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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Cyclists in Cyprus have called for a law that came into force this week making cycle helmets compulsory to be repealed.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.
Latest Comments
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Stick it in the road.
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149 comments
You're entirely missing the point. Roads aren't dangerous - it's the poor driving that introduces danger and cycle helmets do not at all address dangerous driving.
"it's the poor driving that introduces danger"
I'd go further than that: danger is introduced by the fact that people are allowed to bring fast moving very heavy metal objects onto the roads . It is then further increased by the poor driving of these objects.
No, I'm not entirely missing the point. Their roads are hazardous for cyclists in the same sense that downtown Pripyat is hazardous for humans - I.e. it's not the location itself, it's the hazards at the location that are the problem. And continuing the analogy, a CBRN suit does not 'address' the radiation, but it does make a human safer.
No, helmets do not 'address' dangerous driving but they can provide protection against some of the detrimental outcomes that could occur.
Helmets are not a silver bullet for road safety, but that does not mean that they should be foregone.
And just because some people think that the conclusion of a helmet study is flawed does not mean that the opposite of that conclusion becomes true.
[/quote] Ha yes this must be the only 2 possible options. It's either that they're stupid or a conspiracy by 'big helmet'. You're on a different planet, seriously. It couldn't possibly be that they acknowledge that their roads are hazardous for cyclists and they are trying to do something to reduce road-related mortality. Couldn't possibly be that, could it.[/quote]
It is a tenet of improving safety to treat the cause not the symptoms; except for cyclists. The cause of cyclist deaths is almost totally bad driving, and cycle helmets will do nothing to address the cause. Places that have taken steps by reducing the cause are much safer places to ride than places where they have merely treated the symptoms.
Cycle helmets are a massive con on the public, who pay billions for a product that doesn't work and can't be taken back when it fails. There's a reason that helmet manufacturers don't claim that they will save your life; they'd be sued into bankruptcy in weeks, but that doesn't stop the helmet zealots saying it.
The Cypriot authorities have taken this decision because they say it will save lives when anyone who has a modicum of knowledge knows that they don't; perhaps you could tell us why they did it?
No it isn't; don't pretend that you know what you're talking about.
Improving safety is achieved in many ways. One method is through Bow Tie analysis where controls and recovery or mitigation barriers work together to reduce overall risk https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/solutions/enablon/bowtie/expert-insight...
Controls prevent a bad thing from happening and mitigations reduce the severity of the outcome. Helmets are a perfectly valid mitigator.
Perhaps you're the one with the BaD sCiEnCe after all.
A bow tie analysis is a visualisation tool and it is obvious when using it that preventions (to the left of the event) are more important than mitigations (to the right of the event) so you are confirming eburts position.
Lol, no the stuff to the left is not 'more important' than the stuff to the right. Jeez, you people think things are so simple don't you. The stuff to the left and right are equally important. Cost/benefit analysis tells you which barriers to focus on. The ones with the most benefit per cost should be the most important to bring in. But just because someone has decided to implement a barrier that some perceive (rightly or wrongly) to be less important, does not mean that safety declines. It just means that it has not improved in the most efficient way. But it is still an improvement.
I get it now, you're a bean counter, its just the money that counts not the lives!
a continual evolution of body armour getting heavier and heavier, until the cyclist cannot carry it, and then perhaps the armoud could be fitted with wheels and engine to allow it to be moved around...
Other outcomes of an evolutionary arms race are possible - cyclists could get smaller (they could pass under the car without harm), or accept more destruction but reproduce faster (a bike already involves much less investment than a car; just need to crank out cyclists faster...)
I've no idea what Cypress (presumably this is talking about the Republic of Cyprus in the South?) is like for the transport cyclist? It wasn't on my radar as a mass-cycling nation.
Oh, never mind. (Yes - NL has lots of cars but they tamed them a bit).
I'm thinking of a pair of machine guns duct taped to the sides of the top tube
The old fave as e.g. practiced by the pufferfish - mutually assured destruction (and what looks like a very uncomfortable ride).
The recoil would be interesting, but the approach is generally correct. I think I'd go for a rocket to avoid that, but then there is the problem of the rather warm exhaust; we need to do tests.
