Completely fed up!

[SilverBadge]

Before people start complaining that cycling is unfairly portrayed as dangerous it might be wise to see where the 'misperception' arises from.. I think too often people want to have it both ways: for example cycling is safe so helmets aren't needed even if they work, but when the topic is, say 20 mph speed limits the tone changes.

I don't think many non-cyclists are getting their info from here. What risks there are derive primarily from the negligence of "others" and it is a kettle of different fish to suggest that those risks are tackled.
As for the relative risks, in terms of average life expectancy, rank the following
Cycling without a helmet
Cycling with a helmet
Driving without a helmet
Driving with a helmet
Factor in both the long term health and early fatality risks. Then estimate the effect of discouraging cycling by hypeing the dangers involved.

I think you are missing my point a little. I did say 'even if they work' ( a bone of contention obviously) There a loads of posts on here which say cycling is so safe what would be the point of a helmet even if it was effective
You don't get people saying 'bring in a 20mph limit, it'll make a safe activity just a little bit safer'. That isn't the language used. We have a campaigning board (ooh look I'm on it now) & on it we discuss a huge variety of topics relating to cycle safety. Presumably beacuase we all think there is a significant problem to discuss otherwise why bother..Why is it that it is only when helmets are discussed that people seem to notice how safe cycling is? I don't notice any forums dedicated to getting out of bed more safely? (unless it is advice to the elderly/infirm)

Perhaps there should be, or maybe we just don't know where they are. It seems such a shame that if helmets aren't an inconvenience in any way shape or form that their benefits shouldn't be shared with the motoring and walking public at large, or conversely if there is no need for them, there isn't any for us either.

[Vorpal]

Before people start complaining that cycling is unfairly portrayed as dangerous it might be wise to see where the 'misperception' arises from.. I think too often people want to have it both ways: for example cycling is safe so helmets aren't needed even if they work, but when the topic is, say 20 mph speed limits the tone changes.

What's wrong with having it both ways?

Cycling is safe. That doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement.

Looked at another way...

There is a certain amount of risk inherent in any activity. However you cut the stats, the risk inherent in cycling is on a par with other activities for which most people find the risk acceptable, and quite a bit better than some activities such as playing football*, that people think of as 'healthy'.

If you look at risk management principles, there are a few basic different ways to deal with risk:
Avoidance - don't do the activity
Hazard Reduction - training (for cyclists and motorists), improving infrastructure, providing segregated facilities, reducing speeds, etc.
Consequence reduction - emergency services, personal protective equipment
Retention - acceptance of risk

For people who do with risk assessment and management professionally, consequence reduction is considered the least effective way (other than retention) to deal with risk. That doesn't mean personal protective equipment shouldn't be used, but it does mean that in order to make significant improvements, the hazards should be addressed first.

Unfortunately, cycling seems to be an activity where many people perceive the risks as being substantially higher than they are. The misperception arises from many things. One of them is simply that it is intimidating to mix it in with traffic that is bigger, harder, and faster. The modern culture and the ready availability of information contribute to it, as do the media, where every cyclist death is newsworthy. And... like it or not, wearing and promoting the use of helmets and high-vis certainly contributes to the perception, as well.

* from the table of relative risks available at http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1026.html

[StopHeadway]

"Cycling is safe. That doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement."

Quoted for truth.

[Ellieb]

"
Cycling is safe. That doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement.. Which might include wearing a helmet

Quoted for truth.

Not trying to be facetious. But I cannot help feel that the 'cycling is safe' bit of the argument is predicated on helmets not being effective. It isn't about the dangers of cycling per se otherwise we wouldn't be trying to make cycling safer. I don't think you can say that: "I don't wear one because cycling isn't dangerous, but I will campaign for a 20mph speed limit" without bringing in the relative efficacy of the the safety measures you are talking about. If you believe that helmets reduce head injuries as much as a 20mph limit then why wouldn't you wear one?

Edited after meic posted

[meic]

But there is a LONG list of much more beneficial aids that come before that one.

"I'll see your helmet and raise you a disc brake"

[Cunobelin]

Many years ago Meier Hillman suggested that if we spent the same amount of money, effort and advertising on driver training as we do on helmet wearing then the benefit and reduction in cyclist injuries would be far greater

Lets assume that a printed flyer cost s 20p and a cheap helmet £20 and a hiviz jacket a tenner

The AA could have printed and handed out half a million flyers similar to the IAM's "Sharing roads with cyclists" for the same cost of their give-away helmet stunt

[TonyR]

Not trying to be facetious. But I cannot help feel that the 'cycling is safe' bit of the argument is predicated on helmets not being effective. It isn't about the dangers of cycling per se otherwise we wouldn't be trying to make cycling safer. I don't think you can say that: "I don't wear one because cycling isn't dangerous, but I will campaign for a 20mph speed limit" without bringing in the relative efficacy of the the safety measures you are talking about. If you believe that helmets reduce head injuries as much as a 20mph limit then why wouldn't you wear one?

