another Guardian article

Hello, Excellent! If you could see the stupid kids in my area. All over the road. All over the
pathway. My wife has been hit by one. At least if the little wretches had on a helmet I could feel
better if I thump one of them. And of course any sane person would agree that a helmet could
actually save a life. Serious thoughts. Best regards, John.

Richard Burton said:

another gullible MP has been hoodwinked by BHIT.
guardian.co.uk0,3605,1118212,00.htmlOpen ↗

The trouble with ths government is that they seem to have this totalitarian streak wherby any
misdemenour whether comitted on a cycle or a vehicle incurs a fine. Seems to me that they are
desparate to raise revenue by other means to fund their spending plans.

Any system of financially penalising people for what are essentially trivial matters smacks of
another method of taxation.

'Lobbied'? Is that a euphamisim for some nice lunches...

"John and Pauline at Thornbury" <[email hidden]> wrote in
message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Excellent! If you could see the stupid kids in my area. All over the road. All over the pathway.
My wife has been hit by one. At least if the little wretches had on a helmet I could feel better
if I thump one of them.

There you have it: the ultimate reason why people want to force plastic hats on us.

Quoted message said:

And of course any sane person would agree that a helmet could actually save a

life.

Read the evidence.

cyclehelmets.orgcyclehelmets.orgOpen ↗

--
Guy
===

WARNING: may contain traces of irony. Contents may settle after posting.
chapmancentral.demon.co.ukchapmancentral.demon.co.ukOpen ↗

In "]news:[email hidden],
ScrumpyJoe <[email hidden]> typed:

Quoted message said:

Richard Burton said:

another gullible MP has been hoodwinked by BHIT.
guardian.co.uk0,3605,1118212,00.htmlOpen ↗

The trouble with ths government is that they seem to have this totalitarian streak wherby any
misdemenour whether comitted on a cycle or a vehicle incurs a fine. Seems to me that they are
desparate to raise revenue by other means to fund their spending plans.

The only vehicle I travel on is a bike (arguably buses or trains as well, but...)

I know. The government got £5 million net revenue from speed cameras over the last two years.
Desperate for revenue or what?

On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 18:31:30 +0000 someone who may be ScrumpyJoe
<[email hidden]> wrote this:-

Quoted message said:

The trouble with ths government is that they seem to have this totalitarian streak wherby any
misdemenour whether comitted on a cycle or a vehicle incurs a fine.

Cycles are vehicles. You are in the company of Sustrans in making this mistake.

--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E I will always explain revoked
keys, unless the UK government prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.

"Just zis Guy, you know?" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"John and Pauline at Thornbury" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:MifLb.10201$d27.1411@news-
binary.blueyonder.co.uk...

Quoted message said:

Excellent! If you could see the stupid kids in my area. All over the

road.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

All over the pathway. My wife has been hit by one. At least if the

little

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

wretches had on a helmet I could feel better if I thump one of them.

There you have it: the ultimate reason why people want to force plastic

hats

Quoted message said:

on us.

Quoted message said:

And of course any sane person would agree that a helmet could actually save a

life.

Read the evidence.

cyclehelmets.orgcyclehelmets.orgOpen ↗

I hate adding to helmet debates, though personally I feel it's not such a bad thing for kids to have
to wear them. However the £40 fine is ridiculous. How much pocket money do they get?

Quoted message said:

another gullible MP has been hoodwinked by BHIT.
guardian.co.uk0,3605,1118212,00.htmlOpen ↗

And another atrocity has been committed:

mysite.freeserve.comcycle helmet.hOpen ↗ tml

Mark. Complaints to pleasegivegenerously@[lukewarm]mail.com (but turn the temperature up).

Richard Burton said:

another gullible MP has been hoodwinked by BHIT.
guardian.co.uk0,3605,1118212,00.htmlOpen ↗

The horse riding argument is a bit iffy since (1) horse riders don't sweat as much as us, (2) they
have much further to fall, unless they ride Shetland ponies and (3) theirs actually look like proper
hats that people have worn for years and years.

They're not perfect though. Ask Christopher Reeve, who *was* wearing one. Helmets don't stop you
breaking your neck instead of your head - as many motorcyclists have discovered. One of our teachers
had a rant about this 23 years ago when I was at school. I think he was a motorcyclist that had
given up when mandatory helmets came in.

To save a pointless cut and paste:

mysite.freeserve.comcycle helmet.htmlOpen ↗

ScrumpyJoe said:

The trouble with ths government is that they seem to have this totalitarian streak wherby any
misdemenour whether comitted on a cycle or a vehicle incurs a fine.

Speeding, parking on yellow lines, blocking junctions, stopping on hatches and doing illegal U-
turns (to name but a few) were always subject to prosecution and fines. All these things are
dangerous and / or antisocial. What's the problem with using machines and traffic wardens for
enforcement an letting the few traffic cops which the Police Authority are willing to budget
(thanks to the lack of any significant road-related targets in their priorities) get on with
catching the terminally clueless?

Guy
===
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
chapmancentral.demon.co.ukchapmancentral.demon.co.ukOpen ↗

On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 18:24:57 GMT, "elyob" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

I hate adding to helmet debates, though personally I feel it's not such a bad thing for kids to
have to wear them.

Sure, if it weren't for the fact it makes no emasurable difference to injury rates and reduces the
numbers cycling by a third it might ewven be a good idea ;-)

Guy
===
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
chapmancentral.demon.co.ukchapmancentral.demon.co.ukOpen ↗

On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 19:53:53 +0000, Zog The Undeniable <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Richard Burton said:

another gullible MP has been hoodwinked by BHIT.
guardian.co.uk0,3605,1118212,00.htmlOpen ↗

The horse riding argument is a bit iffy since (1) horse riders don't sweat as much as us, (2) they
have much further to fall, unless they ride Shetland ponies and (3) theirs actually look like
proper hats that people have worn for years and years.

The (horse) riding argument is so much [censored]. Riding is a pure sport; you don't jump on a horse to
pop to the shops, ride a horse to school or commute on horseback.

If you decide to take part in a sport there is very little resistance to wearing the kit. Also, I
see nothing wrong in sports actually being dangerous and maybe requiring a bit of protection.
(Actually, I mildly object to the riding hat law on civil liberties/pointless regulation grounds but
I'm not going to die in a ditch over it).

I strongly object to having to don armour (even if it worked) in order to access the public
highway just because we, as a society, can't be arsed to regulate those in 'control' of a tonne of
metal at 40mph.

snip

On 8/1/04 7:30 pm, in article [email hidden], "Mark

Thompson' change warm for hot said:

Quoted message said:

another gullible MP has been hoodwinked by BHIT.
guardian.co.uk0,3605,1118212,00.htmlOpen ↗

And the Grauniad were entirely uncritical and failed to check basic facts.

Letter to the politics editor sent.

text follows.

..d

Sir,

I read the article by your correspondent Sarah Hall in today's Guardian and find it surprising that
a quality broadsheet such as yourselves would allow figures provided by a pressure group to be
published without checking them. You appear to have allowed yourselves to be a mouthpiece for a
pressure group rather than a journal that respects the expectation its readers have in receiving
balanced reporting. In the article your correspondent states that " Around 50 children a year die
from head injuries caused by cycle crashes". A few minutes checking these figures against the
readily available figures on the Department of Transport website shows that in 2001 the total
number of child cyclist deaths was 25. As only a small proportion of these will be deaths that are
solely the result of head injuries, this puts the true figure an order of magnitude smaller than
that quoted.

Further investigation of the figures provided by BHIT reveal that not only are they misleading, they
are downright impossible. The claim that bicycle helmets can save the NHS £2bn in the cost of
treating child accident injuries should be put against the easily verifiable total expenditure by
the NHS on child accident injuries (all, not just cycle injuries) was £1.5 bn. They also claim over
20,000 head injuries per year for child cyclists when the total for all injuries (including such
minor things as scraped knees and elbows, areas where one would not expect a helmet to have any
effect) was only 5,451 in 2001. This is again a gross distortion, and one which could have been
checked in a few minutes by reference to the published figures on the government web site.

Mr Martlew MP appears to be seriously misled in his approach. He claims that an accident with a milk
tanker at age 5 persuades him that helmets are essential and cycling without one so dangerous that
the time of the police must be taken off more important matters. One has to ask why a five year old
was allowed to get somewhere where they could have an accident with a milk tanker and whether
focussing on helmets (which are designed and certified for simple falls) is appropriate for
preventing injuries in such collisions in place of better training which would avoid these
collisions entirely.

Your wholly uncritical piece appears to have swallowed the BHIT misinformation without attempting to
verify it. As a major organ for opinion forming in the population, you surely have a responsibility
to check basic information before presenting it as fact, especially when your presentation could
lead to the criminalisation of a form of transport that provides freedom, exercise (in an age when
obesity and related illnesses are becoming a major problem in society) and is relatively safe given
appropriate training. BHIT appear to have a desire to portray cycling as dangerous (when it isn't)
by overstating the accident rates and the effectiveness of helmets. A more balanced view could be
found by talking to organisations such as the Cyclists Touring Club who have an interest in
improving the safety of cyclists and have investigated the efficacy of helmets and the causes of
cycle accidents for a long time.

I am not 'anti-helmet'. I believe that it is appropriate to wear helmets in certain situations (and
do so myself, as do my children) but do not believe that cycling without a helmet is so dangerous
that it should be banned. Nor do I believe that if cycling is so dangerous, a polystyrene helmet
could magically make it safe.

Yours sincerely as a concerned scientist, cyclist and parent

Dr David Martin
--
David Martin PhD Post-Genomics and Molecular Interactions Centre University of Dundee

On 8/1/04 6:24 pm, in article
[email hidden], "elyob"

Quoted message said:

I hate adding to helmet debates, though personally I feel it's not such a bad thing for kids to
have to wear them. However the £40 fine is ridiculous. How much pocket money do they get?

The problem is that this bill is percieved as 'is it a good idea to wear a helmet' rather than what
it really is which is 'should cycling without a helmet be a criminal offence'

The guardian article was ful of blatent inaccuracies which a few minute checking the stats would
have highlighted. A letter to the editor should be in the offing.. If enough people complain about
sheer laziness by the journalist concerned they might produce a more balanced article rather than
relying on the dodgy figures provided by a self interested pressure group.

..d

In message <[email hidden]>, ScrumpyJoe <[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

Richard Burton said:

another gullible MP has been hoodwinked by BHIT.
guardian.co.uk0,3605,1118212,00.htmlOpen ↗

The trouble with ths government is that they seem to have this totalitarian streak wherby any
misdemenour whether comitted on a cycle or a vehicle incurs a fine.

Note that this isn't a government bill, it's is a private members bill,

--
Chris French, Leeds

In article <[email hidden]>, Martin

Family said:

Letter to the politics editor sent.

Quoted message said:

text follows.

All snipped but more power to your pen. This is probably the best article which I have read about
freedom of choice and individual/parental responsibility.

--
A T (Sandy) Morton on the Bicycle Island In the Global Village sandymillport.fsnet.co.uksandymillport.fsnet.co.ukOpen ↗

"Martin Family" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

On 8/1/04 7:30 pm, in article [email hidden], "Mark Thompson"

change warm for hot said:

Quoted message said:

another gullible MP has been hoodwinked by BHIT.
guardian.co.uk0,3605,1118212,00.htmlOpen ↗

And the Grauniad were entirely uncritical and failed to check basic facts.

Letter to the politics editor sent.

text follows.

Me too!

Quoted message said:

Dear Sir,

The fact that BHIT have found another gullible MP, Eric Martlew, to propose yet another
parliamentary bill to compel cycle helmet-wearing, as reported in today's Guardian, is greatly to be
regretted. BHIT (Bicycle Helmet Initiative Trust) have a long, inglorious, track record of
publishing misinformation, which grossly overestimates the protective effect of bicycle helmets and
the dangers of cycling. The figures quoted in your article are typical of their output, and a little
checking by your reporter would have revealed BHIT's ridiculous inaccuracies.

The facts are that nowhere that has introduced mandatory cycle helmets has seen a reduction in the
risk to cyclists, and many reports show an increase in risk with increased helmet-wearing. One
report from Canada, where helmets were made mandatory for under 16's, exactly what Mr Martlew's bill
would do, demonstrated a significant increase in deaths and injuries to that group of cyclists. The
only demonstrable effect of mandatory helmets is to reduce the number of cyclists, thus reducing the
number of people taking beneficial exercise, and the unintended result is a significant health cost.
The BMA investigated cycle helmets and concluded that the benefits of cycling outweighed the risks
by a factor of twenty, and that regular cyclists, rather than being mown down in their thousands,
actually lived longer than the general population. It would therefore seem that it is more dangerous
not to cycle than to cycle, not the impression to be garnered from BHIT.

We are in the middle of an epidemic of obesity, and to discourage, on completely false grounds,
highly beneficial exercise, is irresponsible in the extreme. BHIT are a group of helmet zealots who
will do and say anything to introduce mandatory helmets for cyclists, and as such, it behoves a
responsible newspaper to treat their material with a degree of scepticism. BHIT are in receipt of
considerable amounts of public funds, and I find it both distasteful and dishonest of them to lobby
MP's with misleading, inaccurate information to further their own, misguided aims.

It would appear that the media is happy to swallow whatever misinformation BHIT produces, so perhaps
it is time that some responsible investigating was done into the subject of cycle helmets, rather
than the blind repeating of statements made by highly biased pressure groups.

cheers

Richard Burton

On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 20:48:11 +0000, Martin Family
<[email hidden]> wrote:

[snip Letter to the politics editor sent.]

Much better than mine.

Sir,

MP proposes to fine children who cycle without helmets (Guardian, 8 Jan, 2004)

I apologise if by now you have had rather a lot of emails on this subject and are weary of it. To
those of us who cycle it is an important matter.

The idea of helmet compulsion is seductive as a way of "fixing" the danger posed by cars to children
without actually tackling the danger, which would be politically inexpedient. Unfortunately the idea
is built on logical fallacies and flawed research. It has been tried in other countries, and the
result has been massive reductions in numbers cycling and increases in cyclist injury rates.

Mr Martlew's bill is wrong on a number of counts:

First, nine out of ten child cycle accidents happen in off-road play. Unless Mr Martlew proposes to
force use of helmets by children on private land, this will not be addressed. The undesirability of
regulating what we wear on private property should not need to be spelled out.

Second, there is no proof that helmets make the difference between fatal and non-fatal crashes - or
indeed that they prevent anything other than superficial injuries. Helmet advocates seek to conflate
head injuries (which include cuts and abrasions to parts of the head not covered by a helmet) with
serious or life-threatening head injuries. This is a logical fallacy. Not only are most injuries
trivial, but in sixteen out of nineteen cases recently reviewed, cyclists whose cause of death was
recorded as head injury were found to have other mortal injuries as well.

Third, even if all child cyclist fatalities could be prevented through helmet use (which even
advocates do not claim), the effect would still barely scratch the surface of the much deeper
problem of traffic danger to children. Road traffic crashes are the leading cause of death in school-
age children in the UK today, and most of those children are not riding bicycles at the time.

Fourth, you are more likely to suffer a head injury while driving or walking than while cycling.
Forcing helmets on cyclists in isolation makes no sense.

Fifth, inactivity is a greater danger to children's health than cycling-related head injuries. Every
country where helmet compulsion has been tried has seen a substantial and sustained drop in numbers
cycling. Cycling is sufficiently safe that the BMA reckons the benefits outweigh the dangers by
around 20:1 - focusing on the small danger and ignoring the large benefit is especially short-
sighted at a time when increasing numbers of children are being diagnosed with Type II (obesity-
related) diabetes.

Sixth, aggressive promotion of cycle helmets carries the very real risk that those wearing them will
overestimate their protective effect. This idea of risk compensation is repudiated by helmet
advocates but they have not yet advanced any alternative explanation for the observed fact that
injury rates typically rise when compulsion is introduced.

Beware the anecdote. It is easy to assume that every cyclist who dies while not wearing a helmet
would have survived had they worn one. This is simply unsupportable. