Cycle mag, CTC finally caved in re helmets & sold us out?

For all discussions about this "lively" subject. All topics that are substantially about helmet usage will be moved here.
reohn2
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Re: Cycle mag, CTC finally caved in re helmets & sold us out?

Post by reohn2 »

I think PH is spot on,Cass Gilbert and family probably do more cycling in hazardous conditions in far off countries than most.And IMO the lad in the photo looks happy enough,and I don't think there's much wrong with the helmet.
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Re: Cycle mag, CTC finally caved in re helmets & sold us out?

Post by Steady rider »

https://s23705.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploa ... elmets.pdf
Page 9 and 10 provide information regarding children in Australia and New Zealand, their safety was reduced according to the data.

https://www.bicyclenetwork.com.au/our-c ... et-review/ Appendix 2, Submission no 9

In New Zealand from 1989 to 2011, average time spent cycling (on roads and footpaths) fell by 79% for children aged 5-12 (from 28 to 6 minutes per person per week) and 81% for 13-17 year olds (52 to 10 mins/person/week). Adult cycling declined from 8 to 5 minutes/person/week then trended back up to 8 minutes. Graphs of cycle use over time provide strong evidence that the requirement to wear a helmet discouraged cycling [28].

The reductions in cycling in NZ were accompanied by increased injury rates. Between 1989 and 2012,
fatal or serious injuries per million hours of cycling increased by 86% for children (from 49 to 91), 181%
for teenagers (from 18 to 51) and 64% for adults (from 23 to 38).[28]
Two recent studies also associated helmet use with increased injury rates. 1) Individuals with
documented helmet use had 2.18 (95% CI = 1.22, 3.89) times the odds of non–helmet users of being
involved in an injury-related accident (Pedroso et al., 2106 [29]). 2) Helmet use by transport cyclists was
associated with being injured while cycling in the past 2 years (OR=2.81, 95% CI=1.14, 6.94, Porter et al.
(2016) [30]).
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Re: Cycle mag, CTC finally caved in re helmets & sold us out?

Post by Vorpal »

Steady rider wrote:https://s23705.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Dr-Dorothy-L-Robinson_Helmets.pdf
Page 9 and 10 provide information regarding children in Australia and New Zealand, their safety was reduced according to the data.

https://www.bicyclenetwork.com.au/our-c ... et-review/ Appendix 2, Submission no 9

But that is all discussing where compulsion was introduced. We have no idea how it translates to someplace like the Netherlands.

Anyway, as above, I'm sure the family is well aware of both sides of this, and have made a choice for their child. They are the parents, and I don't think anyone else has any say in it.

If folks don't like the cover, go complain to the editor. I, for one, am happy to see a child who is so obviously enjoying themself.
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Re: Cycle mag, CTC finally caved in re helmets & sold us out?

Post by Oldjohnw »

If folks don't like the cover, go complain to the editor. I, for one, am happy to see a child who is so obviously enjoying themself.


Absolutely. Even at a medical level there are mixed views on the efficacy of wearing a helmet in the event of an accident (that is a different argument to the affect on cycling numbers, risk takng etc). Given that I would be reticent to sit in judgement on this family.
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Re: Cycle mag, CTC finally caved in re helmets & sold us out?

Post by thirdcrank »

It's a very contentious subject. Every pic of a rider wearing a helmet is portrayed as betrayal while a helmetless rider is irresponsibility of the worst kind. An editor is put in a difficult position. However, unless the supporters of helmet wearing are very easily satisfied, they must be concerned that prominence is given by an expert cycling mag to a helmet being worn incorrectly, especially by a child. And using the pic to link to cycling holidays in the Netherlands seems naff.
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Re: Cycle mag, CTC finally caved in re helmets & sold us out?

Post by Steady rider »

Cycle includes lots of pictures of helmeted, as detailed above their is evidence relating to helmet use resulting in a higher accident rate. So readers are better informed, Cycle should provide an article covering helmet use and the accident rate. It is not about anyone looking happy or not, it is about promoting a product, either directly or indirectly, that results in more accidents and not properly advising the public.
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Re: Cycle mag, CTC finally caved in re helmets & sold us out?

