Four year old killed by bike helmet.

[Mick F]

My partner is from Up Holland, never Orrell, and most certainly not Skem or Wigan, her mum got a bit upset about that the first time I said that they lived in Wigan

Is she called Deborah?

I knew a girl from Upholland called Deborah.
Pretty young lady. We were 15 or so.

Lived near the Owl Inn pub.
Is the pub still there?

Also, had a Hercules bike bought for me Nov 1964 on my 12th birthday from Orrell Post. Rode it home to Wrightington via Gathurst and Appley Bridge all the way from the shop.

[The utility cyclist]

My partner is from Up Holland, never Orrell, and most certainly not Skem or Wigan, her mum got a bit upset about that the first time I said that they lived in Wigan

Is she called Deborah?

I knew a girl from Upholland called Deborah.
Pretty young lady. We were 15 or so.

Lived near the Owl Inn pub.
Is the pub still there?

Also, had a Hercules bike bought for me Nov 1964 on my 12th birthday from Orrell Post. Rode it home to Wrightington via Gathurst and Appley Bridge all the way from the shop.

I made a mistake, it was Tontine they lived in, and the only pub I recall was the Delph on the corner and the Star in Bank Top where we'd have a carvery when visiting - I only recall as I just looked it up from memory as it's well over a decade since we last went up due to her folks passing away. It always looked like a nice area to cycle around, certainly more interesting landscape than my childhood in the flatlands Hull and the East Riding

And no, the mums name wasn't Deborah

[Mick F]

I blame the helmet straps and fixings. It could happen to anyone. The clips are designed to be secure and the straps are strong. There is no "weak-point" to give way. All helmets are the same as far as I know.

https://www.satra.com/ppe/EN1080.php is different to the adult helmet standard EN1078 in requiring "The helmet retention system must be capable of self-release if the wearer becomes trapped by the helmet and there is a risk of strangulation." Now you know! I wonder why that helmet didn't.

The retention system must fail (i.e. release) under a force of between 90 and 160 Newtons. To illustrate the weight or mass involved, 160 Newtons is the force applied by a mass of about 16kg.

16Kg?
That's 35lbs in real money.
Two and a half stone.
That's pulling vertically.
Back later with some info.

I was out today loading stuff in a container .................. long story, and irrelevant to my following statement.
I got hold of a childs' bicycle helmet and connected up the strap with its clip.
I'm a strong chap. Strong in the arm and strong in the hand.
I couldn't pull the strap apart no matter how I pulled.

I told the story of the poor four year old, and showed the people around - including a couple of cyclists - of how the damned thing wouldn't release in the slightest.
I wasn't the only one trying. I passed it on to other people to try.
Not one single person, man or woman, could pull it apart.

What a stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid design.

[Mick F]

The more I think about this, the more horrific I think the design is. It should be banned outright. If it was my child or anyone in this predicament, I would be banging the drum so loud as well as taking the helmet designers and makers to court.

I will never ever wear a helmet again .......... for this reason alone. If they ever become compulsory in this country, that will be the end of my cycling. Full stop.

[Mike Sales]

I will never ever wear a helmet again .......... for this reason alone. If they ever become compulsory in this country, that will be the end of my cycling. Full stop.

The infamous Australian law did not stop Sue Abbott cycling. She is a stubborn woman.

http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2009/09/sue-abbott-without-helmet.html

Australia is suffering from a loss of folk memory. A generation ago, a broad spectrum of people used bicycles to get to school and work, to shop, to 'lighten up' after work, to slip away to the beach. This normal, healthy and profoundly sane activity has been erased from memory both by the passage of time and the intervening overload of electronic games, dumbed-down TV, the ever-spreading car-culture and other passive entertainments: being driven to school, or the shops, the restaurants, bingo halls and the bars. There has been a collective loss of folk-memory, akin to losing a slice of our identity, and almost no-one has noticed.

I tell my friends in the US and Ireland that in Australia people use big, four-wheel drives, not to cross crocodile-teeming flood-waters but to drive to the gym. And afterwards, the shopping mall.

[The utility cyclist]

The more I think about this, the more horrific I think the design is. It should be banned outright. If it was my child or anyone in this predicament, I would be banging the drum so loud as well as taking the helmet designers and makers to court.

I will never ever wear a helmet again .......... for this reason alone. If they ever become compulsory in this country, that will be the end of my cycling. Full stop.

I'd rather go to prison than give up cycling because my human rights were being breached.

[fastpedaller]

I'd rather go to prison than give up cycling because my human rights were being breached.

I agree with you on that.

[Mike Sales]

I'd rather go to prison than give up cycling because my human rights were being breached.

I agree with you on that.

I incline to that view too.
Sue Abbott had her bicycles taken by the police in Australia.

In New South Wales bicycle helmet laws were enacted in January 1991, and I have must have been travelling "under the radar" for the first 18 years because they made no impact on my life whatsoever. But that all changed in March 2009 when I was booked by highway patrol officers in a little country town called Scone for the crime of not wearing a bicycle helmet while riding a bicycle. Flashing blue and red lights, accompanied by in-car police-camera and curt instructions "to move away from the vehicle", left me feeling like the criminal I was to become after my matter was heard in the Scone local court some months later.
Appalled at the severity of being convicted as a criminal, I appealed in March 2010 to the NSW district court where my 2009 criminal conviction was quashed. The judge found that I had "an honestly held and not unreasonable belief as to the danger associated with the use of a helmet by cyclists" and issued me with my first section 10 (1)(a) dismissal for the Australian crime of riding a bicycle without a helmet.
A Groundhog day of sorts was to follow when I was booked again in February 2011, summonsed to the Scone & Muswellbrook courts in July 2011, and then issued with a second section 10 (1)(a) dismissal.
So far so good; yet despite this dismissal, a couple of weeks later I received a bill for $67 to be paid into the victims compensation fund. As I was simply riding a bicycle, the first question that popped into my mind was "who exactly was the victim?" Appalled by the arbitrary tax nature of the levy, I flatly refused to pay, commenced an active letter-writing campaign with NSW attorney-general, Greg Smith, and subsequently had my driver's licence suspended by his department.
As I pointed out to the uncompromising attorney-general, if I had heeded his demand I would have been conceding that I was responsible to the many victims who require assistance from this state compensatory fund. Given that I had caused no harm to any person and that it was the state who had taken my driver's licence away I was beginning to feel a little persecuted – in fact, somewhat like a victim.
But more state bullying was to follow. Not content with the suspension of my driver's licence, the attorney general's department then ordered the sheriff of Muswellbrook to come to my home to seize my property in a bid to forcibly recoup the levy. This sorry little saga took eight months as the sheriff and I turned out to be quite busy people who struggled to agree upon a date where I would be 'at home when he was in my area.
Finally in September 2011, the sheriff came, and after a quick cuppa in my garden, he seized two of my family bicycles out of the shed and took them away in his car after letting me photograph them for my blog. It sort of felt like I was lending them to a friend and that they'd be back soon, but the reality is that my elected representatives have seen fit to put me through a political Australian wringer in their unreasonable quest to ensure their unsubstantiated law is enforced and upheld.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2012/nov/13/helmets-australia

[niggle]

What is actually obvious is that a child who goes out riding their bike wearing a helmet might at any moment fancy climbing up something, forgetting or not bothering to remove their helmet, and no amount of signs on trees* or playground climbing equipment is going to work for the ones who cannot be bothered.

*There are apparently about 3.8 billion tress in mainland Britain.

As for the helmet Mick tested, it is clear that at the moment manufacturers and retailers are breaking the law and this needs bringing to the attention of both the authorities and public, Watchdog style. (Does that programme still exist? I do not watch very much TV nowadays.)

[Cyril Haearn]

Climbing frames are carefully designed so a child's head passes between the rungs
A h****t makes the head bigger, this is not the first time such has happened, a lad died when his h***t got jammed between rungs

[mikeymo]

Cyclehelmets.org has 15 child deaths, over the last 35 years.

https://www.cyclehelmets.org/1227.html

"In absolute terms, the risk of death through wearing a helmet is very small."

[mikeymo]

I'd rather go to prison than give up cycling because my human rights were being breached.

You think that a law obliging you to wear a helmet when cycling is a breach of your human rights? Is that what you're saying?

[Pastychomper]

I got hold of a childs' bicycle helmet and connected up the strap with its clip.
I'm a strong chap. Strong in the arm and strong in the hand.
I couldn't pull the strap apart no matter how I pulled.

I told the story of the poor four year old, and showed the people around - including a couple of cyclists - of how the damned thing wouldn't release in the slightest.
I wasn't the only one trying. I passed it on to other people to try.
Not one single person, man or woman, could pull it apart.

What a stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid design.

It does beggar belief, especially given the wider context. Over ten years ago I was advised to get a new lid for horse riding because mine had an "old-style" clip. The old clip was metal and hard to release under pressure, and the new clip looked just like the ones used on bicycle helmets. It was plastic, and designed to break or let go rather than strangle a suspended rider.

The same style of clips can be bought very cheaply, and the ones I've encountered don't seem very sturdy. Admittedly bikes don't try as hard as horses to wipe their riders off on low branches, but still - what kind of thinking or coincidence would lead to such a strong clip being used on a child's helmet?

[Oldjohnw]

I'd rather go to prison than give up cycling because my human rights were being breached.

You think that a law obliging you to wear a helmet when cycling is a breach of your human rights? Is that what you're saying?

Of course, going to prison would mean giving up cycling, at least temporarily.

[Mike Sales]

I'd rather go to prison than give up cycling because my human rights were being breached.

You think that a law obliging you to wear a helmet when cycling is a breach of your human rights? Is that what you're saying?

Of course, going to prison would mean giving up cycling, at least temporarily.

I would find it a gross indignity to be obliged to pander to the ill informed moral panic of those who create the dangers in the first place.