Mike Sales wrote:pjclinch wrote:
It comes back to being about culture, and cultural conventions tend to be the starting point for a lot of rules. Sometimes they even make sense, but certainly not always.
Pete.
I think helmets, especially compulsion, are a sign of a bicycle-hating culture.
I don't think that's problem, it's just that once a safety idea becomes received wisdom, it can never be dropped.
My running club has training sessions 2 nights a week through the winter and has a rule that reflective tabards must be worn. I remember seeing another group of runnners approaching and thinking tut tut, they're not wearing tabards, then when they got closer I realised some of them were. At 200 metres on a motorway hard shoulder they're probably brilliant but in the conditions we run in they make no difference. Arguably they make things worse because the mesh material acts as a kind of camouflage, breaking up a solid slab of colour in the shirt underneath.
Every winter we have one or two incidents, and hi viz is never relevant. In every case, the injured runner failed to see a hazard, yet we don't mandate head torches. Every winter I see unlit runners going off the front of the group on sparsely lit potholed lanes, but they're wearing their magic tabard so they're considered safe. It makes no sense.
If one medium-sized running club can't work out sensible rules for itself, it's not surprising things don't make sense on a bigger scale.