London police stopping cyclists without helmets in "advice & education" exercise

utm_swest. How the hell did you manage to land head first if your bike slid from under you? Normally your arms break your fall unless you hit the kerb or a pothole and perform a face plant. Learn to fall mate.

Darrenmoore - am genuinely glad your brother is ok. Can I ask though. What other injuries did he have. Normally when hit hard enough to throw somebody onto the bonnet. Their legs and torso take the initial impact and forces. The head injury is secondary and involves less forces. In fact more people probably die from internal injuries and crush injuries caused motorised vehicles hitting them.

Well done the Met on what they've achieved in his crackdown. But in regards to their poorly thought out approach regards head gear and out wear a big massive FAIL.

Their time would be better spent picking up on ASL and cycle lane encroacher's as well as the thugs who indulge in punishment passes.

Ha, well done the Met, nowt like stirring up a hornets nest lol.

It's just what we needed, another helmet debate.

I hope while they were busy telling riders not to ride with headphones on they stopped every car with it's windows rolled up and asked the driver to roll them down and don't even THINK about turning on that car radio.....at least that way they might hear the cyclists screaming at them as they cut us up!

See, it's worked hasn't it?!

Everyone here is all in a tizzy about helmets, there's the usual anecdotal bollocks of "my helmet saved my life", there are calls to make helmets compulsory...

Meanwhile, out on the streets, the police are stopping cyclists who are riding entirely legally and "advising" them that they should consider helmets.

While they're busy doing that, another cyclist was killed today in Camberwell by... yep, you guessed it a left-turning lorry. If anyone can show me how 300g of polystyrene on my head can protect against an eight-wheeler weighing 10 tons going over my legs then go for it.

Put all your efforts into emailing the Met, TfL, Boris, the PM and telling them where the REAL issues lie - shit infrastructure and poor driving standards.

Wouldn't they be better served stopping those who are actually clearly breaking the law rather than those who aren't?

On the assumption that every single one of those lorry offences was insurance or mechanically related then none of them should have been permitted for onward travel

As these latest spate of unfortunate accidents and deaths have taken place in London, and London is the centre of the universe, it will follow that new country wide laws shall be passed to enforce helmets and YJA's and daytime running lights on bikes, sad but true. I am all for free choice and common sense however.

Oh for crying out loud. The Police should know better than this. Perhaps the cyclists not wearing helmets should educate the police on why helmets don't provide much protection for some types of collision and contribute to head injuries for some others.

I am going to assume the best here though. If they are stopping cyclists with earphones in riding stupidly that are also not wearing a helmet, that's one thing. But if they are stopping experienced cyclists behaving properly and giving them half baked advice on wearing a helmet then that is not on.

Some useful questions for a police officer giving advice on cyclists wearing helmets.

Q How common is head injury when cycling?
A Less common than for pedestrians
So should pedestrians particularly joggers wear a helmet

Q What protection do cycle helmets offer?
A Hardly any. In fact they offer less protection now than they used to in the 1990s because the standard has been diluted to make them easier and cheaper to manufacture.

The FIM standard helmet for Moto GP would still be insufficient to protect a cyclist from lethal head injury in a 30mph impact by a car. That's a standard of head protection as high as it gets.

Q Is there any significant difference between the number of cyclists suffering head injury who die as between those that wear and do not wear a helmet?
A No there isn't

See above about Moto GP helmets. That's why. and a piece of plastic laminated polystyrene is no use at all. It helps to stop minor head injury (grazing /gouges) in cycle sport. It almost no protection in vehicle crashes of any significance.

Q How many of the recent deaths in London have been as a result of a fatal head injury as opposed to being crushed?
A Most cyclists killed on the road die as a result of multiple trauma including crushing, not exclusively head injuries.

I bet the police officer trying to educate cyclists doesn't know much about cycle helmets themselves.

Like most posters on here I think they are talking shite to start the "you should be wearing a helmet" and "high vis" I'd like to see the scientific evidence to support this assertion.

Should an eight or eighteen wheeler turn into me I'm fecked, wearing my helmet ain't going to help me.

