Call for mandatory cycling helmets from children's hospital consultant

Also - since this is a children's hospital - we need much more controls around those kids running about and playing.  Lots of injuries from that...

It's about sensible balancing of overall health risks both from doing certain activities AND not doing others.  Currently the environment we live in promotes sedentarism / restricts the independent movement (and indeed interactions) of children.

Confession time - when I (re)started cycling, I thought it was compulsory to wear a helmet, so I have always worn one.

I came off once (I had run my chain wayy too long) head first onto the pavement. The helmet had a nice dent that otherwise would have been in my head. Was happy to be wearing a helmet that day.

However, I am fully aware that the helmet will do next to nothing for me when a drivist hits me.

Cycling is a sport. Yes, people cycle their commute (I'm one) but it is primarily a sport. I have also fallen when running - should runners need helmets? How about rugby players? Football players? Should swimmers have to wear life jackets?
(by the way - I'm not actually clumsy, despite the evidence)

HoldingOn wrote:

Cycling is a sport. Yes, people cycle their commute (I'm one) but it is primarily a sport. 

In the UK, that is probably true, but it shouldn't be. 

If we want to encourage more people to cycle in order to improve general health, deal with the obesity crisis and cut the use of motor vehicles for stupidly short trips across town to reduce air pollution and our contribution to the climate crisis then we need to not be placing further barriers on uptake and making decisions that reinforce the ideas that (a) cycling is inherently dangerous and (b) you can only do it if you use specialist equipment. 

Also, Mark Pawsey falls into the classic trap of making an argument based on the erroneous assumption that cars and bicycles are basically the same. 

Firstly - if it wasn't clear - I am most definitely in favour of leaving helmets as a choice.

Jetmans Dad wrote:

.... reinforce the ideas that (a) cycling is inherently dangerous and (b) you can only do it if you use specialist equipment. 

The "dangerous" aspect - do lights* have the same impact? About half of my commutes legally have to be done with lights so I can be seen - I would argue that lights represent a bigger danger, as they are there to prevent metal death boxes from ploughing into me. (yeah - that'll stop them...) Whereas a helmet is there in case I topple over.
*lights and reflectors

I find it weird that helmets are generally seen as representative of "danger" - but humans are a weird creature.

Your body: your choice

To be honest, I'm not sure I'd agree that in the UK cycling is primarily a "sport", if by that we mean "competitive". It may be true of the demographic on road.cc, but as I sit here just of Russel Square in London, all of the cyclists going past are definitely not racing anyone. What metric are we using to classify UK cycling as "sport" (and hence an out group for the majority of the population) when I'd have thought it would serve us all to avoid exaggerating that classification.
And in the interests of full disclosure yes I fled the country to South Australia in 2005; we're back for a holiday.

I have no metric to support my wild claim that cycling is primarily a "sport" - it's merely how I was brought up with it.
I am classifying it as a sport in much the same way I classify running as a sport (also how I was brought up to see it) Running is in the Olympics, but I certainly don't run at Olympic level. I used to run competitively, but don't anymore. I have even run my commute before.

As for whether or not it would be beneficial to classify it as a sport - my point was to liken it to football/rugby/swimming to point out that these are other "dangerous" activities, that don't require legal intervention for safety.

I was certainly not attempting to force an unwanted classification on cycling. I am keen to encourage everyone to cycle and wouldn't want to exclude anyone by calling it a sport.

Thanks for the clarrification. As you've experienced, many things* can exist as both sport and "passtime", and I think most cyclists sit in the latter category, or as commuters, at least most of the time. I tend not to count the occasional ad hoc race I would fall into with another commuter as "sport", just good fun :).
* I accept that javelin throwing, and it's ilk, may be less often seen as passtimes

Sriracha wrote:

The trick to making helmets actually save lives overall is to encourage their voluntary adoption, so that no one is dissuaded from cycling owing to compulsory compliance.

For adults, yes. For (small) children though, everything is compulsory to an extent. My 6-y-o has to wear her helmet when riding her bike or scooter, because I won't let her ride otherwise. It's never stopped her, and it's one of the few things we've not yet argued about, but there is a force for little kids in "look, it's the law: we'll get in trouble if we don't do this."

Obviously this won't work when she's much older, let alone a teenager who will be delighted to see me clapped in irons. But by then, I'd hope she'd have grown into the sort of moderately-resilient person who isn't going to abandon an enjoyable and useful activity because a helmet might mess her hair up or need locking to her bike or something.

I'm firmly against mandatory helmets for adults, because although I don't like banging my head very hard against the road I feel that the overall balance might not be clear-cut enough to justify compulsion. I probably wouldn't vote for legal compulsion for children, either, largely because I'm not sure it's workable. But having grown up wearing a helmet while cycling and not once finding it the worst inconvenience of a journey, I don't fully understand why people (other than Martin73's imaginary wife) would find it such a problem. 

