Chris Boardman: "Helmets not even in top 10 of things that keep cycling safe"

Absolutely spot on, Chris.  Before the age of the helmet cycling was never considered to be a dangerous activity.

Chris Boardman visibly/certainly has not had himself a bike accident where he hit his head, I have had such an experience when I was young, and I am sure that i want always to wear a helmet when I go cycling! Of course there are many things that can be done also besides wearing a good helmet to improve security for cycling, but when your head hits the cement there is only 1 thing that can still protect then: a good helmet. and although such accidents are rare, they need to happen only once to have very grave consequences, so we must encourage cyclists to wear helmets definitely, and of course work on improving all the other aspects of the cycling environment to make cycling as safe as possible also as much as we can.  Best regards.
 

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What are the top ten things that are more important to cycle safety than a helmet?

Helmets grabbing the road? Wow never realised these things are alive

Oh - and it's not just helmets that lawyers defending motorists are interested in. Not wearing hi-vis clothing in a collision is used against cyclists too.

As for those who think that cycling isn't a dangerous occupation - kindly allow me to bash your head into a wall at 20mph and see if that changes your mind (even the most ardent evolutionist would see that our built environment is more dangerous than ever)

The Golden Rule Here is 'Whatever's Comfortable'.

If you feel safer wearing a helmet - wear a helmet.
If you feel safer wearing hi-vis - wear hi-vis.

It's YOUR choice. Although wearing a helmet does save you from having to nail your helmet cam to your head.

Excellent to see Chris speaking sense as per usual.

I wear a helmet most days that I'm out training and never when I'm just pottering about to the shops. In fact, I only wear a helmet because it hedges my bets; if I have a spill and hit the road with my head I think I'd rather have my helmet take some of the edge off the impact.

How many times have I had a spill in the last 30 years? Once on wet road and though I went down quite hard I wasn't travelling anywhere near fast enough to hit my head.

I do think the inherent risks of any given activity determine the need to wear protection but as Chris rightly points out wearing protection is indeed the worst way of controlling a particular hazard or likelihood of an accident. Accident Prevention, and in particular, the reducing the severity of the outcome, are the key objectives. As Chris says segregation of cyclists from motor vehicles is the obvious solution.

I still believe that as cyclists are more like pedestrians than motor vehicles they ought to be sharing footpaths more than they do. Obviously you can't go racing around footpaths as pedestrians have to be duly considered but it is better to use a footpath than a busy road. The changes to local bye-laws and road/path designations is down to Local Authorities, as much as anyone, and until our local town councillors and police get on board with supporting rather than persecuting cyclists we won't get anywhere.

Keep it up Chris and when you get the chance brow beat Boris and as many Pro Cyclists as you can to sing the same song (Wiggo, Hoy, Trotty, Froomey & Cav, spring to mind).

Mr Boardman may be correct if we all live in the Netherlands. But until UK cities have all the recommended safety measures in place, perhaps helmets should be considered a higher priority; despite their limited effectiveness.

Boardman your an idiot!

You can argue all you like but helmets regardless of their minimum protection might be the difference that saves a life!

I also ride offroad were I don't have to worry about drivers attitudes, drivers education, drivers awareness, safer road layouts etc... If I get it wrong it's my mistake ( no one else's) and whatever precautions I take can only help but to rule out as not important due to fashion and putting people of cycling is crazy!

Big Mick, it seems that you were given very poor advice by your legal adviser.

"CTC members have forced a multi-national insurer to take full responsibility for a crash in which a cyclist was hit by a car.

NIG (the National Insurance and Guarantee Corporation) has withdrawn its contributory negligence claim against Walsall cyclist Alan Millett, brought about because Millett was not wearing a helmet when the collision took place.

The insurer admitted liability for the crash but reduced its damages offer by 15 per cent. Now, the pressure cyclists brought to bear has forced NIG to pay the full offer of £130,000 with no deduction.

Millett, 66, suffered serious head injuries, a broken collar bone and severe bruising when he was hit by the car as he cycled around a roundabout on the A41 in Walsall. An appeal for action from CTC prompted members to send hundreds of angry emails and letters to NIG calling for payment of the full award.

Outraged cyclists also forced Provident Insurance to retract a similar claim against young Darren Coombs last year.

Millett's Solicitor Joseph Rahm said: "This is another significant victory for cyclists. The considerable discontent CTC members showed led NIG to back down very quickly. When it comes to protective head gear, insurers know they are on a poor wicket and that there is no proof that the head injury would have been lessened by the wearing of a helmet."

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1053.html

You will also find on this site a legal opinion from Martin Porter QC, "the cycling silk."

Big Mick, here is another case. I think that you may have a case for negligence by your solicitor.

"This is a copy of a press release issued when a cyclist from Liverpool, England won his claim for full damages despite a counter-claim that he was negligent for not wearing a cycle helmet. The defendant's insurers abandoned its counter-claim immediately before the trial, but it is interesting to note that the judge subsequently remarked that "it was not surprising that those allegations should be abandoned", suggesting that had that not been the case, the judge may well have ruled in the cyclist's favour.

