I don't have time to read all of them, however the first one appeared to compare the number of helmets bought to head injuries suffered. This wouldn't prove anything. I wouldn't dream of cycling without mine.



When I go out cycling I would cycle next to the missus on a road that has no traffic only and we would resume single file should a car come. I think it's a case of consideration. Why would you make it more difficult for a car to pass you?

I am not an arrogant driver. I give cyclists plenty of room - I know what it is like. I realise some motorists are arrogant so when I get on a bike, I treat them all as such and make sure I don't become another statistic, just as I do when I drive.



It is quite an important factor of road use though. I can't see why you expect motorists to treat you with the respect, keep to the law, etc while you can just jump on a bike without a requirement to know any of the rules of the road. I have seen cyclists commit quite obvious, serious violations, nearly causing accidents as well as the opposite - what is the legal standing on that? What would happen if a cyclist without any training caused an accident?

Training would be irrelevant, the only question (for any road user) is whether you fell below the standard expected from your average reasonable Joe. That is, the question is not whether you had training, just whether you were negligent.

But if there isn't any necessary training, how can you be deemed to be negligent?

What I’m getting at is the responsibility - like in the construction industry, as a company, if we didn't train somebody to do a job and they were injured, it would be our responsibility. Also, does that not leave every motorist at the risk of being affected by an uninsured who is also potentially untrained?

Particularly since, as I understand it, motorists use roads only by right of statute, whereas cyclists and pedestrians use them by right of common law.

The arrogance and bile displayed by some motorists towards cyclists still genuinely shocks me; I just don't understand what the problem is - most of us are also motorists and for the time we're on our bikes, we represent one less car on the road, so reducing the congestion that dogs most car journeys nowadays.

It's totally baffling.

A bicyle isn't a dangerous vehicle ergo having a set test before being allowed on the road isn't required, A car is dangerous many thousands of times over, bigger vehicles even more so, you need to be licensed to operate dangerous machinery on the road, that's the law.
As Bren says, we have a right to be there, motor vehicles and their drivers don't, they are privileged by license.

As for helmets, I'm sure those that think the efficacy of a bit of plastic and polystyrene foam is anything like enough to stop more than minor cuts and bruises don't really know what they are talking about or don't want to understand how rubbish they are. Have you seen the drop test done to pass the standard?

People spout oh my helmet broke in two it saved my life...no it didn't, it actually failed by breaking.
And if you don't know about rotational injuries from studies done regarding car occupents and how helmets can cause such then read up and read some more about risk compensation as to why helmets are next to useless and worse.
I watched a crash involving Mark Cavendish a few years ago, the only reason the 6 cyclists heads came into contact with the ground was because of the extra circumference of the helmet, without the helmet their heads would have missed the ground completely. Many hits to the head would not even occur if it weren't for the increased circumference a helmet gives you.

Even in countries where helmets were made compulsary they have found that head injuries/accident rates DO NOT GO DOWN BUT UP!!!
In Australia since the introduction of the law almost 50% of people stopped cycling overnight in some states, this has a dramatic effect on long term population health problems, adding more traffic on the roads (more pollution chemical and noise), it has being proven without doubt what a stupid law it was. it is very likely that they will rescind the law in the future as have other countries.
Have a look at Denmark and the Netherlands where cycling rates are very high but helmet wearing is almost unheard of even by children
So if you think you're being protected by your magic hat and that it will save you from being crushed/maimed or worse that's up to you but in my personal opinion and of riding over 140,000 miles in my life and that of many other more qualified people I say it won't, nor will it protect you anything like to the extent you've being brainwashed into thinking it does.

See- I told you there was a sizeable % of cyclists who were adamantly against wearing helmets.

I think the main point is that in collisions at speed versus motor vehicles then a helmet is not going to make one iota of difference to your injuries, nor protect your head if it takes the impact, but for a fall from a bike not involving a collision with a motor vehicle, and for children, it has its place, when you're falling to the ground you don't have a lot of time to think about where you're going to put your head and if 20mm of foam padding comes between you and a kerb at 10mph then its better then your skull being the first point of impact, or at least thats where I'd place my money anyway.

I wouldn't dream of forcing anyone else to wear one though, or try and persuade them to do so.

Try telling that to a pedestrian mowed down by one.


