Helmet may actually have saved a life...

[Cunobelin]

I love the total ignorance of the organisations and clubs that have these "No helmet, no ride policies". They haven't even got the respect and consideration to check the facts when imposing these rules.

One in particular (UK Cycling Events) used to insist on helmet specifications that banned all helmets on sale in the UK!

They insisted on Snell or ANSI standards, both of which an EN 1078 helmet would fail

Once this was pointed out (multiple times) it was changed.They now have added EN1078, but still display a stunning level of ignorance by insisting on ANSI.

You must wear a safety-approved cycling helmet complying with latest EN1078, ANSI Z90/4 or SNELL standards during your participation in the event

ANSI was a US standard that was decided by a committee that hasn't been in existence since 1995, and in 1995 the ANSI Z90/4 was repealed and replaced with the ASTM - yep they are actually insisting on a standard that hasn't existed for over 12 years!

I would love to turn up in one of these:




Simply on th grounds that more modern helmets didn't fit the ANSI standard they required

[squeaker]

... I don’t think that the urge to compel cycle helmet wearing springs from anti-cyclist attitudes, but from the modern obsession with perceived risks. Nowadays I frequently see large groups of junior- and younger - schoolkids. Whether having some sort of lesson in my local Waitrose (!) or visiting a nature reserve, every child is dressed in a high-viz yellow safety jacket like a highway worker.

Like this lot on Worthing sea front, except their hi-viz waistcoats are in school uniform colours

[Cugel]

Why not start where action might have a greater effect ?

Because a large part of this is about the resentment that the majority (non cycling) has for the minority (cycling). Our choice to ride a bike is seen as self-indulgent, exhibitionist, provocative and egotistical. Thus we need to be taken down a peg or two by the application of pettifogging rules, the practical effects of which are entirely irrelevant.

If they're not angry about our bare heads they are angry about our lack of a bell. Or that we dare to ring a bell. Or because we aren't wearing hi-vis. Or because we aren't on the cycle path. Or because we are on the cycle path (you should see the looks I get sometimes, when I encounter a walker on the cycle path). Or because of our clothing choices. Or because of our headphones. Or because we don't pay road tax. Or because we aren't registered. Or because of our smug and entitled attitude.

I can't help feeling that the key to defeating compulsion is to be found in the field of psychology rather than in materials science or accident stats. After all, if we want to understand persecutions for witchcraft, we don't usually start with the science of broomstick aeronautics.

Yes!

We humans love to create pariahs, out-groups, enemies of every ilk & tittle. We seem to have evolved to do so, as part of our need to compete to survive in what Hobbes and others called "the state of nature" (i.e. lacking the institutions and culture of civilisation, when you starve if the other bloke gets the mammoth first or your ilk dies out if you can't annex the opposite gender by means of a cudgel).

Yet even when we are surrounded by the institutions and cultures of civilisation, we discover that naughty evolution insists we incorporate those primitive compulsive human behaviours so evident in the various mobs, real and virtual. Enemies are needful so The Daily Hate Mail and others will supply them, in a civilised fashion of course.

Cugel, who has foresworn the cudgel and even the pitchfork.

[bovlomov]

Why not start where action might have a greater effect ?

Because a large part of this is about the resentment that the majority (non cycling) has for the minority (cycling). Our choice to ride a bike is seen as self-indulgent, exhibitionist, provocative and egotistical. Thus we need to be taken down a peg or two by the application of pettifogging rules, the practical effects of which are entirely irrelevant.

Maybe, but doesn't explain the cyclists with a compulsion agenda. The small local social cycle rides groups (not race clubs) with "no helmet no ride" policies. Cycle groups who are able to take over the closed roads before a major professional race for the public to ride on those roads, and have a "no helmet no ride" policy for the fun family riding on closed roads. Some slightly different social or psychological thing happening there.

Yes, my theory was rather simplistic. Though, to counter your argument, there might be a parallel in my witchcraft analogy. In this type of mass hysteria, everybody gets sucked in. There'll always be people from the 'out group' who want to please the powerful. During the witch mania many people sided with the mob, denouncing their own friends and family for consorting with demons, and others even volunteered information about their own imagined crimes.

[bovlomov]

In other words, I think that it is simply part of our current, risk-obsessed culture, rather than stemming from an anti-cyclist stance.

Irrational risk-aversion is certainly a part of it, but I don't think the anti-cycling feeling can be discounted. It is continually being stoked in the press, and we experience the effects.

[thirdcrank]

I think the urge to comply with norms and impose them on others isn't unusual. I've read and largely forgotten research on people in concentration camps conforming, which might be explained by a wish to avoid retribution, but IIRC, there was continued observance of petty discipline after these places were liberated. Obviously, compliance isn't universal or we'd have no mutinies or dissent.

One of my oldest hobby-horses - very long-in-the-tooth like me - is that for most people, being a member of the out-group / oppressed minority / second-class citizens called "cyclists" is voluntary, to the extent that it's considerably easier to quit than it is to enlist. It's also very visible - with or without hi-viz - in that it's usually done in the open, although this may account for some of the sales of home trainers.

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
There are some who will never conform even killing themselves in the protest.
I meet people like this and there attitude is very easy to see.
Then you have conformist who go with the flow.
On survival we do what you have to do to survive.

On helmet post you do get the hardcore non conformist (That's general attitude not just helmets)..........normally.
And the less headstrong will never come here.

