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news
White cycle helmetCyclists in Cyprus call for repeal of compulsory helmet law
Cyclists in Cyprus have called for a law that came into force this week making cycle helmets compulsory to be repealed.
The Mediterranean country joins Argentina, Australia and New Zealand as the only countries in the world that currently have a mandatory helmet law for people riding bikes.
After the law came into effect on Wednesday, news website In Cyprus reported that cycling campaigners want it overturned immediately, saying that it will discourage people from riding bikes.
One source quoted on the website said: “We believe that all cyclists should be able to choose what they wear on their bikes, and should be respected if they choose to wear a helmet of if they choose not to.”
Under the new law, cyclists riding without a helmet will face a fine of €50, although according to traffic police officer Harris Evripidou, a light touch will be taken towards enforcement, although he added that the legislation had been brought in to protect people riding bikes.
“We will be lenient,” he said. “Where we see cyclists riding in places where their lives are endangered, namely on highways and busy roads where they mix with vehicles, then they will be fined.”
He also said that four cyclists had been killed on the island’s roads last year, of whom two who were not wearing a helmet died due to head injuries.
“These figures, show us that not wearing one has that effect, whether the cyclist is at fault or not. So, our recommendation is that helmet use should be enforced to protect cyclists,” he added.
Cycle helmets within European Union member states, including Cyprus, must meet the EN 1078 standard, which requires a deceleration of no more than 250g to be transmitted to the head in an impact at 5.42-5.52 metres per second (a little over 12 mph).
While that would be equivalent to, say, a fall to the ground from a standing position, under the EN1078 standard, the specification does not require cycle cycle helmets to be able to withstand angled or oblique impacts, nor to provide protection in collisions in which a motor vehicle is involved.
In December, Japan announced that it would make helmets compulsory for bike riders with effect from 1 April, although there will be no sanction for anyone found riding a bicycle while not wearing one.
> Japan to make cycle helmets compulsory for all cyclists from next April
While it is only Argentina, Australia and New Zealand, and now Cyprus and within the next two months Japan, that have compulsory helmet laws for all cyclists, regardless of age, many other countries have some form of mandatory legislation in place.
In Spain, for example, helmets are compulsory for people riding bikes outside urban areas, while many countries have age-specific laws that require children below a certain age to wear a helmet when they are on a bicycle.
In the United States, helmet laws vary by jurisdiction and age, with some states making them mandatory for all riders, others for children only, while some states have no such legislation at all.
Within the UK, transport minister Jesse Norman confirmed in November that the government has no plans to make cycle helmets compulsory here.
Mark Pritchard, Conservative MP for The Wrekin, had raised the issue in a written question, asking whether the Secretary of State for Transport would “hold discussions with road safety and cycle representative groups on making it a legal requirement for cyclists to wear helmets on public roads?”
> Government shuts down mandatory cycling helmets question from Conservative MP
He asked whether the Secretary of State for Transport would “hold discussions with road safety and cycle representative groups on making it a legal requirement for cyclists to wear helmets on public roads?
In response, Norman said that the subject had been considered “at length” but rejected as part of the government’s cycling and walking safety review in 2018.
“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,” he said.
“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,” the minister added.
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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149 comments
The trouble with these discussions are they get fixated on head injuries. The reality is there are two fundamentally different problems, falling off a bike and being in a collision.
Falling off a bike is a relatively common occurrence, often self-inflicted. The forces involved are not usually massive, however, the acceleration of the head to the ground from normal cycling height with no other factors is sufficient to cause serious head injury. Other injuries are common but rarely have the potential long term impact of a head injury. The nature of falling off a bike often makes it difficult to control your fall.
The second form of accident is a collision with a vehicle. These are rarer. However, the likelihood of fatal injuries are much higher. The type of fatal injuries are more diverse, including crushing viral organs, broken necks, loss of blood. Saving the top of your head only affects a small portion of the statistical likelihood of survivability. For example, I would hazard that the typical London left hook by HGV fatalities statistics would be entirely unaffected by helmet, indeed, I would hazard that nearly all the victims would be wearing helmets.
So, would I wear a helmet - absolutely, I've had and seen numerous incidents where head injuries have been avoided, none of these have involved collisions. I don't think I've witnessed or been part of a collision that has resulted in a head injury. Just avoiding the pain of a bang on the head and stitches is worth it - from experience 40 years ago.
Helmets as a device to increase safety in traffic interactions? A non-starter. Even if you have statistics which suggest that head injuries are included in a significant proportion of collision serious injuries and deaths, without some deep diving, you are going to struggle to prove that survivability of an accident is significantly improved by a bit of polystyrene on the noggin given the very different forces involved, especially as these days, the majority of KSIs will involve people wearing helmets.
