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news
White cycle helmetBosnia repeals cycle helmet law
Bosnia and Herzegovina has repealed its all-ages cycle helmet compulsion law. BikeBiz reports that it is the first country ever to do so.
Six years ago, a campaign to reverse the mandatory helmet law was begun by the Centre for Environment group.
The group’s Tihomir Dakic said: "This returns the focus from reducing the consequences of crashes, to minimising the causes of traffic crashes. Cycling has been incorrectly presented as a dangerous activity. In fact, the health benefits of the daily use of the bicycle outweigh the traffic risks by around twenty-to-one.
"We invite all those who stopped using the bicycle due to the helmet law to return to it, to respect traffic rules and enjoy all the benefits that cycling provides."
Mexico City repealed its cycle helmet law in February 2010 and in August 2011 Israel repealed its law for adult cyclists in urban areas. However, the the move by Bosnia and Herzegovina is thought to be the first all-ages, all-areas repeal.
Sue Knaup, executive director of the international cycle advocacy group One Street, said: "Bosnia and Herzegovina has set an important precedent with this repeal. Any law that mandates the wearing of helmets or other articles, criminalises the use of bicycles as an efficient and affordable means of transportation."
The European Cyclists' Federation Ceri Woolsgrove also welcomed the law's repeal, saying: "Cyclists should be able to choose whether to wear or not to wear helmets. The Centre for Environment, a member of the ECF, has highlighted this important issue. Cycling is not an overly dangerous activity and brings tremendous health benefits for individuals, and has a positive effect on the environment and society as a whole."
In contrast, later this month a new law will come into effect in France requiring children aged 12 and under to wear an approved helmet while riding a bike, whether they are pedalling themselves or being carried as a passenger.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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35 comments
As ever with these kinds of threads, it always needs repeating:
"The plural of anecdote is not evidence"
None of the pro-helmet preachers, with their blind 'you must be mad' declarations, want to ask another question:
Why would the Bosnian lawmakers want to repeal something that, on the surface, should be in the interest of its citizens?
Do you not think they might have very good reasons?
So I've repeated it.
But its not just about death though is it ?
Its about averting serious head injury on motorbikes. Its an up in the air question but how many motorbikers would have been killed had they not been wearing a helmet ?
I'm not comparing this to cycle helmets, far from it, but the analogy of the motorbike and cycle helmet was brought up.
You just did.
Given your inability to read your own writing I seriously doubt the reliability of any anecdote you bring to the table. Are you sure that the injured people you've seen at road traffic collisions were not actually riding kangaroos?
Over the years I've been to countless rtc's which have involved a cyclist. Some wear a helmet, some dont, thats their perogative and hopefully it will remain that way as to be honest its like lifetime driving bans - totally unenforceable.
However what i have seen is people with parts of their scalp missing or nice splits in their heads where their head has come into contact with the ground or a vehicle yet those who did wear a helmet seemed to be lacking these injuries - interesting
.
Yes you do get the odd neck strain but personally i would prefer a neck strain than having stitches or part of my scalp glued back together. Cue the anecdote - it wont help you when your hit by a ton of metal.
Its personal choice and fingers crossed it will stay that way and hopefully other countries will take note of what Bosnia have done.
Amazing how people will happily try and hit 60mph descending on a bicycle and not wear a helmet but add an engine onto your two-wheeled transport and people would probably say you were mad not to wear a helmet.
How many of you non-helmeteers would ride a motorbike without a helmet? Just wondering as everyone here seems to think they'll only ever get their torsos crushed by a lorry on bicycle. Surely the possibility of head injury on a bicycle has some correlation to other two-wheeled transport?
Maybe we need to join forces with oppressed motorbikers and have their helmet laws repealed.
given the choice, I would take leathers first
Actually, the proven effect of motorcycle helmet laws is similar to that of cycle helmet laws i.e. no reduction in risk.
The same arguments were trotted out about motorcycle helmets as cycle helmets, with massive reductions in deaths and head injuries forecast, and when the motorcycle helmet law was enacted in the UK, deaths to motorcyclists fell immediately, so the law was declared a success, at least by the people who enacted it.
However, someone slightly more sceptical did some rather more detailed investigation and found that the death rate of motorcyclists fell between the hours of about 2200-0200, and unless helmets became magically effective just between those hours, the reduction in deaths was due to something else. What else happened at the same time as the helmet law? The breathalyser was introduced with high penalties for drunk driving, by motorists and motorcyclists, which is a much more likely explanation of the improvement in the death rate of motorcyclists.
There is also data from the USA which casts doubt on the effectiveness of motorcycle helmets. When I was doing some research about cycle helmets, I came across some research from Italy, which didn't at the time have a national motorcycle helmet rule, so one area of Italy introduced a motorcycle helmet rule. The immediate effect was a 30% reduction in deaths of motorcyclists, so the law was declared a success, but it was only in the appendices that they mentioned that the number of motorcycles registered fell by 40% as a result of the law, so motorcycling became more dangerous, not safer.
Is this from the same guy that gave me a hard time the other day for asking for further details of the rise or fall of cyclists to put the stated statistics in to context?
Yes. Do I win a prize?
