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Children cycling - pic credit European Cyclists FederationJersey finally passes mandatory helmet law - for under 14 year olds
Cyclists in Jersey aged under 14 will now be forced to wear helmets or risk a £50 fine, after the law was changed by politicians.
The country has long lobbied for tighter laws but previous attempts to make helmets mandatory for all riders have failed.
The change in the law was brought by transport minister Deputy Kevin Lewis and voted through by States Members.
Deputy Lewis said it was unlikely that fines would be enforced but told the BBC: "It is my wish and desire that once young people get into the habit of wearing a cycle helmet for a number of years, they would wish not to take them off later on."
The proposition was first mooted in 2010 by Deputy Andrew Green MBE, Minister for Housing.
Deputy Green, whose nine year old son received a brain injury when he was knocked off his bike said: “I am delighted that this vital piece of legislation has been passed and I congratulate my fellow Members in the Assembly for taking this bold but necessary decision.”
In 2010, politicians on the island rejected by a solitary vote a proposal to make it compulsory for all cyclists, including adults, to wear a helmet, although they approved by a margin of two to one similar measures for children aged under 18.
The move was welcomed by the brain injury association, Headway Preston & Chorley.
Liz Bamber, Headway Development Officer told the Lancashire Evening Post: “Being a keen cyclist... I am staggered by the number of people still not wearing helmets.
“It is hoped that the UK will follow Jersey’s example very soon.”
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67 comments
Try the following experiment.
Part 1 Adult.
Stand next to and sideways on to a wall. Tilt your head sideways and try to touch the wall with your head.
Part 2 Child
Take a pre-pubescent child (either sex will do) and repeat the actions in part 1.
Result
Due to the fact that a pre-pubescent child as not developed the shoulder width to head size ratio of an adult they find it easier to touch their head to the wall.
Conclusion
If a pre-pubescent child falls over there is a greater likelihood of them striking their head on the ground.
That's it. That's the facts, cycling doesn't come into it and as was pointed out by SeanBolton above
"The biggest causes of head injury in Under 14s are ;
i. accidents in the home
ii. accidents in playgrounds
iii. motor vehicle accidents (as passenger)
Cycling is only a very small percentage."
Now make your own mind up!
As a side note on point iii. Nearly all occupants of cars involved in RTA's suffer head trauma. This is why Motorists Helmets were nearly made compulsory in Australia.
http://www.copenhagenize.com/search/label/helmets%20for%20motorists
Bergerac enabling toss pots.
@truffy
Case 3 - when running round the school playground as a child I tripped over a wall and landed on my head, getting severe concussion
Ergo all children in playgrounds should wear helmets
case 4 - a friend tripped down the stairs and broke her leg - ergo everyone should wear full kevlar body armour when walking down stairs
case 5 - someone somewhere suffered fatal head trauma in a car crash (such car crashes being the main cause of such trauma so pick any case you like). Ergo everyone should wear driving helmets.
This 'proof by anecdote' lark is pretty easy, I must say. Though sadly its worthless. Its probably because you know, at some level, that its worthless that you throw around insults to try and bolster your point.
The most infuriating thing is that making an unnecessary car journey has far greater negative health effects (via pollution, risk of RTAs and physical inactivity both for the driver and indirectly in its effects on everyone else) than does cycling without a helmet, yet those who favour compulsory helmet laws never say a word about banning such journeys.
That double-standard makes it impossible to take them seriously or to take at face value their claim to want to reduce deaths. Given that compulsory laws suppress cycling and thus increase mortality, I can only assume that the compulsory helmet crowd (by which I don't mean those who merely suggest people voluntarily wear them, I specifically mean those who favour legal compulsion) actually like death.
Oh, and using anecdotes about the death of a *SCIENTIST* - someone whose life's work revolved around basing conclusions on hard, sound data & logic - to argue your pet case does the memory of that person quite a disservice.
Ah, I missed Truffy's link to the scientist. That link doesn't report on what happened though. Did Truffy know the scientist perhaps?
Anyway, again, just because 1 cyclist dies of a head injury from a bicycle accident still is not evidence that helmets are the answer.
Once again, anecdote triumphs over evidence.
New Zealand passed manadtory cycling laws what happened:
KSI rates increased
Cycling rates decreased
The only difference was the law. Hmm, so what does it tell us, well obviously they are safer, well no because the KSI rate has increased and the participation rates have decreased meaning those fewer cyclists that last are suffering more KSIs.
