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Cyclists at traffic lights, London © Simon MacMichaelConservative MP cites "safety" and attempts to reignite cyclist helmet debate
Despite repeated opposition to the idea of mandatory helmet laws for cyclists from his own party's government, one Conservative MP has penned an opinion piece explaining why he believes such legislation should be introduced.
Just last December the Department for Transport insisted that the government has "no intention" to make wearing a helmet while cycling a legal requirement, however Mark Pawsey, MP for Rugby in the West Midlands, has said he will "continue to call for change" having first raised the issue in Parliament in June.
The MP who has held his seat since 2010 expanded on the argument outlined during his initial call for legislation earlier this summer, telling the story of a constituent, then-teenage Oliver Dibsdale who suffered a serious brain injury in a cycling crash when he was not wearing a helmet.
"Before I met Oliver, I took the view that a helmet was a matter of personal choice, and that any legal requirement to wear a helmet would be difficult to enforce," Pawsey wrote in a piece published on Road Safety GB, a road safety organisation last month accused of "victim-blaming" over its promotion of a cycling helmet campaign by another regional group.
"Oliver told me that he usually wore a helmet when cycling and that he bitterly regrets his decision on that occasion to ride without one. He spoke to me in a very moving way about the impact his injury has had on his family and the guilt he feels for the amount of time they have had to spend caring for him. He very much wants to help other families to avoid this fate."
Pawsey recalls how he and Oliver met Trudy Harrison, the head of the Department for Transport at the time, who engaged in an "excellent discussion" but insisted helmets "should be a matter of choice, not compulsory", the view still held by the government.
> Government shuts down mandatory cycling helmets question from Conservative MP
"Oliver continued to disagree," he explained. "And drew my attention to a number of arguments which I have found persuasive. Oliver points out that it is illegal to drive a car without a seatbelt and that it is compulsory to wear a helmet on a motorcycle.
"To this, those who oppose mandatory wearing of cycle helmets respond that there is a health benefit from using a bicycle, and that there should not be any discouragement of cycling. Oliver replies to this that, if people wish to exercise, there are many ways of doing so that present less risk; he points out that people can walk, run, take up a sport or go to the gym.
"Another argument cited by opponents to mandatory wearing of cycle helmets is that legislation would be difficult to enforce. While it would certainly create an additional burden on the police, it does not strike me as particularly difficult to enforce compared with other offences: it is easier to spot a cyclist without a helmet than to spot a driver using a mobile phone, or a car passenger without a seatbelt.
"No one now suggests that wearing seatbelts should be a matter of individual choice on the basis of difficulty in enforcing the relevant legislation."
Pawsey raised the issue during a 'Ten Minute Rule Bill' earlier this summer, asking for the government to "require a person riding a bicycle on the public highway to wear a safety helmet".
"I continue to believe that helmets should be mandatory, particularly for children," he concluded. "Following my Ten Minute Rule Bill, Headway, who are supportive of my call for mandatory helmets for cyclists, have asked me to become a 'Headway Parliamentary Champion'.
> Why is Dan Walker's claim that a bike helmet saved his life so controversial?
"I will continue to call for a change in the law, and I would encourage all readers who share my view to make the case to their own Member of Parliament."
Such change seems unlikely, in December the government responding to a written question from fellow Tory MP Mark Pritchard asking for a mandatory helmet law by saying the matter had been considered "at length" during the cycling and walking safety review in 2018, with the Department for Transport holding "no intention" to make it mandatory.
"The Department considered this matter at length in a comprehensive cycling and walking safety review in 2018 and held discussions with a wide range of stakeholders as part of that review," the DfT said.
"The safety benefits of mandating cycle helmets for cyclists are likely to be outweighed by the fact that this would put some people off cycling, thereby reducing the wider health and environmental benefits. The Department recommends that cyclists should wear helmets, as set out in the Highway Code, but has no intention to make this a legal requirement."
Research published from Australia in the same week as Pawsey's 'Ten Minute Bill' proposal found that cyclists wearing helmets were seen as "less human" than those without.