If they want to do something to benefit me nail those driving such vehicles who are committing offences on a regular basis.

They have no right to stop you whilst riding a cycle unless you have committed an offence, running red light etc, politely say thanks but no thanks and go on your way.

If they MUST have a go at cyclists, I'd rather they pulled over those who cycle after dark with no lights. There seem to be a hell of a lot of those in London. And that one is actually covered by a law, unlike helmets. No need to fine them, just point out to them that it is actually a legal requirement (and direct them towards the nearest 99p/poundshop!)

Besides, I'm never going to accept the police hassling cyclists until they actually start doing something about the utterly absurd levels of dangerous and illegal parking. It constantly amazes me where motorists think its OK to park.

Why do UCI sanction the mandatory use of helmets for competition use? What evidence anecdotal or not did they base the regulations on?

Poor ol' Met. Damned if they do and damned if they don't. At least they are trying, albeit a tad misguided...

For the belligerent and ignorant flamers of my earlier post...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130613092421.htm

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/10/02/impact-tes...

first things i was asked when i got to hospital after being injured in a hit&run RTC last week:-

"were you wearing a helmet?" (answer: yes!)

"were you wearing high-visibility clothing?" (answer: yes!)

how about the driver who made an illegal and very dangerous manouvre, caused the RTC and fled the scene; and has left me typing slowly with my left hand whilst my right hand is in plaster for 6 weeks....helmet and high-vis have f*ck all to do with my incident considering it was 10am, sun was shining and i did not fall (or hit my head)

every day for past 15 months whilst commuting in London I see motorists in ASL, texting / checking social media on smartphones, pushing through red lights. Sadly i also see HGV, black cabs and public vehicles like LONDON buses trying to push the boundaries as they well know traffic police numbers have been drastically cut.

of course see cyclists RLJ, riding on pavement, up one way streets, but with perspective 15kg of bike and 70kg of bike rider do nothing like the damage of 1500kg of motorcar with energy moving at 40mph!

time for the old bill to also get some true perspective and start policing motor vehicles with as much zeal as some of the recent "cycle blitzes"

….well this is the sort of 'seen to be doing something while not spending any money, and not really doing anything' that you can expect after last week.

For all those that were demanding immediate action before any sort of investigation can happen this is what you get….a pointless half measure.

Until they determine what happened what else can they do? Being reactionary doesn't help and wastes money. This way TFL and the Major APPEAR to be drumming home the message on safety - even if they are doing nothing.

Oh dear God is this STILL going on?!

STOP. TALKING. ABOUT. HELMET. LAWS.
Anecdotal shit about whether or not a helmet would or wouldn't have helped in any one accident isn't the point here. That debate has been had.

The point here is that the police seem to be stopping cyclists to advise them to wear helmets in a week where 6 cyclists have been killed by lorries/buses as a way of getting round dealing with the main problem - tons of lethal metal! And that's not upsetting anyone? Oh no, we'd rather have an argument about a bit of polystyrene. Epic fail.

I knew this link was somewhere. Not a bit of polystyrene anywhere. Lookout for the brilliant recovery around 1'41" or so. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqo4hwnJt6Y

Walking paced comedy falls to justify the non-use of cycle helmets? Howay come on Haha...

Great vid though, drift was awesome!

Quote:

This article is not, in any case, about whether helmets are any good or not, or whether they should be compulsory or not, it is about the police stopping people for doing something which is entirely legal and where there is no suspicion that any crime has been, is being, or is about to be committed.

Thank God someone else gets it!!

Anyone discussing helmet compulsion in Australia, anecdotal stories of how their helmet once saved their life when they slipped on some ice...GO AWAY.
Don't get angry about that, it's been done to death!

We're talking about police stopping people who are committing no crime whatsoever and those people being advised to wear helmets and hi-vis. All while, in the background, lorries and cars are thundering past.

The police stopping cyclists for not wearing helmets?

No, you're right, I can't see how anybody has made the gargantuan mental leap from that to helmet compulsion.