"In personal injury cases where the victim is a cyclist, the question of whether a protective helmet was worn at the time of the accident often becomes a critical issue when considering liability. In one recent case Bill Braithwaite QC stood firm in pursuing a claim for a brain-injured cyclist, despite pressure ,to accept liability on behalf of his client. The outcome was that the claimant will recover 100% of his damages, despite a detailed report from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, submitted by the defendant.

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1049.html

This is the opinion of Brian Walker, one of the leading experts on the mechanics of helmets, and whose company Head Protection Evaluations is the principal UK test laboratory for helmets and head protection systems of all kinds

If you think Boardman is an idiot take a look at this.

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1081.html

"I have read so many opinions over the past few years on this subject, which in the main have been technically adrift of reality or based on misinformation. I felt that it was time to respond.

"In other legal cases with which I have been involved, where a cyclist has been in collision with a motorised vehicle, the impact energy potentials generated were of a level which outstripped those we use to certify Grand Prix drivers helmets. In some accidents at even moderate motor vehicle speeds, energy potential levels in hundreds of joules were present.

"Referring back to the Court case mentioned early, the very eminent QC under whose instruction I was privileged to work, tried repeatedly to persuade the equally eminent neurosurgeons acting for either side, and the technical expert, to state that one must be safer wearing a helmet than without. All three refused to so do, stating that they had seen severe brain damage and fatal injury both with and without cycle helmets being worn. In their view, the performance of cycle helmets is much too complex a subject for such a sweeping claim to be made.

These opinions are given by experts whose professional reputations depend on their statements being justifiable. Hence their reluctance to make claims for cycle helmets being as efficacious as many of the cyclists posting above assume to be obvious.

Halle-bloody-lulia. At last someone in a position of influence says something sensible about cycle helmets. The whole debate tends, to put it politely, to put the cart before the horse. Helmets do nothing to prevent you having a collision. By all means wear one if you want to, but the emphasis should be on preventing collisions through driver education, cyclist training, and infrastructure design. Chris Boardman has gone up quite a few notches in my estimation. Even if he does have a commercial relationship with a well-known high street cycle retailer

I find CB's comments unhelpful. Being put off cycling because of helmets is like being put off driving because of seat belts. Silly. I wear a helmet in case I fall off not in case someone hits me. I've had three bad falls. One resulted in a helmet split front to back. Better that than my head. Another caused a front somersault and broken collarbone. The most recent, a split chin, chipped tooth and bruises. My brother in law is 2 years into recovery after a majorr cycling injury but he's alive. I don't think helmets should be compulsory but you won't find me or my cycling friends out without one.

Why are people so anti helmet? I'm not talking about making them mandatory, that's daft and unenforceable. Helmets are there to absorb the initial impact even if they may not prevent extreme damage in some cases.
I know of one person who hit their head on the kerb, the helmet cracked, their head was OK.
Last week in the Olympics a female snowboarder went down heavy which resulted in a split helmet, she was OK.
So what? I hear people say.
I'll just throw this in. In 1977 when the only helmets were those leather things that did nothing I had the misfortune to have my chain come off which resulted in a nasty kerb to bike interface.
I lost control as I was going full chat standing up accelerating so had little chance to stop. The last thing I remember is "Oh, shit, I'm going to get my hands dirty putting the chain back on"
I hit a concrete bus stop sign with by head and shoulder. I fractured my skull, ripped my ear off and broke my collarbone. I lost a pint of blood, 30 stitches and was in and out of consciousness for a couple of days. I cannot hear properly out of my ear either.
Had I been wearing a modern helmet I don't think the first two injuries would have occurred.

That's my two-pennorth, go ahead and mock me and tell me of all the people who have come off and never had a head injury and tell me why the construction is similar to motorcycle helmets, which as we all know are useless too.
I will happily show you my scars and ignore you with my deaf ear.

The helmet was never designed to prevent accidents. It is designed to mitigate damage if one occurs.

It's like saying - better than giving body armor to the troops and cops, let's just tell them to just not get shot. Then they won't get shot and all that stupid heavy, expensive body armor is no longer necessary.

Everybody wins!

No, the reality is that of all the parts of your body that can get hurt, the head is the most likely to make an injury into a 'serious injury'. If you get a body part hit with enough force to break bone, but it hits you in the leg, you're probably going to be a lot better off than if that same impact hit your head.

Hence the helmet is actually a useful item.

That wasn't complicated now was it?

Dear Road.cc. As people don't seem to get this, please do an article headed up something like:

'Helmets are not even in the top 10 of the most important things that improve cycling safety'

then maybe, just maybe, people might understand the thrust of what CB is saying.

Oh, hang on...

Hooray!! I completely agree with Mr Boardman - I ride MTB and Road and will evaluate my ride as to what protection I wear, (not just the panacea that is the magic helmet but also pads and type of clothing) but what I find interesting is that when I ride Road in me cap/beanie, some other cyclists start preaching about my irresponsibility of not wearing a helmet, but strangely enough one thing that all these guys have in common is that they all seem to crash a lot - why is that do you think?