Actually it's the roads in general that they are trying to make safer, not just cycling. So if you assume helmets do work, you would save over 20 times as many head injuries if you made pedestrians and motorists wear them. So why would you push for a safety measure that only saved 5% of what you could achieve with a blanket road user helmet policy?

[Vorpal]

Not trying to be facetious. But I cannot help feel that the 'cycling is safe' bit of the argument is predicated on helmets not being effective. It isn't about the dangers of cycling per se otherwise we wouldn't be trying to make cycling safer. I don't think you can say that: "I don't wear one because cycling isn't dangerous, but I will campaign for a 20mph speed limit" without bringing in the relative efficacy of the the safety measures you are talking about. If you believe that helmets reduce head injuries as much as a 20mph limit then why wouldn't you wear one?

Helmets have nothing to do with it.

[Cunobelin]

Not trying to be facetious. But I cannot help feel that the 'cycling is safe' bit of the argument is predicated on helmets not being effective. It isn't about the dangers of cycling per se otherwise we wouldn't be trying to make cycling safer. I don't think you can say that: "I don't wear one because cycling isn't dangerous, but I will campaign for a 20mph speed limit" without bringing in the relative efficacy of the the safety measures you are talking about. If you believe that helmets reduce head injuries as much as a 20mph limit then why wouldn't you wear one?

Helmets have nothing to do with it.

Helmets don't reduce noise pollution, make the street cleaner and enable he elderly and infirm to cross the road safely.

[StopHeadway]

"
Cycling is safe. That doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement.. Which might include wearing a helmet

Quoted for truth.

Not trying to be facetious. But I cannot help feel that the 'cycling is safe' bit of the argument is predicated on helmets not being effective. It isn't about the dangers of cycling per se otherwise we wouldn't be trying to make cycling safer. I don't think you can say that: "I don't wear one because cycling isn't dangerous, but I will campaign for a 20mph speed limit" without bringing in the relative efficacy of the the safety measures you are talking about. If you believe that helmets reduce head injuries as much as a 20mph limit then why wouldn't you wear one?

Well, that's a good point. To be clear, I would summarise my position as follows:

- cycling (without any safety measures at all, i.e. a "ground state") presents an insignificant risk of serious injury or death relative to all causes of serious injury or death. That is, while you can certainly be injured or killed while cycling, taking up cycling doesn't increase your chances of poor health / death compared with not being a cyclist. In other words, it is intrinsically "safe" (which is not the same as saying risk-free, since no matter the activity, someone somewhere has died doing it - a cyclist dies every couple of days in the UK, but about 500 people die from sedentary diseases, etc).

- helmets as a specific intervention do not reduce serious injury or death when worn by cyclists as a whole. That is (whether they are 85% effective at preventing head injury or not) there is a second order effect or another confounding factor which means that when we get people to wear lids, there is no overall protective effect. I find it fascinating to speculate why (increased risk-taking by cyclists? Closer or more careless driving?) but as with gravity, it's not necessary to understand the mechanism to understand the implications. In Australia, for example, the number of head injuries after helmet legislation plummeted - unfortunately, so did the number of cyclists. In fact, the number of cyclists fell by proportionately more than the number of head injuries which means the *rate* of head injury once everybody was wearing a lid was actually higher (who would have thought, eh?)

- In contrast, there are interventions which are positive, and don't contradict either of the above two points. For example, the chance of being killed by a drunk driver is incredibly low. You'd have to live 240 lifetimes to have a 'break-even' chance of dying in any form of road crash, and only around a sixth of fatal accidents involve alcohol, so that's way up around 1,200 lifetimes. Compared with a 1/3 chance of dying of heart disease *this* lifetime, that's pretty tiny, huh? But of course, what if we could eliminate drink-driving at a stroke (say with an undefeatable breathalyser ignition system) we could remove 1/6th of road fatalities at a stroke. This is worth going for, without question - but it doesn't change anything that I wrote earlier in the paragraph about how small a risk it is.

20mph zones are similar. Your chances of being killed in a 30 zone are so small that a 20 zone makes little material difference (how many thousand lifetimes are you willing to wait?) but unlike bike helmets, it's a win-win intervention - it improves safety without a downside. There's also the non-KSI factors to build in. A 20 zone is often far more pleasant to use than a 40mph urban expressway, so it encourages people to cycle more and this in turn has a lot of seriously positive health outcomes for them and those around them.

Helmets, on the other hand, are a harder proposition. No matter how you consider their protective capabilities, because of the 20:1 rule (health benefit vs risk ratio for cycling) it only requires a 5% reduction in cycling to completely eliminate the advantages of helmets (even 100% effective ones).

And so on, and so on. Certainly it's a lot more complicated than "we hit someone over the head then took their helmet off and tried again, shazam! Helmets for the win!" which summarises a lot of much-quoted research.