Compulsory cycle helmets UK initiative

Posted on February 24th, 2011, by , in Motoring News, Road Safety Articles

GEM Motoring Assist is delighted to be one of the sponsors of an outstanding initiative by the Bicycle Helmet Initiative Trust.

During the next few weeks teacher packs including notes and DVDs will be sent to every school in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.  These packs provide information and guidance to allow teachers to create stimulating and interesting lessons on why all young cyclists should always wear a helmet.  Teachers can also apply for a free demonstration kit which shows how an egg can be prevented from breaking when ‘fitted’ with a helmet like protector.

This scheme is a fantastic way of reminding youngsters of the need to use helmets.

However, the scale of the problem of young cyclists receiving severe head injuries also requires government action.  It is unreasonable to expect children to make an informed choice as to whether to wear a helmet or not.  There needs to be clear guidance from Government in the form of legislation making it compulsory for all cyclists under the age of 14 to wear an approved safety helmet.  A similar law already exists for young horse riders.

Recent figures showed that in 2009/10 nearly 6,000 young cyclists were admitted to hospitals and of these 40% had suffered head injuries.

Around 83% of young cyclists suffering head injuries were not involved in a collision with another vehicle but merely hit their head after falling from the cycle.  It is, therefore, clear that cycle helmets could not only save life and limb but could prevent a huge drain on our hospital resources.

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  • Jellied30

    Perhaps a connected brake on the front would be a better starting point than helmets.

  • Bzzzz

    The cover picture of your Guide to Safer Cycling depicts two adults and two children riding along what looks like a shared path. The front brake of the girl’s bike does not appear to be connected to the brake lever. She’ll probably make good use of that helmet at some point later on the ride.

  • Andy_n

    How can you comment on cycling safety when your “Guide to Safer Cycling” shows a child riding a bike with a disconnected front brake! You should keep out of issues on which you are uninformed.

  • guest

    How can helmets save a limb?
    How many of the 40% of hospital admitted head injuries were in an area that could have been protected by a helmet?

  • Norma

    About time too – I’m a teacher and look forward to getting my pack soon.

  • Honest_John

    Crash helmets may (if you’re lucky) reduce severity in the very unlikely event a cyclist suffers a head injury.

    But first, how about getting the moppet on the left to connect up her front brake, to make sure she doesn’t use that hat she’s wearing?

    And how about getting your driver members to drive more carefully around cyclists and keep to the Highway Code?

  • guest

    “It is unreasonable to expect children to make an informed choice as to whether to wear a helmet or not. There needs to be clear guidance from Government in the form of legislation making it compulsory for all cyclists under the age of 14 to wear an approved safety helmet. A similar law already exists for young horse riders.”

    It’s unreasonable to expect anyone at all to make an informed choice as to wear a helmet or not when using a cycle for transport. That’s because the pro and anti cycle helmet camps are both hugely biased. There is no substantial evidence to prove that helmets make a significant difference. They ceratainly can prevent injury, they might possibly prevent serious injury and there is a very small chance that they will save your life. I’m curious about these head injuries. Are they all serious, or merely scrapes and bruises? How many of them died and how many of those that died can you say with certainty, would still be alive had they been wearing a helmet? How many of those that died (if any) were allready wearing a helmet?

    Mandatory helmet laws in Australia made no difference to cyclist fatality rates, in spite of the fact that it directly resulted in fewer cyclists.
    Obesity is a far bigger health issue than people falling off their bicycle and costs much more to our economy in more ways than just health.
    Cycling is a low risk activity. It carries twice the risk of travelling by car, which most people consider to be a safe way of travelling. This is why when I go cycling abroad I pay no additional travel insurance.

    Cycle helmets are not a necessity, as you think they are, they are a choice.
    I think you’d be better off pushing your rather good, Guide to safer Cycling. (In spite of the fact that the child in the first picture doesn’t have his front brake connected to his cable)

    Horse riding isn’t cycling, nor are horse riders
    helmets the same as cycle helmets, so I don’t see what you’re getting at there.

    Lastly, the 6 eggs I bought today from Tesco and carried home on my bike are still all in one piece. Neither of those were wearing a helmet either.

  • http://bristolcars.blogspot.com/ Bristol Traffic

    You are right. We should also make all children walking wear them.

  • John Buckley

    Do you think you could fix that child’d front brake? This was pointed out to you a couple of years ago. meet a junction and taht child could be killed. And you use it on a leaflet?

  • Andy

    Why is a motoring organisation campaigning for compulsory cycle helmets? Wouldn’t your time be better spent campaigning for better driving standards, seeing as it is motorists who are doing the most killing on the UK’s roads?