I started life in jeans when the regulation said long trousers at school. (wore jeans out of school only)
But I never wear or would buy them now.
There are better things to wear when working.

[Thornyone]

... I don’t think that the urge to compel cycle helmet wearing springs from anti-cyclist attitudes, but from the modern obsession with perceived risks. Nowadays I frequently see large groups of junior- and younger - schoolkids. Whether having some sort of lesson in my local Waitrose (!) or visiting a nature reserve, every child is dressed in a high-viz yellow safety jacket like a highway worker.

Like this lot on Worthing sea front, except their hi-viz waistcoats are in school uniform colours

The boys I can see in this photo look like teenagers. I haven’t seen teenage schoolkids (sorry, I suppose I should refer to “students” or even “academicians” nowadays ) forced to wear high viz, but it does seem to be near-universal attire for groups of pre-adolescent kids in my area when out on school trips, as opposed to travelling to/from school (college/academy ).

[The utility cyclist]

Hi,
There are some who will never conform even killing themselves in the protest.
I meet people like this and there attitude is very easy to see.
Then you have conformist who go with the flow.
On survival we do what you have to do to survive.

On helmet post you do get the hardcore non conformist (That's general attitude not just helmets)..........normally.
And the less headstrong will never come here.

I started life in jeans when the regulation said long trousers at school. (wore jeans out of school only)
But I never wear or would buy them now.
There are better things to wear when working.

I object to being described as 'hardcore', in fact I'd say the 'hardcore' tag applies more so to the helmet protagonists who refuse to see anything but their own way despite evidence and will attack verbally as well as reject/exclude those that don't agree with their hardcore views?
And in the case of cycling helmets, those conforming are at greater risk to kill themselves because they invariably fall off/get hit more often and have a much increased risk of hitting their heads.

[Cunobelin]

Hi,
There are some who will never conform even killing themselves in the protest.
I meet people like this and there attitude is very easy to see.
Then you have conformist who go with the flow.
On survival we do what you have to do to survive.

On helmet post you do get the hardcore non conformist (That's general attitude not just helmets)..........normally.
And the less headstrong will never come here.

I started life in jeans when the regulation said long trousers at school. (wore jeans out of school only)
But I never wear or would buy them now.
There are better things to wear when working.

I object to being described as 'hardcore', in fact I'd say the 'hardcore' tag applies more so to the helmet protagonists who refuse to see anything but their own way despite evidence and will attack verbally as well as reject/exclude those that don't agree with their hardcore views?
And in the case of cycling helmets, those conforming are at greater risk to kill themselves because they invariably fall off/get hit more often and have a much increased risk of hitting their heads.

I had always assumed that the description There are some who will never conform even killing themselves in the protest. meant pedestrians. The group that suffers more head injuries than cyclists, has more head injuries within the parameters of helmet design, and yet refuse to consider wearing them

A bit like the "health care professionals" who go out of their way to harangue cyclists, yet hypocritically do nothing to prevent head injuries in other (larger) groups.

[Cunobelin]

In other words, I think that it is simply part of our current, risk-obsessed culture, rather than stemming from an anti-cyclist stance.

Irrational risk-aversion is certainly a part of it, but I don't think the anti-cycling feeling can be discounted. It is continually being stoked in the press, and we experience the effects.

It is why the motoring lobby is so keen.... it shifts the emphasis from the driver not injuring other road users to the road user being responsible for mitigating the injuries the driver inflicts upon them

A bit like changing from someone with a gun having a responsibility not to shoot people, to people being shot being responsible for wearing a kevlar bulletproof vest

After all bulletproof vests save live all the time

[Cugel]

......

A bit like changing from someone with a gun having a responsibility not to shoot people, to people being shot being responsible for wearing a kevlar bulletproof vest

After all bulletproof vests save live all the time.......

..... Unlike a cycling helmet, which at best might save you a headache or a larger nut-bump once you've put it on, gone all risk-takey and had your "accident".

If Mr Toad car-shoots you, the polystyrene bananas will be something of an irrelevance - except when it comes to accounting the wodge paid to your grieving-other by Toad's insurer. No helmet = less wodge, apparently.

Cugel

[Cunobelin]

I was being ironic with the “bulletproof vests save lives all the time”and I chose bulletproof vests deliberately because in many ways they are similar to helmets

Like the Helmets save lives all the time, The mythology of their efficiency and confidence in their effectiveness expounded by the ill informed about both helmets and bulletproof vests is misplaced


Advocates make all sorts of claims, but in fact their efficiency is dubious and limited really to low speed, low impact bullets,

Also like helmets poorly fitting bulletproof vests can be ineffective, and exacerbate injury

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
I don't do personal comments, I never directed my comments at an individual.

But I rest my case, hook line and sinker

[Cugel]

I was being ironic with the “bulletproof vests save lives all the time”and I chose bulletproof vests deliberately because in many ways they are similar to helmets

Like the Helmets save lives all the time, The mythology of their efficiency and confidence in their effectiveness expounded by the ill informed about both helmets and bulletproof vests is misplaced


Advocates make all sorts of claims, but in fact their efficiency is dubious and limited really to low speed, low impact bullets,

Also like helmets poorly fitting bulletproof vests can be ineffective, and exacerbate injury

You learn sumfink every day!

I must confess to having avoided even knowing about bullet proof vests, let alone inserting myself into a place (such as Yankland) where one might be considered. Do risk compensators go about in their not-so bang-proof vest inducing armed loons to shoot at them then? What channel is it on?

Cugel