CTT introduce compulsory helmets and front lights

For all discussions about this "lively" subject. All topics that are substantially about helmet usage will be moved here.
dmrcycle
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Re: CTT introduce compulsory helmets and front lights

Post by dmrcycle »

Steady rider wrote: 25 Jan 2023, 5:58pm
But you said “ = bad” which is not the case. Helmet promotion doesn’t = bad
Research suggests helmet promotion can discourage cycling and suggests the health benefits of cycling outweigh the risks.

Cycling UK (2017) stated:
However Cycling UK is not only concerned about the harmful effects of mandatory helmet use. By creating exaggerated perceptions of the risks of cycling, even voluntary helmet promotion campaigns have been found to deter some people from cycling. Given that the health benefits of cycling outweigh the risks by around 20:1 (one recent study put it at 77:1), it can be shown that only a very small reduction in cycle use is needed for helmet promotion (let alone helmet laws) to shorten more lives than helmets themselves could possibly save, regardless of how effective helmets might be.

Cycling UK,(2017) Health and Cycling https://www.cyclinguk.org/campaigning/v ... nd-cycling

Information available comparing Denmark and the Netherlands suggests that helmet promotion is indeed bad, from the overall health perspective https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... _warranted

However at some point the balance tips over and I think we are already there in the UK. A quick poll in my office amongst 12 millennial and Gen Z all 12 said they would not dream of getting on a bike without a helmet. It made them feel safer. If they didnt have access to a helmet many told me they would avoid the ride until they got a helmet. I am the same. All cycle, have bikes and wear a helmet. There was a boomer and a gen x out of another 6 who said they didn't see the need for a helmet. You can see that in the UK the increasing use of helmets becomes normalised and now no longer discourages cycling. If you see say more than say 60% of others wearing a helmet on your commute, you are suddenly in the minority and you feel your taking more risk. I dont feel more at risk driving because I put a seatbelt on. Its become normalised to wear one and part of sitting in a car. It doesn't make me start imagining crashing so I avoid the car journey and walk and therefore reduce car accident statistics. Overall helmet use increases safety and we are at the point in the UK were encouraging wearing one just makes more people wear one and eventually when everyone wears one the idea that it stops people cycling because it makes you feel less safe is gone. It just becomes putting on a hat like a pair of shoes. Just like seatbelts. I agree that ask a dutch person to wear one when they have never done so will make them feel less safe. Its all about normality and getting used to things.
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Re: CTT introduce compulsory helmets and front lights

Post by Vorpal »

Steady rider wrote: 24 Jan 2023, 11:00am There are very few legal means to challenge helmet requirements. If the Equality act provides one, it could be worth a try, as their requirement would be an extra requirement for those who cycle without one.
Well, I do know that when I worked as a Bikeability instructor, the county council had a helmet rule, but we were specifically told that we should make exceptions for people who wore head coverings for religious reasons and people who required a medical exemptions. I don't understand why CTT isn't clear that such exemptions are available.
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Re: CTT introduce compulsory helmets and front lights

Post by pjclinch »

dmrcycle wrote: 25 Jan 2023, 4:57pm
pjclinch wrote: 24 Jan 2023, 8:13am
dmrcycle wrote: 24 Jan 2023, 12:41am

I agree be pragmatic and inclusive but the statement helmet promotion is a barrier to people cycling is not always true (not pragmatic or inclusive).
But I didn't say that. I said it's a barrier to some people cycling, i.e., I've clearly implied it's not always the case.
So you've ignored the very deliberate qualification I added and then used its absence to argue against my point, and that's rather poor form TBH.
But you said “ = bad” which is not the case. Helmet promotion doesn’t = bad. You did indeed qualify it but then put a black and white blanket statement in after.
Putting off some people is bad.
Helmet promotion puts some people off, so it's bad.

You said...
Having access to good quality affordable headwear promotes cycling to me.
You continue to work on the "if they're not for them they must be against them" fallacy, because not actively promoting something doesn't in any way limit your access. Nobody actively promotes body armour for utility cycling, but I can buy some from a downhill MTB supplier easily if I want it.
Anyone thinking cycling is dangerous... but actually safe after all just as long as they strap some polystyrene to their head so, actually, that's a reason to cycle is either deluded or a product of your imagination.
Promoting helmets helps achieve accessible cheap protection.
Helmets aren't actively promoted in NL because the government and the Fietserbond understand it's an own goal, but you can go and buy one easily because they're just as cheap and widely available as here, sold for the contexts in which they make sense.