It is simple. But, ho-hum we are stuck in our post-scientific society where everyone and his dog think that they are entitled to have an equally weighted opinion.
It's wrong, certainly you can have your opinion, but it should be worth nought when compared with evidence.
What bull truffy. You're probably making this stuff up. Who was this scientist? Give us a link to the news coverage of this tragic story. As for your story about your "friend", there of course will be no way for anyone else to validate it, conveniently.
Even if your stories aren't fiction, why do your two sketchy anecdotes beat the *vast* amounts of data that say:
* The safest countries for cycling do so without helmet use
* The highest helmet use countries have worse cycling safety.
Now, there's many entangled reasons for this, but two things are unquestionably true:
1. Helmets most definitely are not a pre-requisite for safe cycling.
2. Even assuming that high helmet use tends to indicate the environment is more dangerous, helmets clearly do NOT fix the problem of cycling safety not being as good as the best countries!
To disagree with these things is to disagree with widely observed reality.
The biggest causes of head injury in Under 14s are ;
i. accidents in the home
ii. accidents in playgrounds
iii. motor vehicle accidents (as passenger)
Cycling is only a very small percentage.
Funny how uninformed politicians always round on cycling for their doing a good deed for the community bit.
Lets have mandatory helmets in the home, it makes total sense.
Unusual to see a helmet evangelist getting shouty and opinionated, even a dollop of trying to pull heart strings.
You doubt my word?
Consider yourself proven wrong:
http://www.scienceinthebox.com/tff/
(it happened in Belgium, so it may not have appeared in the grotty rag you read)
This may or may not be the case referred to in the earlier post (urban myth investigation not my speciality). Google pops up a reference (in french) which rather indicates that the cause of the accident was poorly-secured netting from a construction site (the company failed to remedy after multiple reports)
http://www.forum-auto.com/les-clubs/section7/sujet326953.htm
Surely claiming "And his son has to live with that for the rests of his life!" sets a new low for victim-blaming.
Given the man himself was described as "a passionate champion for the use of science-based risk assessment in environmental decision-making", the fund set up in his memory doesn't appear to be lobbying for any kind of compulsory helmet laws.
Fair enough, it checks out, although the report I found states things occurred differently, but not significantly so.
Why is it important that he was a scientist?
Oh wait found it. Scientist = not dumb. Still not sure what point you're trying to make though.
Always glad to get a reference. I presume it was in all the Belgian grotty rags because the fund understandably doesn't dwell on the detail? I apologize to you for assuming you had an fictional source.
I guess I should also apologize to people who have looked at the evidence for engaging with the fallacy that individual cases mean anything. V' interesting that a fund based upon a tragedy happening to a scientist in a Pharma Co has concluded counter to the sort of statistical studies and results that are bread and butter to Pharma Cos when gauging effectiveness of their products.
I find that depressing even if much of it may be due to admirable loyalty to an ex employees family.
And on and on it goes, (helmet debate what if's) at 76 and a near lifetime of riding my bike helmetless, racing (track excepted) and leisure, I must be the equivalent of Dickens's artful dodger.
*kids of Jersey continue to play Xbox and get fat and stressed...more future adults of Jersey die of sedentary diseases*
I suggests the cyclists of Jersey organise a petition calling on all politicians to wear helmets whilst in office, especially for any TV appearance on photo opportunity.
39% of deaths in Jersey in 2012 were caused by circulatory or respiratory diseases.
I suppose people are pretty inactive over there if it's too dangerous to cycle without the helmets.
http://www.gov.je/Government/Pages/StatesReports.aspx?ReportID=1060
"The country has long lobbied for tighter laws", says the article.
Can this be true? I thought they had their own laws. Who did they lobby?
Anecdotal evidence winning over scientific evidence
Well done Jersey you backward, inbred, tax avoider shelterers you.
List of places I want to take my kids on holiday:
....
.....
Jersey
....
...
Well done!
Edit: that's meant to have Jersey crossed out but can't get the formatting to work on my phone. Rather spoils the effect, but you get what I mean!
I'm nether pro or anti helmet wearing (I like the option either way but mostly wear a helmet when riding) and I'd make a kid wear a helmet because low speed crashes not involving vehicles are common for kids, but generally I'm very much anti compulsion.
