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Chris Boardman - Helmets

Once again Chris and the Cycling Establishmnet have come out and rightfully said that Helmets are low on their priority of cycling safety factors. Helmets will never prevent an accident, and they may actually increase the probabilty of one happening. A helmet will not help much in a collision with motor vehicle doing 30+mph.

But every time their argument states that cycling is very safe and that helmets only help in minor falls. This is true, but compared with motorised vehicle travel cycling is relatively very dangerous,

If you do the same journey (say a commute) on a bike and in a car you are about forty times more likely to be killed or seriously injured on the bike than in a car. (This is nothing to do with helmet use, just the risk of cycling) REF Cycling UK  https://www.cyclinguk.org/statistics.

Cycling bodies are doing all they can to address the fundamental problems, but they avoid talking about the magnitude of the problem.

Will you do a charity parachute jump with me? Your parachute is extremely safe, but it is forty time more likely to fail than mine? Lets go for it mate!

It's time to have the real debate

 

If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.

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29 comments

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Rich_cb | 3 years ago
3 likes

The best way to think about the relative risk is simply to multiply the distance cycled by the relative risk and then ask if driving such a distance would be considered dangerous.

So if the relative risk is 40 and I cycle a 5 mile commute, would we consider a 200 mile drive dangerous?

Most people would not therefore most people should not consider a 5 mile commute dangerous.

As others have said you also need to factor in that cycling drastically reduces your risk of serious ill health meaning that your overall risk of death is likely lower than that of drivers.

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Awavey replied to Rich_cb | 3 years ago
0 likes

but the flaw then is the risk per mile is assumed to be equivalent for all miles, whilst I would class riding 40miles in the countryside where I see barely any traffic at all to be relatively much safer to my 5mile commute where Im constantly on the back foot in terms of having traffic all around me, very unhappy to have to deal with a cyclist

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Rich_cb replied to Awavey | 3 years ago
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It's meant to be a quick guide rather than an exact calculation.

I'm not sure the statistics back up your assumption though. Are KSI rates per mile 8 times higher on urban roads?

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IanGlasgow replied to Rich_cb | 3 years ago
1 like

Rich_cb wrote:

It's meant to be a quick guide rather than an exact calculation. I'm not sure the statistics back up your assumption though. Are KSI rates per mile 8 times higher on urban roads?

According to Brake the oppsite is true:
"Per mile travelled, country roads are the most dangerous roads for all kinds of road user:
Cyclists are almost three times more likely to be killed on a country road than an urban road."

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Awavey replied to Rich_cb | 3 years ago
0 likes

possibly on a pure numbers game the stats tell a different story, but maybe theres a factor, or a number of factors in play that causes those stats but they arent showing the whole picture of.

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Rich_cb replied to Awavey | 3 years ago
0 likes

In my experience I have far more close passes on urban roads but the close passes I have on rural roads are at far higher speeds.

I also find that you encounter very dangerous road surfaces more often on rural roads.

I much prefer cycling on rural roads but I think I'm probably safer on urban roads.

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IanGlasgow replied to Awavey | 3 years ago
1 like

Although country roads can feel safer for cycling than city streets, they're not. According to Brake, per mile travelled cyclists are three times more likely to be killed on a country road.

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Awavey replied to IanGlasgow | 3 years ago
1 like

Im not saying ALL country roads are necessarily safer vs urban roads, I know a number of roads that would be classed as country routes which I avoid like the plague on a bicycle as Im convinced you would get hit if you used them.

but its literally like the first and last 5% of my longer mileage rides,which are urban roads, are hellish, everyone is driving around like a complete loon, its the point Im most fearful of being hit and where nearly all my most dangerous close passes occur. the other 90% once Ive escaped urban sprawl, I can ride around for hours,and barely encounter other traffic, as long as I stick to the right roads,and its very nice and relaxing, its a rare day I feel as at risk as I do on those bits as I do in the urban bits, unfortunately the commute route is all urban bits.

so it doesnt feel to me at least like the risk breaks down on a pure mile basis, there are other factors we need to consider, its fine as a general pointer maybe to show cycling isnt that risky to new riders, but of all the riding I do I feel my commute,which are the shortest rides I do, are the riskiest.

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Velo-drone | 3 years ago
6 likes

It's a total false equivalence to compare ksi per distance travelled in a car and on a bike and say that cycling is more dangerous - people don't use cars in that way.  Cars go faster, and further, and people therefore use them to travel greater distances than on bikes.    If everyone drove cars for short distances at a maximum of 30mph then you might have a point - but then you would also have a lot lower ksi for cyclists as they would't be being hit by 60mph motorists.