And this is an archaic irrelevance.


Actually not necessarily true. Even in breaking some of the impact energy was absorbed.

And BTW, I don't expect a cycle helmet to be some kind of 'magic hat' that will protect me from all danger. I do, however, prefer to have something other than my scalp hit the tarmac if it comes to that.

It's a number of things - the equally arrogant and holier-than-thou attitude displayed by a fair number of cyclists, the perceived holdups, the ignoring of the rules of the road, etc. And yes I do realise it's a minority, but the same is true of motorists.

I have no problem whatsoever with cyclists BTW - unless one is being a dick. But that's the same for motorists and pedestrians as well.

You are correct of course there are some pretty stupid people out there most seem to drive cars but some ride bikes as well. the same incident with a bike isn't remotely anything like that from a motorised vehicle is it, the chances of a cyclist seriously injuring/killing another person is pretty rare indeed, with a car/van/lorry that cannot be said at all.
I wouldn't dream of stopping you from wearing your helmet but my response was mainly in for Standee who clearly seems to think that replying "what utter shiote" means he must be right about helmets and I (& the experts) are clearly wrong regarding the issues they present.
Personally I've been knocked off a fair few times, crashed at nearly 30mph due to a hidden pothole 6ft across a road and a few offs through my own fault but I've never banged my head once. The pothole incident anecdotally would have seen me damage my neck/head pretty severly if I had been wearing a helmet.
Sadly many cyclists (even those high up) seem to think helmets have magical properties and prevent anything from a snapped hip to a broken wrist and will ward off that 40 tonner from crushing you..understanding their real limitations and the false protection (& thus risk compensation becomes a factor) is very important IMO

As I said upthread I'm totally okay with young children wearing them but beyond that I see no reason to continue as any small benefit is skewed by the negatives. My own son never wore one in the 7 years he rode to school, others do what they feel is right for their kids but I'll always point out the actual facts not made up carp that comes from certain corners..

more myopia from cyclists, between them and kirkstaller we have some right crackpots on RLFans

Can you elaborate so I can understand why wearing a helmet is so dangerous?

I know my helmet has been designed to absorb impact. The only time it has been remotely tested is on low twigs which admitedly wouldn't have casued me a head injury other than a few scratches, but it did prevent them. If I fell off on a road, I can't imagine a scenario where I would prefer not to wear a helmet.

Other than statistics of helmets purchased to head injuries, without me spending time trawling the internet, what other evidence is there that helmets are dangerous?

The main arguments against (and I'm not a supporter of them) seem to always concern high speed impacts (high speed on a bike that is), collisions with motor vehicles (they have a point there), and a factor best described as the expectation that when you put a helmet you are automatically protected and will therefore be more reckless.

I'm not quite sure where the last theory came from but helmet or no helmet, five minutes cycling in commuter traffic will soon dash any such immortal theories from your head as you soon realise that you are often invisible to some motorists, or if not invisible they assume that giving you two inches of room when passing you is sufficient - I can imagine anyone still having invincible feelings after just one trip in commuter traffic.

Fact of the matter is that if you fall off a bike at any speed its going to hurt and I don't really see the argument against trying to mitigate some of that hurt.

Many years back we had exactly the same arguments about helmets on motorbikes. Helmets won, and many years have passed.

There are many other places in the world where helmets are not compulsory. Yet still nobody can produce compelling proof that overall compulsion was a definite benefit.

Of course there will always be individual cases where a helmet will definitively have saved a rider's life just as there will always be cases where had a helmet, or seatbelt, NOT been worn, a car occupant probably would not have died, but then the inevitability of rare exceptions was known even by those promoting the new laws.

In the case of seatbelts, I think the benefit of compulison is obvious. Even though a few will be injured or die because of it. In the case of helmets, I am not convinced. But at least a helmet does indisputably provide serious protection against - say- a substantial argument with a kerb edge.

In the case of cycle helmets, I'm sort of the other way, and it should certainly remain entirely optional, (for adults not children) in my opinion, given the widely conflicting research data and arguments.

Incidentally, why does every Tour de France rider wear one?

This is actually a pretty well-established effect with more or less all protective gear/equipment to some degree or other.

Otherwise known as the 'Punishment Pass' - the angry motorists way of showing their irritation at the audacious cyclist, who has the brass neck to be minding his own business, trying not to get killed; happens to me all the time.