And while an EN1078 lid provides protection to the EN1078 spec (mitigation of injury of plain falls from standing) you never have managed to persuade anyone why that protection is particularly more apposite to cycling in general than to e.g. pedestrians. The protection cyclists need is typically from moving motor vehicles which is a job well beyond EN1078 (and indeed Snell B95) spec.

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Re: CTT introduce compulsory helmets and front lights

Post by pjclinch »

dmrcycle wrote: 26 Jan 2023, 12:34am
However at some point the balance tips over and I think we are already there in the UK. A quick poll in my office amongst 12 millennial and Gen Z all 12 said they would not dream of getting on a bike without a helmet. It made them feel safer. If they didnt have access to a helmet many told me they would avoid the ride until they got a helmet. I am the same.
You really need to get a better understanding of statistics and a better understanding of cultural behaviour & echo chamber effect.

In the much-quoted BMJ editorial it points out that enthusiasm for helmets is probably more about culture than efficacy.

You exist n a culture where helmets are a given and they're a given because everyone keeps one another how important they are, backed up with confirmation bias anecdotes. As I operate in both sports and utility contexts I know people in the former who believe the same as you, but that's not representative of the UK as a whole, just as riding sports machinery is no longer a given to anything like the degree it was ~ 30 years ago.

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Re: CTT introduce compulsory helmets and front lights

Post by mattheus »

Vorpal wrote: 26 Jan 2023, 8:08am Well, I do know that when I worked as a Bikeability instructor, the county council had a helmet rule, but we were specifically told that we should make exceptions for people who wore head coverings for religious reasons and people who required a medical exemptions. I don't understand why CTT isn't clear that such exemptions are available.
If you spoke to a few people that help run CTT, you would understand.
(and you probably won't think well of them either ... )
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Re: CTT introduce compulsory helmets and front lights

Post by deeferdonk »

Just highlighting the drift in this thread.

Thread is about the introduction of compulsory helmet wear in organised time trial events.

This is completely different to encouraging/mandating helmet wear for the general cycling public.
Steady rider
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Re: CTT introduce compulsory helmets and front lights

Post by Steady rider »

However at some point the balance tips over and I think we are already there in the UK. A quick poll in my office amongst 12 millennial and Gen Z all 12 said they would not dream of getting on a bike without a helmet.
This is completely different to encouraging/mandating helmet wear for the general cycling public.
Neither group, public or CTT may fully appreciate the information showing helmet use and an increased accident rate.

Clarke CF, Gillham C,(2019) Effects of bicycle helmet wearing on accident and injury rates, GB Nation-al Road Safety Conference, November 2019 https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... jury_rates
mattheus
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Re: CTT introduce compulsory helmets and front lights

Post by mattheus »

deeferdonk wrote: 26 Jan 2023, 8:47am Just highlighting the drift in this thread.

Thread is about the introduction of compulsory helmet wear in organised time trial events.

This is completely different to encouraging/mandating helmet wear for the general cycling public.
To be fair, my post before yours was about CTT, and quoting a post about CTT :)

But meanwhile - do you not think the two might be related?
dmrcycle
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Re: CTT introduce compulsory helmets and front lights

Post by dmrcycle »

Steady rider wrote: 26 Jan 2023, 9:57am
However at some point the balance tips over and I think we are already there in the UK. A quick poll in my office amongst 12 millennial and Gen Z all 12 said they would not dream of getting on a bike without a helmet.
This is completely different to encouraging/mandating helmet wear for the general cycling public.
Neither group, public or CTT may fully appreciate the information showing helmet use and an increased accident rate.

Clarke CF, Gillham C,(2019) Effects of bicycle helmet wearing on accident and injury rates, GB Nation-al Road Safety Conference, November 2019 https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... jury_rates
I cant believe we keep going back to this junk paper. Not peer reviewed, author not balanced in his opinion, massive gaps and non proven conclusions and one of the biggest case of "correlation does not imply causation" conclusion I have ever seen in a "so called" scientific paper. Helmets make you have more arm injuries. - yeah right. And even if wearing a helmet makes you take more risks - so what. The head injuries are reduced. People wear safety equipment when doing something they enjoy so they can take more risks. Its part of the fun, if you hurt your arm but not end up in a coma thats a good thing. It doesnt matter anyway, the youth and next generation get it. Helmets don't need to be compulsory as most people wear them now anyway. It's seems the older generation stuck in their "no one is telling me what to do" attitude, fishing out insignificant statistical anomalies and making ridiculous extrapolations don't understand they are normalised now and cycling fashion. Its just a hat now you put on, keeps your head warm and might help if you fall off or hit a car at low speed. These people are intelligent enough to know it's not 100% effective but will provide some protection. Seeing sporting events where role models wear helmets adds to the essential promotion of an important piece of safety equipment. Good on CTT.
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Re: CTT introduce compulsory helmets and front lights

Post by mattheus »

And now I'd like to introduce D, the spokesman for Helmets and Helmet Laws:
dmrcycle wrote: 26 Jan 2023, 1:12pm People wear safety equipment when doing something they enjoy so they can take more risks.

