School that confiscates bikes if helmets aren't worn claims more children are now riding to school

Beecho wrote:

Stats and experts. Didn’t the country decide they were all bollocks in 2016?

Yes, that’s a Brexit reference and I’m here to claim my road.cc socks.

You've misspelled 'cuntry'.

Or 'Gove'..?

p33mul wrote:

This is good news. Perhaps The assistant head, Buckenham, will publish the statistics to show that her actions have improved the accident rate. Other schools will then have to follow suit.

I doubt she will, becuase she doesn't appear to have any relevant statistics.  Or to understand those she does have.

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

p33mul wrote:

This is good news. Perhaps The assistant head, Buckenham, will publish the statistics to show that her actions have improved the accident rate. Other schools will then have to follow suit.

 

I doubt she will, becuase she doesn't appear to have any relevant statistics.  Or to understand those she does have.

That's my point exactly. Perhaps I was being a bit too subtle.

JonRogersUK wrote:

Thanks for replies to me.

It seems to me that the most likely reason for stopping your child from cycling once a rule to wear helmets was brought in was to make a fuss in the local and/or national media, nothing to do with the child.

If you know the area around FPS you'll know there is no physical space for a protected cycle lane but there is plenty of work to do around encouraging parents of the two schools on the road from driving (both off which are linked into one MAT in terms of leadership). Perhaps suggesting ways of doing this would be more helpful than accusing the staff of lying, of not caring about child safety or of being nazis? Judging from the number of experts in these comments on road safety, education and parental responsibility we should have sorted it by Monday morning!

Like any of these discussions, it will remain one-sided until you do some research into the negative effects of encouraged/enforced helmet wearing.

Your point about the parent preventing their child riding in protest is facile, and completely misses the very essence of the protest. If you really want to understand, and not just pontificate via the poor disguise of feigned innocence, read some pages not too far from here.

If you only want to pontificate, I refer you to Arkell vs Pressdram.

davel wrote:

JonRogersUK wrote:

Thanks for replies to me.

It seems to me that the most likely reason for stopping your child from cycling once a rule to wear helmets was brought in was to make a fuss in the local and/or national media, nothing to do with the child.

If you know the area around FPS you'll know there is no physical space for a protected cycle lane but there is plenty of work to do around encouraging parents of the two schools on the road from driving (both off which are linked into one MAT in terms of leadership). Perhaps suggesting ways of doing this would be more helpful than accusing the staff of lying, of not caring about child safety or of being nazis? Judging from the number of experts in these comments on road safety, education and parental responsibility we should have sorted it by Monday morning!

Like any of these discussions, it will remain one-sided until you do some research into the negative effects of encouraged/enforced helmet wearing. Your point about the parent preventing their child riding in protest is facile, and completely misses the very essence of the protest. If you really want to understand, and not just pontificate via the poor disguise of feigned innocence, read some pages not too far from here. If you only want to pontificate, I refer you to Arkell vs Pressdram.

The research concerning the negative effects of helmets is far from conclusive or thorough. If your concern is focussed on the “it discourages cycling”, bear in mind that “that’s not proven yet”. Plenty of things potentially discourage cycling, so it’s unhelpful to focus on just one. There are plenty of  things that a school can do to help mitigate barriers to cycling, including the “I don’t want to wear a helmet” barrier.

mrtrilby wrote:

The research concerning the negative effects of helmets is far from conclusive or thorough. If your concern is focussed on the “it discourages cycling”, bear in mind that “that’s not proven yet”. Plenty of things potentially discourage cycling, so it’s unhelpful to focus on just one. There are plenty of  things that a school can do to help mitigate barriers to cycling, including the “I don’t want to wear a helmet” barrier.

The research concerning the negative effects of helmet laws and propganda is rather more conclusive and thorough than the research showing their benefits.

It has been proven many times that helmet propaganda and laws discourage cycling, so you're assertion that it isn't proven is nonsense.

You're right, plenty of things discourage cycling, but the biggest one is safety, and the answer to that isn't helmets, and since they have no proven benefit, but proven disbenefits, any helmet promotion is wrong and just a distraction from measures that do work.

There are plenty of things a school can to to help mitigate barriers to cycling, but a helmet rule isn't one of them, in fact it puts another barrier up, on totally spurious grounds.

You might not like it, but this rule was brought in by ignorant, dictatorial people who refuse to face the facts, and won't tackle the real problems, they just want to look as if they are doing something.  If they admitted they were wrong, then they might garner some respect, but they just keep digging themselves deeper.

mrtrilby wrote:

The research concerning the negative effects of helmets is far from conclusive or thorough.

Ditto positive effects. And you know exactly where the burden of proof lies, so this is deflection*

*that's accurate use of 'deflection', Richie.

