Helmets- Do you or don't you (newly edited poll)?

[Steve (Junior)]

Following on from The helmets psot, and the shocking death of Kivulev!
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Remember, pain is temporary, pride is permenant!

[John B]

i've raerly seen such a biased and badly worded poll.

Its the standard of "have you stopped beating your wife?"

Try again.

John B

[dockeca]

Steve, perhaps you would like to think again. The poll looks OK and then you do a very silly thing by adding your bracketed comments to the fourth choice. As it is, the poll is not deserving of a vote. The header is pretty suspect too. We KNOW your point of view from - if you run a poll the idea is to get other views!
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Doc

"Any views expressed are entirely my own and not representative of any organisation of which I may or may not be a member. Unless I say otherwise."
"A Libertarian Crackpot" H.Peel

[Steve (Junior)]

agree..sorry bout that..i had a stupid very biased 5 mins..sorry bout that guys..anyway you could delete the whole post!??
sory
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Remember, pain is temporary, pride is permenant!

[Richard]

Steve, just go and edit the orginal Poll options. As editor you should be able to.
I wear a helmet 100% of the time in the uk as the driving standard of joe public is atrocious.

HOWEVER, in Majorca, I never wore it once Now I KNOW this is *CENSORED* but it was nice to get a tan on my bald bonce and the driving in Majorca is cycling friendly and the weather meant I would have overheated most days. Although 90% of those out there had lids on, freedom of choice meant you don't have to if you don't want to.
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The internet is possibly the greatest bitch fest on earth. Expect anything than relentless ridicule for no good reason and your expectations are set way too high

[PNuT]

[Richard]

ha di ha ha!

Ok, For those pernickity types, I wear it every time I ride my bike on the road due to pressure from 'er indoors.
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The internet is possibly the greatest bitch fest on earth. Expect anything than relentless ridicule for no good reason and your expectations are set way too high

[Pacey]

I always wear one now, attack a postie on saturday (not ask), so the whole of the Royal Mail is after me. was wearing USPS stuff at the time. which didn't help
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Going out the back in style since 2002.

[Scott C]

What are the disadvantages of wearing a helmet in this country or is it just that you dont like being forced into wearing one so you decide to rebell against it??

[dockeca]

Steve, first well done for amending the options. Laudable.
Who Knows, it's not compulsory to wear a helmet for ordinary riding - yet.
But, we live in a nanny society, so if persuasion fails......
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Doc

"Any views expressed are entirely my own and not representative of any organisation of which I may or may not be a member. Unless I say otherwise."
"A Libertarian Crackpot" H.Peel

[Des]

[John McC]

[Brian_B]

I thought we were passed the infantile discussion as to whether helmets saved lives. If you as adults do not like wearing them please do it as a favour to the impressionable young people whoes brains have something to contribute to cycling and life in general.

[qcscmh]

[John McC]

[Megman]

[John McC]

I'm not anti helmet, just pro choice, and I find it irritating to say the least that many who wear helmets seek to impose their views on the rest of us.

What recent research has shown is that the helmet promotion is putting people off from taking up cycling as it brands cycling as a "dangerous" activity. As the John Franklin of the CTC put it:

Research shows clearly that cycling is in fact a very safe activity, for the health benefits greatly outweigh risk of traffic accident, by perhaps twenty-to-one....

If the risk of injury when cycling is small, the risk of head injury is much smaller. It takes over 3,000 years of average cycling to suffer a serious head injury, and the risk of death through head injury is very small indeed. Whilst head injury is not a principal factor in all premature deaths, it is a little less likely to be for cyclists than pedestrians or car occupants, who, research shows, have potentially more to gain from helmets.

Despite this, helmet promotion campaigns invariably brand cycling as dangerous, both in itself and relative to other activities. This leads thousands of people to forego a pursuit that might benefit them greatly. Cycle use has indeed fallen dramatically almost everywhere that helmets have been promoted. The effect has been particularly pronounced amongst teenagers, with falls in cycle use of up to 60%.

If people are deterred from cycling by helmet promotion, this represents a serious loss of public health benefits to society as a whole. It follows that society has far more to gain from having more people cycling without helmets than fewer people cycling with them and that us before one takes account of other public benefits such as improved air quality and reduced congestion. Yet the UK Government has never analysed this

Of perhaps more interest is what is said of potential injury reduction:

Helmet promotion campaigns claim great benefits from helmet use, but these predictions are based on small non-randomised studies, that have never been matched by real-life evidence from whole population data, such as traffic casualty and hospital treatment records.

Across several countries where helmet use has become significant, large population sources show no discernible reduction at all in fatal or serious injuries relative to cycle use. Moreover, where injury trends have changed, the number or severity of injuries has increased. In London, for example, where some 50% of cyclists now wear helmets, injury severity was higher in 2001 than in 1981 and fatalities were at their highest since 1989. This cannot be attributed simply to traffic conditions; the severity of pedestrian casualties, which historically tracks those of cyclists, declined.

In the USA, an increase in helmet wearing from 18% to 50% of cyclists between 1991 and 2001 was associated with a 40% increase in risk of head injury. Safety experts admit to being mystified that they can't find a benefit from rising helmet use. In Australia, there have been competing claims about the effect of the country's helmet laws, but it is now clear that whilst the absolute number of head injuries fell, this was proportionately less than the decline in cycle use.

[Megman]

And that article does not mention whether cycling had generally increased and that could be attributed to the increase in accidents.

I agree with choice, especially for the pros. I do not think it needs to be compulsory.

[John McC]

On that point it basically says helmets = fewer people riding bikes, and no reduction in injuries/deaths.

Send me your e-mail address and I'll e-mail the full article.