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Confused thinking and compulsion at events.

Posted: 30 Jul 2013, 6:54am
by PaulCumbria
I met a couple of cyclists recently, one on a recumbent trike. Got chatting to them, and they urged me to meet up again at a charity ride in Cumbria later in the year. I said I'd look it up.
Turned out to be a 'sportive', so I contacted the organisers to ask if helmets were mandatory - nothing mentioned in any of their promo material.
Of course helmets were required, so I said I wouldn't be able to take part as I never wear a helmet, feeling they are unnecessary and detrimental to cycle safety. I also pointed out that event insurance is available which doesn't require helmet use. The organisers simply suggested I buy a helmet so I could take part. I contacted the charity to explain briefly why their choice of organiser meant I wouldn't be able to support their charity in this way, and left it at that.
What was particularly sad was that the recumbent trike rider I had met wore a helmet while riding. She had taken to the trike because of balance problems - her friend had to help her when she was off the bike - yet she only wore the helmet once safely installed on the trike!
It's such a pity that the failure to assess objectively the risks involved in different activities leads to such frankly silly situations, which in turn leads us towards creeping compulsion.

Re: Confused thinking and compulsion at events.

Posted: 3 Aug 2013, 1:24pm
by gaz
IMO confused thinking doesn't even come close if the event is organised by UK Cycling Events

http://www.ukcyclingevents.co.uk/terms/

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It is mandatory that all riders wear a safety approved cycling helmet complying with latest ANSI Z90/4 or SNELL standards. Any rider not wearing a helmet will not be covered by the event insurance and will be disqualified from the event and could be liable for damages if involved in an accident on that basis. The rider must accept this as a condition of entry. UK Cycling Events reserve the right to refuse entry to the event to anyone with inappropriate equipment or clothing. The participant confirms that the cycle/bike they are riding for the event and all of their equipment is of a suitable standard and state of trail/road worthiness. In particular, the ability to complete longest distance, and over rough terrain dependant on the event.


I do hope that they check riders' helmets for the presence of ANSI Z90/4 (defunct since 1995) or SNELL markings and refuse entry to all those with helmets marked EN1078.

Re: Confused thinking and compulsion at events.

Posted: 3 Aug 2013, 3:02pm
by broadway
gaz wrote:IMO confused thinking doesn't even come close if the event is organised by UK Cycling Events

http://www.ukcyclingevents.co.uk/terms/

6
It is mandatory that all riders wear a safety approved cycling helmet complying with latest ANSI Z90/4 or SNELL standards. Any rider not wearing a helmet will not be covered by the event insurance and will be disqualified from the event and could be liable for damages if involved in an accident on that basis. The rider must accept this as a condition of entry. UK Cycling Events reserve the right to refuse entry to the event to anyone with inappropriate equipment or clothing. The participant confirms that the cycle/bike they are riding for the event and all of their equipment is of a suitable standard and state of trail/road worthiness. In particular, the ability to complete longest distance, and over rough terrain dependant on the event.


I do hope that they check riders' helmets for the presence of ANSI Z90/4 (defunct since 1995) or SNELL markings and refuse entry to all those with helmets marked EN1078.


"and could be liable for damages if involved in an accident on that basis."

Damages for not wearing a hlemet, how does that make any sense?

Re: Confused thinking and compulsion at events.

Posted: 3 Aug 2013, 4:48pm
by snibgo
Hmm. "UK Cycling Events" recognises American standards but not British or European. This might be because:

(1) They have carefully considered the differences in the standards and decided that the American ones are more appropriate; or

(2) They have blindly copy-pasted boilerplate text.

The exact phrase "It is mandatory that all riders wear a safety approved cycling helmet complying with latest ANSI Z90/4 or SNELL standards" shows up a depressing number of times.

Re: Confused thinking and compulsion at events.

Posted: 3 Aug 2013, 7:10pm
by Cunobelin
Could be worth a legal challenge on the grounds that EN 1078 is all that is required for sale and use in the UK

Re: Confused thinking and compulsion at events.

Posted: 4 Aug 2013, 3:53pm
by Adam S
Cunobelin wrote:Could be worth a legal challenge on the grounds that EN 1078 is all that is required for sale and use in the UK

Doubt it, they can specify their own conditions. There's nothing stopping them from insisting all riders in their event wear matching blonde wigs if that was what they wanted to do. In fact doesn't that make car drivers pass you more safely...? ;)

Re: Confused thinking and compulsion at events.

Posted: 4 Aug 2013, 4:08pm
by gaz
Cunobelin wrote:Could be worth a legal challenge on the grounds that EN 1078 is all that is required for sale and use in the UK


+1, I'd think that the clause would fall foul of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 on the grounds of excluding EN1078.

Re: Confused thinking and compulsion at events.

Posted: 4 Aug 2013, 5:13pm
by Adam S
I stand corrected

Re: Confused thinking and compulsion at events.

Posted: 4 Aug 2013, 8:58pm
by PaulCumbria
It's organised by an outfit called Rather Be Cycling.

Re: Confused thinking and compulsion at events.

Posted: 4 Aug 2013, 10:07pm
by gaz
I had a dig and their Ts&Cs state.
7. The wearing of a suitably designed cycling-specific helmet is mandatory during the whole riding section of this event. Failure to wear a cycling specific helmet will result in removal from the event. There are no exceptions to this rule.


EN 1078 is entitled "Helmets for pedal cyclists and for users of skateboards and roller skates", so technically a helmet to EN1078 is suitable for other activities and not cycling-specific. However I think that would be a facetious argument and not one that anyone would be interested in :wink: .

Re: Confused thinking and compulsion at events.

Posted: 1 Mar 2018, 12:37am
by RickH
5 years on & people are still specifying ANSI Z90/4 (along with SNELL) as required helmet standards for participation!

The Tour de Manc lists those in their T&C (PDF - section 11).

What is more, the form on their contact page appears to be broken. :?

Re: Confused thinking and compulsion at events.

Posted: 1 Mar 2018, 9:47am
by pjclinch
PaulCumbria wrote:What was particularly sad was that the recumbent trike rider I had met wore a helmet while riding. She had taken to the trike because of balance problems - her friend had to help her when she was off the bike - yet she only wore the helmet once safely installed on the trike!


ICE, Britain's premier 'bentmongers, specialising in trikes, had a thing on their website "strongly recommending" the use of helmets. I think they've taken that down now (maybe it was people like me moaning at them and asking if their products were unsafe...) but all of their pics feature helmeted users and you get the idea that they're rather keen on them.

A lot of the problem with the prevailing winds of helmets-are-good (and by extension not-helmets is bad) comes from the cycling community iself, including lots of people that really should know better if they stopped to think.

Pete.

Re: Confused thinking and compulsion at events.

Posted: 1 Mar 2018, 11:38am
by mjr
pjclinch wrote:
PaulCumbria wrote:What was particularly sad was that the recumbent trike rider I had met wore a helmet while riding. She had taken to the trike because of balance problems - her friend had to help her when she was off the bike - yet she only wore the helmet once safely installed on the trike!


ICE, Britain's premier 'bentmongers, specialising in trikes, had a thing on their website "strongly recommending" the use of helmets. I think they've taken that down now (maybe it was people like me moaning at them and asking if their products were unsafe...) but all of their pics feature helmeted users and you get the idea that they're rather keen on them.

A lot of the problem with the prevailing winds of helmets-are-good (and by extension not-helmets is bad) comes from the cycling community iself, including lots of people that really should know better if they stopped to think.

I thought open-face cycle helmets were even less useful to recumbent riders because they are vanishingly unlikely to impact the required protective area of a helmet (basically the top, above a circle something like 50mm above the midpoint of the head) and even more likely than safety bicycle riders to impact the side or back and thereby either bend their neck much more than if no helmet is used or snag and yank the whole head because EN1080 anti-strangulation releases aren't required for adult helmets.

So, recumbent helmet users get decreased protection and increased drawbacks - why would a rational typical recumbent rider wear a helmet? It seems more clearly like self-harm than for a safety bicycle rider.

Re: Confused thinking and compulsion at events.

Posted: 2 Mar 2018, 10:29am
by pjclinch
mjr wrote:So, recumbent helmet users get decreased protection and increased drawbacks - why would a rational typical recumbent rider wear a helmet? It seems more clearly like self-harm than for a safety bicycle rider.


Why would a rational typical recumbent rider wear a helmet?

This would be me, ca. the turn of the century:

Image

Rational? I'd like to think so. What's the difference between then and a few years later?

Image

In the first I'd bought in to the general air of helmets are a sensible precaution and it's daft not to as a general principle. In the second I'd done some reading and thinking and normalised my use for cycling to use for similarly risky activities where you can reasonably make the same arguments.

In other words, the first is someone who had assimilated the cultural values of a Serious, Proper Cyclist in the UK, and that's not the same as not being rational. You can be quite rational but not have gone through the fairly awkward process of re-education and value adjustment necessary to move from the first example to the second.

It's very hard to get through to people who've been taught for years that helmets are a no-brainer that that is not the case.

Pete.

Re: Confused thinking and compulsion at events.

Posted: 2 Mar 2018, 4:23pm
by Mick F
pjclinch wrote:It's very hard to get through to people who've been taught for years that helmets are a no-brainer that that is not the case.
Yes Pete, I utterly agree.

I've sort of given up, but I do show people this bar chart and they sort of get it, but NOT fully get it but at least it makes them think.
I have it on my phone.
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