It's not just mobiles...

[goo_mason]

Nah, a car headband is what's required;

http://casr.adelaide.edu.au/developments/headband/



Given the number of drivers compared to cyclists in the UK, it seems that attempts at compulsion regarding cycle helmets should be halted immediately, and all effort transferred to promoting legislation requiring the wearing of the car headband by motorists and passengers.

Car drivers looking like extras from Tron - I like it !

 

[palinurus]

It looks a bit normal. Wouldn't it be better if it was purple and orange, really HUGE and had whopping great springs sticking out of it?

And had a guard around both ears so you couldn't get a mobile near them.

 

[Davidc]

In the last 6 or so months I've noticed more and more drivers not wearing seat-belts.

Have I missed a new law making the wearing of restraints optional ?

They just think they're invincible - it won't happen to them. Just like the smoker who doesn't believe they'll get cancer, the binge drinker who doesn't think their liver could suffer from sclerosis, and the cyclist who thinks nothing will hit them if they jump a red light.

Trouble is that ignoring one road rule often goes with ignoring others.

I don't think we'll ever see an improvement in driving standards until as a society we take road safety seriously, and that means treating things like mobile phone use, seatbelts, speeding, illegal overtaking, jumping lights, etc. etc. the same as drink drive should be. First offence and you're banned for 3 years, another and its life.

 

[Davidc]

Nah, a car headband is what's required;

http://casr.adelaide.edu.au/developments/headband/



Given the number of drivers compared to cyclists in the UK, it seems that attempts at compulsion regarding cycle helmets should be halted immediately, and all effort transferred to promoting legislation requiring the wearing of the car headband by motorists and passengers.

It might stop me banging my head when I get in and out of cars!

 

[Crankarm]

Er no.

You can be thrown from a car at 30mph and die. If you crash a pushbike at 30 the helmet may have very little effect on anything quite solid (a wall, kerb or another larger vehicle)

Remember the cycle helmet is only rated for 12mph impacts at 1m (so falling off a bike rather than being thrown from it)

If you're not thrown from a car your head can smash into the dash, the steering wheel, the windows. You can rattle around inside the vehicle as it rolls about and come out like red chutney. You can become impaled on the gear stick...

I would say wearing a seatbelt would be much better for your personal safety that wearing a cycle helmet.

The two are not really comparable as you are comparing apples with oranges. Would it not be better to compare helmets say between cyclists and motorcyclists?

 

[downfader]

The two are not really comparable as you are comparing apples with oranges. Would it not be better to compare helmets say between cyclists and motorcyclists?

I was just comparing the protective effects in reply to Mr Creosote's post

 

[John the Monkey]

I don't think we'll ever see an improvement in driving standards until as a society we take road safety seriously, and that means treating things like mobile phone use, seatbelts, speeding, illegal overtaking, jumping lights, etc. etc. the same as drink drive should be. First offence and you're banned for 3 years, another and its life.

Exactly.

The three pillars of road safety are often held to be "Education, Enforcement and Engineering".

My feeling is that in the UK, the Education element has focussed mainly on keeping people out of the way of motor traffic. In turn, that's fostered a culture in which anything that isn't motor traffic has no business on the road, and thus some degree of culpability in any collision with motor traffic.

The Enforcement element is hampered by the conception of the car as an essential, rather than a luxury, and by the ideas fostered by the way we have, as a society, approached road safety education. Aside from some exceptional cases (drink driving, for example) most other motoring law can be flouted with little concern for the consequences. The "momentary lapse of attention", even when it results in someone else's death, rarely leads to a significant, or indeed any, period of disqualification from driving. Offences that do not result in blood on the tarmac are treated leniently in general.

Lastly, Engineering, until recently, has focussed on the "right" of the driver to get from place to place as quickly as possible.

 

[Ranger]

I am no expert on this, but all I can say is my Dad spent 20 years in the fire service and we were all wearing seatbelts/in child seats by the mid 70's whenever we went out in the car.

His perception (which may have been clouded) was that not wearing a seatbelt was as bad as drink driving and I have seen him remonstrating with parents who allow their children to be unrestrained in the back seat, but he would admit it was from too many times taking dead children out of cars