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Hi-Viz cyclist © Simon MacMichael.jpgMandatory hi-vis and helmets will be considered as part of government cycle safety review
The government’s cycle safety review will not be based on ‘knee jerk reaction’ but on ‘solid evidence’ according to transport minister Jesse Norman. Promising a wide-reaching look at how safety can be improved “for cyclists and other road users in relation to cycling,” he said that a number of measures would be considered, including mandatory hi-vis and helmets.
Launched in response to “a series of high profile incidents involving cyclists” according to the official press release, the government’s cycle safety review will be in two parts.
The first phase will look at whether a new offence equivalent to causing death by careless or dangerous driving should be introduced for cyclists, while the second will take a broad look at cycling road safety issues.
BikeBiz reports that while speaking at the Department for Transport sponsored Cycling + Walking Innovations 2017 conference, Norman revealed the second phase would be launched with a consultation in the new year and would be, “a wider and more embracing look at how safety can be improved for cyclists and other road users in relation to cycling.
“That could be infrastructure, education, signage and other things which could contribute to a successful and effective transition to a world in which walking and cycling are enormous. It’s not going to be based on any knee jerk reaction; it will be based on solid evidence.”
Asked whether measures up for consideration might include mandatory hi-vis or helmets, Norman replied that he didn’t have a personal position on those issues, but that they would be up for debate.
“That is something in relation to the cycle safety review where we will see what the evidence and the submissions say,” he said.
“If you want to have a society where a 12-year-old can get on a bicycle it’s a serious issue as to whether you’re going to mandate hi-vis or helmets and there will be many arguments about whether the safety benefits outweigh or do not outweigh the deterrent effect that might have on people cycling. So we’re going to leave that to the review.”
Nationwide explains why it made cycle helmets compulsory under its travel insurance
Asked whether a national standard for cycle infrastructure might be adopted, he suggested that this “could be addressed in the review when it goes out for public discussion.”
Quite what the government hopes to achieve with this review remains up for debate, with Norman emphasising the importance of making cyclists feel safe, while simultaneously claiming that British roads are among the safest in the world.
“We very much believe cyclists have to feel safe,” he said. “There has to be harmonious interaction between all road users. We have to get over the perception that cycling is somehow unsafe around busy roads when the reality is that we have some of the very safest roads in the world.”
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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79 comments
I really think this is the wrong crowd for your anecdata...
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I do hope that helmets and hi-vis are banned completely, I actively deter and tell as many people as possible not to wear plastic hats and hi-vis, the harsh reality is that no matter if you wear a plastic hat it won't save you from a serious TBI or death, in fact unless you wear one for walking or driving you're a complete hypocrite.
lights, hi-vis, helmets DO NOT help to reduce the liklihood and seriousness of INCIDENTS (an accident is something totally unavoidable).
As a survivor of a high speed crash (single person) and being offed 3 or 4 times by motorists without wearing a plastic hat I am less convinced by the need to wear one than I already was going back to the mid 80s when i first started to ride the roads more regularly and not a single ride with a hat. Having being struck in a hit and run with a set of good lights, reflectives on my pannier, heels of my shoe and on my jacket in a well lit area and seen many other instances of motorists totally not seeing people/objects I'm even less convinced that hi-vis/reflectives/lights do any good whatsoever and that plod will follow the same old BS spouted by you and others.
Maybe if you had not being wearing your helmet your head might have missed being struck altogether, maybe if you understand the maximum design capability of a helmet you'd understand that it can't reduce the forces enough to do much good over and above that if you tripped and banged your head whilst walking ...
Only if cold hard evidence shows that that would be beneficial. The effect of telling everyone that cycling is dangerous may be that more people die of inactivity related disease. And as a result of NHS sinking under the excesd weight of the population. And as cyclist miss out on safety in numbers.
I'd much rather that public funds and government policy were first focused on eliminating poor driving and vehicles with unacceptable blind spots, fixing drivers attitudes and rubbish infrastructure. I suspect there is much better evidence that all three would save far more lives.
Many cyclists seem to have internalised the idea that we're "asking for it" by getting in the way of motor vehicles. ("it" being getting killed or seriously injured, presumably).
IMHO the most significant safety problems are bad driving, bad infrastructure and bad vehicle design. Not most cyclists' clothing. Once the other stuff is fixed, sure, look at whether encouraging hi viz etc would help. They certainly don't seem to need it in the Netherlands.
By "a series of high profile incidents" they mean Charlie Alliston rode into someone while being a tool, and I'm not sure how wearing high vis and a helmet would have changed the outcome of that mess.
