Hit children on the head with mallets if they don't wear cycle helmets.

[tdr1nka]

Close Dell, but no cigar.

 

[TheDoctor]

*gets mallet, heads North*

Dell's just given me a great idea...

 

[jonesy]

...

I've seen some related material at my littl'n's school. The overriding message is "look out for yourselves kids, because the important adults don't have the time to give a toss."

That's exactly what is wrong with the approach to road safety in this country. It continues to place greatest responsibility on the most vulnerable and least able to take responsibility. As I've pointed out before, this attitude would never be acceptable in any other area of health and safety. If you were an employer with a hazardous workplace and relied on fear messages instead of making the environment safer, you'd end up in jail.

 

[lech]

wot jonesy said.

 

[Crackle]

That's exactly what is wrong with the approach to road safety in this country. It continues to place greatest responsibility on the most vulnerable and least able to take responsibility. As I've pointed out before, this attitude would never be acceptable in any other area of health and safety. If you were an employer with a hazardous workplace and relied on fear messages instead of making the environment safer, you'd end up in jail.

Is the fear message any different to don't play on railway lines or don't swim in quarries/pools. It is after all, aimed at kids who view these things in an entirely different way to adults. After all kids should wear helmets so how do you get that message to them?

 

[jonesy]

Is the fear message any different to don't play on railway lines or don't swim in quarries/pools. It is after all, aimed at kids who view these things in an entirely different way to adults.

Very different situations: no-one, child or adult, is supposed to be trespassing on railways or in dangerous quarries, factories etc. But even then the operators of a dangerous site would not get away with relying on fear messages alone, which is why the railways spend an awful lot of money on fencing, for example. Our streets are part of the public realm; children are not only entitled to cycle but, through travel plans, cycle training etc are supposedly being encouraged to, as they should be, and there are far more important measures for reducing the risk to child cyclists than trying to scare them into wearing helmets. By concentrating on a measure that puts the burden of responsibility onto the child, the government and councils are shirking its responsibility to make the road environment safer.

After all kids should wear helmets so how do you get that message to them?

Should they? Can you justify that claim?

 

[Crackle]

The analogy is no different to your workplace/roads one. In both cases legislation reflects what the general public want.

I also see no evidence that this campaign is a shirking of responsibility, it's just a campaign amongst many other road safety campaigns. The first main line is about falling off and hitting the dirt, no mention of being walloped by a car. Seems to me it's more about kids protecting themselves if they come off. Anyway, you didn't answer my question as to how you'd get the message across or justification of why you don't think it needs getting across?

 

[dellzeqq]

do any of us (and Jonesy is more likely to know than any other) know whether child cyclists are suffering head injuries?

I see kids on roller skates and on scooters wearing helmets. Is there any evidence to suggest that this is worthwhile?

 

[jonesy]

The analogy is no different to your workplace/roads one. In both cases legislation reflects what the general public want.

What a strange comment. If you believe this, then you should never criticise anything the government does.

I also see no evidence that this campaign is a shirking of responsibility, it's just a campaign amongst many other road safety campaigns. The first main line is about falling off and hitting the dirt, no mention of being walloped by a car. Seems to me it's more about kids protecting themselves if they come off.

That is interesting- are you saying that it is now the government's position that helmets are only effective in accidents that don't involve a motor vehicle? Can you tell us how many fatal and serious head injuries there are amongst children from falling off a bike?

Anyway, you didn't answer my question as to how you'd get the message across or justification of why you don't think it needs getting across?

You had simply stated as if it were an indisputable fact that "After all kids should wear helmets". In a free country the onus is usually on those who wish to regulate our lives to make the case for doing so, not the other way round.

 

[jonesy]

do any of us (and Jonesy is more likely to know than any other) know whether child cyclists are suffering head injuries?

I see kids on roller skates and on scooters wearing helmets. Is there any evidence to suggest that this is worthwhile?