Funnily enough the accident/injury rates were tumbling in the 70s already and then with the onset of compulsary seatbelts that drop stalled, with each passing 'safety' feature the toll is eskewed elsewhere.

As for pro riding, well seeing as accident/injury rates haven't gone down in such since the inception by the UCI (backhanders from the helmet manufacturers as a sweetner and another spot for advertising notwithstanding) the whole helmet wearing thing seems a bit of a dim view given the very high speeds and risks taken.
Helmet compulsion for pro cyclists was brought in by the UCI in 2003 following the death of Andrei Kivlev during the Paris-Nice race, since then deaths of professional cyclists while racing have doubled.

In the 1950s, 8 pro riders were killed, in the 60s, 4; another 4 during the 70s, 5 in the 80s. 3 died in pro races in the 1990s. Guess how many died in the next decade...10, 6 after the helmet law was introduced.

The limited drop test which is roughly 13mph is like an average adult tripping and banging their heads. Do we advocate helmet wearing for walkers/shoppers etc who trip and bang their heads, do we advocate motor vehicle drivers to wear them (by doing so it would reduce injuries massively according to sources)?
More people die getting out of bed than all cyclists killed by motor vehicles.

that many thousands can't even fit their helmets properly nor even attend to their brakes either just makes wearing them a bit of a joke frankly.

I'd love to see your average adult if they can walk at 13mph.

Cycling at 13mph is a fairly sedate rate, typically the sort of fairly sedate rate that the vast majority of cycling is done at, you have to be cycling pretty hard to be consistently achieving 20mph for instance especially in built up areas.

You also need to look at your average cycling club's Sunday morning outing to discover just how many people prefer to cycle WITH helmets, its quite a large percentage and that is by personal choice not by some decree of a club or organisation - people simply prefer to have the backup of something between their head and a kerbstone, rather than their skull.

Most people can't run at that pace.


Unless they were all head injuries, those stats tell us little.

Sorry I didn't make that clear as clearly people don't walk at 13mph
The velocity of the head is going about 12-13 mph when an adult person falls from a stationary position. So I should have said from stationary and not falling/tripping whilst walking.
The drop test (alinear test at that) with a 2kg solid object inside the helmet which is from about 1.2-1.5m straight down (I think only Snell tested from higher in the past as well but most helmets nowadays aren't snell tested)...so that's pretty much the test for how your head will be protected when it strikes the ground. That protection diminishes rapidly as the speed goes up.
Look at the manufacturers claims on the literature, you'll notice it makes very little in terms of what protection they offer, there's a very good reason for that, they know how poor they are and would be sued to high heaven.

As a cyclist coming to an abrupt halt or being launched toward the ground means your head is going much faster than your actual cycling speed, a heck of a lot less if you're walking as your head (if you were to fall) would be in excess of the testing parameters. As I've said, helemts are fine for minor abrasions/cuts/bruises but are next to useless for much else and increase the chances of a rotational brain injury which I'm more than happy to avoid that lieu of a few bruises. As I said upthread personally I've never smacked my head once & i've ridden on the road 30 odd years doing 140k+ miles so I've yet to experience any head injury whatsoever low/er speed accidents/falls invariably do not involve hitting the head, hips, shoulders, hands and thighs usually carry the brunt.

An example of why helmets should be worn in every day life by pedestrians and motrists far more than cyclists.
A study examined 28 cyclist deaths over 15 years in Sheffield and Barnsley. Over 80% of both
cases and controls had severe head injuries, but controls (an equal number of pedestrians and motor
vehicle occupant fatalities) suffered more fatal injuries to other parts of the body. If helmets had
saved all those who only had head injuries, at best 14 (50%) of cyclist deaths would have been
prevented. On the other hand, if the pedestrians and motor vehicle occupants had worn helmets, some
175 lives may have been saved in the same period...

