Sorry, Bradley, helmets are not the answer

[CTC London]

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/c ... 496175.ece

Sorry, Bradley, helmets are not the answer
Christian Wolmar


Published at 12:01AM, August 3 2012
We must focus on making the roads safer for cyclists, not cyclists safer for the roads
Gosh, Bradley, I hate to be on the other side of an argument with you but I have to be. You are rightly seen as a god among us mere pedallers, a supremely dedicated athlete but also the self-deprecating boy next door. We love you, but that doesn’t mean you’re always right.
Bradley Wiggins is right to row back on his apparent call for helmets to be made compulsory for cyclists. It would be a terrible error. The Olympic gold medal-winner’s reaction to the death of a cyclist dragged under an Olympics bus was understandable, but mistaken even in terms of the incident: the victim died from injuries to his abdomen, not his head. To say: “Ultimately, if you get knocked off and don’t have a helmet on, then you can’t argue”, puts the blame in the wrong quarter.
Wiggins is right that cyclists must have some responsibility for their own safety. They should stick to the rules and stay alert at all times. But cars and lorries can be lethal weapons when driven beside vulnerable cyclists by people who don’t always follow the rules or behave sensibly themselves.
Superficially, making cyclists wear helmets seems to make sense. After all, the vital organ enclosed in little more than an eggshell on the top of our necks needs protecting. And no one would try to reverse the laws making it compulsory to wear seatbelts in cars or helmets on motorcycles.
But there are important differences. Cycling is a relatively slow-speed activity and cannot be compared with motorcycling or driving. Of course cyclists should wear helmets if they choose to. But there are two powerful reasons to oppose mandatory helmets.
First, it would reduce considerably the number of cyclists on the roads, as evidence from Western Australia, where helmets have been mandatory for 20 years, shows. Cycle use in Perth rose by 10 per cent a year between 1983 and 1989. But by 1994, two years after the law was introduced, the number of cyclists had fallen by 50 per cent.
Cost and practicality are deterrents, as is style, especially for the young. As Dr Mark Porter, chairman of the BMA Council, has said: “My children refuse to wear helmets. I would prefer them to ride without than not cycle at all as the benefits far outweigh any risks that would be mitigated by a helmet.”
And why not make motorists wear helmets? As 50 per cent of car occupants’ deaths are caused by head injuries, wearing a head band with a hard shell, such as the one designed at Adelaide University, would save many lives. But motorists balk at the idea. When I tweeted it yesterday, Edmund King, of the AA, said it was “a silly idea as drivers have airbags, crumble [sic] zones etc”. But they still die in droves.
Second, cycle helmets may increase accidents because of the well-documented phenomenon of risk compensation. Remarkably, in Western Australia, despite the fall in cycle use after the legislation, hospital admissions of cyclists remained the same. The reason may not be just that cyclists feel less vulnerable and take more risks, but because motorists treat cyclists wearing helmets differently.
In 2006 Dr Ian Walker, a traffic psychologist from the University of Bath, cycled in Salisbury and Bristol recording data from overtaking motorists. They came closer when he wore a helmet because drivers felt he was likely to be more experienced and gave him a wider berth when he wore a blonde wig, pretending to be a woman.
There is a wider point. Making helmets compulsory suggests that cycling is dangerous and needs special equipment and protection. Only when old ladies and pregnant women feel safe cycling in our cities, as they do in the Netherlands and Denmark, will the aim of protecting cyclists have been achieved.
Of course, there are risks in cycling, but that is true of any activity that involves movement. In London there were 16 cycle deaths last year, but as there are around 300,000 cycle trips in the capital every day that represents less than one fatality per six million trips. There have been 13 million journeys on the cycle-hire bikes introduced in London two years ago with no fatalities and very few injuries.
Crucially, wearing helmets does not reduce the likelihood of accidents. That’s where the focus should be. Risks to cyclists can be reduced through appropriate road infrastructure, slowing traffic, creating cycle lanes and making it easier for cyclists to choose safer routes.
So, Bradley, it would be better to focus on making the streets safer for cyclists, rather than cyclists safer for the streets. The junction where the cyclist died on Wednesday evening is a prime example. It is a notorious blackspot, where two main roads meet and where “improvements” for cyclists before the Olympics involved creating a useless shared-use pavement that most cyclists ignore as it is not safer or practical.
Talking about cycle helmets and banning cyclists from listening to their iPods concentrates on the victims, not the guilty parties, who include not just bad drivers but politicians who refuse to acknowledge that cyclists deserve their place on the roads.

