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news
White cycle helmetNationwide explains why it made cycle helmets compulsory under its travel insurance
Nationwide, the UK’s biggest building society, have clarified why they are introducing a requirement under the travel insurance provided to FlexPlus current account holders for them to wear a helmet while cycling on holiday.
As we reported yesterday, the change will come into effect on 21 September and was notified to the building society’s members who benefit from the insurance in a booklet outlining various changes to the cover provided.
While there was some widening of coverage for cycling – previously, “off road biking” but cover now includes riding on “bridle ways and forest roads.” However, there is a new stipulation that a helmet must be worn.
Meanwhile, “BMX or [cycling] on downhill or extreme trails” is excluded.
In an email to road.cc today, Nationwide explained why it had decided to impose the requirement to wear a cycle helmet.
It said: “The change made to the policy concerning the wearing of bicycle helmets while cycling is intended to provide greater clarity regarding the ‘reasonable care’ we expect our customers to take while on holiday. This change is intended to help to protect our members’ welfare.
“Whilst we accept an individual’s choice to wear a helmet or not, there is an increased risk of head injury for those people who choose not to wear a helmet,” added Nationwide (although anyone who has followed the helmet debate will know that even academic opinion is split on that issue.
“As an insurer, we feel the requirement to wear a helmet when cycling is a responsible approach to encourage safe cycling for our members,” Nationwide went on.
But it clarified that “the change in wording applies only in cases where an injury resulting from riding a bike would have been avoided or minimised through the wearing of a helmet.”
We also asked Nationwide what the implications of the change to its insurance coverage were for people who use bike-sharing schemes, such as the Vélib’ scheme in Paris.
The building society said: “These bikes are treated no differently to any other cycle used on a trip.
“If a customer chooses not to wear a helmet and suffers a head injury as a result of a cycle accident, this would not be covered by the policy terms and conditions.”
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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"We also asked Nationwide what the implications of the change to its insurance coverage were for people who use bike-sharing schemes, such as the Vélib’ scheme in Paris.
The building society said: “These bikes are treated no differently to any other cycle used on a trip.If a customer chooses not to wear a helmet and suffers a head injury as a result of a cycle accident, this would not be covered by the policy terms and conditions.” "
Which is why I cancelled my Nationwide paid account and took out travel insurance with someone else.If they'e not going to cover me for a perfectly normal activity like riding a hired bike in Amsterdam then the policy is useless. It makes me wonder what other get-out claused they have to avoid paying out because I took part in a very low risk activity.
'Weaknesses with a meta-analysis approach to assessing cycle helmets'.
Feb 2017
refers to;
In New Zealand, from 1989 to 2011, average time spent cycling (on roads and footpaths) fell by 79% for children aged 5-12 (from 28 to 6 minutes per person per week) and 81% for 13-17 year olds (52 to 10 mins/person/week).
Adult cycling declined from 8 to 5 minutes/person/week then trended back up to 8 minutes. Graphs of cycle use over time provide strong evidence that the requirement to wear a helmet discouraged cycling. The reductions in cycling were accompanied by increased injury rates. Between 1989 and 2012, fatal or serious injuries per million hours of cycling increased by 86% for children (from 49 to 91), 181% for teenagers (from 18 to 51) and 64% for adults (from 23 to 38).
and
Robinson 1996 also refers to the incidence of hitting their head/helmet in a cycling accident was "significantly higher for helmet wearers (8/40 vs 13/476, i.e. 20% vs 2.7%, p 0.00001)". A bare head width of approximately 150mm may avoid contact compared to a helmeted head at approximately 200mm width. Helmet wearers often report hitting their helmets and the 7 fold increase may have long term effects that may not show up in a meta–analysis.
Erke and Elvik 2007 examined research from Australia and New Zealand and stated: "There is evidence of increased accident risk per cycling-km for cyclists wearing a helmet. In Australia and New Zealand, the increase is estimated to be around 14 per cent." The findings were based on six reports, four from when legislation was in place.
and
Ref 104 mentions;
A recent report detailed that cyclists wearing helmets had more than twice the odds of suffering an injury than cyclists not wearing helmets, (104) with an OR value 2.81, 95% CL =1.14, 6.94.