So if we're going to have this debate then at least have it on sensible terms, and look at ksi per time spent on the road.  There's never going to be a perfect comparison, but that at least would be a not quite as fundamentally flawed perspective.

For additional balance, it would be sensible to take some kind of account of the health benefits of cycling in terms of deaths & injuries avoided from sedentary lifestyles.  This is more difficult still, but is nevertheless a relevant and very significant factor and there are studies which have looked at this.  

Last but not least - ksi by distance travelled is approximately the same for cyclists as for pedestrians.  So should we wear helmets to walk as well?  Or go out of our way to tell everyone who is considering walking somewhere how dangerous it is?

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Captain Badger replied to Velo-drone | 3 years ago
6 likes

Interesting point. Also why are 3rd party deaths not considered? Most of those cyclists KSI are as a result of car drivers. This should not be excluded from vehicle KSI

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Cycloid replied to Velo-drone | 3 years ago
0 likes

So is cycling more dangerous than driving?

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Hirsute replied to Cycloid | 3 years ago
4 likes

I think that is hard to answer as you have to filter out a lot of data to get to some reasonable comparison.
Plus the data sets are very likely incomplete eg lack minor bumps car on car.
Even if the relative danger is greater, the absolute may be insignificant

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OnYerBike | 3 years ago
4 likes

My take on it is that when people say cycling is safe, they mean it is safe in an objective and absolute sense, and that the risk is so low that it shouldn't influence your decision. Yes it's more dangerous than driving, but the risk of driving is so low that people jump in a car without a second thought, so "more dangerous" shouldn't stop you jumping on a bike.

To put it in perspective, let's imagine you want to get from London to Edinburgh - how would you go about it? For most people it's probably a toss up between driving, flying and getting the train. What influences your decision? Cost? Convenience? Journey time? I bet for most people, "safety" doesn't factor - indeed, I would go one further and say that on a pretty regular basis, people choose to do that journey (or similar ones) by car or train rather than flying because they are scared of flying. This is despite the fact that flying is 104 times safer than driving and six times safer than the train (based on these figures: https://www.cityam.com/one-chart-showing-safest-ways-travel/)*.

What does this tell us? Firstly that people are terrible at objectively assessing risk. Secondly that all sorts of everyday activities have a level of risk, and most of the time that risk doesn't factor into our decision making. 40 times higher than a tiny risk is still a tiny risk - don't let it stop you riding a bike!

* Yes the figures are American and out-of-date, but I can't be arsed with finding anything better. I think the point will stand based on current UK figures if anyone can be bothered to find them.

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Cycloid replied to OnYerBike | 3 years ago
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Forty times a tiny risk is forty times a tiny risk. That is why I put the parachute analogy in my post. I know a shop where you can buy a lottery ticket that has forty times the chance of winning. Are you interested?

Yes we are terrible at assessing risk, but I feel that in this case it is something we must take into account.

New cyclists who are getting out of their cars to commute on bicycles in these troubled times probably feel very scared. Their perception that cycling is dangereous is not unfounded, (it may be out of proportion to the actual risk) and needs to be adressed if cycling is to take off.

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OnYerBike replied to Cycloid | 3 years ago
2 likes

Actually that's every shop. Clearly you would be crazy to buy a Euromillions ticket when at the very same shop you could buy a National Lottery ticket, which has a 46x better chance of winning the jackpot!

And did you walk to the corner shop to buy your lottery ticket? Madness! Definitely should have driven - much safer. In terms of fatalities, walking is more dangerous than cycling, yet I can't remember anyone ever considering the dangers of going for a walk.

And as for charity parachute jumps - don't bother, they're a waste of money https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10476298/

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ktache replied to OnYerBike | 3 years ago
6 likes

As I understand it the trains in this country have become incredibly safe, leaving the road model and adopting the aircraft level and need for safety.  Until the unfortunate deaths caused by the landslide in Scotland there hadn't been any passenger deaths caused by crashes for ages.  Trying to find exact numbers, best I could come up with were 10 years without passenger or stall deaths in accident in 2017.  The search also came up with NO passenger deaths on the massive Indian rail network in 2019, which is very impressive.

But until Boeing's wonderful new airliners flew themselves into the scenery I don't believe there had been a jet crash for over a year, Trump claimed the safety thing of course, but the 737 crashes obviously had nothing to do with him. 