  • Guest

    And what % of children banged their heads when not riding a bike at all? Far more children sustain head injuries from running/wealking and when in cars by many more times than when out on a bike. Why not initiate helmet wearing for these groups which are far far more in need than the children who cycle?

  • Alastairdent

    I’m so pleased to read that helmets can save life and limb. Wouldn’t having working brakes also help?

  • Simon

    Are you going to be/campaigning for child pedestrians to wear helmets?

  • Safety at all cost

    Recent figures showed that in 2009/10 nearly 6,000 young cyclists were admitted to hospitals and of these 40% had suffered head injuries.

    And how many car passengers, pedestrians and children using stairs had similar injuries? This campaign does not go nearly far enough to reduce the risk of head injuries. As a motoring organisation they must know that far more injuries would be prevented by children in cars wearing helmets. Please Please Please include this in the cumpulsory helmet legislation. I can not believe parents are so negligent as to allow their children to ride bikes, be passengers in cars, walk on hard surfaces and climb stairs without a helmet.

  • Anonymous

    I am grateful to the many people who have responded to our blog which gave information about our sponsorship of the educational packs that have been sent to every school in England, Wales and Northern Ireland by the Bicycle Helmet Initiative Trust.

    These packs offer first class teaching materials to schools showing that some head protection can be provided to young cyclists by wearing an approved helmet.

    GEM is proud of this involvement with such a worthwhile scheme and remain committed to the cause of requiring helmet wearing for all cyclists up to the age of 14.

    Regrettably an old image (not relating to helmets) from a now old and unused leaflet is shown on our website and this error is being rectified. We are sorry for any misunderstanding.

    GEM remains committed to promoting safety to all road users and accepts fully that all who use the roads, whether they are drivers, riders or pedestrians have a responsibility of care, courtesy and concentration to each other.

  • motoringassist

    Thank you. We will pass your support to the BHIT

  • Anonymous

    Thank you for commenting. Regrettably an old image (not relating to helmets) from a now old and unused leaflet is shown on our website and this error is being rectified. We are sorry for any misunderstanding

  • Anonymous

    Thank you for commenting. Regrettably an old image (not relating to helmets) from a now old and unused leaflet is shown on our website and this error is being rectified. We are sorry for any misunderstanding

  • Rob Mcivor

    I’m afraid the mere fact that you’ve hooked up with the BHIT – a body that sells helmets – undermines what little credibility you have left. Kids had been riding bikes (and scooters and skateboards for that matter) for decades before manufacturers started trying to sell them helmets. Did you bother to look back at the injury stats over the past 30 years or so to see if the mass-marketing of magic hats had made any difference to the statistics?

    Curiosuly, this obsession with helmets is confined to the litigation-crazy USA and the UK. Go to the countries in Europe and see how few kids, or adults, feel the need to wear helmets. Their injury rates are no higher than here. Do you think the roads and paths are softer there?

    I’m sure you are well-meaning, but you are uninformed. If you achieved your goal of a compulsory helmet law (which would be unenforcable, by the way), all you would achieve would be a reduction in the number of kids riding bikes.

    Perhaps that’s what the motoring lobby really wants through.

    • http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk Guy Chapman

      It’s not just that BeHIT sell helmets. They are also highly economical with the truth. One reason they need new sponsors all the time is that people keep writing to the existing sponsors and pointing out BeHIT’s mendacious behaviour (which has in the past included citing a figure for child fatalities that was double the real figure; they claimed it was an “estimate based on under-reporting”. Of child fatalities, where the level of under-reporting is, according to independent experts, roughly zero).

      BeHIT are not a safety charity, they are a helmet compulsion charity. Their “cycle safety” presentations do not include any of the things that cycle trainers consider central to cycle safety. Little things like maintenance. Making sure your brakes work. That sort of trivia.

      More here: http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/wiki/BHIT_claims

  • Mike42

    I am a school governor, and have told our head teacher that I will fight any appearance of your incredibly biased and uninformed literature in our school.

    I would not accept literature on racial diversity from the EDL or National Front, and I will not accept cycle safety literature from an organisation so wholly bent on maintaining the status quo on our roads – that of the motorist on top, with little to no consideration given to ‘itinerant’ (as you call them) road users like cyclists who PAY for the roads too. That you have allowed anti-cycling hatespeech and mis-information on ‘road tax’ to be published in your journal is reprehensible, and you cannot hide behind the ‘oh, we forgot to check’ line. That’s like saying to the widow of a dead driver “oh, sorry luv – forgot to check the brakes were connected”.

    You know that forcing children to wear helmets sees an immediate and drastic decline in cycling participation, that does not recover as they become adults. You know that helmet laws do not save lives, they only lead to one thing: increased car use. If you don’t know these very basic, irrefutable facts, proven around the world over the last 20 years then you have no right to publish anything on cycling safety, at all.