I wonder what my chances would be of suing Jesse Norman when I get knocked off my bike while whearing high viz and a helmet? "your honour, I was lead to believe by Jesse Norman that by wearing this suff I was immune to dickhead drivers".
Exactly. If this review is being driven by that single incident (and it certainly seems to be) surely Norman should be arguing for compulsory helmet-wearing by pedestrians.
The evidence in this case suggests that if anyone should be wearing helmets it's pedestrians.
Looking more broadly at vehicle collisions stats, motorists should be wearing the headgear.
I think a helmet could have made a lot of difference to the outcome. Specifically, if the unfortunate pedestrian had been wearing a helmet, it might just have saved her life. Most helmets are designed to protect the head from low speed incidents - exactly the kind of bumps that pedestrians are susceptible to.
I think if anything is to be learned from the Charlie Alliston incident is that more pedestrians should wear helmets.
The car lobby is in full force with their political puppets; we are a nuisance and a threat to their business; just think of it, where are electric cars the more relevant ? precisely in the cities, where bikes are the more relevant too ...
So just prepare to see more of this, a war against cycling .
This whole review is ridiculous and based on tabloid reader opinion. However, if the cyclist-hating Conservative party is looking for ideas on how to discourage cycling then the Western Australian model seems to be having some success.
Never mind track bikes with no front brake used on the road, how many times the national speed limit does a car have to be capable of doing before it is considered unsafe to use on the public highway? It would appear that we haven't reached that limit yet despite the number of times reaching nearly 4.
My opinion is that there should be double standards between cyclists, passenger vehicles motorists and professional motorists. The reason why cyclists should face lighter penalties is when somebody locks his car to cycle to work, everybody benefits. Air quality, healthcare costs, import-export balance, car traffic to name some. So the government has to promote cycling by all means, including making cycling as much as carefree as possible. Professional motorists use much more heavy and therefore dangerous vehicles and make many miles so they have to get used to really tranquil driving and in return they should receive better workhour protection to ensure that all of them is really fresh when behind the wheel.
Hopefully the analysis on mandatory helmets and hi-viz will quickly reveal that any safety benefits will be minimal and that these measures will simply deter people from cycling, the opposite of what is required to help lower obesity levels, congestion and urban pollution. But I don't hold out much hope for Jesse Norman. He seems like an utter twerp, with minimal common sense and/or intelligence. I'll be happy to be proved wrong.
If this really is to be "evidence driven" then they have not got off to a very good start, surely the first thing to look at is where the most deaths and injurys occur and focus on that first. I think they will find it is cars vs cyclists.
I think this is instead going to be "pandering to the tabloids and public mood to gain political brownie points" driven.
If you click in to the BikeBiz link in the article you'll find this:
Transport correspondent for the Sunday Times Mark Hookham asked the minister “Do you wear hi-vis and a cycle helmet when cycling and do you think they should be compulsory?”
Norman replied: “I have made it perfectly clear in previous conversations that I don’t take a position on hi-via or helmets. That is something in relation to the Cycle Safety Review where we will see what the evidence and the submissions say.
“If you want to have a society where a 12-year-old can get on a bicycle it’s a serious issue as to whether you’re going to mandate hi-vis or helmets and there will be many arguments about whether the safety benefits outweigh or do not outweigh the deterrent effect that might have on people cycling. So we’re going to leave that to the review.”
That's a transcript – the actual words can be heard on the Spokesmen podcast, where Chris Boardman's speech is also included.
http://www.the-spokesmen.com/wordpress?p=736
Thing is, people can have all the arguments they like, but the evidence suggests that the only unequivocal effect is to drive down cycling rates. If he plans to lusten to "arguments" he's already ignoring the evidence, and is in danger of ( perhaps deliberately) being swayed by the "it's obviously good, and anyway fairness, level playing field etc." buffoons, such as we have some of even here.
I have no faith in the current government at all and wouldn't trust Jesse Norman as far as I could throw him but, to be fair, in this case the mention of compulsory high-vis and helmets has come from a question posed to him. When he's just announced an evidence based review, he's hardly going to stand there and say a definite yes or no to any measure he's asked about, because to do so would be to pre-judge the review.
I've just had about enough of this garbage.
I got knocked off my bike a few months ago by a driver who had no insurance and no driving licence. The Met hasn't even got round to looking at the report (and video) yet.
Two people stepped out in front of me without even looking yesterday, and a car gave me six inches of space as it passed at about 40mph on an urban dual carriageway before stopping at the queue up ahead (which did give me the chance to have a word).