Don't miss the point: Boardman is not saying "Don't wear a helmet" he is saying that the government making helmets compulsory distracts from the real issue which is that the road system is feckin dangerous.

Anyone who has ever crashed and hit their head will attest to the fact that a helmet can save your life. Obviously its great to feel the wind in your hair but I'd rather have a helmet in between. In the last crash I had, when I came round my helmet had actually cracked in half. I'd rather that than my skull.

There are many things in life people try to focus on when they don't want to solve a problem. It's like debating the children that throw stones at tanks in Palestine, but not wanting to debate why the tanks are there in the first place.

Cycling is not considered as a serious form of transport. It's more an inconvenience to cars, and that's why many drivers act accordingly.

It never ceases to amaze me how many of the helmet advocates manage to keep falling off their bikes! It's easy; learn not to fall and if you are to fall learn how to fall!! Don't overcook descending or corners. Don't cycle through standing water as you don't know if there's a crater under there. In the last 5 years I have accumulated well over 40,000 miles and have had two offs. Once when a ped stepped out in front of me and I twisted my shoulder as a result and the other at a set of lights when I didn't un clip in time.

Boardman is correct in what he says. Note, he is not anti helmet. He is only saying that the helmet is not at the top of the agenda. And yet we have a torrent of anecdotes of helmets saving peoples lives. The wearing of a helmet will not make cycling on the UK roads any safer. As will the wearing of HI Viz. Many motorists out there treat vulnerable road users with total and utter contempt.

The only way of making the roads safer to use is more indepth driving tuition and difficult, better infrastructure for cyclists, better sentencing for driving offenses.

There is so much more that can be done rather the vague slap a bit of plastic on your head and everything will be all right.

Chris Boardman is right, talk of cycle helmets has stymied the campaign to improve road conditions for cyclists.
There are only two irrefutable facts we should be concerned about concerning the wearing of helmets.
They are: 1. Their introduction changed for ever the long held and correct perception that cycling was/is a low risk activity into one that is now considered, incorrectly, to be dangerous.
2. Cycle helmet wearing has done nothing to improve
road safety for cyclists.
As an example of how twisted the safety debate has become,
I recall hearing one nutter of an MP - at a hearing of the House of Commons Select Committee on Transport some years ago - come out with the following line: he said, "...if cyclists were made to wear helmets surely there would be no need to slow traffic."

Once again, the point has been wildly missed by everyone trotting out the same old anecdotes of how they "know" their helmet saved them.
Bear in mind you're talking about different types of riding - we're trying to get more people on bikes for normal everyday things - going to the shops, commuting etc - and portraying that as some kind of reckless, dangerous activity that requires lycra, helmets, hi-vis and an ability to mix it with buses and trucks doing 30+mph doesn't help. Yes, if I'm riding like that I wear a helmet. Getting a hire bike to potter round London, I'd never consider it - it's a normal everyday activity of me going to the shops in normal clothes and a completely different way of riding. I suspect some people on here (who are by definition keen road cyclists with racing bikes and all the kit) have forgotten this whole other world of cycling which exists outside of it being a hobby/sport for the relatively well-off rather than a valid mode of transport for all.

You remember after that 2-week period in London where 6 cyclists were killed? Rather than it being taken as an opportunity to really push the #space4cycling campaign and The Times' "Cities Fit for Cycling" campaign it became an angry argument with the three H's brought to the fore - Helmets, Hi vis and Headphones. The road safety campaign that followed involved the Police standing there pulling cyclists for not wearing hi-vis while largely ignoring the massive elephant in the room of all the big dangerous badly driven cars & lorries. Basically moved everything onto victim blaming, arguments and diverted the attention of the media away from the main issue.

As CB so rightly says - stop talking about helmets and move the whole debate forwards.

From an article in the New York Times.

"A Bicycling Mystery"

"Millions of parents take it as an article of faith that putting a bicycle helmet on their children, or themselves, will help keep them out of harm's way.

"But new data on bicycle accidents raises questions about that. The number of head injuries has increased 10 percent since 1991, even as bicycle helmet use has risen sharply, according to figures compiled by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. But given that ridership has declined over the same period, the rate of head injuries per active cyclist has increased 51 percent just as bicycle helmets have become widespread.

"Still, with fewer people riding bicycles, experts are mystified as to why injuries are on the rise. ''It's puzzling to me that we can't find the benefit of bike helmets here,'' said Ronald L. Medford, the assistant executive director of the safety commission's hazard identification office.

More interesting stuff in the article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/29/business/a-bicycling-mystery-head-inju...

Number 1 in my book has to be -

You can permanently lose your licence if you prove yourself to be unfit, rather than this obsession with keeping everyone in a car at all cost, especially when that cost is continually payed by innocents.

Until that becomes a reality I know I can go out right now and 'accidentally' kill and be back behind the wheel within two years tops.

He is plain wrong, would you drive a new car without airbags - no, I just a month ago would have died from a serious head injury if it were not for my helmet. Helmets are a not brainer.. excuse the pun. Martin McGrevy

would you drive a new car without airbags

But How carefully would you drive that car if that air bag was replaced by a big spike?