    I wonder who benefits form increased car use? Motoring organisations like yours, perhaps?

    To call this campaign of yours insidious is an understatement. For shame everyone involved, for shame.

    Mike Stead

  • Anonymous

    Please do not promote helmets. Its on par with saying flak jackets should be compulsary in areas of high crime. BHIT, ironically named, have a history of a) making up figures and being forced to back track, and b) misusing data for their own ends.

    These figures of 6000 cyclists are false.

  • http://twitter.com/lucullus Tim Lennon

    I’m a school governor too, and this material will be shown over my twitching corpse: all this initiative will do is to reinforce the unwonted fear of cycling that keeps so many parents and children from getting on two wheels.

  • http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk Guy Chapman

    So, when will GEM be sponsoring material for actual cycle safety? I have done bike inspections for Scouts. Every child turns up “perfectly safe” with their plastic hat, but I have seen bikes with no front brakes, no rear brakes, no brakes at all, loose headsets, loose saddles, broken spokes, loose mudguard stays and every other form of dangerous fault known to man. Data from countries with helmet laws shows no provable benefit from helmet use, but I’m pretty sure that functioning brakes is well beyond the status of “might be useful in a crisis”.

    I’ll be charitable and assume this is an excess of ill-informed zeal. If you still ave your cheque book handy, give CTC a call, they will be more than happy to help you promote something that delivers genuine safety benefit.

    • Anonymous

      One should add to this that an “unsafe” bike is vastly more safe around others and the user than an “unsafe” motor vehicle. If the brakes fail on a pushbike the cyclist can use their feet (either jamming the back wheel, or on the ground “flintstones-style” as someone once put it)
      Thats not to say anyone should ride or dive an unsafe vehicle, more that I wish parents would take a more vested interest in their children’s bikes. I know of parents who have jammed a helmet on their kid but failed to make sure the forks were properly assembled, or that the brakes were attached. This is more important, as is reducing the negative impact the motor vehicle has given us. Not helmets.

  • Anonymous

    I HAVE GOT A FORD FIESTA RS IT IS THE BEST RALLY CAR IN THE WORLD.

    I HAVE GOT A LOT OF STICKERS ON THE CAR TO MAKE SURE THE LASSES ALL KNOW IT IS A GOOD CAR.

    BECAUSE I AM A GOOD DRIVER I HAVE HAD A FEW CRASHES, OTHER PEOPLE DON’T HAVE THE SAME REACTION TIMES AS ME AND THEY DON’T ALWAYS REALIZE I AM IN A FAST CAR.

    I ALWAYS WEAR A FULL FACE HELMET, THAT’S WHAT ALL THE BEST DRIVERS DO.

    IF YOU ARE ON A BIKE YOU DON’T NEED A HELMET UNLESS YOU ARE IN A CRITERIUM OR A MTB DOWNHILL RACE. MOST NORMAL CYCLISTS NEVER GO FASTER THAN 20MPH.

  • Anonymous

    “save life and limb” – I don’t think so. Limbs don’t get any protection from cycle helmets. If you crash your bike lots of important parts of your body can get damaged. The trick is to train safe cyclists and give them safe places to ride.

    Promoting helmets distracts attention from active safety measures which could reduce all cycling injuries and make many more people feel confident to
    cycle. The gains to health from having more people cycling vastly outweigh any reduction in head injuries likely to arise from cycle helmet promotion. There is abundant evidence that helmet legislation reduces overall levels of cycling.

    • http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk Guy Chapman

      Well, you say that, but the most widely cited pro-helmet study in the world – the one that is the source for the 85% and 88% figures usually quoted by helmet promoters – was based on a data set that also showed that helmets “prevent” about the same proportion of broken legs. Magic, those helmets.

  • Anonymous

    Children are already free to wear helmets and most seem to do so and many schools in Leighton Buzzard where I live require use of helmets to be able to use the bike sheds.

    However, only about 10% of children that say they want to cycle to school actually do so here. The reason? Parents won’t let them due to the traffic and if they do cycle then parents require them to cycle on the pavement.

    So how will this initiative result in more children cycling to school and thus getting regular excercise? It totally misses the point which is that people have been intimidated off the roads by traffic.

    How about GEM campaigning for a 20mph limit as a default in urban areas with anything higher having to be justified? Now that would have an effect on safety and not just for child cyclists.

  • Anonymous

    Numerous studies have shown that helmet wearing reduces the likelihood of serious head injury.   Helmet wearing  is a reduction in cycling injuries.  Because helmets can be effective, they conclude that their use must be enforced and this enforcement has no negative effec

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