JonRogersUK wrote:

If you know the area around FPS you'll know there is no physical space for a protected cycle lane

Eh?

https://goo.gl/maps/Yc5Lxghx8QS2
https://goo.gl/maps/H1KTCa1rTgS2

Jitensha Oni wrote:

JonRogersUK wrote:

If you know the area around FPS you'll know there is no physical space for a protected cycle lane

Eh?

https://goo.gl/maps/Yc5Lxghx8QS2
https://goo.gl/maps/H1KTCa1rTgS2

 

Looks to me that there are plenty of railings to lock a bike up to.

No need to take then onto school property so the school should be unable to impose it's odd regulations on those cyclists.

JonRogersUK wrote:

Thanks for replies to me.

It seems to me that the most likely reason for stopping your child from cycling once a rule to wear helmets was brought in was to make a fuss in the local and/or national media, nothing to do with the child.

If you know the area around FPS you'll know there is no physical space for a protected cycle lane but there is plenty of work to do around encouraging parents of the two schools on the road from driving (both off which are linked into one MAT in terms of leadership). Perhaps suggesting ways of doing this would be more helpful than accusing the staff of lying, of not caring about child safety or of being nazis? Judging from the number of experts in these comments on road safety, education and parental responsibility we should have sorted it by Monday morning!

The kids ride on the pavement. 

Difficult, eh?

Peowpeowpeowlasers wrote:

And yet the buffoons in the school force the cyclists to be inconvenienced - not the lazy fatarse bone-idle parents who can't be bothered to walk a mile to collect their kids.  The lazy idiots who sit there in the cold, with their diesel engines polluting the air, as they post updates on Facebook.

On any rational scale I can come up with, the driver is bottom of the food chain. In a car you are warm, dry, with comforts and entertainment, while you damage the air and roads, and ruin lives.

In no sane society would they be pandered to - and yet that's what we have.

Barraob1 wrote:

So the teachers are bike mechanics as well? Interesting. Parents should clamp teachers cars until this shit stops

Senior management's cars. I expect there are many on the staff facepalming this decision. As an aside at our place the head bought me two workstands, tools and a load of consumables to allow me to help pupils fix their bikes. We had a notice in the newsletter home that winter was in its way so fit some lights please. That's it.

JonRogersUK wrote:

Genuine question: can anyone explain why a parent would allow a child to cycle without a helmet but not allow them to cycle with one?

Can't speak for the individual mentioned above, but I guess one of:

- Not wanting to make cycling seem like such a dangerous activity to indulge in that a helmet is required.

- Wanting to imbue in your child that cycling is just as valid a method of getting around as walking, riding a bus or driving, none of which require a helmet.

- Point of principle; why should the school dictate parents' choices outside the school gates?  Blindly giving in to authority for a quiet life is not a happy path to follow.

JonRogersUK wrote:

Genuine question: can anyone explain why a parent would allow a child to cycle without a helmet but not allow them to cycle with one?

I understand that this parent has done research that shows helmets will not neccessarily save a childs life in an acident with a vehicle. I understand that helmets are not magical hats to ward off speeding metal boxes. But is there a reason why we would stop our children from wearing them?

As well as the post above, there is also rotational injuries to worry about and the increased chance of actually hitting your head.  Never mind the fact that kids generally don’t fit their helmets correctly.

Cycling should be seen as normal, not something you have to dress up in armour to do.

JonRogersUK wrote:

Genuine question: can anyone explain why a parent would allow a child to cycle without a helmet but not allow them to cycle with one?

I understand that this parent has done research that shows helmets will not neccessarily save a childs life in an acident with a vehicle. I understand that helmets are not magical hats to ward off speeding metal boxes. But is there a reason why we would stop our children from wearing them?

Kids on their own don't ask to wear helmets, no kid ever when starting to ride a bike said, please daddy/mummy can I have a helmet, this is a simple fact, it's not parents stopping their kids from wearing it's parents forcing helmets on their kids.

For me, it never entered my head, I've never worn a helmet in my life, I've never felt the need to despite commuting in some urban jungles, high speed dual carriageways/bypass roads and slinging myself down some steep stuff at speeds that have topped out at mid 50s mph. None of my younger siblings did, none of my friends did as kids and when my son started cycling around with his mates circa 2009 at the age of 8 none of them had plastic hats either.

At 10 he was cycling to school down the back road (NSL/8% gradient) with me for the first few weeks and I'd cycle to meet him so we could cycle back together, I had cycled wioth him in the summer on road so that he could build up his confidence to do 20+mph down the descent. After that he was on his own, he managed not to die doing this for 7 years. None of his friends managed to die/get injured and 95% of them didn't wear helmets and probably because their parents were similar to me. It's the new gen of parents/cyclists who have fell for all the BS and hype and reacting to the fear mongering and emotive driven pictures, add in promotion of helmets by local authorities and government along with fear campaigns and lies by BHIT et al  and you have parents thinking their kids need helmets, yet ignore the fact they're more at risk elsewhere in society. And yet kids still want to just get on a bike and cycle without fannying around with a helmet, that's what attracted all of us, the unadulterated freedom.

We let helmets take over as it's slowly done and we end up just like Australia and NZ, absolute shitholes for cycling and police targetting us and fining us for doing something that harms no-one, pushed off roads (a la A63) and yet more victim blaming.

Allowing kids to just ride now is massively important for the future, helmets as I've said before are the singular worst thing to happen to cycling since motors were allowed to go much above 10mph, the negative effect they have had on cycling is seismic!

Genuine question: can anyone explain why a parent would allow a child to get into a car without a helmet but force them to cycle with one? You know because more kids die of head injuries alone in motors in the UK than the total number of kids dying on bikes?
Why, because the agenda driven BS magnifies a relatively insignificant figure into a totally massive shit storm.
1.3Million reported head injuries annually in the UK, circa 300,000 hospitalisations and a tiny fraction of that number are people on bikes yet it's that group that are targetted to wear the body armour and be chastised, blamed and often ridiculed and excluded for not wearing.
It's total BS
 

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

 

Kids on their own don't ask to wear helmets,

Kids on their own don’t ask to wear seatbelts, go to school, do their homework, or eat green vegetables either. Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t though. 

mrtrilby wrote:

Kids on their own don’t ask to wear seatbelts, go to school, do their homework, or eat green vegetables either. Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t though. 

The problem with your rubbish argument is that you conflate going to school and eating nutritious food, both of which have proven benefits, with wearing a cycle helmet, which doesn't.

mrtrilby wrote:

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

 

Kids on their own don't ask to wear helmets,

 

Kids on their own don’t ask to wear seatbelts, go to school, do their homework, or eat green vegetables either. Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t though. 

Hahahaha, comedy gold, are you related to Rich _cb, he comes up with some pearlers that are total bollocks too?

No really, you don't see the massive polar opposite between the damage wearing helmets does to your comparisons, jesus wept!

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

mrtrilby wrote:

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

 

Kids on their own don't ask to wear helmets,

 

Kids on their own don’t ask to wear seatbelts, go to school, do their homework, or eat green vegetables either. Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t though. 

Hahahaha, comedy gold, are you related to Rich _cb, he comes up with some pearlers that are total bollocks too?

No really, you don't see the massive polar opposite between the damage wearing helmets does to your comparisons, jesus wept!

If you’re really claiming that helmets only cause damage and have no positive benefits, then you’re simply wrong, and it sounds like you’re arguing from a position of ideology rather than objective fact. There are arguments for and against the wearing of helmets. How you balance those arguments is an opinion, and not a fact. I would suggest that deciding the balance is not a straightforward exercise, and requires rather more nuance than you appear to be applying.

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

Genuine question: can anyone explain why a parent would allow a child to get into a car without a helmet but force them to cycle with one? You know because more kids die of head injuries alone in motors in the UK than the total number of kids dying on bikes?

Because there is a difference between absolute and relative risk.

Rich_cb wrote:

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

Genuine question: can anyone explain why a parent would allow a child to get into a car without a helmet but force them to cycle with one? You know because more kids die of head injuries alone in motors in the UK than the total number of kids dying on bikes?

Because there is a difference between absolute and relative risk.

Never mind car helmets, why put a child in a car at all?

I strongly suspect that the choice to use a car for the school run is a more serious health risk than the choice to not use a helmet.

Of course, to work out the comparitive effects needs a lot of data.  You could start with about 20-30,000 premature deaths a year due to traffic pollution as several studies have found.  Then you'd have to somehow work out how to add in the effect of physical inactivity on heart-disease and other illnesses, with particular reference to acuiring a habit of not engaging in such activity early in life.

  Then you'd have to work out what contribution each individual school run made to those death rates.  And then finally add in the RTA deaths and injuries.

It's true this would be _very_ complicated, but then so is the attempt to work out the effect of bike helmets, and the complete inability to come up with a definite answer to that doesn't seem to have stopped them making a rule about that issue.

Personally, I think its overwhelmingly likely, especially given the pollution deaths, that the car use is a bigger problem than the non-helmet use.

So the school needs to address that problem first.  So start by banning the use of cars for school runs for anyone closer than, say, 3  miles?  Perhaps electric cars could get more leeway?

Of course it wouldn't happen because there would be too much parental resistence, which demonstrates the point that this is entirely about power, not health.