to think that the focus on bicycle helmets, rather than safe riding, is actively dangerous

[AgaPanthers]

There seems to be this mantra that cycle helmets are the first and last thing with bicycle safety. Lots of schools won't let you ride to school if you don't wear a helmet. They don't give a shit if the bike has functioning brakes, or the fork is the wrong way round (both pretty common faults), but they'll go crazy if a child comes in with no helmet.

Here's a video:

Young boy, nearly gets killed by a lorry. He obviously has no idea about safe riding. His parents have bought him a helmet, he's wearing it even, and it looks like reflectors on his trousers as well. So they obviously are concerned about his safety on his bike.

But his riding style is incredibly dangerous. And this kind of riding is pretty common.

If you get run over by a lorry, a helmet will do fuck all for you.

There is a regular stream of teenagers who get killed riding on roads.

AIBU to think that the idea that you just buy your child a helmet and it's off he goes, is actively dangerous, and that the first priority should not be 'are you wearing a helmet?' but 'Can you ride safely?' (which in this case would either be a shoulder check and hand signal, or simply crossing the road on foot at a gap in the traffic.)

Have you seen Dutch cycle paths? Nevermind that with that many people Motorists are expecting to see cyclists, or that Dutch cyclists tend not to race.

Most professional cyclists 100% support and campaign for Bike Helmets, they know it saves lives.

As for schools, it is easy to spot children don't wear bike helmets, its much harder and needs someone who knows about bikes, to spot the other things. Also if a child/young person is wearing a bike helmet, their parents probably take enough interest to try to teach them road sense and check on the bike.

And Holland and Denmark cannot be extrapolated to the UK for one big reason you mention that most car drivers there are also cyclists. Here the minority of car drivers are active cyclists and therefore a) many drivers don't have the understanding of how vulnerable cyclists are (even though they should intellectually) and b) we just don't have a safe cycling infrastructure as cycling is so much less common.

HA cross post I was just about to say Dutch cyclists tend to cycle much more sedately than some of the inner city cyclists I'm used to. I describe it as Contact Cycling.

I linked to Dutch cycle paths above. Your point about gentler conditions there isn't really valid. As I said in my OP if you get run over by a lorry then a helmet is unlikely to help. Helmets are designed to absorb the energy from a fall of six feet at 10mph. Or something like that anyway. The best case for helmet usage is gentle leisure cycling, because here the forces involved are much less likely to be far outside the design parameters of the helmet, as they might be in an on-road collision - these are the accidents where they would be most likely to help. Walking a given distance has a higher risk of head injury than cycling, but nobody wears helmets for walking.

Kew - quite agree, and in fact that evidence review from the Dept of Transport I posted above backs up your post up exactly.

most cyclists aren;t actually run over by lorries, even if they are hit by lorries it tends to be bouncing off or at lower speeds (particularly children).

For example - lorry reverses not having seen child - not going fast but child is bashed on the head.

Again - I don;t understand what you're arguing. Culturally you're not going to get pedestrians to wear helmets - I don;t see this menas we strip everyone down to the smallest possible degree of protection.

HAve seen lots of children and adults come off thier bikes and had injuries - have only known one pedestrian (under pensionable age and sober) to fall over whilst walking down stairs and have a significant and life changing brain injury.

And yes id he had been wearing a cycling helmet he probably would have just had a headache - no doubt if he were competent he now be petitioning for pedestrians to wear helmets

I don't think there is particularly a focus on helmets?

When DS did bikeability they checked his bike over to make sure it was road worthy, checked he was appopriately dressed (not just helmet) and sent home a letter listing the things that were needed for DS and his bike to be considered safe on the roads.

Perhaps it's just my children's school. They said you can't ride to school without a helmet.

It's a pretty complex issue, Kewcumber.

As you say pedestrians will not wear helmets. Many cyclists will, but then there aren't that many cyclists, and that lack of cyclists should be a much bigger public health concern, since cycling is very good for you and the reduced disease/death toll from people keeping fit by cycling rather than driving statistically does far exceed excess injuries caused by cycling.

In an ideal world everyone would cycle on nice safe infrastructure, and they would all wear helmets which would be collected by valets at the end of the trip.