So, I will always recommend wearing a helmet for the first reason - the nature of bicycles mean it is easy to have an uncontrolled fall where you hit your head and receiving or having to deal with such injuries is so unpleasant it is worth the inconvenience even though they are rare occurrences.
So that's my anecdotal analysis.
Final anecdote. My last serious fall without a bike and without a helmet was ballroom dancing. Mrs S tripped heavily over my foot (during the Quickstep performing a V6 so basically moving fast), she went flying down backwards and was going to smack her head. I held her and broke her fall successfully, which transferred her momentum to me and I then was forced to fall forwards. I was able to roll as I fell, and more or less stood straight up again. All instinctive. Neither of us were even bruised (aside from egos). When you have a bike between your legs, you don't have the manoeuvrability to protect yourself. I could make a case for the infirm pedestrian wearing helmets - and people with serious epilepsy do wear helmets.
Great comment! Two different scenarios indeed.
Only thing missing from this - and the debate in general is the potential health benefits of also promoting recumbent cycles - for lower head - ground distance and first impact with legs rather than upper body in head-on collisions. And maybe more wheels - to reduce accidents when mounting / dismounting
/ static? Although then fast cornering needs more care.
Of course doing so in many countries might lead to a rash of SMIDSY cases due to different shape - or at least excuses... I'm not aware of large-scale studies (or any studies) on injury patterns in recumbent crashes either.
Oh - wait - apparently if you have a four-wheeler recunbent which is particularly heavy and has roll-protection most governments will help fund it! Great!
Interestingly the study below suggests a range of head impact speeds on falling over from standing as up to about 15mph - coincidentally the pedelec assistance limit. So maybe add "if you're in a single-bike crash at over 15mph on your own head be it (increasingly with greater speed)! (I dunno if helmet manufacturers already have that in the small print, I never read it).
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25608913/
Of course one point this misses is that the rate of falls is heavily affected by other factors - Age and terrain being the main ones (though weather probably also applies).
I expect your average road cyclist is vastly more likely to suffer a head injury from a collision than a fall, while mountain bikers suffer very few collisions but have an injury rate several orders of magnitude higher.
Given rates of helmet usage in various off road disciplines it is another strong argument against mandation - See the comment about only enforcing on busy roads and highways, the location where they are least likely to make a difference and that usage is basically universal in serious off road riding...
On the second para, my point was the opposite. Falling off a bike is relatively common even for a road cyclist, it is easy to catch an edge mounting a kerb, forgetting to unclip, slipping on gravel or smooth road (how I broke my hip), wet roads (stitches for me back in the '80s pre-helmet), misjudging corners, mechanical failures. For an individual, a collision, especially with a vehicle is rare. When you fall off, you don't have good control, so protecting yourself by falling correctly (and other helpful suggestions from the Internet) is rarely an option, indeed, my hip fall was instantaneous - one minute on a bike, the next, pedalling in thin air.
A collision has multiple ways of throwing you about, but the main risk is either the momentum of the larger vehicle impacting anywhere on your body, or being crushed beneath the heavy vehicle. So the injury when you collide is more likely to be serious than a fall. However, the probability of a cyclist being in a collision is far less than a cyclist falling off (we could debate what column to put "falling off avoiding a collision).
We could do a survey, but although obviously statistically skewed by non-survivors, I would expect every cyclist here to have fallen off multiple times, and only a proportion to have been in a collision.
Judging by my experience of Cypriot driving, there are many other things the government could do to improve personal safety.
Driving standards there are very, very poor.
Two deaths on small island may not sound much.
But the monetary cost will be high. A person no longer able to contribute to the economy. Life insurance payments. And of course for each death many more will be injured. Brain injuries are costly too, inc. teatment costs.
At the risk of looking at the human, as opposed to the economic cost, two deaths "sound" quite important. Two families devastated. And for what?
Wow. That old canard again. You worried about road deaths ?
So forbid driving first and foremost: https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cyprus-road-traffic-accidents
According to that, Cyprus is doing better than the UK.
Edit: No they're not, I thought that lower was better for the World Ranking. Cyprus 155 vs UK 173
I'd just like to say I've been for a bike ride in the countryside today and it was very smelly. I should imagine it will be just as bad tomorrow so if you are going for a ride think on. Be careful out there.
How did you notice over your own stench?! I understand that cyclists are a stinky, sweaty mess after cycling even a mile at low effort.
Good point, never thought of that. If anyone does go for a ride and everything smells hunky dunky it's probably because I'm having a le in.
