Need to consult the MN oracle - teenaged boys and cycle helmets!

[Greensleeves]

My 14yo wants a new bike for Christmas. He also wants us to stop insisting that he wears a cycle helmet, because apparently we are the only parents who make our teens wear them, none of his friends do, and it's embarrassing (to the point that he would rather not cycle)

DH and I don't want to cave in on this one...AWBU?

It isn’t just about the risk of death. Would you rather have brain injury or a jaw injury?
I'd really rather people just didn't drive like arses around me which would cut about 90% of the risk immediately. Drivers absolutely do drive more dangerously around helmeted cyclists. A bit of polystyrene will save you from a concussion at best. Cycle helmets are good for off road cycling to stop you getting smacked with tree branches.

A bit of polystyrene will save you from a concussion at best. Cycle helmets are good for off road cycling to stop you getting smacked with tree branches

That’s just not true. Helmets do reduce the risk of death and brain injury.

That would also be true of car passengers then. But no one suggests they should wear helmets. If you feel so strongly campaign for compulsory helmets, campaign for better awareness of how not to drive like a lunatic around cyclists and for the roads to be repaired. Potholes and obstacles are dangerous. Lunatic drivers are dangerous. Appalling attitudes to cyclists are dangerous. Defensive cycling is safer.

There's not really any unbiased research demonstrating that overall they do serve as a benefit. This is the problem. Headway and other organisations market them as some kind of universal panacea based on studies that aren't especially rigorous and are pulled apart at peer review stage. The data is just not there to be able to defend their claims!

This is all compounded by Drs, Medical professionals etc (inc. those on this thread) lauding the benefits without treating Road Traffic Incidents as events. They only see the results, and of course sticking a helmet into the mix may result in a benefit, but it ignores everything else leading up to that event - such as risk compensation, rotational brain injury complications, injury transference etc. Many of which may not be there without a helmet!

This is why Road Safety Investigators, Cycle Trainers etc. will rarely if ever recommend helmets be compulsory.They are the professionals we should listen to, and the Neurologists etc. should stick to their professions for their opinions!

If you feel so strongly campaign for compulsory helmets, campaign for better awareness of how not to drive like a lunatic around cyclists and for the roads to be repaired

I do

Fission are you a cyclist or a driver or both? I'll be sure to give you a smile if I ever see you I'm probably the one with an Audi driver telling me to get back on the pavement or a white van man driving up my arse shouting pedal faster fatty

Neither, I’ve known too many people die or become disabled through RTA’s .
I’ll stick to being an over cautions pedestrian who wears reflective strips tym .

My first shift as a student nurse in A&E involved assisting with the resuscitation of a postman knocked off his bike on the way to work. We got his heart started again but his massive head injury and depressed skull fractures were unsustainable with life. I followed him through to ICU while he was kept alive long enough for police to trace his next of kin. It took hours (pre mobile phone days). Their distress at finding out their husband and father wasn't at work but was close to death and would they consider organ donation all within an hour was immense. I accompanied this man to theatre where his organs were removed to help others and I was with him when he died. I've never forgotten it. Helmet - end of.

postman knocked off his bike on the way to work. We got his heart started again but his massive head injury and depressed skull fractures were unsustainable with life.

A bike helmet is only design to provide protection at a low speed impact involving the cyclist only, being hit by a vehicle of considerable higher mass than the rider can result in head, and other, injuries. All the helmet is doing is stopping your brains from being splashed all over the road once the skull bones have been smashed.

I'm shocked that cycle helmets are apparently pretty useless. Do some wear 'better" helmets? More like riding hats which offer far superior protection (and surely there is a similar risk from being thrown from a horse and thrown from a bike that has been hit by a car)?

@Ifailed the neurosurgeon at the time was of the view that this man would have survived had he had a helmet. Apart from abrasions to his skin he had no other injuries. But hey, the internet knows better than the qualified person looking at his xrays and scan results at the time!

I begged my parents not to make me wear my cycle helmet aged 12 as none of the other kids did, eventually Mum said fine but be careful.

Next day I clipped the kerb, went over the handle bars and spent a week in hospital with a fractured skull. Six months of follow up hospital appointments to confirm no lasting brain injury and left with the firm impression I was bloody lucky.

I've vetoed various activities including hiring bikes on holiday where helmets aren't available. It's not worth the risk.