Interesting read Concorde.
My statement isn't too sweeping though and I was nearer the middle of the fence press crash. But sitting here with an arm that is hanging limp in agony and without a blemish on the head/face with a totalled helmet, it's fair to say I'm happy to ha e lost the £70 not to have found out...
Has Dinosaur JR been ban-hammered?
"Nationwide explains why it made cycle helmets compulsory under its travel insurance"
A more accurate headline would have been "Nationwide fails to explain why it mades helmets compulsory and displays its profound ignorance on the subject"
A wise man might consider re-assigning their investments if Nationwide make decisions based on complete ignorance.
If I look online I can find arguments that smoking is good for you. That's it makes you thinner, stops dementia. Spouting statistics on helmets to prove an argument is pointless.
Ultimately, if you're unhappy with Nationwide, bank with someone else.
This is what they say
"The change in wording applies only in cases where an injury resulting from riding a bike would have been avoided or minimised through the wearing of a helmet.”"
But this is how they will apply it
"If a customer chooses not to wear a helmet and suffers a head injury as a result of a cycle accident, this would not be covered by the policy terms and conditions.”"
There is really very little relationship between the 2 statements. The first is all but impossible to prove, the second simply gives them an out on the slightest of pretexts.
@rich_cb, there's no way of asking this question/making this point without sounding like a twat, so apologies in advance: I mean it with some respect because you're usually a logical contributor (we disagree on some things but I'm not adamant that I'm right on all of them).
You seem like you might know something about the topic of injuries here - and I know when I don't know anything about a topic. Do you work for the NHS? I don't want to kick the other thread off again, but you seem like you haven't got a clue about financial products and product management - not a dig, and there'll be no follow-up digs but an NHS career would explain it (at any rate it's a more worthy way of paying the bills than I chose).
(won't think anything of it if you don't deign to reply - just curious)
I read rich_cb's post. I think he has a good grasp on how insurance companies handle their risk.... just saying.
I do work in the NHS, in Anaesthetics, I deal with a lot of head injuries so my opinions are based on a reasonable amount of experience but I certainly wouldn't claim to be an expert.
.
These "free" insurance policy are dreadful and an exercise in not paying claims(even worse than a normal insurance policy). I all likely hooded they have had to deal with 1 bad head injury due to cycling without a helmet and that pushed there poorly underwritten polices into a loss last year and this is there reaction. The fact that they will also be dealing with hundreds of head injuries due to car accidents year but will have underwritten this more accurately.
Wear a helmet, don't wear a helmet, but don't go on holiday with just the cover of a policy from your bank account.
Other Insurers are available...
As the story relates to the Netherlands, fingers crossed that the European Healthcare Insurance Card (newish name for the old E1 11 scheme) does not get thrown out with the Brexit bath water.
The coroner for my girlfriend's death said a helmet would almost certainly have saved her life. That's enough for me and he confessed to cycling without one.
You have my sympathies, helmet debates must really seem quite puerile to you.
RIP sister.
My most deepest sympathy for you, her friends & family. I can't imagine the loss.
However coroners are not infallible. They come out with as much bollocks as the rest of the helmet brigade: http://road.cc/content/news/34847-cyclist-who-died-after-being-hit-three...
See also A&E staff.
My mate dressed for a ride slipped on his stairs at home & woke up in A&E with a skull fracture. The staff treating him, looked at the cycling kit they'd cut off him & said "Good job you were wearing a helmet, otherwise you would have died" He said he wasn't wearing a helmet and their respone was "You must always wear a helmet!"
TBH using wooden stairs with cycling shoes, it is hard to argue against but you don't see safety campaigns highlighting it.
The old 'Laura Ashley Maneuver'!
"Meanwhile, “BMX or [cycling] on downhill or extreme trails” is excluded."
