A legal perspective on cycle helmets

[Profpointy]

I can just imagine pc plod with a speed gun checking every cyclist's speed lol and if we are wearing a piece of styro foam on our heads ! as if they have the man power to do this.

I lived in Australia for a year, and where I lived the local coppers dedicated a squad car to busting lidless cyclists. I didn't ride a bike in Oz so didn't care, and in those days I was less well informed so wore a helmet anyway.
And the recent stopping cyclists in London initiative for doing nothing wrong....

Just saying it it's easy pickings if a new law came in

 

[Ern1e]

I lived in Australia for a year, and where I lived the local coppers dedicated a squad car to busting lidless cyclists. I didn't ride a bike in Oz so didn't care, and in those days I was less well informed so wore a helmet anyway.
And the recent stopping cyclists in London initiative for doing nothing wrong....

Just saying it it's easy pickings if a new law came in

I am not argueing on that because we would most certainly be very easy pickings ! my piont is would they have the man power to do this ? I concerns me because one day last week we only had two (yes that is 2) officers covering the whole of Rossendale between 11 o'clock at night until 10 am the following morning,so has I say how the hell could they spare an officer just to check my speed and if an helmet is being worn.

 

[Profpointy]

I am not argueing on that because we would most certainly be very easy pickings ! my piont is would they have the man power to do this ? I concerns me because one day last week we only had two (yes that is 2) officers covering the whole of Rossendale between 11 o'clock at night until 10 am the following morning,so has I say how the hell could they spare an officer just to check my speed and if an helmet is being worn.

You're possibly right, after all, they don' bother enforcing pedal reflectors, wheel reflectors, or even sensible things like lights at night. But that said, helmets are easy to spot, and there'd be a huge EstherRantzen, "think of the children" campaing giving he whole thing weight. And Australians love rules and banning stuff far more than we do, so there is still hope for us

 

[Ern1e]

You're possibly right, after all, they don' bother enforcing pedal reflectors, wheel reflectors, or even sensible things like lights at night. But that said, helmets are easy to spot, and there'd be a huge EstherRantzen, "think of the children" campaing giving he whole thing weight. And Australians love rules and banning stuff far more than we do, so there is still hope for us

Or my personal fav gripe CYCLIST'S on the pavement but as you state we still have a chance.

 

[.stu]

I just had a look at one of the case cited (Reynolds v Strutt & Parker?), and the article fails to mention that the accident occurred during a bicycle race on some sort of circuit, and helmets were made available, but the claimant chose not to use one. Additionally, his riding was described as 'dangerous' and contributed to the accident.

From the description, it seems that he was riding a bmx or mountain bike or some such, and imho he was a bit daft to not wear a helmet. However, I think that given the particular circumstances, it would be impossible, or at least very difficult, to cite this case as precedence when trying to claim contributory negligence for an incident which occurred on a public road.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I don't wear a helmet on the road, but I would wear one if riding a bmx or mountain bike in a race or round a course, where I was more likely to fall off.

 

[Beebo]

I just had a look at one of the case cited (Reynolds v Strutt & Parker?), and the article fails to mention that the accident occurred during a bicycle race on some sort of circuit, and helmets were made available, but the claimant chose not to use one. Additionally, his riding was described as 'dangerous' and contributed to the accident.
.

It was also a company "fun day" the participants were not experineced cyclists, so I get the impression it was an employee suing their employer.

 

[Gasman]

A few musings on the whole h****t issue. It occurred to me recently that this month marks the 25th anniversary of the (in)famous Thomson, Rivara and Thomson* paper and despite the issues being thrashed back and forth for a quarter of a century any sort of definitive conclusion is yet to emerge. I've been following, and occasionally contributing to, the debate for most of that time and quite frankly most of what I come across is simply a rehash of the same issues over and over again. I can't remember the last piece of genuinely new information to be added. That, as much as anything, suggests to me that helmets really are a non-issue as far as road safety goes.

I also wonder, if helmets really are as effective as is claimed, why don't manufacturers mention this in their ads? You'll find all sorts of details of how cool they look, how light they are and how much ventilation they provide but absolutely nothing about how much they'll protect you. Could it be anything to do with the fact that were a manufacturer to make such claims then they'd have to provide some hard data to back it up or risk being sued or prosecuted for false advertising or something?



*A case-control study of the effectiveness of bicycle safety helmets
Thompson, Rivara & Thompson. New England Journal of Medicine 1989, Vol 320 No 21 p1361-7.

 

[benb]

... any sort of definitive conclusion is yet to emerge ...

I beg to differ. The evidence is quite clear: helmets confer no statistically significant protective benefit overall.
If they did, we would be able to detect it in the data.

1. Either the benefit they confer is so tiny that it cannot be detected, or
2. They do confer some protection, but that protective effect is cancelled out by other factors (eg risk homeostasis)

 

[w00hoo_kent]

[I'm going to hate myself for getting involved in this but...]