The research by Mark Limb of Queensland University of Technology and Sarah Collyer of Flinders University found that 30 per cent considered cyclists less than fully human, and that cyclists with helmets were perceived as less human compared to those without, while cyclists with safety vests and no helmets were perceived as least human.
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
Latest Comments
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Might have rather a counter-productive effect if there are any downhills on their cycle route.
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Especially given the paintwork hardly looks pristine.
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Top sports people have to focus on their sport, or they won't be the top of their sport. That they focus intensively on their sport does not give...
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Putting in a single cycle lane isn't enough. Nobody just rides up and down the same road again and again. Your need a network of cycling...
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GCN just did a cool video on this. All I could think by the end was that perhaps if you got to do what the presenter did and mince around Italy in...
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I missed that, thanks for pointing it out. I can't comment, as that's outside my area of expertise. Apologies to Rendel. This is why they should be...
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127 comments
Funnily enough in industrial situations there's quite a lot of legislation around the use of ladders. Working at heights directive etc. I think we even have an official ' ladder monitor ' (not sure that's the correct term). I do recall him going on a day course and coming back and condemning most of our ladders.
None of this filters down to DIYers because of course that would be a nanny state.
but DIYers would never do anything dodgy with a ladder!
* Shudders *
* Ladders *
How is that ladder not lifting at the foot, rotating about the point where the ties are "holding" it?
Blue tac.
more likely used bubble gum!
But then you'd have nothing to fix the fitting to the ceiling with?
You run out of blu tac you have to go to the shops, you run out of used bubble gum you reach into your pocket for a fresh stick and make it on site, smaller carbon footprint, nice taste, what's not to like?
I guess you're right. Although since I ran out of bubblegum I've just been chewing blue tac.
EDIT - that's three posts now, I hope swdlxer is well?
BLU TACK
His weight is centred between the two sets of straps so both sets of straps are in tension, if he was standing on a step above the top straps (or the top straps were moved below his feet) then it would need a lot of friction at floor level to stop what you describe happening.
How many pedestrians are almost run over by a ladder rider though? Or been unpleasantly startled as a ladder suddenly shot across in front of them, without the operator even having belled their rung?
Mind you, they probably have to endure some abusive comments by entitled ladderists - or at least scaffold-fanciers...
Thinking further - perhaps this serious oversight is because we're a nation of ladder users? Do we have more ladders than people? Maybe in this sector safety regulation never gets off the ground because it's been normalised?
Apparently modern ladders are now built with wider spaces between the rungs as people are getting taller. It's due to climb-it change
The real problem with the MPs position is that he genunely seems to think that the only reason people ride bikes is to get exercise, rather than because they are a means of transporting people from one place to another.
Citing going for a run and going to the gym as alternative, healthy ways to live ignores the benefits of active travel not only for the health of those partaking but also improvements seen by those taking advantage of the increased road space available to them while driving.
As already pointed out in this comment thread, Australia's experience with mandatory helmets is a massive reduction in the numbers cycling and a much smaller reduction in the number of head injuries ... i.e. a numerical decrease but a proportional increase.
Comparing bike helmets to car seat belts and motorbike helmets is also disingenuous as a bike is very different to a motorbike, as motorbikes accellerate very quickly and are capable of significantly greater speed and energy than a bicycle, as well as being much, much heavier in the themselves. Seat belts, are also designed to solve a different issue (as also already pointed out).
For the record, I always wear a helmet when riding my bicycle, but am under no illusions that it will give me protection in every possible circumstance that might arise while riding, and strongly believe that the evidence shows that it should remain a personal choice.
Providing better infrastructure reducing the risk of collisions with motor traffic, and properly punishing drivers who are responsible for killing and injuring cyclists would be of much greater benefit to all road users ... deal with the cause, not the symptoms.
+N to those proposals, arguments and sentiments.
Mind, I'm always wary of the "provide better [cycling] infrastructure" argument, since it costs enormous amounts, is rarely proper and isn't really needed if the problem of car loonery on the roads is dealt with.
Another unintended (but all too easy to forsee) side effect will be that car addicts will feel justified in running over cyclists as, "They should be on the cycle paths, not IN MY WAY."
