Mark_Robson said:
As a keen cyclist and parent I am dismayed by some of the attitudes portrayed in this thread.
As a keen cyclist and parent I am dismayed by some of the attitudes portrayed in this thread.
I have always insisted that my children wear a helmet when cycling,
Fine. I have no say in how you treat your children.
to me it's no different to wearing a seatbelt in a car.
To me it is.
If one of my children were to sustain a brain injury due to cycling without a helmet then I would never forgive myself.
Your child does not sustain a brain injury by not wearing a helmet. Your child sustains a brain injury due to the impact of the pavement or a car's bonnet on their heads. This is the cause. The question you mean to ask is "will the wearing of a helmet reduce the risk of a head injury?", a question that is still to be settled conclusively. Would you 'forgive yourself' if your child sustained a serious head injury while wearing a helmet? Emotion is not evidence.
Surely people must realise that there is a very good chance of receiving a head injury if you come off a bike at speed?
I don't realise it. Evidence would be nice. Supposing this is true, then I am at more risk than my child, as she can only cycle very, very slowly.
If a helmet can minimise that injury......
An assumption. Peer-reviewed evidence please.
As an adult its up to the individual to decide whether they wish to wear a helmet or not but IMO the law should protect children from unnecessary risk and I would be in favour of a law that made it compulsory for under sixteen's to wear a helmet.
I'm glad you've not mentioned cycling here, because if you take that view then we should make children wear helmets when a helmet can reduce risk, and that children suffer head injuries from causes other than cycling, the we should make children wear helmets whenever there is any risk of a head injury. As there is always a risk of head injury (think wobbly vase on shelf), then we should make children wear helmets at all times. I repeat my link.....
http://www.thudguard.com/
I do hope you've put in an order.
You've used the phrase 'unnecessary risk'. What is a 'unnecessary risk'? Driving your child in a car is a risk, but is it necessary or unnecessary? Could you have walked? Trick question! Walking is more risky than driving and cycling per mile. Should you just have stayed at home? Should they have worn a helmet while walking? Really, there is no such thing as necessary or unnecessary risk, even for children. There's always a trade of risk vs benefit. I don't do base jumping or potholing because its high-risk and I see little benefit. Its an extreme example, but consciously or sub-consciously we perform risk assessments many times a day. So do our children.
When it comes to cycling, the small risk of head injury (with or without helmet) must be balanced against the risks of reduced social interaction, exercise and ->my personal favourite<- the need for a child to learn how to assess risk themselves. "But helmets do no harm" I hear you cry! Then why not wear a helmet while walking? Also, there is some admittedly disputed evidence, not anecdote, that helmet wearers are treated with less care by other road users than non-helmet wearers and that helmet wearers tend to take greater risks due to a greater feeling of protection. Look up "
risk compensation".
As for statistics, do you really need them? surely common sense must tell you that helmets can and do save lives.
Who needs evidence and statistics when good old common sense comes to the rescue every time. Go to your medicine cabinet and throw out all your medicines. Turn off all your consumer electronics. Go to your car and rip out its engine management system. Have a chat with your deity of choice and tell him to make gases, radioactive nuclei and populations of wildebeest behave less in a bogus 'statistical' way and more along the lines of common sense. I can't begin to educate you in how f***ing ignorant that last sentence is and how much statistics impinge on your life. Just because you don't understand something (and by that last quote you surely do not), doesn't make it any less valid. I do hope you're just trolling.
My wife is a nurse on a stroke ward and she often cares for patients who have received brain trauma do to accidents, including cycling accidents.
She must be friends with the paediatrician that keeps popping up in people's conversations, you know, "I'm friends with a doctor and he says..... etc etc".
I trust your wife has studied the literature and kept tallies of the causes of injury passing through her hands? Did she compare the incidence of cycling injuries with other causes of head injury. Against age, experience, location, ethnicity, helmet make, age and fit and other factors that could potentially introduce bias into an assessment? Or did she just remember the chap who'd been hit by a car and not been wearing a helmet? I'm not picking on your wife. Paediatricians will see ugly consequences of accidents of all kinds, but very few will be involved in the rigorous analysis of the factors that determine the cause of accidents and the degree of injury. The plural of anecdote is not evidence.
I wonder if the same people who are arguing about helmets and the nanny state also argued about boosters seats and the compulsory use of seat belts for kids?
All risks are not the same. Each risk must be assessed independently on its own merits and the trade off between risk and benefit performed. Even for children.
You're new. You probably think you're adding something, but just type "helmet" into the search facility and you'll realise how much this has been done to death. The only reason I've bothered to reply is that I'm so heartily sick of the "think of the children" argument that I want to bang my head against a wall. Should I wear a helmet?