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pablo | 3 years ago
2 likes

So many many moons ago I used to have minor involvement in setting up car front ends for crash and pedestrian safety and used to talk regularly with the CAE boys and girls about the results from simulation runs and physical testing and I came to the conclusion that if I was unlucky enough to end up going over the bonnet of a car the biggest risk to me was on the bike. The G loading on your brain maybe survivable at the speeds tested but I was never really convinced you wouldn't end up as a vegetable. The key to survivability was deceleration at a G that was survivable and personally anything other than my skull will always help with that. MIPS and similar systems may or may not help that much but it's better than nothing.
These Threads are a little bit like flat earthers trying to prove the unprovable I feel that you expect everyone to have a light bulb moment and see your point of view and then throw all our helmets in the bin.
The truth is the evidence is not great either way and that's purely because the legislature doesn't care enough about it to spend the money investigating it or forcing others to do it for them. What the bike industry spends on it is chump changes it needs millions every year.

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Captain Badger | 3 years ago
2 likes

What you say about the risks of riding may well be true. However, lids do not seem to be relevant in this. 

As for relative risk of transport modes....

 

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Sriracha | 3 years ago
3 likes
Quote:

If you do the same journey (say a commute) on a bike and in a car you are about forty times more likely to be killed or seriously injured on the bike than in a car

The stats don't support your interpretation, because of course people don't do the same journeys by bike as by car. To arrive at the ratio you quote you would need to do as you say, compare the same journeys completed by bike and by car.

That might be difficult to do. A good approximation might be KSIs per hour travelled excluding motorways.

Then of course you need to factor in other risks to life and health per hour sat stressing at the wheel versus actively exercising.

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Luca Patrono | 3 years ago
5 likes

The argument is usually not that cycling is safe but that cycling is _intrinsically_ safe - i.e. it is the presence of motor vehicles, not some risk inherent to riding a bike, which makes cycling on roads dangerous. This is obviously to reframe the discussion away from ineffective PPE ("cycling is dangerous, you must protect yourself") and towards segregating motor vehicles and punishing the harm they cause ("motor vehicles are dangerous, we must deal with that").

Unfortunately, it never really works - whenever some public figure attempts such a reframe, at least ten people who have completely missed the point that was being made pop out of the woodwork to bleat about how they fell off once and the helmet saved their ass. Yeah, me too, but it doesn't change the original point.

Oh, and I absolutely despise Twitter for this. It's a cancerous platform. Just thought I'd add that.

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TheBillder | 3 years ago
3 likes

Ok I'll bite and probably regret it...

Suppose 1 in 100,000 parachutes fails in some way normally, so the one you're offering me has 1 in 2,500 risk of ksi.

If I go on your parachute jump and start fat, depressed, worried about climate change doom, and atherosclerotic, but then by the time I land I have a new heart and lungs, a sensible weight, have done something about my carbon footprint, and feel a million dollars, does that change my thinking?

And if I also think that I can probably skew the odds a bit because I know a bit more than some about how to do it safely, willing to invest some time and money in being safer etc?

And if I also think that the danger comes mostly from a specific group of other sky users who have never parachuted and should try it, and I also feel very strongly that I have a right to this jump and hence want to do it despite a bit of extra risk, and if only lots of other people could be shown that this is normal, and people who do it are normal (apart from being on average a bit lovelier than those who don't), and if more people did it they'd also be happier and doing a little bit about the really big crisis facing everyone.

So yeah. I'll do it. Helmet for me (usually) but totally get why people don't and fully support the right to choose.

Flame away, as we used to say on Usenet in the 20th century...

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Cycloid replied to TheBillder | 3 years ago
0 likes

Thanks for your reply, The parachute analogy wasn't meant to be a trap, just a clumsy attempt to bring the risk into perspective. If you were in a plane that was plummeting toowards the ground, the bad parachute would look like a pretty good option.

My point is that government and pro cycling bodies are trying to get us out of cars and onto bikes, but at the same time they are increasing our risk of a KSI accident by a large factor,  (they may also be reducing our chance of cardio disease  and the overall all balance may be positive), but they NEVER tell us all the facts and avoid talking about the negatives.

The standard statement they make is "cycling is very safe, It's just a perception that it is dangerous". Well to a new cyclist who is scared to death that perception is very justified.

We need to make cycling feel safe before people will make the move

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Zigster replied to Cycloid | 3 years ago
7 likes

"We need to make cycling feel safe before people will make the move."

And a problem with helmets is that they say the complete opposite - wearing of helmets (and the insistence of some that you have to wear a helmet) promotes the image that cycling isn't safe.

I'll wear a helmet when I'm engaged in cycling as a sporting activity because I think I'm taking greater risks. But if I'm popping to the shops in normal clothing, normal pedals, etc, I'm happy to go lidless because cycling isn't particularly dangerous and helmets don't make much of a difference to the risk that does exist.

You've compared cycling to driving, but why not to walking?

