Once again we have the compulsion brigade wishing to impose their will via legislation. The target is the Boris Bike scheme in London and Will Gosling is not happy about the lack of helmets:
As a keen cyclist, I was very pleased to read about the launch of the capital’s new bicycle hire scheme, “which makes 5,000 machines available to rent” (Just get on the seat and pedal: London bike hire scheme takes off, 31 July). But in the six photographs accompanying your article not a single rider, including your reporter and the mayor of London, was wearing a helmet.
To which my response would be; so what? They are aware of the risks of banging their head on the tarmac and have chosen to accept that risk. I ride a cycle without a helmet. Indeed I do not own a cycle helmet and have no intention of buying one. I merely ride carefully in order to minimise the risk.
Not good enough for Will.
I cycle every day to work as headteacher of a hospital school, where I am also a member of the multi-disciplinary brain injury rehabilitation team. The majority of children my team work with have suffered from traumatic brain injuries resulting from a nasty bang on the head, and a significant number have received their injuries from cycle accidents, while not wearing a helmet. Of course, many adult cyclists also put themselves similarly at risk.
Right. He works with brain injured children, so sees a lot of brain injured children, some of which are a consequence of cycling accidents. A bit like the heart surgeon who complained about all the diseased hearts he saw, so wanted to ban butter, Will Gosling is observing a distorted view of the world. How many cyclists across the country are falling off and suffering brain injury? That would be a better measure. What Will Gosling sees is a minority of the whole. What is the actual risk? Also, the Boris Bike scheme is for adults, not children, who are the responsibility of their parents.
Personally, I would no more cycle without a helmet than I would drive my car without wearing a seatbelt – and this, without doubt, is a practice that we should all adopt.
Fine. That’s his assessment of the risk. Others disagree. No one is forcing Will to not wear a helmet, therefore, he should not force others to adopt his preferred measure of risk management.
Until the government sees sense and decides to make the use of helmets compulsory…
No! No! No! It is not the place of government to protect us from ourselves.
…the wearing of them needs to be encouraged as much as possible by all, including the media – especially in these days of reduced NHS budgets, when we need to reduce the burden on its services.
Oh, FFS! The burden on the NHS cockwaffery again. We pay for the NHS, it patches us up if we need it. We are not a burden, we are taking out some of what we have paid in.
Ye Gods!
He’s just regurgitating the same old shite that has been said many times before.
I often think that people like this don’t really care about what they are saying. It’s just a good opportunity to get their names into the paper.
If this muppet works with brain injured children then the total bounds of his job description is to try and fix the brains of children with injured brains. It certainly is not to tell adults how to conduct their business.
Nor to invoke state violence to force us to his will.
XX especially in these days of reduced NHS budgets, XX
So, basically, what he (they) are wanting, is for every one to keep paying as normal, but NEVER make a claim on it?
Oh well, I suppose it pays for their Chelsea penthouses, and Caribbean holidays. I mean how ELSE could they afford to keep the Tart “on the side” whilst the pig they married is chained to the kitchen sing with built in ironing board?
And what is it with helmets any way?
I remember (once again) the MAG reports in AWOL and BSH, that over 30 MPH they were bloody useless any way. So that is motorbikes out of the equation. As to scum on push bikes, You could reproduce the same injuries from falling over whilst jogging. Are they TOO to be ordered to wear helmets next?
Yeah, I’ve had arguments with people who tell me that I shouldn’t wear a flip-front helmet because they are potentially dangerous. All helmets at over 30mph are likely to have little effect as the rider will suffer major body trauma, neck injuries and so on. It is beholden on us, therefore, to ride in a manner that minimises the risk of having a collision in the first place. I wear a motorcycle helmet to keep the wind, rain and flies out of my face, not to protect me in the event of an accident.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet#Are_helmets_harmful.3F_Undesirable_effects_of_helmet_use:
Rodgers re-analysed data which supposedly showed helmets to be effective; he found data errors and methodological weaknesses so serious that in fact the data showed “bicycle-related fatalities are positively and significantly associated with increased helmet use”.[66]
[…]
It has been suggested that the major causes of permanent intellectual disablement and death after head injury may be torsional forces leading to diffuse axonal injury (DAI), a form of injury which usual helmets cannot mitigate and may make worse.[72]
Another bansturbatory tactic – ignore all the pitfalls with said opinion and point out all the bad things that will happen if you don’t follow said opinion.
He’s a twat.
Western Australia introduced a helmet law, and the result was as follows:
“Surveys show Western Australia’s mandatory helmet legislation reduced public cycling numbers by at least 30%, yet total hospitalised cyclist injuries did not decline at all. The reduction in head injury numbers was marginal.”
Of course facts aren’t the issue in these cases, it’s people in authority who get their kicks out of power and control.
Richard – I don’t suppose they gave figures of revenue collected by fines since the law came in?
Helmet stuff aside. As a MAG member, my views should be obvious.
Didn’t they have one of these bike hire schemes (sans casque) in Paris a few years back? I remember reading that there was a rather high turnover of bikes as they were disappearing and turning up all over the world.
In what used to be a lot freer country than it is now, this is how a helmet law is dealt with.
Introducing a helmet requirement will kill the scheme, as it is doing in Melbourne:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/helmet-law-makes-nonsense-of-bike-hire-scheme-20100722-10my2.html
You can’t simply hire helmets as who wants to wear the helmet that someone else has sweated in without it being thoroughly cleaned and disinfected? Also, you have to be confident that the previous rider hasn’t had some form of impact on the helmet that could have caused unseen damage. Imagine the potential liability if a hired helmet were to fail structurally in an accident.
The alternative is that tourists and commuters carry helmets around on the off chance they might want to hire a bike.