Yes, you won the title of "Mr Double Standards" for the day. I apologise for my late reply on this as I have been travelling. As compensation you can keep the title untill the weekend.
Yes, that is pretty goddamn stupid.
Oh.
I am guessing that you have never held a motorcycle helmet in your hands.
Given your fears I suggest you save up and pop one on the next time you're out on your pushbike. Next Christmas you could ask Santa for a spine protector, leathers and some heavy boots. Then you will be safe. Except from ISIS. And global warming.
Oddly enough I've had a motorbike licence since 1996, have done trackdays in cars and bikes and my fear of speed is probably not as high as it should be given my ambition has outweighed my talent on a number of occasions. As The Goose once said, "see you on the road, scag".
One of my proudest days was thrashing the living shit out of my VFR400 on Mad Sunday over the mountain section and only being overtaken once. Scared? Not really. Would I ride a motorbike without a helmet? No, it's just common sense.
It may be common sense, but it is also common sense that the earth is flat.
As an engineer, I go by data, not common sense, and the data shows that helmets, whether motorcycle or bicycle, have very little, if any benefit. Your common sense is merely the accumulation of society's norms and what you have been told over your life.
As my favourite Frenchman, Voltaire, said “Common sense is not so common.” Nor is it always right.
Nice.
Look, the reason I'm having a go at you is because you're comparing high-speeds on a pushbike with a pushbike helmet with high-speeds on a motorbike with a motorbike helmet.
The construction of the two is nothing similar.
If I am understanding your comparison correctly then you see travelling at 60mph downhill on a bicycle as risky. As do I. And you note that someone doing that on a motorbike would need to wear a motorbike helmet. If that is right, then someone on a bicycle needs to wear a motorbike helmet. And indeed, downhillers do wear helmets of similar construction.
So, if I am to take your risk assessment and risk mitigation measures seriously then cyclists should be wearing motorcycle helmets.
Correct. Motorcycle helmets are much heavier and can absorb more energy, but even with that heavier construction, they are only rated to prevent brain injury at about 16mph.
Because of the heavier construction, they are much more likely to result in serious neck injuries.
They also, as so ably demonstrated by the Yorkshire Wallet, lead to increased risk taking. The majority of motorcycle injury and deaths in rural areas are single vehicle incidents, with no other vehicle involved.
Sorry to be pedantic but isn't that post almost entirely anecdotal?
Whilst riding through the park on my daily commute last autumn I was glad I was wearing a helmet when a squirrel jumped out of a tree to land on my (helmeted) head before jumping off to another tree.
There were also several times when having to cycle under low hanging branches that I was also glad of the protection. I am sure that there are lots of circumstances that helmets are of no use but I am pretty sure my daily commute isn't one of them (at least not so far).
While it is good to see at least one country actually looking at the data rather than the anecdotes (not antidotes!) used by the helmet zealots, the question of helmet compulsion still remains, and the zealots will not give up easily. They will continue to try to force laws through and run propaganda campaigns, grossly exaggerating the risks of cycling and the protection offered by a helmet.
Then there is the problem of compulsion by stealth, with many event organisers having totally unjustified helmet rules e.g. http://road.cc/content/news/218508-v%C3%A9lo-birmingham-announces-full-d...
Helmets have never been shown to reduce the risk to cyclists in the real world using long term, large scale, reliable research, not the unreliable pseudo-science of the helmet promoters. The real question is why so many people believe the unreliable evidence but don't believe the reliable evidence.
Note to self. Do not buy a second hand bicycle from Beezus.
I've hit my head several times quite badly; once skiing on a very icy surface at speed, another quite recently going up the stairs while taunting the cat with string, an incident in school that involved throwing rocks at each other which ended in stiches, stagediving, also ended in stitches...
Bingo!
Personally I never go out without a helmet. My helmet saved a more serious injury when a car knocked me off my bike. The helmet was a write -off when my head hit the floor but at least I only had a sore head and not a fractured one.
I don't think they should be compulsory but I don't understand anyone riding a bike on the road without wearing a helmet.
I shall just leave this here... http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-02-18
Do you wear it when climbing or descending stairs and when gardening? Gardening is more dangerous than cycling.
Why not try to understand why many people don't wear one to ride a bike? It's quite straightforward. You'll still be free to choose to wear one, no-one will mind.
it's easy to be wise in hindsight - if only I'd been helmeted up!
never when biking though...
I have wrapped my testicles around various parts of my bicycle though, but it hadn't occurred to me to wear a jockstrap either!
I hope you washed them first
http://road.cc/content/news/85955-tyre-slashing-man-caught-camera-having...
Well... I don't think we can be certain whether Bicycle-Humping-Man would prefers Beezus wash first or not?
I had moderately fast fall two winters ago, when my front wheel washed out on a patch of black ice - I came down fairly heavily on my left shoulder. I'm very lucky that I wasn't wearing a helmet as the extra mass and radius would definitely have made me strike my head as well, which would definitely have left me with concussion at the very least but more likely a serious brain bleed, as well as a serious, possibly fatal, neck injury[*].
I don't think they should be banned but I don't understand anyone riding a bike on the road while wearing a helmet[*].
[*: Warning: Post may contain hyperbole and unsubstantiated assumptions presented as fact. Not to be used in a rational argument. Suitable for internet use.]
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