Christian Wolmar is a member of the board of the London Cycling Campaign

[hubgearfreak]

well put chris, except please don't be calling for more cycle lanes . many of them i've used have been slower, more dangerous and with concrete kerbsides accross them. the rest are just painted - which encourage motorists to pass quicker and closer. if you're unfamiliar with the problems, i'd happily elucidate my point with some pictures.

worst of all, where they exist but are so dreadful that one has to resort to using the road, it doesn't stop the occasional motorist from imagining the lane to be compulsory and that it's their job to admonish me with their big gobs, pop cans or vehicles.

[iviehoff]

well put chris, except please don't be calling for more cycle lanes

You are presuming it isn't possible in this country for "more cycle lanes" to delivered as "well designed cycle lanes". You may be correct in the short term.

But I think the message of crap cycle lanes is getting across and being heard more these days, and councils are increasingly not going to get away with crap cycling lanes, or, as often happens, simply delivering something useless with the approximate appearance of a cycling lane in order to be able to have claimed to have done something. Just recently Camden have redesigned 3 junctions (that I know of) with badly designed cycle facilities making those junctions much better for cyclists. One is the junction of Malet Street and Montague Place, which in its old form required the cyclist to make a right angled turn in a 3-foot wide space between kerbs, while descending a steep camber. Two are junctions on Fitzroy St, though the cycle lanes are on the roads that cross Fitzroy. These were lights with button-controlled separate cyclist phases, which therefore most cyclists ignored, and, wonderful innovation and improvement for central London, there are now no lights at all at those junctions. We need more traffic lights taken out at minor intersections on back streets like these.

There are problems with any kind of cycle lane. The Dutch do recognise that junctions approaches with cycle lanes are more dangerous than junction approaches without cycle lanes, and despite studying it have not come up with any good general solution. Nevertheless they recognise the considerable importance of cycle lanes overall in making cycling popular, and feel that the shortcomings are a problem they have to live with.

I was heartened to see that, finally, someone from London has noticed Swiss junction design and is going to test it out in London. This is where the cycle light turns green just a few seconds ahead of everyone else, (rather than the cyclists being given their own separate phase which they can't be bothered to wait for). It just strikes me as bizarre that apparently it has to have a trial, it is just obvious to anyone who has ever cycled in Switzerland that it is the way to go. It's been like that in Switzerland for at least 25 years. There is a risk they'll mess it up, fail to understand the principles of the design, create some monstrosity that never would have been implemented like that in Switzerland, and conclude it doesn't work in Britain.

[Michael R]

well put chris, except please don't be calling for more cycle lanes . many of them i've used have been slower, more dangerous and with concrete kerbsides accross them. the rest are just painted - which encourage motorists to pass quicker and closer. if you're unfamiliar with the problems, i'd happily elucidate my point with some pictures.

worst of all, where they exist but are so dreadful that one has to resort to using the road, it doesn't stop the occasional motorist from imagining the lane to be compulsory and that it's their job to admonish me with their big gobs, pop cans or vehicles.

Good point! You have derailled the argument for cycle lanes

But some lanes are OK

[Big T]

To be fair to Brad, he probably had a few beers after his TT victory and was unprepared for the question, so it's hardly a considered response from him.

i don't want more cycle lanes. An on-road cycle lane on the left puts you excatly in the danger zone at a junction. Off road cycle lanes lose priority over side roads. Once a facility has been provided, then you are expected to use it, no matter how badly designed it is. I'll contiune to take my chances on the road with the other traffic and retain my priority over traffic joining from side roads, thanks.

[thirdcrank]

I wonder if this thread would be more at home in the helmets sub-forum.

[Vorpal]

Or I could just rename it. Sorry Bradley, cycle lanes are the answer.