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news
Cyclist in the evening 01 © Simon MacMichael.jpg“If mandatory safety measures are acceptable for car drivers, they should surely be acceptable for cyclists”: MP calls for cycling helmets to be made mandatory
A Conservative MP has called for the government to make wearing a helmet while cycling a legal requirement, and argued that if mandatory safety measures are acceptable for motorists, they “should surely be acceptable for cyclists”.
Mark Pawsey, the MP for Rugby, has introduced a compulsory cycle helmet bill into the House of Commons, due for a second reading in November, following a campaign led by one of his constituents, Oliver Dibsdale.
In 2015, the then-teenage Dibsdale suffered a serious brain injury after falling from his bike. Pawsey told the Commons today that the cyclist was informed by doctors at the time “that had he been wearing a helmet he may still have sustained an injury, but that it would have been far less severe”.
> Government shuts down mandatory cycling helmets question from Conservative MP
The MP continued: “He bitterly regrets his decision on that particular occasion to ride without a helmet. He has spoken to me in a very moving way about the impact that his injuries have had on his family, the guilt that he feels for the amount of time they have had to spend caring for him, and he very much wants to help other families avoid this fate, and this Bill will achieve this aim.
“Oliver makes the point that it will be far easier for parents to insist that their children wear a helmet if it becomes a legal requirement. He finds it extremely frustrating whenever he sees cyclists on the road without helmets, because from his personal experience he knows all too well the risk that they are taking.”
Addressing concerns that a mandatory bike helmet law would be difficult to enforce, Pawsey said: “While it would certainly create an additional burden on the police, it doesn’t strike me as being particularly difficult to enforce in comparison with other offences.
“If mandatory safety measures are acceptable for car drivers, they should surely be acceptable for cyclists. Now we know that cyclists are the most vulnerable road users.”
> Cyclists wearing helmets seen as "less human" than those without, researchers find
The MP also recounted in the Commons today that, during a recent family holiday, he initially declined a helmet while renting a bike. Pawsey claims that the person serving him “then looked me in the eye and asked me, ‘Just how many brains have you got, sir?’”
Pawsey’s Road Safety (Cycle Helmets) Bill is listed for a second reading on 24 November, but is unlikely – even if it were to achieve the required support in the chamber – to become law due to a lack of parliamentary time.
> Why is Dan Walker’s claim that a bike helmet saved his life so controversial?
Of course, Pawsey’s proposed piece of legislation isn’t the first time that compulsory bike helmets have been a topic of debate in parliament.
In December, the Department for Transport insisted that the government has “no intention” of making helmets mandatory, following a question from the Conservative MP for Shropshire constituency The Wrekin, Mark Pritchard.
In response to the MP’s question, minister of state for the department Jesse Norman said the matter had been considered “at length” during the cycling and walking safety review in 2018.
Norman, himself the Tory MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire, also added that while the Department for Transport “recommends that cyclists wear helmets”, the “safety benefits of mandating cycle helmets are likely to be outweighed by the fact that this would put some people off cycling”.
This latest attempt by an MP to reintroduce the ‘helmet debate’ into the Commons also comes in the same week that a new study from Australia – where helmet wearing is mandatory – found that an alarming number of motorists view cyclists wearing helmets and other safety gear as “less human”.
Of the 563 people surveyed for the study, conducted by Mark Limb of Queensland University of Technology and Sarah Collyer of Flinders University, 30 percent considered cyclists less than fully human, while 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.
“Our findings add to this growing research, suggesting that cyclists wearing safety attire, particularly high-visibility vests, may be dehumanised more so than cyclists without safety attire,” the study concluded.
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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As what you have said is demonstrably untrue, given that the event is organised and has been for the last four years by a professional events...
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I'm there now too, if anyone wants a follow/wants to follow me. @cyclingtheseaso
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She was still there in Greenwich when I cycled past her on Wednesday!
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72 comments
With all these safety features motorists drive even more irresponsibly as they are convinced that they are safe. I would challenge them to drive in a 1970's Mini in the same way they drive a 2020 Mini. There's no way that will happen.
And yet still more car occupants will die from head injuries than cyclists.
Driver helmets really do work
https://thesportsrush.com/f1-news-how-much-do-f1-helmets-weigh-why-are-m...
Only because far more people drive cars than ride bikes.
The stats for The Netherlands, unsurprisingly, show more cyclists than drivers suffering head injuries.
If it saves one life ..
Which is the mps "argument"
Perhaps this could be another data point for our old friend risk compensation?
There can be lots of cycling in NL only because people feel it's a safe, normal activity *.
Because cycling doesn't feel like a dangerous, potentially consequential activity they treat it casually and don't see the need for extra safety gear.
Bit like how operating a motor vehicle in the UK is normalised.
(Only in that case the risk to those *outside* the vehicle is also raised. Risk from motorists being lowered in the UK because other modes have been literally driven off the roads. Although they're likely raised as cars end up being driven on pavements and indeed into houses...)
* Yes, there are other reasons e.g. convenience, "everyone else is doing it" etc.
You see what they're doing, don't you?
Combine this story with the story that says helmet (and hi-vis) wearing cyclists are seen as less than human and you realise its not about safety - they want drivist to remove the cycling pests from the roads.
Is this the right show?
That's the one.
Philip Jay Simpson blocking out the voices with a tin foil hat.