Roads for the fast (including even the slower bicycles) and paths for the slow (peds with children, dogs, grannies and others preferring not to get run over by a speeding thing as they amble and play).
Well, it's always possible that the population will spontaneously stop driving (say) over half their current car journeys. And even drive the remainder not just lawfully but with care and consideration. (Perhaps even without losing concentration, like Zen Motorists).
OR that the next government will fulfil the dystopian nightmares of the "15 minuters" and actually restrict driving somehow. (Yes, drivers are sensitive to any changes - in Wales simply lowering some of the speed limits by 10mph seems like the apocalypse to quite a few. And I mean more than that!)
OTOH it's also possible that the UK might implement something like what works every day for tens of millions of people across North Sea.
Well, OK, maybe not like over there in NL, let's be reasonable! Perhaps like what they have in "better" parts of Denmark, Sweden, Finland... Definitely 2nd class infra compared to NL! But "good enough" (and still a bargain compared to road or rail).
Personally I think that the last scenario is more possible than the preceeding ones. I can be pretty confident about that because... it has happened. More than once!
It doesn't just work in practice though, it works in theory also! There is a possible pathway from here to there. (It will be a difficult one, I don't know how likely of course.) One compatible with advanced capitalism, our bickering and self-serving lords and masters and the existence of other people overseas who sensibly don't have our best interests at heart. One that can drive itself along at some point as it unlocks virtuous circles.
I understand how hard it is to believe in here in the UK (I wonder myself...) Like addicts not able to imagine that all the varied small pleasures of life will make up for the horror of parting from the drug (or what you were running from originally). Especially on seeing much current UK cycling and walking infra.
Of course it's always possible that we get Keir Starmer and he turns out to be an automaton. Or a cheap copy of Dave Cameron, who was a cheap copy of Tony Blair, who was a reboot of Thatcher for the kids etc.
Lots of ways the world could go. I think this one's possible, and much more probable than "driving stops all by itself". (Still can't say about those autonomous pod-taxis or us all entering the Metaverse though...)
The comments section is literally full of lefties frothing.
Back to trolling I see.
Sad.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt
Isn't Lefties Frothing is a small village in Suffolk? Just outside Bungay, I think.
I went to Bungay once.... strange place....
Alas, your sat-nav has misdirected you!
Lefties Frothing is much further west - indeed I think it can be seen from Blandford Forum by those with the Right eyes!
No that's Gussage St Winterbottom.
Twatt's on the right apparently. (Literally).
I don't think you understand what literally means
FTFY
Interesting how those on the right always complain that the left wants a nanny state where everything is regulated, while at the same time calling for a nanny state for cyclists where we are all mandated to wear a helmet by law.
The tight righties don't want a nanny but rather a Wackford Squeers who will bully and abuse all who deviate from the Ayn Randian view of super-selfishness and the casting to the pits of all second-raters. Their freedumbs are for the bigwig tighters only, with everyone else (i.e. 99.99% of the population, who have failed to purchase the right shares) subject to not just faux laws (none of which apply to shared-up bigwigs) but the momentary whims of the bigwigs, especially the Biggest Bigwig.
"Off with their heads! Transport those damned chartists to Rudewunderland!!"
Mind, it's the same if the loonylefters are in charge. However, I haven't spotted a truly loonylefter since 1931. In Blighty they were all banned, so became sensible socialists AKA the Attlee government.
The tight righters soon put paid to him! Eventually they spawned The Thatcher Thing and the regression to Victorian times gained pace, so that now we are close to workhouse rules and conditions. Will it continue or will that slightly pink political party go Attlee next year?
We can hope. But The City and similar orcs will want to murder any nanny on her way up the driveway to The Big House, before any of Wackford's terms and conditions come under review!
Not wanting to disagree with your general points, but there's at least one Tory MP that has a penchant for nannies
Also, it's not so much about purchasing the relevant shares, but being born into a wealthy family is the main ingredient for success.
Schrödinger's Cyclists; "in my way but simultaneously appear from nowhere".
Describe what a 'lefty' is, in C21st terms. Are you relevant or just foul gas from a tight aperature?
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