Isn't the problem in the data that potentially where helmets have some use is in the sorts of accidents that are harder to report and track? I often hear the arguments "it won't save you if you're run over by a lorry", "only good to 14mph" or "you never land on that bit" but isn't there a bit of a point where they may be helping in slower offs and they could help in the accidents where you do land on your head?

At that point it becomes choice, am I happy wearing this in case, or am I happy with the chance it might happen, but the presumption it won't?

Anecdotally, the people I hear who are happy they were wearing helmets are the ones that have the sort of accidents that they are unlikely to report, but believe without having the helmet on they'd have potentially become more of a statistic. For instance a relative of mine hit the kerb at probably 15 or so mph with no helmet and ended up in hospital with a fractured skull in two places. That means they are on a system somewhere. With a helmet on they probably wouldn't have been knocked unconscious, wouldn't have sustained the injury and wouldn't have been recorded anywhere...

 

[GrasB]

For instance a relative of mine hit the kerb at probably 15 or so mph with no helmet and ended up in hospital with a fractured skull in two places. That means they are on a system somewhere. With a helmet on they probably wouldn't have been knocked unconscious, wouldn't have sustained the injury and wouldn't have been recorded anywhere...

The problem is the amount of energy it takes to fracture a skull is generally so much higher than the amount of energy absorbed by a crash helmet there's a very small impact force window where this is true. You'd have to be close on the border line of not fracturing your skull from the impact so the actual fracture would be a small one. Also it's deceleration that tends to knock you out, in this regard helmets don't tend to help that much. The big thing for helmets is small object skull intrusion, eg. hitting your head on a small stone, but being so soft this only is effective at low impact speeds.

 

[w00hoo_kent]

It's supposition, but based on the fact that the damage was sustained by hitting the edge of the kerb near the middle of the back of the head. The helmet that they chose not to wear as they were leaving the house was a Bern style one so gives ample protection in the area they took the hit extending comfortably to both sides of where the impact was. The collision with the kerb is unlikely to have been at 'excessive' speed and around the range that is generally quoted as being the effective velocity for cycle helmets to work. With the helmet in the way the point of pressure would have to have been spread across the head more (even of the helmet did nothing else just the fact that it was cushioning the skill would spread the point of impact vs the edge of a concrete kerb). The fracture was bad, it was a fracture of the skull, but not a reason to be kept in hospital, just under observation for 24 hours. If it had been less of an injury the likelihood is it wouldn't have had the same effect.

But maybe it would. That's the problem with anecdotal evidence.

 

[GrasB]

It's supposition, but based on the fact that the damage was sustained by hitting the edge of the kerb near the middle of the back of the head. The helmet that they chose not to wear as they were leaving the house was a Bern style one so gives ample protection in the area they took the hit extending comfortably to both sides of where the impact was. The collision with the kerb is unlikely to have been at 'excessive' speed and around the range that is generally quoted as being the effective velocity for cycle helmets to work. With the helmet in the way the point of pressure would have to have been spread across the head more (even of the helmet did nothing else just the fact that it was cushioning the skill would spread the point of impact vs the edge of a concrete kerb). The fracture was bad, it was a fracture of the skull, but not a reason to be kept in hospital, just under observation for 24 hours. If it had been less of an injury the likelihood is it wouldn't have had the same effect.

Say you hit the kerb, your forward speed might be 15mph, but by the time you've fallen down 1.5m or so the speed can be easily exceed 25mph. Helmets cycle helmets are no where near as effective at spreading the load compared to automotive/motorsport helmets, when I was shown the results from a simulated kerb impact I was shocked how little difference it actually made. In very unfavourable condition like the the design of the helmet & actual impact direction a helmet can actually concentrate impact forces.

 

[Profpointy]

whilst in this or that accident a helmet may have helped or even genuinely "saved a life" - but as benb points out above - on average they make little or no difference overall. Or for every "life saved" another is lost due to broken neck or near miss turning into a wallop or whatever it is . Surely you have to be guided by the numbers?

 

[w00hoo_kent]

Cool with that, as I say the only problem is that the numbers are for the big things and I'm not sure I'm argued about them saving lives. My feeling is (and we're pretty much only going on that) that the argument is often focussed on the big injury side of things and it's actually the smaller ones that they are doing some good on. Maybe I'm unusual in knowing people who are happy that their helmets have saved them from injuries that probably wouldn't have been life threatening but would have been very life inconveniencing.

 

[Profpointy]

Cool with that, as I say the only problem is that the numbers are for the big things and I'm not sure I'm argued about them saving lives. My feeling is (and we're pretty much only going on that) that the argument is often focussed on the big injury side of things and it's actually the smaller ones that they are doing some good on. Maybe I'm unusual in knowing people who are happy that their helmets have saved them from injuries that probably wouldn't have been life threatening but would have been very life inconveniencing.

I also know quite a few people who (quite plausibly) assert helmets saved their lives or at least greatly reduced injury - but there again nearly all the injured cyclists I know have been helmeted - are they perhaps falling off more or hitting their heads more?