What is surprising about this law is that they claim to be introducing it to protect people on bikes, but the number of pedestrian fatalities is much higher, so wouldn't it be far more effective to introduce mandatory pedestrian helmets instead?
On the plus side, this could add to the data about helmet efficacy, but it'll depend on having good figures for number of cyclists before and after the law.
You seemed to miss that point in your helmets for peds argument.
There are considerably more peds. So of course more deaths. They may still be at much higher risks cycling in the areas they propose to fine them.
I couldn't readily find the stats to figure out fatalities per mile travelled per person. There was one site that seemed relevant, but it was all greek to me.
Ha! You smashed it into the back of the (inter)net there!
Though comparing fatalities per mile for pedestrians, cyclists and cars would be false, as they cover vastly different distances. It would be better to compare fatalities per journey, or perhaps per hour.
I did that calculation on the UK data a few years ago and I think if I remember rightly, it showed that cycling was something like 3 times the risk of head injury than driving and 20 times that of walking. I can't remember the exact numbers as it was probably about four years ago I did that, and some other stuff has happened in the world since then!
Of course that's not saying we should have mandatory helmet laws, just good understanding of reality.
Which? Per journey or hour?
You can't argue with the fact that helmets save lives, but I don't think people should be forced to wear one. All laws like this do is discourage cycling because people don't want to mess up their hair
Bingo!
To be fair, I don't think you can shout bingo when they had left out the one about personal responsibility. Oh, and the one about racing cyclists wearing them. Oh, oh, and how much peer-reviewed evidence there is, authored by such unimpeachable, independent, unbiased, objective researchers such as Thompson, Rivara and Thompson; long may their names rot in the pit of the ninth circle of hell for their worst of bad science.
My defence - everyone else on the thread (1) was making sweeping generalisations... I thought "if they can do a Trump I can't be blamed for finally giving in to temptation, crossing off the rest of the line on my bingo card and shouting 'HOUSE'?"
Besides - can you prove that in their 51 informative posts they didn't come out with some or all of that?
I don't know who those people are and I certainly don't know why you're so upset about them. What did they do to hurt you?
You've just admitted you know absolutely nothing about helmets.
You know just because you keep spouting the 'bad science' rhetoric doesn't actually make it any more true, right? Sure there were shortfalls in the scope and size of available datasets, but short of driving around and taking out cyclists (an even ratio split between those wearing helmets and those not, of course) I don't see what you could do about it.
The original TRT study was abysmal, poor methodology, low reliability and blatantly biased researchers, condemned on peer review and no-one else has been able to repeat their findings. One academic said that he could use it to demonstrate to his students how not to do research. It is beyond doubt that it was the worst of bad science.
I can only presume from the first phrase of your second sentence "Sure there were shortfalls in the scope and size of available datasets,....." that you are referring to the Cochrane Review done by TRT, which broke every rule for Cochrane reviews and has seriously damaged their reputation.
I've no idea what this "....but short of driving around and taking out cyclists (an even ratio split between those wearing helmets and those not, of course) I don't see what you could do about it." means though.
Honestly the "ThE wOrSt Of BaD sCiEnCe" chorus is tiresome. Change the record.
It is very likely that helmets have prevented deaths that would otherwise have happened. Of course, we cannot know that for sure because we cannot peer into the alternate universe where the exact same things have happened but without a helmet.
Sorry, but I'm going to keep on repeating that the original TRT research was the worst of bad science, because it was; I won't be adopting your random capitals though.
Since the death rate of cyclists does not fall as helmet wearing rates increase, rather the opposite seems to be true, it is not "...very likely that helmets have prevented deaths that would otherwise have happened." If they did prevent some deaths, they must also have caused other deaths, but in at least equal or greater quantity; not exactly a glowing testimony to their efficacy.
We may not be able to peer into alternative universes, but we can examine the effects on cyclist deaths, the only reliable metric, of helmet laws and helmet propaganda campaigns, and we know that they are not effective. We can also examine places which have a much lower death rate than places with helmet laws and find out what does work, because it definitely isn't helmets.
What makes me suspicious about cycle helmets is that it should be easy to demonstrate that they work well. It seems obvious that putting protective foam around someone's head would provide protection and reduce head injuries and yet the statistics don't demonstrate that clearly. Australia was a prime example to investigate the before and after of helmet laws and again we don't see a clear beneficial effect.
Now, as I wear a bike helmet anyway (Mrs HawkinsPeter used to get anxious if I cycled without one), it makes little difference to me personally, and yet the evidence for bike helmets being effective is mixed. If there was clear evidence for them being effective, I'd be happy to recommend them as protective gear as I am happy to recommend wearing gloves whilst cycling. It seems very suspicious to me that even with well funded interests, the evidence is so shoddy.
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