The difference between each one of those and a 'high profile incident' is measured in inches, except that two of them would be death by careless driving, wouldn't they.
If They did bring in mandatory requirement for all cycling clothing to be hi-viz/fluoro, could cycling clothing manufacturers bring a class-action suit for loss of business?
If They did, would all motor vehicles also be required to be dayglo?
I was at the conference where Jesse Norman discussed this-to be fair it was only in relation to a (probably mischievous) question from a Sunday Times reporter after the Minister had attempted to set the record straight after what he called misreporting of the Cycle Safety Review introduced after the
Chris Boardman also spoke at the conference later in the day and was characteristically excellent
I found Jesse Norman unconvincing and shallow-I had no confidence he actually "gets it" and every confidence he will be swayed by the "make them pay road tax and wear hi viz " brigade
The only reassuring presence was Chris B who was full of his usual common sense and healthy scepticism but he has got a mammoth task ahead of him-most depressing really
If Norman really understood the evidence he would simply have said that there's no useful evidence mandatory fancy dress and hats does anything except reduce cycling rates.
I was at the conference where Jesse Norman discussed this-to be fair it was only in relation to a (probably mischievous) question from a Sunday Times reporter after the Minister had attempted to set the record straight after what he called misreporting of the Cycle Safety Review introduced after the
Chris Boardman also spoke at the conference later in the day and was characteristically excellent
I found Jesse Norman unconvincing and shallow-I had no confidence he actually "gets it" and every confidence he will be swayed by the "make them pay road tax and wear hi viz " brigade
The only reassuring presence was Chris B who was full of his usual common sense and healthy scepticism but he has got a mammoth task ahead of him-most depressing really
it’s long overdue for Chris Boardman to be appointed Lord of Everything and World President for Life and a Considerable Period Beyond.
I'm looking forward to them discussing the possibility of presumed liability for motorists being part of the options discussed, with ann evidence-based look into the impact its had on road safety in the Netherlands and Denmark.
I just knew this was coming, thanks Chris for chirping in on here, we can only hope that your weight and that of others can stop this abhorrent push to force the vulnerable to armour themselves up against those posing the harm especially since we already know that niether hi-vis nor helmets work to improve safety, quite the reverse in fact.
As someone who has riden the best part of 200,000 mile since the mid 80s and not a mile with a lid I would rather go to prison than be forced to wear a helmet, as for hi-vis, no thanks, as with helmets it lowers the responsibility of those posing the harm, just in the same way as compulsary rear lights have done for cyclists since the 20s/30s which just allowed motorists to go faster and use excuse after excuse for killing and maiming, all the whilst police, CPS, government and judges suck it all in to the point where we have cases like Michael Mason being blamed by the Met police for his demise, not seeing that the killer did anything wrong and jury aquitting the killer in minutes and that only after a private prosecution.
I will fight this BS to my last breath!
"Evidence driven" unfortunately depends upon which particular evidence you decide you'll allow or are biased in favour of. I can't help suspecting that only evidence will be presented which supports an already-intended course of action...
(PS - Is username 'Chris_boardman' the real St Chris or just an impostor?
)
I did some Google stalking and tracked down a couple of Chris_Boardman's earlier posts, I'm convinced he's the real deal (and been a registerd user for for several years):
http://road.cc/content/news/132631-chris-boardman-calls-free-bikes-nhs
http://road.cc/content/news/133351-biggin-hill-resident-rails-against-lycra-louts%E2%80%99
http://road.cc/content/news/98554-boardman-launch-2014-elite-series
We need more level-headed, reasonable, knowledgeable people like Chris engaged in the nation-wide cycling discussion.
Chris is one of the few people who makes comments based on evidence and rational thinking. Unlike the press (and dare I say it, politicians) who have knee-jerk reactions.
Who voted this shower of shite into power?
So the cycle safety review will be in two parts, the first about cyclists killing pedestrians and the second about drivers killing cyclists. Pardon my cynicism, but i'm betting the first will report quickly and will reccommend that more laws apply to cyclists, and will be announced with a great fanfare, while the second will take years, won't change anything and will be quietly forgotten.
Perhaps if Mr Norman had said they would be in the reverse order, since that makes sense from a casualty point of view, I might have a little more faith. It would definitely be that way around if it was evidence based, as Mr Norman claims, so this is nonsense from the very first words out of his mouth.
I've long thought it will be forced through, and I still think it will.
What a travesty this country is.
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