Not sure that a vehicle vs child impact has much to do with helmets when you consider how a tonne of metal and a plastic and a polystyrene box on top of a fragile child square up.
Stick a helmet law in and you can depend that the courts will use it to defend negligent drivers if they sideswipe a cyclist not wearing one and that's ridiculous. I guarantee at some point this will be used in mitgation/defence when a child under 14 is hit by a car in Jersey regardless of fault.
+ lots. Am instinctively pro choice - I wear one when bombing around off road/MTB courses, not for road/utility riding/commuting.
Also on balance, supportive of kids wearing them - they tend to be less skilled and come off their bikes more often, even without the [cough] help of cars. A little bit anti as well - they reduce uptake of cycling amongst the young. With a large proportion of kids coming out of school obese, we want to encourage more physical activity, not less. Not sure I would have been cycling now if I hadn't been doing my paper round on my Grifter and kicking up sparks with my BMX pedals on the way to school.
"Fines won't be enforced"
Another piece of legislation that will just gather dust then. Children under 10 can't commit a criminal offence. How are they going to enforce it?
One has to ask the question, if Deputy Lewis is so keen on helmets, why didn't he make sure his son wore one then?
Total bonkers legislation brought in by politicians who probably last rode a bike 40 years ago. God help us all.
Ridiculous namby-pamby nonsense. Why don't they actually examine the evidence before passing such laws?
Deputy Green, whose nine year old son received a brain injury when he was knocked off his bike said: “
Ah the classic victim blaming, rather than tackle the cause because Politicians are too spineless to do take the more difficult options
"Liz Bamber, Headway Development Officer told the Lancashire Evening Post: “Being a keen cyclist... I am staggered by the number of people still not wearing helmets.
“It is hoped that the UK will follow Jersey’s example very soon.”" - When you have ensured that every driver in the UK, is driving as per the Highway Code, then we won't need to wear helmets. As an adult I can make my own decisions thank you.
It's a pity that posts cannot be down-voted, because I would surely down-vote this, and others that solely aim at 'ignorant drivers' as being the cause of cyclists' problems.
I don't disagree that there are a lot of ignorant drivers (and cyclists) out there.
But two cases from my own (direct and indirect) experience might highlight why cyclists need to look out for themselves, irrespective of 'ignorant drivers'!
CASE 1
A friend and I were cycling around the NL/DE border around 15 years ago. We remarked on the few locals who red with helmets. My friend and I were both wearing helmets. At one point my friend went across road-level tramlines at an angle, his wheel lodged and he fell off, hitting his head on the ground.
No drivers were involved in this incident!
Anyway, we got him to the local hospital. The doctor examined him and asked him if he was wearing a helmet. When he replied that he and been, the doctor replied that he thought that was the case...and that they get a lot of head injury cases among cyclists!
CASE 2
A well-respected scientist (i.e. not 'that stupid') was cycling with his sons. They were wearing helmets, but he was not (immmm!). One of his sons was in front and wobbled into his father's path, sending his father into a ditch. Broken head, death
And his son has to live with that for the rests of his life!
MORAL
Shit can (and probably will) happen. If you don't look out for yourself, no one else will. And if they're your kids, you have to look out for them.
My children ALWAYS wear helmets. And I do too, as much to set an example. What kind of parent would not want to do all they can to protect their children while they have fun?
And anyone who really thinks that "when...every driver in the UK, is driving as per the Highway Code, then we won't need to wear helmets" is a bloody idiot!
Your two stories make you want to wear a helmet. Fine, wear one and make your kids wear one. But do you really think they are adequate evidence for a law compelling everyone else to wear one?
CASE 1, CASE 2, etc. MORAL. Most humans haven't the first clue about science and stats and look for narrative based upon individual cases. Doctors and surgeons included.
The effect of helmets on death rates (NB. Death rates not minor injury scratch rates involving stitches) as claimed by various medical professionals, vanishes when looked at on a population level. Unlike cancer and smoking etc. Conclusion. They are wrong about the death stuff and are basing their opinion upon personal experience and gut feeling not evidence based science. Like most humans do.
There's lies and damn statistics, but those statistics are still better than human confirmation bias. I don't want to be made to wear a helmet to save my life when it won't. I might choose to wear a helmet to help prevent minor injury and avoid a trip to A&E. There's a difference.
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