One of the reasons drivers don't notice cyclists is because they aren't a threat, so if we very obviously armed ourselves, drivers would tend to notice us more.
I thought the recoil energy was used to chamber the next round in a machine gun and that the actual rearward force was fairly light.
Depends! Obviously we're assuming having gone for arms you wouldn't want to fart about:
https://www.forgottenweapons.com/m134-minigun-the-modern-gatling-gun-video/
Hmm... clearly effective on trucks but that rotation might lead to chafing and obviously wtjs would be mocking any e-machine guns; how about a classic with a bit more pedigree?
https://www.forgottenweapons.com/browning-m2hb-50-bmg-at-the-range/
I've only ever shot an M4 and an AK47. With standard ammo If you were going in a straight line at a reasonable speed I think you could get away with an M4 but the AK would shake your bike to bits. You'd also have a steady stream of spent cases hitting you in the face or legs, at least for the 3 seconds or so before you run out of ammo.
Apparently you can shoot .22 rounds in a machine gun with little recoil but they'd be unlikely to go through the car and hurt the driver.
I imagine if you tried this in real life in the UK all the problems the police apparently have in identifying killer drivers would magically evapourate and you'd be in handcuffs by the end of the day.
Wait a minute... double-agent here!
Either that or the notoriously lax gun laws in Nevada. I'll let you decide . . . .
I'm not sure about "fire AND movement" but certainly using bike instead of tripod / bipod may be a thing. There's a military history to the bicycle about as old as "safety bicycles".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_infantry
Impossible, I don't have a numberplate, how would they tell me from all the other cyclists with guns strapped to their bikes?
...or if you'd cloned a numberplate from another bike or altered yours or obscured it (gasp! How did those saucy knaves outfox us again?)
...or if the law came round and you admitted it was your bike but it wasn't you riding it - could have been anyone. (Or just use a hire bike - problem solved!)
Mind you, a numbered tabard now, that'd have you bang to rights.
Not after 14 days though...
Although it is very much open to question about just how many thousands or millions of helmets are required to save one life, and whether the investment would be better spent elsewhere.
Of course if we place the requirement for helmets on the cyclists, no state money is wasted on this inefficient safety measure.
And the state makes money in fines and sales tax; double bonus.
It's complex. One death or serious injury costs the state a hell of a lot of cash. Often in the millions. That's money that could otherwise do a lot elsewhere.
It *is* complex - or rather it's quite clear where we are but change is complex. Motoring costs everyone lots of money* and some grief. However any attempt to change gets lots of popular opposition AND goes against extremely well-funded and connected industries - the transport and fuel lobby. So most places tell non-motorised road users that safety or convenience is *their* problem.
* motorists don't pay to cover all the costs of this expensive activity ("negative externalities" such as health effects, pollution etc). I'm not aware of anywhere that forwards these costs to drivers specifically; generally all taxpayers subsidise this while motorists complain about the tax on fuel, "road tax" etc.
Except that the deaths caused by inactivity because people are deterred from cycling massively outweigh the most optimistic estimates of lives saved by helmets. The only economic analysis I've seen showed that helmet laws were a gigantic cost to the state.
Come on, you're just making stuff up as you go now. Are these Schrödinger's helmets that deter cyclists in their millions but at the same time make cyclists feel so safe they cycle so recklessly they die by their millions, whilst also being paid for out of government coffers?
30 sec search on f... google. Do make an effort if you're on here all day. Or just get lost.
"This study presents a cost-benefit analysis of a law requiring cy-
clists to wear a helmet when riding a bicycle in Germany. The cost
benefit-analysis takes into account the benefit of increased security
when cyclists wear a helmet or use a transport mode that is less
risky than cycling. The analysis also considers the cost of purchas-
ing helmets, reduced fitness when cycling is replaced by a motorized
transport mode, the discomfort of wearing helmets and environ-
mental externalities. The benefits of a helmet law are estimated
at about 0.714 of the costs. A bicycle helmet law for Germany is
found to be a waste of resources"
https://www.cycle-helmets.com/germany-helmet-law-cost-analysis-2014.pdf
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