I could go on as the information is out there, people just need to read up and find out the truth about how little helmets actually offer but actually increase the chances of injury, I stated previously that studies show that after compulsary helmet wearing was introduced the rates of head injuries increased...so, those wearing helmets have more crashes and have more head injuries than unhelmeted from a statistical POV

You have me right up until that last paragraph, I can't disagree with the fact that in collisions with heavier vehicles a cycle helmet is pretty mush useless, it was also pretty much useless the last time I went over the handlebars as the first point of impact was my hands, elbows and chin, 30 years later I still have the scar on my chin and no helmet would have prevented that, and I also agree with you that in non-collision falls from bikes at normal cycling speeds instinct causes you to fall onto your hands/arms.

I also understand the effect that safety equipment has on reckless behaviour, thats a given, what I do not understand is the dismissal of reasoning that a helmet won't do you any harm and might just do you a favour when your instincts are too slow to stop your head coming into contact with something much harder, lets call it the insurance effect.

How?
I feel the Stevo momentum rule argument coming on here.


Doesn't that argue in favour of wearing a helmet?


So, there may be a case for motorists and pedestrians wearing helmets, but that's irrelevant as to whether they are efficacious for cyclists.



No mate, your extrapolation fails to take into account increased traffic density, no mention of numbers of motorcyclists or all sorts of factors that might come into play.


By the way, I don't cycle, I don't have any axe to grind either way and I'm not knocking your experience ... it's just that I'm a bit of a nerd and I can't just let such stuff go unchallenged.

<EDIT> P.S. In my view, as wearing or not wearing a helmet affects no-one other than the cyclist who does or doesn't wear one ... I think it should be the cyclist's choice and should not be compulsory.

Were helmets worn while sustaining the head injuries? Was there a similar increase in the number of accidents? Id there a correlation with the increase in the number of motorists? Are there more cyclists on the roads at night? If they were on the roads at night, did they have appropriate lighting? Can modern bicycles travel faster therefore increasing the risk of more serious injury?

Statistics are meaningless unless you present all of the factors. Statistically, blue bikes may be more likely to be in a serious accident, should we stop painting them blue?

Just worked out my speed on my bike, in 2012 it was around 2 mile per year

West Leeds Rhino, I suggest you do some heavy reading and investigate further if you think I'm making it up. Studies into the efficacy of helmets and their effects in recent times have debunked pretty much all the previous studies as they didn't accurately portray what was happening.
Head injuries/accidents went down in Australia when the law was brought in, however the total number of cyclists went down massively (greater than the total decrease in head injuries/accidents) so those wearing helmets had more crashes than the general population cycling with and without helmets. Given that those giving up were clearly none helmet wearers you can easily see what the contributing factor was..the helmets.
I'll bow out as some want to believe what they've being brainwashed into thinking is true/accurate...I'll stick to my bare head and what I know is better/safer both on an individual and population based basis.

I'm afraid what we have here is the usual mismatch between 'common sense' and 'actual events'.

There hasn't been an introduction of any compulsory road safety devices that have led to a decrease in serious injuries in the following year (as time goes on, it's harder to compare like-with-like as other safety factors come into play). Crash helmet legislation for motorcyclists was followed by an increase in both deaths on motorcycles and head injuries, seat belts compulsion was followed by a rise in serious injuries and deaths in car accidents, and I'd be willing to place good money that if cycling helmets were made compulsory then a similar pattern would emerge.

Although poor design is a large part of the problem - crash helmets in particular have lead to para and quadraplegic injury increases since compulsion due to the likelihood of the head snapping back and taking the spine with it, an issue that wasn't comon before legislation - the bigger issue is that of what is known as 'risk compensation'. This theory suggests that everyone has a built in level of risk they are willing to take, and the safer they feel, the greater the real risks they take even if the 'safety devices' used are little more than a placebo.

Look at it this way: you have a big sports car. No one tells you to wear a seatbelt, it's entirely your choice. You need to get up a lot of country roads to get to your destination.
Are you likely to drive the same way with the seatbelt as you would without it, or are you likely to be more careful without? If you say you'd drive the same, then either you're in a tiny minority, or you're lying.

Exactly the same argument applies to motorcycle helmets. I've done a lot of miles without a lid on, but a huge amount more with. I know which scenario I'm most likely to take risks in, even though I know that a helmet isn't going to save my brain from getting turned to mush in a head on collision, any more than my skull would. I ride flat out (a massive 65mph....) with my lid on, but rarely have I reached 45 without it.

I don't see cyclists being any different.


BTW The injury comparisons at the stgart of this post are per x miles, not a sum total.