Bradley Wiggins calls for safer cycling laws and compulsory helmets

[Theseus]

What bothers me is the compulsion for cycling events. There are hardly any sportives, charity rides and the suchlike that do not have a clause of mandatory helmets. Other than boycotting them, I don't know what can be done about that.

Unless they have closed the road to other traffic, you can ride along with them.

 

[dellzeqq]

The fact that he's the head doctor on the Giro and other races doesn't make him a neurologist specialising in trauma.

he'd have had a bit of practice....

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Or, to be all boringly factual for a moment (unless you're all willing to undergo control experiments), it's unknowable whether the opposite decision would have made a difference.

Head and brain injury is a horribly emotive subject. Personal anecdote and head injury go together like Linford and making sense.

True. But I'm pretty sanguine about mine these days. And the nerve damage. Funny old game rugby.

 

[dellzeqq]

Unless they have closed the road to other traffic, you can ride along with them.

you'd be very foolish to do that. Exceptionally foolish.

If an event makes helmet use compulsory just don't go.

 

[dellzeqq]

haha - erm, you have been given the gift of eternal life?

getting closer. There is a sequel.

Sorry, it's a film quiz. At the end of 'Crank' (a masterpiece, by the way) Jason Statham falls off a helicopter and plunges to the ground, taking a bit of time out to telephone his girlfriend while the soundtrack goes all pomo on us - we're treated to a couple of minutes of 'Miracles'. as he descends. It's one of those Shakespearian split time things with added soft rock.

 

[Red Light]

and the experience in/of those countries demonstrates precisely why the UK parliament will have none of it.

About five attempts in Parliament in about eight years doesn't sound like "none" to me. There was a time in the last decade when there was a real risk of something getting on the Statutes - the Road Safety Act for example - and only determined campaigning by CTC & others plus the briefing and help of a number of members of the House of Lords kept the amendment out. But that was a close call and it only needed the Goverment to have owed a favour to an MP for it to have got through. I agree the chances are less now because of all that hard work but it would be easy to slip back.

 

[Red Light]

I hope you are right Greg, and experience from the last few years does suggest that the opportunity has passed for the compulsionists. Recent statements from transport ministers have made it very clear that compulsion is not on their agenda and I think the faction in DfT that was keen has less influence than it dd.

I would suggest it has only passed temporarily because of particular individuals in Ministerial posts at the moment. That could easily change in the next Government. You only need someone with the views of Peter Bone or Annette Brooke to get a Ministerial post for the game to change completely. Fortunately neither of those are likely to get the opportunity but in putting together a Cabinet, an individual's views on helmets will not feature on the priority list.

 

[benb]

Unless they have closed the road to other traffic, you can ride along with them.

This is true, and it would be cheaper!

 

[benb]

you'd be very foolish to do that. Exceptionally foolish.

Why?

 

[Theseus]

you'd be very foolish to do that. Exceptionally foolish.

To echo benb ... Why?

 

[dellzeqq]

Why?

because if you were involved in a crash you're ass would be in court in a big way. And rightly so.

It's also very, very selfish. Whatever you think of sportives or road races or audaxes people enter them with the assurance that the cyclists around them have third party insurance, and that they have signed up to some kind of code. Unregistered riders undercut that assurance.

(and I've had it with freeloaders on the FNRttC - it's pump in the spokes next time)

 

[benb]

because if you were involved in a crash you're ass would be in court in a big way. And rightly so.

It's also very, very selfish. Whatever you think of sportives or road races or audaxes people enter them with the assurance that the cyclists around them have third party insurance, and that they have signed up to some kind of code. Unregistered riders undercut that assurance.

(and I've had it with freeloaders on the FNRttC - it's pump in the spokes next time)

Unless the organisers have closed the roads, I don't understand why me riding on the road that the event happens to be on is selfish, nor why I would be more likely to end up in court in the case of a crash.

 

[mcshroom]

That assumes that you are not 3rd party covered anyway.

As for the legal position, as long as you are riding on open roads then they have no case to dictate your actions outwith the rules of the road itself.

 

[dellzeqq]

Unless the organisers have closed the roads, I don't understand why me riding on the road that the event happens to be on is selfish, nor why I would be more likely to end up in court in the case of a crash.

because the organisers would rightly see the interloper as a threat to the event and to their insurance cover. If people attached themselves to the FNRttC as a matter of course, I'd stop running it. I'm not talking about chance encounters, but rather those people who hang around at the start, hope not to be noticed and then tag along in the bunch.

I've warned off a few people who turned up without registering (one repeat offending YACFer describes it as the worst moment in his life ever .....) and if I see them again, off they go.

 

[benb]

because the organisers would rightly see the interloper as a threat to the event to their insurance cover. If people attached themselves to the FNRttC as a matter of course, I'd stop running it. I'm not talking about chance encounters, but rather those people who hang around at the start, hope not to be noticed and then tag along in the bunch.

I've warned off a few people who turned up without registering (one repeat offending YACFer describes it as the worst moment in his life ever .....) and if I see them again, off they go.

That's fair enough.