How bizarre, the cycling acitivities where you're most likely to crash and suffer a head injury do not require a helmet? BC requires BMX racers to wear a full face MX style helmet, not even one of those silly plastic hat things.
I think they are excluding those activities from the insurance as opposed to excluding the necessity for a helmet.
One for the helmet debates, the metal pole I hit on an off on Ventoux has broken my shoulder quite badly and left my helmet a mess. Very glad I was wearing it!,
so a non wearer firstly would have ridden more cautiously and probably not hit the pole/had the off, second if the event was unavoidable the liklihood is they would have not hit their head due to not increasing the circumference of their head.
These are precisely the reasons why helmets fail to help and yet people like yourself can only correlate your situation/outcome of a broken helmet as being the function of it helping you when all the evidence says actually from a statistical POV it was detrimental to you.
A few times I was glad I'm not a helmet wearer because i would definitely have being injured/had a head strike, one occasion it definitely saved my life by not wearing one.
Surely by your logic, because you believe helmets to be detrimental to your safety, had you been wearing one on these occassions then you would have ridden more carefully and avoided the incident entirely?
I didn't realise you were there, thanks for your assistance on the mountain and calling the ambulance.
As a counter argument, I climbed Ventoux, slowly wearing a helmet. I came down Ventoux evidently a little too quickly wearing a helmet. Given the massive fucking drops off the side, never once did I think ahhh this will be fine, I am wearing a helmet. I went at what I considered to be a controllable speed until something went horribly wrong coming out of a corner and the back wheel got all slippy and then the reverse breaks clocked me up.
As for the increased head circumference, my whole body hit one of those weird big metal poles as a smashed shoulder will testify. The smashed helmet merely suggests that my skull would in all likelihood suffer the same fate had I not been wearing it.
I have said many a time before that those suggesting a helmet will save your body being squished by a 4 tonne truck are fucking idiots. I can only conclude that someone thinking that a piece of protective equipment could never once have been protected by that piece of equipment is heading the same way...
I was doored in an accident that was pretty much impossible to avoid even with the benefit of hindsight, yet this guy saw fit to tell me where I'd gone wrong and how wearing a helmet didn't save me from injury. Not worth arguing with.
Would love to see the evidence for this as it does beggar belief that you'd take more risks in traffic or descending a mountain with a tiny bit of foam on your head.
Having said that, I very very occasionally don't wear a helmet going into London and all I can see in my mind on the ride is the Daily Mail article about the squashed cyclist too stupid to wear a helmet. Makes you paranoid and ride at half the speed so maybe you are safer without one!
http://www.cycle-helmets.com/P885.pdf
I wouldn't base too much on that study.
It had a tiny number of participants and the selection process was so flawed that its findings are essentially irrelevant.
It's anecdotal which doesn't make it anec-data I know
but I did have a friend who did MTB and used to chuck himself down mountains,and one day had a massive off, head hit massive rock, helmet split in two, 'totally saved his life' etc, but digging into it was a near vertical 10ft cliff type drop off course surrounded by boulders, if he'd made it the bike would likely have broken anyway, why did you think you could make that we asked, well it was alright he said I knew I was wearing a helmet... genuinely some people do take more risks because they believe they are being protected
they don't protect against very much.
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/papers/c2023.pdf
as it says in the article, the subject is too complicated for sweeping statements.
I didn't realise you were so dumb you can't even understand basic English language never mind so dumb to crash into a pole on a mountain descent.
I don't need to be there for my statements to be true/accurate, statistics, facts such as risk homeostasis being an actual thing and a helmets being too flimsy to be physically capable of reducing a serious injury 75joules being about the max reduction) and the additional fact of an increased circumference when wearing mean that without a helmet you and others like you would be much less likely to have the incident in the first place as I said. This is an undeniable fact otherwise we'd have had pandemic levels of deaths/serious head injuries before helmets became a thing and why helmets have had precisely ZERO impact on cycle safety injury/death reduction.
Stop being an ignoramous of the facts!
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