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Cycloid replied to Zigster | 3 years ago
1 like

I Agree with your analysis

I used to follow your philosophy, until a week after I retired when I rode into the village to buy a can of beer, whilst not wearing a helmet. I got cut up on the roundabout and I found myself lying on the road looking at a piece of my own scalp. If I knew when I was going to have an accident I would not go out. I still go for a midweek ride on the Cheshire lanes withiut a helmet if I feel like it.

We are not rational beings.

The Link I included in my post gave pedestrian data

 

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Zigster replied to Cycloid | 3 years ago
2 likes

Sorry, I can't see the link you mean.  My understanding is that cycling and walking carry similar levels of risk per mile travelled.

Cars initially look much better, but that ignores that a large proportion of car miles are on roads specially designed to filter out more vulnerable road users and be as safe as possible for the drivers (i.e. motorways). (I've tried to get to the government data on this but it's playing up on my iPad https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/road-accidents-and-safety-stat...)

 

 

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TheBillder replied to Cycloid | 3 years ago
4 likes

This is why I think the right to choose is so important. I'm very glad that since you were a victim you have continued to to ride and continued to choose when a helmet is right for you.

I agree, we are not rational beings. I've read the research that shows that helmets are really only useful at low speeds, yet I'm more likely to wear one on a longer, faster ride, and mostly because it makes me and my loved ones feel less worried. I hope also that if I do hit my head I may have slowed down a bit. Sometimes I take the helmet off mid ride, if it's hot and I'm climbing, and then put it on for a descent. Not sure if the research backs me up, but I'm unable really to be objective at that moment; I just do what seems right for me and may change my behaviour if I do some further reading.

It would be very annoying if I were not allowed to ride without my helmet, but far worse that any prospective pootler to the shops / park / etc decided that they would drive because a compulsory helmet is off-putting and cycling must be too dangerous really.

In the UK we are pretty bad at learning from other countries, not least because our politicians seem to think that there is something unique about this country so we have to do things our own way - test & trace app is a recent example. But we have to learn from Australia on this. Helmets are compulsory. There are fines for disobedience, larger (I understand) than fines for some other offences that seem far more serious to me. Cycling has a modal share that is low, motor traffic is aggressive and infrastructure not great. Compulsion hasn't worked, and cycling has become far less safe because people have been told, directly and indirectly, that it is not safe. The propaganda has influenced the reality.

There's a huge amount of pro-helmet propaganda in the UK, such that Chris Boardman gets flamed for riding without one in videos, likely (I can't prove it) by people who don't ride much, if ever, and have never researched the topic at all. The balance needs redressing. Bikes are ridden by Lizzie Deignan and Danny Macaskill in full kit for sport and entertainment, but they're also (better?) suited to short travel in normal clothes by normal people, and the more we do this the safer it gets, in a lovely virtuous circle.

Sadly, we allow people to be told that driving is safe. Ok, you need ABS, crumple zones, stability control, multiple airbags, cameras to see out of junctions, automatic braking, lane departure warnings etc, but this makes you safe and barely inconveniences the car owner.

No one mentions that the danger comes from the other drivers and that you are the danger to them. So no one deals with the actual issue - we have almost given up on dealing with the cause. Instead we add kit to cars and change road layouts. No action on poor eyesight, ill educated drivers, slow reactions, distractions, proper sanctions that are actually used, etc.

We have to get back to "cycling is safe, driving is dangerous" even though the danger of driving is now primarily to others.

Sorry this is a long rant but I do feel very strongly that our car cult is killing people and the planet and the solutions are in front of our noses.

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mdavidford replied to TheBillder | 3 years ago
2 likes

Didn't seem like a rant to me - I thought it was reasonable, coherent, and well-constructed. If I could give you more than one like, I would.

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kevvjj replied to Cycloid | 3 years ago
10 likes

The pro-cycling bodies are not increasing our risk. Every time someone gets on a bike and leaves the car at home the risk to a cyclist is reduced. By far the greatest danger to cyclists is the motor vehicle. Reduce these in great numbers and the risk is diminished. The Dutch recognised this quite some time ago.

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Jetmans Dad replied to kevvjj | 3 years ago
4 likes

Absolutely, the risks of cycling go down as the proportion of cyclists in the traffic goes up. Encouraging people to get out of their cars and onto their bikes not only improves the health and wellbeing of the individuals that do so, but reduces the risk for those already cycling and reduces traffic volumes for those who genuinely cannot do so. Everyone wins. 

That is why it is so frustrating to see councils giving up on pop up cycle lanes after a few weeks (or even days) because the most vocal drivers kick up a bit of a fuss, way before any benefits can be seen. 

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