Post by pjclinch »

Oh {FFE - family-friendly edit }, it's a lovely picture of a young lad having a nice time. Folk are allowed to have a nice time in a crash helmet, and Cycle is allowed to print pictures of them doing that.

As is suggested in the Goldacre/Spiegelhalter BMJ editorial, helmet use is in large part cultural. Take a boy who is used to wearing a helmet whenever he rides because that's his culture and put him in NL for a week and he'll still probably be wearing a helmet because that's what he's used to. It's not Cycling UK turning against us and plotting for the introduction of mandatory helmets, it's just what happened on the cycling holiday in question.

Lots of CUK members wear helmets. Cycle is their magazine. When it contains reports sent in my members lots of the resulting pictures will feature helmets.

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Re: Cycle mag, CTC finally caved in re helmets & sold us out?

Post by mjr »

pjclinch wrote:Oh {FFE - family-friendly edit }, it's a lovely picture of a young lad having a nice time. Folk are allowed to have a nice time in a crash helmet, and Cycle is allowed to print pictures of them doing that.

FFE, that's not the problem with it! The smile is fine but besides that, it's a scary picture of a young child who's probably been made to wear a helmet by well-meaning parents who care, but apparently not enough to make him wear it safely. It's arguably worse than the constant helmet publicity that Cycle keeps featuring helmets worn dangerously.

The Oct/Nov 2018 edition has two cyclists without helmets on the cover, but they're not riding, they're not smiling and they're wading through a river, with one washing the grease out of his hub and BB bearings. So, badly-worn helmet = happiness; and no helmet = you get to scowl as you wade through a wide river.

Part of editing a magazine is editorial policy. It feels like helmets users and misusers are routinely shown smiling and normal riders are often shown frowning, but I don't see every issue so this isn't a complete census.

On that note, I did just a count-up of the Oct/Nov 2018 pictures. This isn't an exact science because I was trying to count only riders (not those standing near bikes or sitting in cafes), exclude repeats (as that seems unfair when I think most of the feature-article riders were users and shown several times) and exclude what looked like races (where BC/UCI rules force use). I felt it was maybe 2:1 in favour of users (the opposite way round to the population), but it was actually 96 helmet users to 27 normal riders, so over 3:1 in favour of users!

pjclinch wrote:Lots of CUK members wear helmets. Cycle is their magazine. When it contains reports sent in my members lots of the resulting pictures will feature helmets.

Are CUK members really this unrepresentative of the cycling population and going so determinedly against the CUK briefing on helmets?

And doesn't editing have some part in presenting a world as CUK would like it to be, not only as it is? Certain excellent but very minority projects get more coverage than the proportion of CUK members involved with them would merit if it was as simple as lots of members meaning lots of coverage.
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Re: Cycle mag, CTC finally caved in re helmets & sold us out?

Post by Barks »

Take a boy who is used to wearing a helmet whenever he rides because that's his culture and put him in NL for a week and he'll still probably be wearing a helmet because that's what he's used to.
I disagree, put that boy in a class of Dutch kids and he might cycle to school wearing the helmet on day one but he won’t be wearing it on the way home (he might put it back on just before he cycles to the house though).
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Re: Cycle mag, CTC finally caved in re helmets & sold us out?

Post by thirdcrank »

In answer to the implication that this is somehow a private CUK matter, IMO charity status and a claim to be the cyclists' champion means it's public.
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Re: Cycle mag, CTC finally caved in re helmets & sold us out?

Post by pjclinch »

Barks wrote:
Take a boy who is used to wearing a helmet whenever he rides because that's his culture and put him in NL for a week and he'll still probably be wearing a helmet because that's what he's used to.
I disagree, put that boy in a class of Dutch kids and he might cycle to school wearing the helmet on day one but he won’t be wearing it on the way home (he might put it back on just before he cycles to the house though).


My wife is Dutch and has nieces and nephews back home. They regarded helmet wearing as optional when they were that sort of age. They had them, sometimes wore them, sometimes didn't, nobody really worried either way.

But whether or not he'd wear it with a couple of dozen Dutch peers is a bit of a moot point because he was on holiday with his non-Dutch family.

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Re: Cycle mag, CTC finally caved in re helmets & sold us out?