Interesting side note I was informed of a while ago - "tin foil" is no longer tin, but aluminium, which actually amplifies signals, so donning a tin foil hat to stop "them" reading your thoughts actually helps them....
MP? Is that how 'dimwit' is spelled these days ?
What do you mean, these days? Folks have been laughing at their corruption and idiocy since Parliament began! Same everywhere: "Reader, imagine you are an idiot. Imagine you are a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." (Mark Twain)
It is a tribute to the serious failure of our electoral system that so many MPs are willing to try to get a compulsory helmet bill passed. None of them appear to have done the most basic research, relying on anecdote, opinion and "common sense". Things like not bothering to ask the cyclists' organisations what they think of it, or what happened elsewhere when they brought in a law.
The fact that so many have tried and failed before him should have given Mark Pawsey a clue that things weren't quite as simple as he's being told, but like most tories, he's clueless: and hopefully will soon be seatless.
Hot on the heels of the two reports about the government failing to meet its modest targets for cycling and helmets making cyclists less human to drivers, this idiot's proposal is so exquisitely timed, and a possible contender for the "Foot-in-Mouth" award 2023.
It's a vote winner from the motoring lobby.
"If they are wearing hlmets then we can knock them off and they won't be hurt".
"if they are not wearing helmets, then, it's their fault"
The first thing you learn from doing a bit of research is that helmet laws will lead to fewer cyclists on the roads - another good thing.
Define "so many". Scary headlines to the contrary this has zero chance of becoming law.
Given the sh!tshow we currently live in, the fact of even a single MP thinking this proposal is a good use of their time and energy absolutely beggars belief...
Given that many must be considering the possibility that they could be leaving the house in the near future due to their party falling from favour, why not? I could see motivation for MPs to worry even less about the country, or even their party. Get some more local support, focus on things which play well to core supporters. Worthwhile even if you have 5 years off...
Perhaps some politicians are indifferent or even against their own policies. They're merely doing it to get votes or for some other reason.
Four or five: I've lost count.
Oh good grief: Seatbelts and airbags and crumple zones are not comparable to polystyrene helmets, in my opinion...
(edit) Wait until eburt comes online...
I'm here!
Mandatory or not, PPE is wayyyy down the list of effective risk controls.
Too true. The problems we all faced are solved through eliminating hopeless, unskilled chancers who drive motor vehicles, as this road user group is by far the most deadly.
But if you use the ALARP model, you swap that all around, What is the cheapest method? Its buying a helmet where removing the hazard completely costs - ie making seperate infrastrucutre like protected cycle lanes. therefore removing the motor vehicle hazard. And thats how it works in the real world. You cant make 100% safe cycling infrastructure you can only make it safer with whatever resources you can afford. And most councils dont have the cash to even if they wanted to (which they dont cos they hate us)
In this case the "cheapest method" is free - it'sactually "do nothing" eg. as you suggest cyclists can buy their own helmets. Close to zero cost for the LA!
If you just look at "reducing injury to cyclists" building infra probably seems disproportionate. That's because there aren't many cyclists... perhaps it would be proportionate to spend a bit of cash discouraging the remaining cyclists - that would reduce injury... (We've actually done this anyway - as a byproduct of promoting mass motoring).
And yet there is increasingly detailed evidence that building a network of adequate quality cycle infra gives you a return on that cash, while our mass motoring is a net drain on everyone's money.
Proposing increasing active travel - never mind mass cycling - is a multi-level change. Each level can present convincing reasons why moving away from the status quo will cost money / isn't their job.
I'm not sure you fully understand ALARP. It's not about the cheapest method. It's about reducing risk as far as possible, until you get to a point where you're spending ridiculous amounts of money for negligible benefit. That cost v return part is the "Reasonably Practible" part of ALARP.
^^this - if it doesn't have to work properly, I can do it as cheaply as you want...
If the right honerable gentleman can point to any country which has introduced mandatory helmet laws resulting in a reduction in head injuries (other than by corresponding with a reduction in bicycle use) then he should have no trouble convincing his colleagues in parliament.
The fact remains that the countries with low helmet usage are safer for cyclists than the ones with mandatory laws. Since cyclist safety is his primary concern then why is he not pushing for Dutch/Danish/Belgian cycle infrastructure?
If someone trips and smacks their head on the ground or gets hit by a car when crossin ghte road (or on the pavement) no one calls for pedestrian helmets.
Mandatory seatbelts have been proven to safe lives. Helmets have not been proven to make it safer for cyclists. No point making something mandatory if it has no scientific evidence to support the claim it will reduce casualties
While your second statement is true, the first isn't. Seat belts don't save lives overall, they just transfer the risk to other people, especially motorcyclists, cyclists and pedestrians
Seatbelts save lives. That is a fact. Its been researched plenty - That is where the difference is. There are thousands of people still alive today because their seatbelt worked as it should. There is not as much data on helmets other than anecdotal evidence to suggest they do.
The data shows that seat belts do save the lives of the people who wear them, but they increase the risk for other people, especially pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists, and the overall death rate does not fall. All this was in the research (the Isles Report) done for parliament before they voted on compulsory seat belts, but even though it was finished well before the vote, it was never published.
As had been said many times before, the safest car would have no seatbelts, no air bags, no crumple zones and a 14" rusty bayonet in the middle of the steering wheel.
Much of the stuff done for road safety has been a failure and have approached the problem from the wrong perspective, improving survivability but not reducing the propensity to crash.
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