I can see why people are irritated by the "advice and information" stops, as it seems to put the onus on cyclists to be entirely responsible for their safety. At the same time, I don't think an outpouring of anger at these measures is particularly helpful.

Some attention is finally being paid to cyclist safety - it is on the agenda and resource has been diverted to considering the safety of cyclists. Let's make sure it stays on the agenda and help to guide the thinking on safety to get the right resources & actions put in place. We won't gain credibility by shouting and swearing.

My personal preference is to wear hi-viz and use lights most of the time. I'd rather do as much as possible to ensure drivers see me. If a driver is dangerous around me I can quite happily challenge them on the basis that I've done everything possible to keep myself safe. I sometimes choose to ride on the road instead of cycle paths, where those cycle paths are rough, unlit, busy with a high volume of pedestrians or require me to negotiate more junctions than the road would etc. Freedom of choice is important, but we need to tell the authorities what we need them to do, not simply shout at them about what not to do.

I would hazard a guess that the bulk of people who have bothered to look at this here website, register as a user and post a comment would identify as cyclists, is that a fair assumption?

(I have not done so at train.cc.com despite me using them as a means of getting to work)

I like bikes, I use trains. There's a difference.

How many of the people plod stopped identify as cyclists as opposed to people merely using a bike to get around. I don't see the harm in what plod are doing, especially as the article also says they are stopping those they see committing offences and also HGV drivers too.

As an aside, I wonder what accident rates are like in Cambridge in comparison? Lots of bikes and cars, all nationalities, narrow roads etc.

Seems to me the most important thing here is that they didn't find any cyclists to give a ticket to, but 60 lorry offences across 20 lorries. Scary!

The UK has higher helmet use than the Netherlands yet has three times the casualty rate.

Australia has compulsory helmets and almost nobody cycles in that country, so whether or not the law has reduced cycling still further (people seem to keep arguing about this), there is no way you can cite that country as a model to follow. Its transport culture is disastrous.

They suffer the much more significant health problems caused by car-centricity (Australians are the fattest people in the developed world after the US, apparently, even worse than us, something which surprises me).

What keeps getting ignored in all this is that the major health risks are all associated with car use. The health damage caused by car use (via accidents, physical inactivity, _and_ pollution, both local and global) dwarfs any tiny difference in health outcomes that come from cyclists wearing or not wearing helmets.

Why are the police not stopping drivers and asking them if their journey is really necessary and do they really need to do it in a car? That would be the equivalent of challenging non-hemleted cyclists.

I don't see why people are unable to see how silly it is to keep banging on about helmets for cyclists while ignoring the much more urgent problem of stopping people from driving so much. A culture of driving is a health emergency, a culture of cycling-without-helmets is not.

This blog is well worth a read:
http://primlystable.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/dead-cyclists-missing-helmets...

(not my blog by the way, I saw it linked to on Twitter).

Excellent piece. Sums up my thoughts exactly.

I think helmets should be the law im quite sure it would save a lot of lifes . I myself is a very keen cyclist and go out in all weathers (not ice) and im always wear a helmet I don't feel save without one.

Can anyone tell me where to get one of these cycling helmets that the police are promoting that can ward off a 30 ton truck if it runs over me?

So far in London this year -

Cyclist deaths: 14
Deaths caused by the pollution: 3,550

I think we're all looking at the wrong thing.

I want a mask that still works when I cycle hard, they tend to fit bad and get soggy from breath moisture.

Everyone seems to think you should be wearing a helmet, but you are 273 times more likely to contract a lung disease and die.

Do we have regular big protracted arguments here on road.cc about how bad London's pollution is?

How many times have Met Police stopped vehicles in London because they were belching clouds of black smoke. Buses and cabs are particularly guilty of doing this. Cabs account for 30% of inner London's pollution.

How many traffic wardens does London have?
How many vehicle pollution checkers does London have?

Agree with kie7077. Plod has to be seen to be fair in a 'crack-down' such as this. Handing down advice on helmet-wearing may be exasperating to bike riders, esp if you are late for work. But surely we can live with it if it puts a weed up the ass of all those piece-work contractors hurtling around town in dodgy trucks?