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pjclinch
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Re: CTT introduce compulsory helmets and front lights

Post by pjclinch »

dmrcycle wrote: 26 Jan 2023, 1:12pm
And even if wearing a helmet makes you take more risks - so what. The head injuries are reduced. (etc)
You have made a very big assumptive leap that a little bit of lightweight protection designed to mitigate injuries that a skull will typically deal with okay is going to make at least as much positive difference to the serious head injury rate as the increase in risk taking will cause negative difference. This is pure speculation that you can't back up.
dmrcycle wrote: 26 Jan 2023, 1:12pm People wear safety equipment when doing something they enjoy so they can take more risks
This is very true of cycle sport, but it's rather one dimensional to think of cycling purely in terms of sport. I wear my helmet when I'm coaching MTB on a Saturday morning because we're doing stuff where we're likely to fall off and if someone hits their head we want to be able to carry on rather than cancel the rest of the session because someone's seeing stars. I don't wear it when I'm riding to the session, or I'm doing my shopping, or I'm on a sedate tour because adding to my risk in any of those modes isn't something I want to do.

Have a look at the following video. You will see some folk with helmets in there. Think about what sort of cycling they're doing, and think about the sort of cycling those without are doing. Now extend your thinking to what those without are doing that's particularly more likely to create a serious head injury than if they were pedestrians, or using stairs at home. Then you might start to realise that your view of "cycling" doesn't fit as a general case.



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Re: CTT introduce compulsory helmets and front lights

Post by Stevek76 »

dmrcycle wrote: 26 Jan 2023, 12:34am However at some point the balance tips over and I think we are already there in the UK. A quick poll in my office amongst 12 millennial and Gen Z all 12 said they would not dream of getting on a bike without a helmet. It made them feel safer. If they didnt have access to a helmet many told me they would avoid the ride until they got a helmet. I am the same. All cycle, have bikes and wear a helmet. There was a boomer and a gen x out of another 6 who said they didn't see the need for a helmet. You can see that in the UK the increasing use of helmets becomes normalised and now no longer discourages cycling. If you see say more than say 60% of others wearing a helmet on your commute, you are suddenly in the minority and you feel your taking more risk.
What part of the country? As a late 'millennial' in Bristol I can't find that matches my experiences here. Seems pretty mixed across age ranges and strikes me as far more driven about where the cyclist sits on the sports to utility spectrum. There are also some inconsistent ones, people who're fairly keen on wearing a cycle helmet and unconvinced about my position on the matter but then happily hopping on a voi, not entirely sober, without one :roll:

Also you're contradicting yourself with "If they didnt have access to a helmet many told me they would avoid the ride until they got a helmet. I am the same. " & "You can see that in the UK the increasing use of helmets becomes normalised and now no longer discourages cycling." !
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Re: CTT introduce compulsory helmets and front lights

Post by Steady rider »

dmrcycle wrote:
And even if wearing a helmet makes you take more risks - so what.
roughly for the UK say, 110 fatalities per year, say 30 serious/severe head injuries per fatality, 3300 per year.
Assume 10 million people cycle, one serious/severe head injury per 3000 people. If cycling for 60 years, once in 50 lifetimes.
If helmets helps to prevent serious /severe head injuries, a potential benefit on average once in 50 lifetimes.
In comparison, if they take more risks, their accident rate may double, a disadvantage to perhaps every helmeted cyclist.

There are probably parts of the UK where drivers are too agreesive and use their horn and changes should be made so that any agreesive driving behavior can incur a fine.
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Re: CTT introduce compulsory helmets and front lights

Post by fastpedaller »

My response ( If someone says 'don't you wear a helmet' ) is to ask them "In what way do you think a helmet will be a benefit?" Their reaction is to say something along the lines of 'well, you are safer with a helmet' or 'you won't be hurt as much if you have a helmet'.
I then (hopefully) encourage them to put some thought into it by saying "some people aren't as careful as you, and if they think the same things, that may encourage them to make a risky overtake and drive too close to me because they believe they won't hurt me (if I have a helmet on) ". Some have said 'Hmm I hadn't thought of it like that - you make a good point'
Ok, I've drifted off the CTT specific :roll: And would also add that I'd considered 'dabbling' in selected Time Trials, just for 'old times sake' but ruled it out when the lights/helmet rules were applied
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