Brauchsel wrote:

For adults, yes. For (small) children though, everything is compulsory to an extent. My 6-y-o has to wear her helmet when riding her bike or scooter, because I won't let her ride otherwise. It's never stopped her, and it's one of the few things we've not yet argued about, but there is a force for little kids in "look, it's the law: we'll get in trouble if we don't do this."

Obviously this won't work when she's much older, let alone a teenager who will be delighted to see me clapped in irons. But by then, I'd hope she'd have grown into the sort of moderately-resilient person who isn't going to abandon an enjoyable and useful activity because a helmet might mess her hair up or need locking to her bike or something.

I'm firmly against mandatory helmets for adults, because although I don't like banging my head very hard against the road I feel that the overall balance might not be clear-cut enough to justify compulsion. I probably wouldn't vote for legal compulsion for children, either, largely because I'm not sure it's workable. But having grown up wearing a helmet while cycling and not once finding it the worst inconvenience of a journey, I don't fully understand why people (other than Martin73's imaginary wife) would find it such a problem. 

There's a strong argument for not getting kids to wear helmets as it gives them a false sense of security and increases their risk appetite as well as giving them the impression that riding a bicycle is an inherently dangerous activity. However, if you do choose to make them wear a helmet, then ensure that the chin strap can come apart under stress to avoid any strangulation risk.

"There's a strong argument for not getting kids to wear helmets as it gives them a false sense of security and increases their risk appetite"

Have you ever met any small children? Pretty much all they have is a false sense of security, and their appetite for risk is enormous for even a tiny potential reward. If you're advocating a Darwinian thinning of the ranks, so be it, but kids can make pretty much any activity inherently dangerous which is why they often have safety equipment that adults might not choose for themselves. 

I didn't die or have permanent life-changing injuriesfrom any of the stupid things I did as a kid, but a fair few I knew did and it doesn't feel like as many do nowadays. H&S culture isn't wholly bad. 

Brauchsel wrote:

"There's a strong argument for not getting kids to wear helmets as it gives them a false sense of security and increases their risk appetite"

Have you ever met any small children? Pretty much all they have is a false sense of security, and their appetite for risk is enormous for even a tiny potential reward. If you're advocating a Darwinian thinning of the ranks, so be it, but kids can make pretty much any activity inherently dangerous which is why they often have safety equipment that adults might not choose for themselves. 

I didn't die or have permanent life-changing injuriesfrom any of the stupid things I did as a kid, but a fair few I knew did and it doesn't feel like as many do nowadays. H&S culture isn't wholly bad. 

I think the idea is to let them explore their limits with the occasional crash being a teaching moment rather than it being all or nothing. There must be some optimal strategy between covering kids in as much PPE as practical and letting them cycle on the edge of a volcano.

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<p>[quote=Brauchsel wrote:

I think the idea is to let them explore their limits with the occasional crash being a teaching moment rather than it being all or nothing. There must be some optimal strategy between covering kids in as much PPE as practical and letting them cycle on the edge of a volcano.

And that's what I aim for. She doesn't wear elbow/knee/wrist protectors, as road (pavement) rash and a few bruises are learning experiences and even the odd fracture wouldn't be the end of the world. If she falls and catches her head the wrong way on a kerb or bollard it could be the end of my world, and even "just" a brain injury could seriously limit the absorption of future teachable moments. So she wears a helmet as partial mitigation of that risk, and I don't see any downside beyond it being another fucking thing for me to carry when she gets bored or distracted. 

Brauchsel wrote:

"There's a strong argument for not getting kids to wear helmets as it gives them a false sense of security and increases their risk appetite"

Have you ever met any small children? Pretty much all they have is a false sense of security, and their appetite for risk is enormous for even a tiny potential reward. If you're advocating a Darwinian thinning of the ranks, so be it, but kids can make pretty much any activity inherently dangerous which is why they often have safety equipment that adults might not choose for themselves.

Research was done on kids risk taking during play, and it turned out that they were just like adults, in that the more ppe you gave them, the bigger the risks they took.  So it seems likely that giving them a helmet does give them a false sense of security: just like adults.

As a child of the 60's/70's I don't think I ever came off my bike and hit my head. I did though sprain wrists and loose skin on my hands, elbows and knees on various occasions. I did though learn to take it easy in order to avoid further damage.  Even the handful of times I've come a cropper as an adult it's been my hands and wrists that have taken the brunt. 

I would much rather these experts demand that motorists demonstrate greater care on the roads as it is the doctors who have to put the victims back together. 

"I would much rather these experts demand that motorists demonstrate greater care on the roads as it is the doctors who have to put the victims back together."

It's not either/or. I don't let my child cycle on many of the roads around me, because I don't trust the motorists to drive safely around a six-year-old. I push for expansion of LTNs and School Streets for that reason (and others). But I also make her wear a helmet, because I think about the time my brother fell and his helmet split like an egg on the kerb when he was eight. It's an unlikely risk, but one with catastrophic consequences if it was realised. As there are zero downsides to putting a mitigation in place, I simply don't understand why I wouldn't do so.