Day 3 of the Times Cities Fit for Cycling Campaign… a bit of a backlash

dave_atkinson wrote:

Quote:

There's so many more things that adversely affect us as cyclists, I wish all our efforts were directed against those.

Me too. but unfortunately we often find ourselves in the position of opposing people who seem to think that a bit of polystyrene and some yellow clothes will solve all cyclists' problems, and that our safety issues are self-inflicted.

to be frank Dave that's a connection that you're assuming the non-cycling public is making and I just don't think its a correct one. But its not wrong to expect people to take the responsibility for their actions, possibly we'd all be better off if in general people balanced rights with responsibility.
A helmet won't save your life in some/many situations but a helmet certainly saved the life of a number of cyclists. It never makes an accident worse and to not wear one can understandably be viewed as reckless or worse.

fred22 wrote:

A helmet won't save your life in some/many situations but a helmet certainly saved the life of a number of cyclists.

in your opinion, of course. There's no proof of that whatsoever.

andyp wrote:

fred22 wrote:

A helmet won't save your life in some/many situations but a helmet certainly saved the life of a number of cyclists.

in your opinion, of course. There's no proof of that whatsoever.

Did you read my earlier comment about my friend headbutting a dry stone wall ?

Scroll back through, read my comment and then say a helmet never saved a life.

If your (stumps') friend's helmet split into several pieces as you say then it's unlikely that it worked as it is supposed to. Helmets are supposed to crush (below a certain force threshold) and absorb energy. Above that threshold they split and absorb much less energy.

The doctors that stated that his life was saved were speaking far outside of their professional expertise.

fred22 wrote:

to be frank Dave that's a connection that you're assuming the non-cycling public is making and I just don't think its a correct one. But its not wrong to expect people to take the responsibility for their actions.

i disagree here. i'm all for everyone being responsible, but the focus on high viz and helmets attempts to shift the responsibility for avoiding accidents onto cyclists, as if the lack of them is what's causing the deaths. it isn't. But the response of non cycling folk is often along these lines:

http://road.cc/content/news/34847-cyclist-who-died-after-being-hit-three...

collisions involving cyclists and motorists are predominantly caused by the actions of motorists. All the stats show that. people die on bikes in collisions with vehicles predominantly because other people drive those vehicles badly.

http://road.cc/content/news/12065-cyclists-not-blame-road-casualties-say...

There's any number of ways to mitigate that risk. The best one by far is to build well-designed and segregated facilities for cyclists in cities. Slower cars is another (http://road.cc/content/news/48413-slowing-motorists-down-best-way-increa...) Mutual respect in shared spaces is needed. education and proper enforcement can help. Helmets are a red herring. High viz too.

I wear a helmet. all the time. I wear a high viz jacket too, when it's murky out. But these are not the things that will bring about big improvements in safer cycling.

mattsccm wrote:

The compulsory use of seat belts is also wrong.

Indeed, making seatbelts compulsory resulted in an increase in cyclist and pedestrian injuries because seatbelts meant people were enabled to drive like tw@ts without getting killed.

First of all: CrackPOTnell strikes again! And Jon "Dangerous" Snow reaffirms why I've joined a CCN group instead of CTC. Some of CTC's grass-roots volunteers do a great job, but they need to get rid of Jon Snow.

JohnS wrote:

making seatbelts compulsory resulted in an increase in cyclist and pedestrian injuries because seatbelts meant people were enabled to drive like tw@ts without getting killed.

Also, a surprising number of them do things like sitting on top of the seatbelts in order to stop the warning chimes, as I saw when doing an AA Streetwatch count near a school, which can't be good for their driving position (the shoulder fixing leans them forwards a bit) and control of the car.

Helmets would save a minority of cyclists in fatal collisions. Compulsion would deter some cyclists, so increase fatalities according the CTC Safety In Numbers study findings, plus there's the effect of some of the population getting less exercise. So I'm against compulsion, despite often wearing one.

The Times 12-point safety graphic is facile. Half the points are presented as a cyclist-only change and half of those are very debatable: 1. helmets/hi-vis/bike; 2. no-headphones; 4. use badly-maintained cycle tracks instead of roads; 7. don't overtake stopped buses; 11. stopping distances; 12. training. It has nothing about campaigning for better road design, keeping to routes popular with cyclists or using specialist route planners like cyclestreets.net - makes you wonder if the author cycles or not.

I think there are two big measures not mentioned in The Times list:

1. Bikeability (not some new undefined "cycle safety" idea) as a prerequisite of the driving test (both first and retest) unless there's a medical or similar reason to exempt someone;

2. More bobbies on bicycles, notifying nearby patrol cars of who's driving dangerously, and with some of them filming and popping round for a word later, with a fixed penalty notice if it was obvious like stopping in a bike-only box at lights.

Quite agree fred22 lets focus on what's going to improve conditions for cycling, enforced helmet wearing isn't one of them as is clearly explained in the article.

Fred22,

In 2006 I was hit by a negligent motorist who overtook me and cut me up by turning left. I was thrown over the bonnet and landed on the road, injuring to my head. I'm glad I wasn't wearing a helmet, the way I landed means it would have only made it worse. True story. Get over yourself.