We don't have that of course, but I think that on a macro level the insistence that you need special safety equipment for cycling (a helmet) is probably harmful to public health because no society with a mass cycling culture wears helmets in significant numbers, they are an annoyance. On a micro (individual) level it can help in individual accidents, but as you say, so can people falling down stairs. The overall serious accident rate per mile for cycling isn't high, it is not, objectively, dangerous. I think people will use anecdote to appeal and say 'how could you not wear a helmet, it could save your life', which is true, but it's a slightly arbitrary appeal given all the other risks we fail to mitigate in our lives.

Helmets for car passengers would certainly save lives, because head trauma is the primary cause of death for car passengers & drivers, and car helmets would save many lives each year. Even switching to a larger car and/or one a newer one with better NCAP ratings could reduce your risk of death. But people don't tend to offer unsolicited advice that you shouldn't drive your kids to school in an old Nissan Micra, whereas they will happily shout at you about cycle helmets, despite never actually riding a bike.

Overall I think cycle helmets are very harmful to public health because they deter people from cycling.

I have to say though the lorry in the clip seems to be zooming up to the lad on the bike with no apparent intent to pull over and pass him at a wide enough distance. Even if the lad hadn't acted like a fool, he'd have had to deal with a lorry barely scraping past him at speed. That is the real issue for cyclists.

I think what the OP is getting at is the idea that helmets encourage people to take risks-they thing, wayhey I'm wearing a helmet I can do as I like.

And that they lull people into a false sense of security around general bike maintenance.

I don't think I agree. I think the thing with a helmet is that you need it when you need it. Not having brakes on a bike isn't quite the same as not having brakes on a car-you can generally still stop, somehow though yes its far from ideal. As a cyclist, especially on the roads, you are generally highly aware of how vulnerable you are.

I think the reason the Netherlands have such low rates of bike injury is actually quite simple-they have a form of strict liability in cycle-car accidents which basically means that the motorist needs to pay all (if they are at fault, or under 14) or half (where the cyclist was at fault but it was unintentional) damages. So motorists are very careful, I guess, and also, there is excellent infrastructure for cyclists. You're comparing apples and oranges.

Well where I live lots and lots of people are taking up cycling. Including lots of less than fit people. It is still mainly for leisure, but that will probably change.
However most people do wear helmets.

Tinkly, if you look at the car that passes him first, he doesn't even move towards the middle of the road. This suggests that the road is fairly wide, so it's possible that the lorry is going to pass at a reasonable separation (you can't really tell from the camera angle).

In this situation where you are cycling along at perhaps 10mph and the traffic is doing 40-60mph, I think you have to assume that people will pass you without blinking, so a position as far out of traffic as possible is probably safest.

I think the boy is cycling a little too close to the edge of the road, and should move over a foot or so, for visibility and so the traffic does show a little more respect (unfortunately teenage cyclists are unlikely to get much from motorists), but again this is a training issue really.

Where is the link to the evidence which shows that cycle helmets generally deter people from cycling? Making cycle helmets mandatory is believed to reduce the use of cycling in some cases, but that has to be weighed up against the use of helmets preventing long term disabilities or fatalities - ultimately it's up to you, but don't forget it wasn't that long ago that the compulsory use of seatbelts caused outrage, with people claiming it was an infringement of driving pleasure, their freedom, etc. Now, of course, we wouldn't dream of getting into a car without a seatbelt.

Given that we don't have an infrastructure which supports cycling as they do in Holland and other countries, surely it's better to minimise the risk of fatalities as far as possible (ie by the use of helmets) combined with an improvement in public health (by cycling) and an increase in road safety - achieved through education at a young age that wearing a helmet when cycling following road safety guidance = the best and safest way to get about on a bike.

ipa.org.au/publications/2019/australia's-helmet-law-disaster

"When the laws were introduced in the early 1990s, cycling trips declined by 30-40 per cent overall, and up to 80 per cent in some demographic groups, such as secondary school-aged females."

I think that helmet rules are damaging. For instance, in charity bike events it's very common for helmets to be compulsory. This is unncessary and deters people from taking part.

