks yesterday 2 guys rode past on Derwent Edge with no helmet’s, all the gear and no idea, or is that lid, go figure

Maybe my views are also coloured by the fact that when I started riding, no-one wore a helmet, in fact I was the first to get one; a Specialized Sub-6.

Now everyone wears them, and seems convinced that they are amazing pieces of technology that will save you from a serious head injury.

I still see them as lumps of polystyrene, admittedly very much prettier, but still…

no i think its a selfish issue as i said in my first post.

Which is completely missing the point of my query about it being a civil rights issue, as you said:

all i’m saying is all these people crying because they believe their civil rights are being taken away from them piss me off.

The point being that it’s nothing to do with civil rights, and all to do with safety and health.

If it’s to do with safety make wearing them compulsory. If it’s to do with saving some insurance company cash don’t make it compulsory but reduce the amount of a claim if no helmet is worn.

Crikey raises a good point.

I went off cycling completely when I was 11 or 12. My father was insistent that I had to wear a lid. My lid didn’t fit and gave me headaches. I refused to wear it. I stopped riding. I next had a bike at 18, didn’t much like wearing a helmet, rode quite a bit, had the odd spill, never hit my head, gradually started wearing helmets because the Uni club more-or-less insisted on it and have mostly worn them for any risky riding since, buit have never regarded them as an essential safety item all the time.

Doesn’t advance the debate any, but as a matter of common sense, we all know people who appear to have survived crashes only because they were helmeted, but we also (presumably) all know people who are still alive despite riding bicycles without helmets on.

🙂

If it’s to do with safety make wearing them compulsory.

Have you not bothered to read the rest of this debate (note I also mention health)?

If it’s to do with saving some insurance company cash don’t make it compulsory but reduce the amount of a claim if no helmet is worn.

Or are you just anti-cyclist and on the wrong website?

I still see them as lumps of polystyrene, admittedly very much prettier, but still…

Yeh But Crikey I believe that that high-impact polystyrene, of which the softer stuff packs most of the electronic equiment we buy and fridges etc, must to something when it fractures when you crash ?

we also (presumably) all know people who are still alive despite riding bicycles without helmets on.

I can do better than that – I survived a helmetless accident which I’m convinced would have resulted in the sort of helmet damage which usually results in people saying “the helmet saved my/his life”. Granted I had a trip to casualty out of it, but that was about it (and I may well have got that with the helmet). I never fail to be amazed by the magical properties some people seem to think a bicycle helmet has.

What I always find a bit bizarre is parents riding along who decide its important enough to put helmets on their kids, yet are happy enough not to wear one themselves.

Mike T

If your point is that failure to wear a helmet is taking an unnecessary risk then surely you should avoid mountain biking all together?

“The point being that it’s nothing to do with civil rights, and all to do with safety and health.”

Oh sorry, I thought we were discussing the recent court ruling.

I’m in favour of cyclists wearing helmets, but against cyclists being blamed for their own injuries.

Granted I had a trip to casualty out of it, but that was about it

Was that for concussion or a stitch-up – both of which would probably be prevented with a helmet if it was in a position where the helmet covered your skull? Yeh its not going to prevent all injuries but probably goes a long way?

What I always find a bit bizarre is parents riding along who decide its important enough to put helmets on their kids, yet are happy enough not to wear one themselves.

Surprisingly enough my kids fall off a great deal more frequently than me. I am simply not going to fall off at the kind of speeds that I ride with my kids at.

I am simply not going to fall off at the kind of speeds that I ride with my kids at

. Convinced of that are you? What about the car that didn’t see you or the pedestrian walking out in front of you? I think buffalobill was taking about the families that cycles along the roads – I am sure many older children can ride quite fast and also be involved in accidents.

“amazed by the magical properties”

Not magic, it’s called load spreading. Instead of a point impact fracturing your skull, it’s absorbed into the styrene and distributes the energy over a larger area of your head. It does itself fracture under big loads, but by then it’s done it’s work.

helmtes mess ur hair up. freemod of choice=MAX

I got T-boned by someone driving a Land Rover. I wasn’t wearing a helmet, I didn’t hit my head.

I got T-boned by someone driving a Land Rover. I wasn’t wearing a helmet, I didn’t hit my head.

Hmm well I guess you were lucky not to hit you head then – Period!

I think the polystyrene and the actual ‘something on the head’ works for a small range of potential injuries; that 12 to 15 mph tumble type of thing.

I think the problems begin when people start to view them as the bicycle equivalent of seatbelts, and assume accordingly that not having a helmet equals certain death.

I don’t think that a cycle helmet can be the difference between walking away or ending up severely brain damaged.

If it were the case, we would see clear evidence that head injuries in cyclists have declined, and that evidence simply doesn’t exist.

It’s a very subtle, very complex problem, which is unfortunately presented as a black or white, helmet or death issue.

Making helmets compulsory will cause a drop in the number of cyclists, but the only thing that seems to improve cycling safety is having more bums on bikes….