Cycle helmet wearers are reckless

[rooel]

Denning certainly was controversial: in rejecting one of the many appeals by the Birmingham Six (who after many years incarceration were eventually acquitted) his main ground appeared to rely on his stated belief that it would be "unthinkable" that all the prosecution witnesses could be mistaken or lying or that all the judges who had previously heard the case could be wrong.

In the seat belt case, heard before seatbelts were legally required, he said the motorist who did not wear one contributed to his own misfortune in a collision. The logical extension of that principle is that the motorist who fails to choose a safe model of car (eg one lacking side impact bars or airbags) also contributes to his own misfortune.

The most peculiar thing about the current helmet case however is that the cyclist was wearing a helmet, but appears to have been faulted for not choosing the latest model (or his lawyers were at fault for failing to prove that the latest model would have made any difference to the medical outcome).

 

[Tiberius]

What we have is a report, and not an impartial one, rather than the actual details. I'd be wary of drawing any conclusions from a document that has such a glaring internal contradiction about whether the poor man was wearing a helmet or not.

Nick

 

[john]

There is no contradiction in the report. The cyclist owned a helmet but was not wearing it at the time of the accident.

 

[rooel]

It is extremely difficult without a copy of the court judgment to ascertain the facts in this case or even the legal result: the first reports of the case appear to have been a notice issued by the insurance industry welcoming what appears to members of that industry to be a way of reducing the amount of compensation they will have to pay to cyclists who through no fault of their own are injured in collisions.

Fortunately the CTC are aware of the case and are taking legal advice as to whether an appeal would be a good idea or if they should wait for another case to come up: CTC takes legal advice on High Court helmet ruling | road.cc | The website for pedal powered people: Road cycling, commuting, leisure cycling and racing

The following from a CTC spokesman is of considerable interest to me as it repeats what I have been arguing for some time now:

"We also know that cyclists wearing a helmet cycle less cautiously and drivers drive less cautiously when they see a cyclist wearing a helmet, it’s a kind of risk compensation"

 

[torrent99]

"We also know that cyclists wearing a helmet cycle less cautiously ....... it’s a kind of risk compensation"

Which is of course the nub of the thread.... What I'd like to know about however is the element of "getting used to a thing"...

So if we accept the fact that if rider A starts wearing a helmet he is likely to take more risks than he used to when he didn't.

But does this mean that after a while (say 5 years of experience) rider A still continues to take those risks, or does he revert back to his original risk behaviour?

And how does this compare to his identical twin rider B who never wears a helmet? After several years of experience do the risk appetites match?

 

[flecc]

Which is of course the nub of the thread.... What I'd like to know about however is the element of "getting used to a thing"...

So if we accept the fact that if rider A starts wearing a helmet he is likely to take more risks than he used to when he didn't.

But does this mean that after a while (say 5 years of experience) rider A still continues to take those risks, or does he revert back to his original risk behaviour?

And how does this compare to his identical twin rider B who never wears a helmet? After several years of experience do the risk appetites match?

I think any risk taking gradually declines with age and experience, and that will be common to both the helmeted and bare headed, the latter retaining the greater care status that comes of awareness of vulnerability.
.

 

[john]

Sorry to go off topic a bit again here but it occurred to me that one interesting 'finding' in this case was that a helmet would have been of no benefit to the rider hitting the road at more than 12 mph. Therefore, for those of us who spend little time below this speed, there doesn't seem much point in wearing one.

 

[Tiberius]

Hi John,

False reasoning, I'm afraid. Just because the cycle speed is above 12 mph, it doesn't mean the impact speed will always be.

The best way to look at it is to say there is a probability distribution function (not necessarily a bell curve but could be like one) of the head impact speed. By going faster you move the curve to the right and up. There is still plenty of it left below 12 mph.

To follow your reasoning through, you should be wearing a motorcycle helmet.

Nick

 

[Mussels]

Sorry to go off topic a bit again here but it occurred to me that one interesting 'finding' in this case was that a helmet would have been of no benefit to the rider hitting the road at more than 12 mph. Therefore, for those of us who spend little time below this speed, there doesn't seem much point in wearing one.

Horizontal speed is not really relevant, it is the vertical speed that will be stopped abruptly when your head hits the road and that is usualy quite constant no matter how fast you were travelling.

I think any risk taking gradually declines with age and experience, and that will be common to both the helmeted and bare headed, the latter retaining the greater care status that comes of awareness of vulnerability.
.

I like pushing the envelope and fully expect to bang my head at times.

 

[flecc]

I like pushing the envelope and fully expect to bang my head at times.

I used to do that in off road competition when young, but at my present age (73) I can't afford the consequences of broken bones, some of which can be life ending. A head injury is the least of my concerns now, it's avoiding a hip or major limb break that's the most important.
.

 

[rooel]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fortunately the CTC's weekly newsletter provides links to a summary of the whole story, and more importantly the full judgment of the court. In the latter I think the most important statement is found at paragraph 53, which can be summed up as saying that, if there is evidence that the collision and subsequent impact of the cyclist's head occurred at speeds in excess of 12 mph there will be no finding of contributory negligence on the cyclist's part as cycle helmets provide negligible or no protection at higher impact speeds.

