Further to the recent cycle helmet issue, an article in the Telegraph by Alec Lom, who claims that his helmet saved his life, so we should all wear them:
If my ordeal, which left me nursing strained shoulder ligaments, torn muscles and a bruised ego, has convinced me of one fact alone, it is surely that my cycling helmet saved my life.
Quite possibly it did; it all depends on the speed of impact. A higher speed would doubtless have left him severely brain damaged as the brain spins about inside the skull. Frankly, I’d prefer to die in such circumstances, but that’s just me.
And yet many cyclists, free to choose whether or not to wear protective headgear, choose not to. According to the Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation, the average cyclist would have to pedal for more than 3,000 years to suffer a serious head injury – and yet some 150 cyclists a year die in accidents.
The word here; the significant one; is “choice” and by those figures the actual risk is relatively low. So, while Alec’s helmet may well have made a difference in his case, it doesn’t always follow that it will in others and, frankly, it is accident avoidance in the first place that tends to keep one alive. If you are relying on protective gear to do that, you’ve missed a trick.
However, cyclists may soon be compelled to strap on a helmet before setting off. Last week, a High Court judge ruled that cyclists who fail to wear one should receive up to 15 per cent less compensation for injuries resulting from accidents in which the helmet could have made a difference.
What the judge was doing was applying common law principles. I’m not convinced that he was right to do so as failing to wear a helmet is not, in my opinion anyway, contributory negligence. Failing to observe the road around before making a manoeuvre, failing to light up after dark, failing to abide by road traffic law; they are negligence as they contribute to the accident happening, failing to wear protective clothing does not.
Alec then undermines his whole argument by pointing out that the judge admitted that in this instance, the helmet would not have made any difference. That is why many of us choose not to wear them, because in a serious accident, they are pointless. They may, in certain circumstances make the difference between life and death. We each have to make a judgement about the level of risk involved – and by the figures Alec quoted, that risk is low.
Still, that doesn’t stop Alec indulging in a bit of self-righteous ad hominem, does it?
What continues to amaze me is how few cyclists wear a crash helmet. The day after my accident, my daughter, Rosie, who is 13, counted 50 cyclists on her way home from school: “I saw 26 not wearing helmets – that’s crazy!”
No it isn’t; it is a choice made by people who do not share your assessment of risk. You wear a helmet if you want to, but don’t set yourself up to tell the rest of us to do so.
Excuses not to wear a helmet range from youngsters who protest “It doesn’t look cool”, to one of my Telegraph colleagues who said: “I never wear one because I get cold ears if I do”.
And I don’t wear one because I’ve assessed the risk and deemed it to be low. So what if people don’t think they are cool (they aren’t), that is their decision. It is not crazy, it is their business not yours – and, don’t forget, by the figures you quote, the risk is low.
Last year, Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London and a renowned cyclist, wrote in this newspaper about his only serious cycling accident in almost a decade of pedalling around the city. He was “negotiating Knightsbridge with extreme caution when a French tourist walked across the road without looking (you could tell he was French by the noise he made on impact)”; Johnson sustained a sprained wrist. A helmet – or, an “undignified plastic hat”, as he described it – would have made no difference. “If I’d had a foghorn, it might have come in handy, or possibly a cow-catcher fitted to the front of my bike. But a helmet?”
Boris is right – he is doing as I am here, making the point about accident avoidance. PPE is an after the event mitigation measure, yet it is before the event that really matters. This is why, when riding my motorcycle in the UK I don’t put my headlights on during daylight hours (apart from conditions of poor visibility), because there is no evidence whatsoever that it reduces the likelihood of an accident occurring. Indeed, the best method for accident avoidance is defensive riding – and that applies whatever vehicle you use.
However, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents insists that, in an accident, helmets do help protect against injuries. Peter Hutchinson, honorary consultant neurosurgeon at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, who regularly operates on cyclists with brain injuries, said: “Helmets act as a cushion and protect the skull. Common sense would dictate therefore that it reduces the risk to the underlying brain. If you’re not wearing a helmet, there’s an increased chance of fracturing your skull and causing a brain injury. If you are wearing one, then the helmet will fracture and protect the skull. It’s better to have a fractured helmet than a fractured skull.”
Yes, quite so. At low speeds such as happened to Alec, they may well make a difference. What, though, is the actual risk? Oh, yes, it’s low isn’t it? So, therefore, some of us may well choose to accept that risk. It’s a risk I have been accepting since I first started to ride a cycle at the age of about five or six. It’s a risk I accepted when I rode every day to school and went on long rides to the Kent coast during the long summer holidays. I don’t need to provide Alec or anyone else with an “excuse”; I’ve assessed the risk and decided to accept it.
Alec then regales us with a puerile experiment using eggs and tupperware to demonstrate that dropping a raw egg on the floor makes a mess. Yes, Alec, I know this. What part of risk assessment and management do you not understand? Just because you are risk averse, it doesn’t mean that we all are. You make your choices and I’ll make mine – just don’t tell me what to do, okay?
Mr Lom’s article is indeed pathetic. No figure from BHIT should be believed.
All the evidence is that if cycle helmets protect you in some life-threatening impacts, they must either make them more likely or on other occasions make them worse. The evidence is that increased helmet wearing is neutral to slightly detrimental to head injuries overall. And anyway, walking is about as safe as cycling – it is hypocritical to recommend helmets for one but not the other.
PS you haven’t defined text colour in this box I’m typing into. The text is virtually invisible in my default colour.
New one on me. The text shows as black against a white background on mine. What is yours?
Discomfort and the low speeds they’re useful at are the clincher for me. All of the studies I’ve found and details of how they test these very expensive bits of plastic say they’re only good for impacts of up to 10 mph, or about the speed my head will hit the ground if I fall over (which is why I wear one off roading). Going at 13-25mph on roads amongst traffic the chances of an impact at such a speed is very low.
One thing which seems not to get mentioned in most pro-helmet articles is that helmets must fit well and be properly adjusted to be of any use, so the very common cheap ones from argos and the like are generally quite useless.
Mind I have fallen over a few times on my bike (clipless pedals take some practice)at which times the only thing hurt was my pride.
The same principles apply to motorcycle helmets – a badly fitting one is useless. So, too, with quality. Generally, you get what you pay for.
I wear neither helmet nor jacket.
> yet some 150 cyclists a year die in accidents.
That sentence in particular (from the original article) needs to be challenged. How any of those 150 were wearing helmets? Of the others, how many would not have died if they had worn one? Without that information it’s a pretty meaningless piece of data. Probably far more people are killed falling down stairs: should stair-climbers be advised to wear helmets too?