Cycling safety starts with helmets, just as driving safety starts with seatbelts. It is by no means the whole picture. OP, do you have a problem with your DC's school insisting (quite correctly) that children should wear helmets when cycling?

Aga, I think your definition of reasonable separation differs from mine.

Dione, seatbelt laws, across the globe, resulted in big falls in deaths injuries. There is no such evidence for helmets, in fact helmet laws have tended to make things less safe, for the population that continues to cycle.

So the analogy is not valid. A more valid analogy would be 'Cycling starts with helmets, so so should driving'. But I presume you wouldn't go along with that.

Dione, I have a problem with schools making arbitrary rules about arbitrary items of safety equipment, especially when they are directed at a small minority. Why don't they make the children who walk wear high-viz?

Ah, I see OP you want to rant about school rules and cycle helmets. Well I shan't argue with you, there would be no point as you have clearly made up your mind.

Enjoy your rant.

Children shouldn't be riding on pavements. It's against the law (Laws HA 1835 sect 72 & R(S)A 1984, sect 129).

Helmets will protect riders from falls and can make a big difference in a road vs kerb situation. Even if a head injury is sustained, it's going to be a lesser one than without the helmet.

Children need to be taught at a young age how to ride safely on a road. My 2 younger girls did their first road cycle two weeks ago - DD2 is 6.9 and DD3 is 5.1. Obviously, we've made sure that both can ride without stabilisers for a good amount of time and can break and turn safely off-road first.

We had a 'cycle sandwich' with DH at the front and myself at the back, so we could maintain their safety.

Tinkly, from what I can see, the lorry (?) driver moves out towards the middle of the road when he spots the cyclist at the beginning of the clip, to pass him a bit further out.

I don't know how wide the road is, nor how wide the lorry (?) is, but I think that if you are cycling on that road, which clearly is pretty wide, you have to have realistic expectations about how much space drivers will give you on a fast free-flowing road.

On a 30mph road I would expect to be overtaken properly, the driver straddling the dotted line at his own risk, but if you are going to cycle on a fast, wide road like that then drivers won't do that.

You could put a proper cycle lane there, or just an offset lane in there to reduce the width and speed, and then the but that's an infrastructure problem, the drivers in that video haven't done anything wrong, they aren't the world's most considerate (sometimes people will wait for aaaaaages before they pass you practically in the gutter on the other side of the road), but nothing to shake your fist at.

Ooh, tricky. In many respects I agree with you, however I do know of at least one situation where a helmet probably saved someone's life. Including my own - the doctor I saw told me that if I wasn't wearing a helmet, I would have sustained a fatal head-injury.

So, tough one. I think I'd prefer it if cycle proficiency and defensive cycling was mandatory, AND we all had to wear helmets. Oh, and helmets were safer. I wear a helmet that protects more than most due to the coverage of my head (and significantly hotter too) , but I still don't know what sort of safety rating it has.

We will agree to disagree then Aga, I am someone who passes very wide, and I expect the same when I am cycling. Obviously I am normally disappointed but I can but hope.

"Children shouldn't be riding on pavements. It's against the law (Laws HA 1835 sect 72 & R(S)A 1984, sect 129)."

Our rule is that if there is a pedestrian on the pavement within about 20 metres we dismount. However, I am not going to worry overmuch about the law in this situation. Courtesy, absolutely. Prosecution? Nope. Provide us with some decent cycle lanes first.

I think its great to go cycling as a family. But I cycle with my kids on my own all the time. We use alleys, quiet roads, parks, pavements in quiet areas. I sometimes cycle on the road with my older kids (who have done cycling proficiency) and have the youngest on the pavement.

I think its ridiculous that we have a choice between inconveniencing pedestrians and taking our chance with cars, personally. I am a keen cyclist and my kids have a lot of experience of cycling but I would not let my kids cycle on the road to school, say.

Cycling on pavement is a bit confused. Some places it's legal, and the pavement is shared. Others, even in the same town, it's illegal.

Some places the police will ticket you for it, but I've seen PCSOs cycling on the pavement.

It's supposed to be discretionary, but in London (mainly) the police have taken to ticketing people en masse. road.cc/content/news/108119-transport-minister-responsible-cyclists-can-ride-pavement