And if the relevant speeds are found to be less than 12 mph the court should consider the site of the injury to the head. If it is in a position which would not have been protected by a helmet again there will be no finding of contributory negligence.

And as there was no finding of contributory negligence in this case, there will be no appeal on behalf of the claimant: there is not much point in appealing an award of 100% compensation (which he thoroughly deserved given his injuries, and the reprehensible behaviour of the motorcyclist who collided with his bicycle).

See this and links in the body of the text:
CTC - the UK's national cyclists organisation

 

[frank9755]

An article in the Evening Standard on exactly this subject!

 

[rooel]

I have just read it too, courtesy of the CTC newletter, and I am pleased to see that Andrew Gilligan's opinion coincides with my own - cyclists more reckless, drivers passing closer.

 

[flecc]

An article in the Evening Standard on exactly this subject!

Thanks for the link Frank.

I suppose this will trigger another 5 webpages of argument though!
.

 

[eddieo]

the other night a cyclist shot in front of me and I had to brake really hard (in my car) to avoid him. I bibbed him and he shot me the finger and I saw red for a minute and thought about pursuing him for an apology the wrong way up a one way street......

Yes he had a helmet, and yes a helmet makes you reckless only if you an arrogant ass to begin with

 

[stranger]

Thanks for the link Frank.

I suppose this will trigger another 5 webpages of argument though!
.

And why not.

However, I suspect that the 'cycle-hire scheme' helmets is more to do with Company insurance demands than with any real concern for hirers personal safety.

 

[Alex728]

a thought - to stop them having too much of a "nerdy" image, helmets are often "sold" to youths using the argument "well the dudes what race bikes all wear them and they are fit and cool and won loads of medals for our country"

this may be true, but if we encouraged people to dress up like Lewis Hamilton before driving and bedeck their car with racing insignia, would the psychological effect mean they were more or less likely to drive slower and in accordance with the road conditions?

 

[Grumpy1]

Somebody change the record. This forum is getting boring . There really is no need for all this crap. If you don't want to wear a helmet you don't have to. Your choice. If you do want to wear one then go for it. But please stop boring the hell out of me (and I'm guessing alot of others) by going on and on and on and on about it.

 

[flecc]

Somebody change the record. This forum is getting boring . There really is no need for all this crap. If you don't want to wear a helmet you don't have to. Your choice. If you do want to wear one then go for it. But please stop boring the hell out of me (and I'm guessing alot of others) by going on and on and on and on about it.

This is a bit like the TV off switch issue.

You don't have to enter the thread, and if you do, you're the one responsible for boring yourself, not anyone else.
.

 

[Alex728]

Somebody change the record. This forum is getting boring . There really is no need for all this crap. If you don't want to wear a helmet you don't have to. Your choice.

this forum much would be more boring if debate discussion of contentious issues were banned.

if people genuinely took the attitude of the above and allowed free choice there wouldn't be a problem - but there are serious attacks going on against this free choice.

For the last 25 years if not more, lobbyists are actively campaigning for law changes to make wearing compulsory and (more deviously) to reduce compensation for non-helmet wearers.

The only reason I responded to this thread is this brought back old memories from 23 years ago which I will explain now in detail - those who do not wish to read them are welcome to leave the thread - I would state however that if were to enter a competitive bicycle race, I certainly would purchase and wear a helmet, (or maybe if I lived in London and cycled in rush hour) - but normally I do not.

23 years ago I was a high school student in Reading.

This is also the home to the Bicycle Helmet Initiative Trust which started around that time.

This group lobbied my high school to such an extent (pointing out also the potential risks of lawsuits etc) that the school first imposed helmet wearing on the youths who cycled to school - then they had to get a signed disclaimer from their parents and so on.. of course cycling to school dwindled - and was eventually banned altogether on health and safety grounds and the costs of maintaining bikes.

They also lobbied the local press, my parents lapped it up and strongly discouraged me from cycling (which I loved in childhood as I do today) well into my late teens - "it is dangerous" they keps saying

by the time I was 15 in 1988 the school bike sheds were empty other than (due to one sets remoteness) being used to smoke a crafty fag or joint in.

And this I did this many a time - during my teens, instead of having a bike to ride in Reading/south Oxfordshire I hung around on street corners, made a "interesting" collection of friends and by my late teens/early 20s discovered all the joys of alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, dexamfetamine, MDMA and everything else (thankfully not the worse class A's and I never got addicted to anything)

I am certainly not blaming the helmet campaigners totally for my teenage impulsiveness, but I do wonder in hindsight if I had a bike to ride in my teens I might have spent slightly more time on rather more healthy and legal pursuits than the above....

indeed when more recently I returned to cycling (ironically due to the influence of hippies I had met from the 1990s rave scene ) it eventually became more of a natural high and eventually displaced much of my desire for illegal chemical ones...