Depends on who you believe and how you interpret the data... I haven't had any particular reason to look at this for a while, but there are some referenced stats here, concerning head injury for children under 16 years of age.:
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1100.html

Cycling represents 7.1% of all head injuries

Cycling represents 6.5% of all serious head injuries

But:

Deaths due to head injury:
Cyclists: 10
This represents 53% of child cyclist deaths

So what conclusion do you draw? That as over half of child cyclist deaths involve head injury, then helmets may be able to make a big difference? Or that the numbers are actually very low compared with the total number of child cyclists, in which case the risk is small? If you go with the former, then you still have to show that helmets can be more effective at reducing those casualties than other measures you might apply. And so far, the evidence for effectiveness doesn't seem to support that, but let's see what the DfT's current cycling safety research project concludes.

Edit- for Crackle's benefit, even if the evidence does demonstrate a worthwhile benefit from getting children to wear helmets, I would still not support the sort of cack-handed scare tactics favoured by DfT. This approach is more likely to discourage children from cycling at all. If there is a good reason for encouraging children to wear helmets, the 'encouraging' is what should be being done, basically normalising their use as part of a wider package of the promotion of cycling, within training etc and getting cycling accepted as a normal mode of transport. The starting point has to be making the road environment better for cycling, and changing the behaviour of those who create the risk should come before imposing restrictions on those who are on the receiving end of that risk.

 

[Crackle]

So now I had to rubout my first reply to consider your second - Harrumph!

I think it's necessary to consider not just cycling injuries but general head injuries which are higher in kids due to the greater mass of their head in proportion to their body and the fact it's not fully formed so prone to greater injury. The stats probably don't spell it out but if my two are anything to go by, the need to push themselves to their limits also makes it more likely they'll have accidents, several so far.

I also don't like the campaign, not because I think the underlying message to wear a helmet is flawed but because it's poorly concieved, confusing, mixed in it's message, tediously dull and the game's sh!t - 'Cack handed', I'll go with that.

 

[jonesy]

So now I had to rubout my first reply to consider your second - Harrumph!

I know, wasn't it kind of me to give you in the second post the stats you needed to reply to the first.

I think it's necessary to consider not just cycling injuries but general head injuries which are higher in kids due to the greater mass of their head in proportion to their body and the fact it's not fully formed so prone to greater injury. The stats probably don't spell it out but if my two are anything to go by, the need to push themselves to their limits also makes it more likely they'll have accidents, several so far.

But unfortunately it looks like you didn't make proper use of them!

How can the bit in bold be an argument for cycle helmets? Not even BHIT claims that helmets can help reduce injuries that aren't caused by cycling!

 

[Crackle]

But unfortunately it looks like you didn't make proper use of them!

How can the bit in bold be an argument for cycle helmets? Not even BHIT claims that helmets can help reduce injuries that aren't caused by cycling!

Steady. I was not attempting to justify helmet use on the basis of non cycling accidents but to point out the higher likelihood of a child striking their head compared to an adult. Of course they can't be linked but logically it follows that the likelihood extends to cycling ........ or puppet shows, or slides .....whatever and no I don't think helmets are necessary for puppet shows, except in rougher schools of course.

 

[dellzeqq]

My take on this is that children's heads are bigger and weightier in proportion to the rest of their bodies, and that children are more likely to hit their heads when they fall over. Their skulls are thinner. I'm talking small kids, rather than teenagers. I can see a logic in putting a helmet on a kid if the speed differential between them and the outside world is higher than fast walking speed - for example if the kid is on one of those seats that goes on the back of a bicycle.

But, as for the DfT website, that's just crap.

 

[Bollo]

Although I'm no great believer in the magical power of helmets, that wasn't the core of what made me so pissed off about this site.

The game is inappropriate for the age group for which its intended. It's got no educational value and accepts that inflicting pain on children who don't conform is ok.

But I really object to is the fear-based message of the whole site. We create an environment that's hostile to children, are unwilling or too selfish to make concessions, then attempt to scare them into coping with that environment and blame them when they get it wrong.

This link sums it up nicely.