I spent 90 minutes driving my mother-in-law around today and bicycles came up.
She playfully noted that our sprogs ride helmetless. I said something about there not being any law requiring it and her riposte was "But there should be".
There followed a long conversation about the merits or otherwise of a helmet law.
What was interesting was to have that chat with someone whose motoring days started before motorcycle helmets were mandatory.
She had cousins who rode and says that everyone who suddenly had to buy a helmet railed at the cost and said they'd stop riding. She said helmets were so ugly in those days that no-one wanted to wear one. There was more to the argument, but it amused me how some of the views from those days matched what one hears today about cycle helmets.
It was an interesting and healthily disputatious chat which changed the view of neither of us, but I was amused by the view she had from before the time when motorcycle helmets were required.
As a child she cycled twice a year from Shepherds Bush to beyond Oxford to visit family, so she is by no means a non-cyclist by history (although she no longer rides).
She playfully noted that our sprogs ride helmetless. I said something about there not being any law requiring it and her riposte was "But there should be".
There followed a long conversation about the merits or otherwise of a helmet law.
What was interesting was to have that chat with someone whose motoring days started before motorcycle helmets were mandatory.
She had cousins who rode and says that everyone who suddenly had to buy a helmet railed at the cost and said they'd stop riding. She said helmets were so ugly in those days that no-one wanted to wear one. There was more to the argument, but it amused me how some of the views from those days matched what one hears today about cycle helmets.
It was an interesting and healthily disputatious chat which changed the view of neither of us, but I was amused by the view she had from before the time when motorcycle helmets were required.
As a child she cycled twice a year from Shepherds Bush to beyond Oxford to visit family, so she is by no means a non-cyclist by history (although she no longer rides).
