To tell everyone who goes cycling (and their kids) to wear a fucking helmet ?

[ApocalypseCheeseToastie]

Had a phonecall off my sis last night about eldest brother who's a keen, confident cyclist.

She'd phoned him to nag for something or other and found out he'd been laid up for the past ten days after flipping over the bonnet of a car, doing a here's Johnny moment through the windscreen (his head smashed the window) and flipping over the roof.

Luckily he's a bit of a cycling nerd, he wears a high vis vest, refelective strips on trousers etc and most crucially A DECENT FUCKING HELMET

The helmet he was wearing was smashed into little pieces, it protected him from major injury and ultimately saved his life. Leaving him with a few cracked ribs and a dodgy coller bone, without it he would have been killed, a 42 year old guy who has everything to live for. He would have left behind a family who love him, and a 12 year year old daughter who he lives for.

So please, do a shocked cheese a big favour and if you don't already have one, go out today, buy a fucking helmet for everyone, including the soddin dog if needs be.

I thank you.

Riven several reasons:

• every driver in the Netherlands also rides or has ridden a bike extensively
• most Euro countries have a "strict liability" law where the blame for a collision falls on the shoulders of the larger vehicle (thus on the car for a bike/car collsion, or on the bike for a bike/ped collision) unless the larger vehicle can prove otherwise
• the motorist lobby and car history/culture (e.g, Top Gear, F1) in the UK means that the average person sees driving as a right more than a privilege, and cycling as a hobby than a legitimate mode of transport.

Til those things change, attitudes towards cyclists are unlikely to.

My pet hate is seeing a family out and only the DCs have helmets.I think it should always be 'do as I do and not do as I say'.

I am against compulsory helmet wearing for adults (informed choice is key, given the research others have discussed, and other issues), but in favour of it for children. Already a real struggle to get vain 11 yo dd to wear one, now ds (6) copies her and moans as well. I always wear mine on the roads but do decide to take that risk sometimes around the shared cycle/walkways round our estate - I am always going pretty slowly there and have yet to wobble off unprovoked!

By the way, my dh had a run-in with a driver going too close a few weeks ago and ended up being punched in the face (on Blackfriars Bridge would you believe!) when he - er - gesticulated at him. The helmet didn't prevent his black eye

Hasten to add I always wear my helmet if out with dc, even on cycle paths, to set example. Sometimes give one a backy across a field without one, just for the fun and freedom of it.

YANBU. My mum would almost certainly have died if it hadn't been for her helmet, when she was knocked off her bike on a junction by a fucking idiot driver who was jumping a red light in the dark.

Her helmet cracked like an egg, she was mildly concussed & bruised but otherwise okay.

It was one of the scariest things that has ever happened to my family and it still makes me feel a bit sick to think about what would have happened otherwise.

I will never, ever cycle without a helmet, nor will any member of my family.

dd cant wear a helmet but she is cocooned in her wheelchair portion of the wheelchair bike.

More dangerous are cyclists wearing earphones. Such a stupid thingto do as you cant hear cars that are too close. DH cycles to work and wears music in his ears (its affecting his hearing too, he has it too loud)

YANBU!!!

Can I add, the same goes for motorcyclists...

DB was in a motorbike accident a few years back, and had it not been for his helmet, he would have died on impact. He ended up in a coma for four months instead, which the doctors didn't think he'd come out of, initially. Really fucking angers me when I see people without their helmets on bikes and motorcycles.

ACT, I hope your DB makes a speedy recovery. Do you mind if I send a Un MN hug?

Yes of course peanut, it will soothe the kick up the arse he got off me for not letting us know

Riven, tell your foolish dh he can buy an ipod dock for his bike AND a radio too, radios are around £20, dunno bout the ipod things. Much safer I imagine

I think the not wearing a helmet because drivers treat you differently is ridiculous. Even people who drive really carefully have accidents and you could be knocked off your bike by a careful, considerate driver just as easily as an idiotic one as accidents happen.

My son came off his bike. His helmet saved him from serious injury. We went straight out and bought a new one as helmets are like car seats in that they should be replaced when in an accident.

DCMP, in GB it's against the law to ride a motorbike without a helmet on.

Yanbu. at all.

When I was 17 my then boyfriend was NOT wearing a helmet and went through a car windscreen after a car beeped him to let him know his chain was loose. He ended up through the windscreen of a stationary car.

Due to an insane amount of luck he didn't die but his face was shredded. Spent a dreadful night in A+E while he had his face sewn back together. Just awful.

I believe you can barely see his scars now but as I haven't seen the psychotic fucker in 16 years I'm not certain.