Motorbike and riding helmets are worth wearing because they provide a much greater standard of protection than cycle helmets.

It is not possible for cycle helmets to do so, as they would then expose the cyclists to the risk of heat exhaustion. Which can be fatal.

And yes, it would save more lives if all car users wore helmets. Racing drivers do, so why not all car users? If you think this comparison is silly, that's the same logic you're applying to comparing an average cyclist to Bradley Wiggins

And the no helmet, no bike rule doesn't really help with today's lazy teens. They will just shrug and go back to the Xbox, setting themselves up for an unhealthy sedentary life.

But hey, the internet knows better than the qualified person looking at his xrays and scan results at the time!

The Neurosurgeon is a specialist in neurosurgery, not RTI causation. This is the problem, unqualified people offering potentially dangerous opinions with little knowledge of the circumstances other than the after effects.

Thanks @Missillusioned - hadn't thought of overheating. My riding hat has vents in, as your head gets pretty hot riding in summer months, but I guess not as much as whilst cycling!

@Keepithidden so you don't support cycle helmets then? Struggling to understand your need to derail the thread from the consensus thy helmets seem to have saved many a head from serious damage

I do support helmets, but I really don't like the way they are praised and vaunted as something they are not. I wear one myself most of the time, and I take the same view as Cycling UK on this.

I don't want them to be compulsory, I don't think they are effective as PPE in the majority of RTIs, but I do think they have their uses. I also get frustrated when people claim they save lives when there is very little proof they do.

I just wish people would see both sides of the argument in these kind of situations, comparing them to safety devices that really do save lives such as seatbelts and motor bike helmets is counterproductive. Though I do recognise that because they are a safety device they are automatically emotionally sensitive (particularly when it comes to DCs).

Maybe I'm too emotionally invested myself, having from a cycle training and road safety background, and constantly trying to debunk cycling myths, of which helmets is only one!

Isn't risk all relative though. Skiing is pretty dangerous I hear. I'm sure there's a bunch if you going in the next few months.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-27291543

Show him this kid who didn’t want to wreck his hair.my rule would be. No helmet no bike. Caught without helmet on no bike no phone no WiFi for a week.

I would very much make it his choice as to whether he gets a bike based on those conditions

NZ also has a compulsory helmet law. Like Australia, hardly any children now cycle to school, and cycling is now more dangerous than before because the roads are clogged with cars. I nearly got knocked off the other day by a motorist who deliberately aimed his car through my right of way. It's common for people here to say that cyclists shouldn't be allowed on roads at all: only motorists.

The reason for the mandatory helmets law was a misguided campaign started by a mother whose son was killed in a road accident.

By all means insist that your kids wear helmets. But please let this talk of a public campaign stop right here. Accidents happen. We can't prevent them all and we shouldn't resort to disproportionate measures to do so.

One of the reasons Holland has such great cycling infrastructure was the 'stop child murder' campaign in the 70s, started by a father whose daughter was killed by a car. That campaign led to a safer transport infrastructure for bikes and was hugely successful. It did not concentrate on helmets. Unsafe roads are the problem and that comes down to the uk's love affair with the car.

No helmet, no bike. End of. We wear helmets too. Never have they questioned it and they are now adults and used bikes to get to school throughout secondary. Dd2 fought the reflective yellow jacket but gave in because alternative was an hours walk!

Why don't all of the 'no helmet, no bike' lot insist their dc wear one in the car? Because they are far, far more likely to sustain a head injury that way. It doesn't make logical sense.

True story: as a nurse I was working nights and was called in to help in A&E with a trauma. (Rural hospital. Only one nurse and a support worker in A&E after 11 p.m. Acute care nurses were routinely asked to help if a major trauma presented that late.) Young man riding a quad (4-wheeled off-road vehicle) at night with no helmet. Hit an approach and went off. Severe head injury. Spent his 21st birthday unconscious in a city hospital and died days later.

For this reason I am ADAMANT about helmets on bikes and quads. This was a needless death.

True story: as a nurse I was working nights and was called in to help in A&E with a trauma...

I assume you have been called in to work on people injured in car accidents frequently. I'm a nurse myself and where I work this a much more common occurrence. Think daily vs every 1-2 months for a bike accident. Do you also believe people should wear helmets in cars?