Why not make helmets compulsory when riding anywhere?

I’ve read on here before that you must legally have reflectors on your pedals if they were fitted with them……..surely something a bit more serious like having to wear a helmet is more enforceable and sensible?

What is the benefit of the legislation?

I think someone will be along with the phrase “Pulls up chair” quite soon.
I however, will avoid any further involvement in this thread.

lots of people, as you’re probably about to find out, dispute any safety benefits of wearing a helmet.

On the road, I would much rather have reflectors than a helmet, if I had to choose just one. 🙂

This has been debated to death so many times. Have a look here for the pros and cons.

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1119.html

Uplink, any Earl Grey and a nice Duchy Originals Lemon Shortbread, perchance?

and indeed, there’s the opposing view that enforcing helmet wear stops people getting on their bikes.

Uplink, any Earl Grey and a nice Duchy Originals Lemon Shortbread, perchance?

Afternoon off – so it’s beer & nuts

I wasnt implying that helmets should be worn, just wondering why there isn’t any legislation surrounding it when there is for pedal reflectors.

TJ and Frenchie boy to the thread please…

I’ve got some cream bourbons if they float your boat Flashy.

Beer? Hmmm, normally yes, but I’m going for a spin round the Park after work, so I’d better not.

SiB – Member
I wasnt implying that helmets should be worn, just wondering why there isn’t any legislation surrounding it when there is for pedal reflectors.

In a word (well 2) – Rotational forces

And you must have a bell … I mean on an MTB!! FFS

I wasnt implying that helmets should be worn, just wondering why there isn’t any legislation surrounding it when there is for pedal reflectors.

Because the nanny state has limited time and energy to invent new ways to bother us, and last turned its attention to the problems of nagging bicyclists before helmet manufacturers realised how lucrative selling lumps of polystyrene could be. But IIRC it became compulsory to fit a bell to all bicycles in bicycle shops relatively recently. Although that might have been a European thing, and as we know, yerpeans do generally have bells on their bicycles but have yet to notice that riding a bicycle without a helmet on spells certain death.

🙂

Shocking isn’t it?

Reflectors are more important than helmets.

Maybe cars should all be fitted with roll cages.

Generally, if it affects OTHER road users, there will be a law against it (reflectors, lights etc), but if it just affects you (bike must have 2 wheels, you must wear a helmet) then there’s no law! 😉

Actually, IIRC, the law says that bikes can’t be sold without bell and reflector if it is going to be used on road. There’s nothing to say you can’t take them off once you’ve paid.

Do some schools make helmets compulsory? Cos I can never understand why teenage folks ride round with a helmet dangling from their handlebars…

Actually, the law is that you must have pedal reflectors fitted while on the road.

I’ve got the kettle on if anyone fancies a brew?

Do some schools make helmets compulsory? Cos I can never understand why teenage folks ride round with a helmet dangling from their handlebars…

Possibly, but I suspect some parents make it compulsory and kids think it’s uncool and take it off en-route.

Do some schools make helmets compulsory?

yeah they do – at the one our 12 year used to go to you needed a permit to ride to school & it was a condition

I see quite a lot of adults in London riding along in traffic with the lid looped over the bars. Perhaps they think they look like dorks wearing them, and won’t immediately die if they take them off? 😉

Earl Grey and a nice Duchy Originals Lemon Shortbread, perchance?

CFH, you also been round my parents’ house today? 🙂

I would quite like cycle lanes that are both in the road proper, and not full of broken glass and/or wet dead leaves.

I am considering putting those clickly plastic things that come with mrs julian’s shimano pedals back on my commuter. I wonder how easy it would be to engineer in a couple of bits of reflector in most clipless pedals? (not eggbeaters I suppose) I don’t recall any bit of the blurb that says how large said reflectors need to be.

As for helmets, I thing there has been at least 2 big threads on this since the new forum started. I cannot imagine there is anything left to add!

I cannot imagine there is anything left to add!

You don’t get what this “internet” thing is for, do you? 😉

lol

Waste of time to bring in any new legislation – when was the last time anyone was done for not obeying old legislation regarding reflectors, bells etc etc?

The feds around here are too busy sitting in car parks doing undercover surveillance on a nice Saturday afternoon too worry about cyclists.

I’m a teacher type and for my sins was once given the job of “running” the bike shed (that meant something so different when I was a kid!) and encouraging cycling to school. Given the job because I was a cyclist and still young enough at the time to be seen as cool.

Wearing your helmet is a pretty standard part of the code of practise that goes with most Bike-to-school authorisation policies, but as you say a large percentage avoid it at all costs. One particularly larey lad managed to total himself by getting the helmet straps stuck in his wheel on the way into school. Didn’t look so cool then!

Today’s Guardian has a nice article explaining why:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/may/07/cycling-safety-york-calderdale

“Struck by the Dutch success, a group of British MPs has just returned from a fact-finding trip to the country. There, along with reams of information about bike lanes and secure parking, they were let in to a less well-known secret for spurring a national cycling culture: throw out the Lycra and the helmets.”

julianwilson, no, but the cameras are working a treat now.

SC – love the links these two paras made me laugh so much tea came out of my nose!!

A study of the most and least safe places to cycle in Britain, released today, shows that where there are more riders on the roads there is generally a lower accident rate, while in areas less popular for bikes, cycling can be notably more risky.

– Making where I live on a nice Sunday the safest place to cycle in the world (ignoring the regular ambulances and air ambulance!!)

And then, of course, there is the factor that no government directive can change: topography. Like Holland, the areas of England favoured by cyclists also tend to be the flatter ones.

Not round here you clot, the only flat bits we have are at the very bottom of the hills and at the very top, either side of them it is all up or down and you cant move for bikes!!!

No Helmets, let Dariwnism rule. 😀

If people do or don’t want to wear helmets it should be up to them (personally I do about 75% of the time). I can’t see why folk continually want to impose their own values on other people’s lives.

I see quite a lot of adults in London riding along in traffic with the lid looped over the bars. Perhaps they think they look like dorks wearing them, and won’t immediately die if they take them off?

This is brilliant. Are they all blokes? I can just imagine the sad buggers leaving the house in the morning, wife and children waving them off and then as soon as they’re round the corner they rip it off with a sigh of relief because they don’t look cool.

Not read the article but did they consider that maybe less people cycle in those areas because its so dangerous?

Mostly blokes samuri, yes. 🙂

Myth no 1) You do not have to have a bell fitted to a bike, it only has to be sold with one for BS 6102

Myth no 2) You are only required to have a rear and pedal reflectors on a bike for road use, however to conform to BS 6102 a cycle must be sold with front, rear, pedal and wheel reflectors.

Making helmet wearing law is daft as a vast amount of people would just stop cycling.

CTC position on cycle helmets

I think the stuff linked to on that page sums up pretty well the argument against helmet compulsion

I see quite a lot of adults in London riding along in traffic with the lid looped over the bars. Perhaps they think they look like dorks wearing them, and won’t immediately die if they take them off?

I know one adult male who is often photographs riding into work with his helmet looped over his bars. Not recently, of course, as he’s had his bike nicked again.

🙂