Bristol University did a study that showed drivers *do& treat you differently if you wear a helmet or not. Tis science.

I'm another one who only still has a husband due to a cycle helmet. The consultant saw the cracked helmet and said my dh would have suffered brain damage or death without it.

YANBU

I have only fallen off my bike once, but I knocked myself unconscious and sustained a head injury despite wearing a helmet! The helmet was wrecked!!

I have no recollection of the accident but I am assuming I skidded on a patch of ice going down hill and went over the handle bars. The roads were very quiet and I dread to think what would have happened to me had I not being wearing a helmet.

I would never cycle without a helmet but I always cycle wide in the road, act like a car at junctions and assume every driver is an idiot who hasn't seen me.

I also don't cycle in towns or cities, only off-road or on quiet-ish country roads. I cycle for pleasure, not commuting which makes that possible but I really think city cycling is a completely different challenge.

alowVera, I know it is. People still ride about without them on, though. Seen it enough times... (usually on the smaller bikes, as opposed to the llarge, loud fast ones)

I do wear a helmet and my son also wears one but I know they wouldn't do much to save us in most accidents. Helmets only protect against an impact of about 10-13 mph so are just about useless if cars are involved. It's also nearly impossible to fit a helmet tight enough on a small child for it to actually be effective.

I agree with other posters that there's a lot of attention attached to cycle helmets that would be better directed to making cycling safer.

LDNMummy "I am going to show this thread to my DH. He is an avid cyclist and very sensible... except about wearing a F"£%$NG HELMET "

Point out to him that helmets make you more aerodynamic and you are not allowed to actually race without one. You don't see riders in the Tour De France without helmets and the same goes for the lowest level local organised race in the UK.

Oh I never knew they helped speed us pedalers up.

I am now looking at helmet porn

I actually saw a man on a Boris bike recently with his toddler on his back in a back carrier and no helmet! They were on a cycle path in the park not on a road but I still told him off.

Also agree with Doyouthinktheysaurus, as my dh is always telling me, cyclists should act like a car on the road. Most of the cases of cyclists being killed by lorries is because they were cycling in the gutter and not clearly visable.

I think that cyclists (and horse riders) should have lights on and wear a hi-viz vest at all times,...not bothered if they wear a helmet or not - that is up to them, but they should make a massive effort to be seen.

inthenight kitchen that's an interesting stat. Where is the study you got it from? Am unconvinced!

I'm not disputing that there is a lot of 'blame the cyclist culture' and that absolutely needs to change. But you're wrong about cyclists not being killed or seriously injured without vehicles involved - what about all the tour de france cyclists who've died from falls? My DH hit a tree on his mountain bike four years ago and was fortunate enough only to break his collar bone. It could have been a different story without a helmet. Cyclists also hit gravel and ice all the time and lose control of the bike. My front tyre exploded on a fast descent a couple of years ago and if I'd fallen (at around 30mph) then I would have been very very glad of the helmet.

As for leaving the cars at home - that's not going to happen, is it? I'm a driver and a cyclist and am lucky enough to be able to walk to work - but that doesn't mean I could live my life without a car...

I don't know if the drivers are particularly dangerous around where I live, but in addition to the two accidents involving cyclists I have described, my DP witnessed a cyclist being knocked over a couple of weeks ago. A small van had attempted to overtake two cyclists on a country road with the national speed limit, had seen DP driving towards him on the opposite side of the road round a bend, pulled in and hit one cyclist. The cyclist was thrown up onto the van's windscreen. Remarkably, he was walking wounded and DP of course stayed while the Police investigated. We are both so shocked that because the cyclist wasn't killed or seriously injured, the driver wasn't driving and wasn't speeding (although any sensible driver wouldn't have driven the way he had), he will not be prosecuted.

He ran down a cyclist, in broad daylight, cyclist was wearing helmet and hi-viz, and NOTHING WILL HAPPEN TO HIM!

That could also have been a pedestrian, a horse and rider, a family out with their children, or my DP in his car (he skidded violently and smoke came from his brakes).

I hate the attitude in this country towards dangerous driving. The post above about how cyclists and horse riders should wear lights at all times so drivers can see them actually sickens me. A better step would be for the authorities to be stricter about cars being driven with legal tyre tread, as this makes a huge difference to stopping times. Lights won't protect you from an idiot driver. And evidently the police won't protect the rest of us from them either.

In Denmark, Holland and Germany, the driver is automatically assumed to be at fault if hitting a cyclist, unless proven otherwise. Here, the standard of driving tolerated makes it more like a third world country in many ways.