Teacher who cycled with no lights or helmet loses case over accident

I don't cycle much but I am baffled why people don't wear helmets...the downside is just too great. Although there are for and against every proposal I would like to see some sort of training / test for cycling too...difficult to implement for young kids I agree but there should be something we can do here to still make it enjoyable.
 
Leo said:
See this on the conclusions on the Australian legislation. This site links a lot of research published internationally, but a quick google will throw up hundreds of links, with lots of conflicting conclusions. An interesting line from the NCBI report states that cyclists and motor vehicle occupants have a similar risk of dying from head injury per hour. That would suggest anyone thinking cyclists should wear helmets should also support vehicle occupants doing likewise.

I haven't seen any research that would prove mandating helmets results in riskier behaviour. That would be very difficult to measure, and there are likely too many factors involved/ For example mandating helmets might discourage a disproportionate amount of conservative, risk-averse cyclists, and so the risk-tolerance levels of the remaining cyclist population would rise and individually, they are more likely to do something stupid like the behaviour or the cyclist in the OP. Bath University published a [broken link removed] finding that helmet wearing cyclists are more likely to be hit by passing traffic, so they suggest the wearing of a helmet also affects the behaviour of other road users around the cyclists.
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Interesting reading Leo. However I'm not sure anything in there suggests there is no benefit to wearing a helmet. All I got from it was that making it mandatory dissuaded a lot of people from cycling and that there is just as much of an argument to make for a motorist wearing a helmet. I didn't see anything in there suggesting cyclists are as well off not wearing a helmet as those who do. I don't really put much stock in the Bath report as this is a very small sample of data and tbh is not very scientific evidence.
Ultimately it is a personal choice but for me it seems a chance not worth taking.
It would be interesting if such a campaign got off the ground for motorists as well - right now I'm thinking people would feel pretty daft doing it (look at yer man, who does he think he is Austin McHale?*) but some country somewhere might have a go at it!

*Naming Austin McHale probably shows my age - I've no idea who the current stars of rally are! :D
 
The data from Australia shows a much smaller reduction in head injuries than the overall reduction in number of cyclists. So injury rates per km cycled increased for some reason. I'd like to see more like the Bath study, the cyclehelmets.org site contains some critcisms of it including that their sample size was too large and 'an inappropriately large sample size can over accentuate the significance of an effect.'

On the front page of the cyclehelmets.org site they include a link to a UK study showing 'no reliable evidence of helmet benefit'. There are other articles too.
 
Firefly said:
I don't cycle much but I am baffled why people don't wear helmets...the downside is just too great.
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I use Dublin Bikes a lot and it would defeat the purpose if I need to carry a helmet around with me on the off chance I will use one in any given day.
As regards the studies well I don't drink coffee cos it may give me a stroke but if I drink two cups a day I may cut out a heart attack. Decisions decisions
 
elcato said:
I use Dublin Bikes a lot and it would defeat the purpose if I need to carry a helmet around with me on the off chance I will use one in any given day.
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That's a tough one alright. Maybe one of those rugby scrum-caps that you could keep in your pocket? :p
 
The last time I contributed to a bike thread on this forum I was met with derision with every word being dissected like it were a tense ongoing high court saga. Whether helmets should be worn or not is open to question. We don't know that not wearing a helmet contributes to cyclist accidents and we don't even know if helmets prevent head injury or death. Look at a bicycle helmet, feel it, wear it, shake it, tap it and you will probably think like the active daily cyclist. Cycle helmets are hardly worth the styroform of which they are made. But, they appear to save lives and appearance matters. High Viz jackets probably save more lives but nobody gives a curse about them. Let's face it, cyclists receive more problems from motorists and motorists receive more problems from cyclists than non-whites in the USA do from the Ku-Klux-Klan. Until we all think of the way we use the roads (including pedestrians), jumping red lights, speeding, jay-walking, cycling in bunches etc and use common sense we might as well be sneezing against the wind.

Somebody mentioned cycling in Spain earlier. Another mentioned Australia. We are talking road using in Ireland not Alpine King of the Mountains or Brisbane Balmy Bikers.In case anybody thinks I don't cycle much, they are wrong. I cycle to work every day since April and will continue to do so until the end of October. I wear a helmet merely because it prevents motorists shouting at me to wear a helmet. The same guys shout "I can see ya" because I wear high viz tops. I use cycle lanes (and greenways) and do as little cycling on public roads as possible. I am surprised more people do not get killed on our roads because many road users fail to use common sense. This includes cyclists, motorists and pedestrians.

All of us must share the roads, let's make it as easy as possible for all of us. The alternative is unthinkable.
 
Whats interesting about that article and this thread is that almost none of it is about the accident. Lights, helmet, hi-Viz, had no influence to the cause of the accident. It was poor road positioning by the cyclist.

"Mr Lyons told the court Mr Duffy came out in front of him from between two cars. He had no time to react and when he hit the brakes, the car skidded and hit the rear wheel of the bike."

I think we should be teaching people how to cycle properly. Also how to drive properly around cyclists. They aren't going away.
 
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