Now the freaking school are at it!

[Davidc]

Give me the figures about extra weight, how much further your head would travel because of it. Give me the results that say a head sliding along the ground at any speed will do better without a helmet on than one with a helmet on.

Have a look at the research referenced in this document.

I'm still waiting to see any research report showing that cycle helmets are of any benefit at all, under any circumstances. Perhaps there will be one one day.

 

[snailracer]

Maybe just point out that wearing a helmet is not legally required and as such he/she has no right to insist on pupils wearing one. By all means say that lights are compulsory and that they will not be allowed to ride home if they have no lights (still a little out of their jurisdiction, IMO) but helmets are worn by choice, not due to some Head Teacher's whim.

I might be wrong, but hasn't it already been legally established that the non-wearing of a helmet constitutes contributory negligence in case of head injury?
This is quite separate from whether or not helmet wearing makes riding safer or not, but it would seem unreasonable to criticize the head teacher for following the lead of the courts, no?

 

[fatblokish]

I might be wrong, but hasn't it already been legally established that the non-wearing of a helmet constitutes contributory negligence in case of head injury?
This is quite separate from whether or not helmet wearing makes riding safer or not, but it would seem unreasonable to criticize the head teacher for following the lead of the courts, no?

Hmm, not exactly. Only in one case, I believe, and that was under some very unusual circumstances when an employee on a team building day was injured, at low speed, having not accepted the offered helmet, and was cycling in waht some considered a careless manner.

IIRC

 

[screenman]

These are a couple of points that leaps off of that document at me.


"helmeted cyclists were less likely to suffer any injury to the
head (7% v 14% for non-wearers).
is that at most 3 out of the current 18 child cyclist deaths per year might
be prevented."

Nothing about the extra weight bit or rotational injuries people keep going on about.

 

[Davidc]

It says clearly that those weren't factored into the research.

If you follow the links to the referenced documents they indicate that helmet wearing is safety neutral.

I'm bored with helmet debates so I'll leave you to it.

 

[screenman]

Why were they not factored in, is it because they are positive reasons to wear a helmet.

 

[Bromptonaut]

Looks like a knee jerk to Mr xxx's accident. Accidents of course can happen to any of us.

 

[Norm]

Needs to be much shorter...

Also good points.

OK, as an opening response, I'm going with something like this:

Good evening, xxxx

I am hugely grateful that my son has the opportunity to be part of the Boat Club. Rowing was my main sport at school and I’m delighted that my son has shown the same level of interest - I don’t think that there is much else which would get him in to school at 7am.

I’ve just read your letter about the cycle security and the safety policy. I was sorry to read that two bikes were stolen earlier this week and I’d like to thank you for raising the awareness of the issue of security. Fortunately, my son does have two good locks which he always uses but this incident will reinforce the need to always consider security. I was also pleased to see that you have addressed the issue of bike maintenance and lights, even a cursory look round the bike sheds shows a number of machines which are in serious need of some TLC.

I was, though, extremely disappointed that you intend to try and enforce a helmet policy for any boys who cycle to the Boat Club. My son does always wear a helmet, so he shouldn’t be affected by this instruction but your letter may exclude children from the Boat Club, it discourages cycling, removing the many attendant benefits, and also makes cycling appear to be a dangerous activity which is fundamentally not true. Whilst there might have been one unfortunate incident in which a helmet might have helped, the statistical evidence gathered from around the world shows that there is no benefit in wearing a helmet. Because of this, I feel that mandating the use of helmets is not the best approach to promoting safety amongst cyclists and I hope that this policy will be swiftly reversed.

Alternative approaches to increasing the safety of boys who cycle to or around the school would be to organise cycling training to teach the boys the best way to ride on the road, or to make a basic maintenance course available so that the boys’ bikes are in sound mechanical condition.

If you would like to discuss this further, I would be delighted to have the opportunity to do so.

The other stuff is saved above, for round two.