Post by pjclinch »

mjr wrote:
pjclinch wrote:Oh {FFE - family-friendly edit }, it's a lovely picture of a young lad having a nice time. Folk are allowed to have a nice time in a crash helmet, and Cycle is allowed to print pictures of them doing that.

FFE, that's not the problem with it! The smile is fine but besides that, it's a scary picture of a young child who's probably been made to wear a helmet by well-meaning parents who care, but apparently not enough to make him wear it safely. It's arguably worse than the constant helmet publicity that Cycle keeps featuring helmets worn dangerously.


For Some Values Of "scary".

It's certainly true that the widespread perception of the protective qualities of Magic Hats are greatly exaggerated, but while it's the case that you can't expect them to save your life it's also relatively unlikely that wearing it wrongly will kill or seriously injure you. It's just less likley to do much useful. The overall effectiveness of a Magic Hat is on the order of St. Christopher medallions, and we don't really need to worry that much about them. They are an irrelevance in the bigger picture or personal protection.

mjr wrote:The Oct/Nov 2018 edition has two cyclists without helmets on the cover, but they're not riding, they're not smiling and they're wading through a river, with one washing the grease out of his hub and BB bearings. So, badly-worn helmet = happiness; and no helmet = you get to scowl as you wade through a wide river.


Do you really think this is an actual point? Do you not think the facial expressions may not be related to wading through a cold river? Do you think they're wading the river because they're not wearing helmets? Deary, deary me...

mjr wrote:
pjclinch wrote:Lots of CUK members wear helmets. Cycle is their magazine. When it contains reports sent in my members lots of the resulting pictures will feature helmets.

Are CUK members really this unrepresentative of the cycling population and going so determinedly against the CUK briefing on helmets?


Of course they are. Joining a cycling organisation and paying money to do it is about Enthusiasts. The culture of Enthusiasts in the UK in 2018 is typically you've got to have All The Gear and Do It Properly, and the culture for that is with helmets (look at the ads targeted to "Proper" cyclists trying to sell us stuff).
People who join will, by and large, already have made their decision on whether they want helmets or not, and won't worry about reading the CUK briefing. Most members, I'd wager, have no idea that the briefing exists or what it says, and would probably be surprised that it doesn't suggest Magic hats are, errr, Magic.

mjr wrote:And doesn't editing have some part in presenting a world as CUK would like it to be, not only as it is? Certain excellent but very minority projects get more coverage than the proportion of CUK members involved with them would merit if it was as simple as lots of members meaning lots of coverage.


It does, but equally editing has some part in presenting a world as it is, not only as CUK would like it to be.

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Re: Cycle mag, CTC finally caved in re helmets & sold us out?

Post by RickH »

The article says the family now live in the USA. It doesn't say where but quite a few parts now have helmet laws for children so he may have to wear one back home.

If you look at the other photos in the article neither of his parents are wearing helmets so they aren't sold on the idea as something everyone should do.
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Re: Cycle mag, CTC finally caved in re helmets & sold us out?

Post by mjr »

pjclinch wrote:
mjr wrote:The Oct/Nov 2018 edition has two cyclists without helmets on the cover, but they're not riding, they're not smiling and they're wading through a river, with one washing the grease out of his hub and BB bearings. So, badly-worn helmet = happiness; and no helmet = you get to scowl as you wade through a wide river.


Do you really think this is an actual point? Do you not think the facial expressions may not be related to wading through a cold river? Do you think they're wading the river because they're not wearing helmets? Deary, deary me...

I think the editor chose (possibly unthinkingly) to show them having a bad time because they're not using helmets.

February's cover was really noticeable to me and when I thought about why, it's because I so rarely see a happy normal cyclist on the cover of Cycle.

If you don't think this is an actual point, please prove me wrong by going back through the covers if you have a full set. I've already mentioned that I don't see every copy - maybe the family who pass it on are keeping most of the ones showing happy smiley normal riders.
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Re: Cycle mag, CTC finally caved in re helmets & sold us out?

Post by Oldjohnw »

made to wear a helmet by well-meaning parents who care, but apparently NOT ENOUGHto make him wear it safely


That is a quite appallng statement to make, whatever the views on helmet wearing.
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