 

[screenman]

Abstract
Bicycling accidents cause many serious injuries and, in the United States, about 1300 deaths per year, mainly from head injuries. Safety helmets are widely recommended for cyclists, but convincing evidence of their effectiveness is lacking. Over one year we conducted a case-control study in which the case patients were 235 persons with head injuries received while bicycling, who sought emergency care at one of five hospitals. One control group consisted of 433 persons who received emergency care at the same hospitals for bicycling injuries not involving the head. A second control group consisted of 558 members of a large health maintenance organization who had had bicycling accidents during the previous year.
Seven percent of the case patients were wearing helmets at the time of their head injuries, as compared with 24 percent of the emergency room controls and 23 percent of the second control group. Of the 99 cyclists with serious brain injury only 4 percent wore helmets. In regression analyses to control for age, sex, income, education, cycling experience, and the severity of the accident, we found that riders with helmets had an 85 percent reduction in their risk of head injury (odds ratio, 0.15; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.07 to 0.29) and an 88 percent reduction in their risk of brain injury (odds ratio, 0.12; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.04 to 0.40).
We conclude that bicycle safety helmets are highly effective in preventing head injury. Helmets are particularly important for children, since they suffer the majority of serious head injuries from bicycling accidents. (N Engl J Med 1989;320:1361–7.)
Supported by the Foundation of Group Health Cooperative and a grant (CCR 49–002570) from the Centers for Disease Control.

 

[Norm]

One of the many points, Screenman, is that analysis is of people who already have serious injuries. By selecting that small part of the cycling population, you are skewing the statistics.

By taking population-wide studies, such as some of those referred to previously, you also take into account the various other factors facing cyclists and allow for any potential inequality arising from the possibility that someone wearing a helmet is more likely to have an accident and therefore to have a serious injury.

I know analogies can never be entirely accurate but I'll try one anyway. By only looking at the people who have a serious injury, that is akin to measuring the size of fish landed in Whitby and saying that you can extrapolate from that to the average size of fish in the North Sea. Not only does that data ignore all of the fish who are too small to catch (for which we could read the number of wobbles and swerves which don't turn into accidents because the bare-headed cyclist gets more room) but it also ignores the fish which were caught but thrown back (for which you could read the number of accidents in which a bare-headed cyclist rides home with a grazed temple rather than hitting the stats with a broken neck because his scalp slid across the skull rather than snagging on something).

Alternatively, those stats could be analogous with the oft-cited "try hitting your head against a wall with and without a helmet". Yes, if you hit your head on a wall, then a helmet might protect you but plan C would be to ask why you'd want to hit your head on a wall when you could be sitting down with a nice glass of whiskey and not going anywhere near the wall.

 

[Dan B]

OK, as an opening response, I'm going with something like this

I'm liking it. Nitpicking now:
* don't say "try and enforce", the overtones of "try" are not good. "Introduce" is a good word
* don't say "might have been one unfortunate incident" - there's no "might have been" if the fact is that there was. I'd try somethintg more like "I was as sorry as anyone to hear of Mr xxx's accident and I'm pleased to hear that he is recovering. However, the claimed safety benefits by helmet promoters are not borne out by research [expand on this as you wish] and in view of the potential negative effects of [...] I am concerned that mandating helmets on the basis of a single event, however unhappy, is unjustified"

But that's my opinion nd yours may differ. The revised letter is much friendlier as it stands already

 

[Alun]

oh beleive me they wouldn't be claiming responsibility for anything they didn't have to.Lots of trips don't take place because nobody wants to accept the responsibility IF things go wrong.
I fully understand what duty of care is. I set to work , daily, in excess of 100 people. I have a duty of care to all of them and fully understand the legal implications. nobody can fully exercise duty of care its all down to assesing the risk and implementing control measures taking into account the time cost benefit and effort to control the risk.

I wasn't trying to suggest that you don't understand duty of care, I'm just reflecting on whether people who issue diktats like the rowing club letter, unwittingly assume a responsibility which they didn't have beforehand.

 

[screenman]

Norm, can I ask why does your son wear a cycle helmet?

 

[Norm]

Norm, can I ask why does your son wear a cycle helmet?

Yes, he does so for the same reason that I wear a cycle helmet.

Because we choose to do so sometimes.

I believe that, on the balance of probabilities, a helmet is likely to offer benefits to people who are involved in a single vehicle accident so, when riding off road (most of my son's riding is on bike paths) and there are no other road users who might be influenced by risk transference, we wear helmets.

I've ridden into a low-hanging tree branch whilst wearing a helmet, probably not fast enough that a bare head would have been badly injured but the helmet helped and I just cycled on.

Conversely, I've suffered weeks of neck pain after my helmet was snagged by a bramble which would have caused nothing more than a scratch on bare skin.

However, when riding on the road, I usually don't wear a helmet.

 

[screenman]

Thanks for answering that. As a family we have had a few hard landing on the head, funnily enough whilst training and not racing in each incidence. We have totally destroyed 3 helmets which I am sure helped prevent some head damage, however of course this I cannot be prove.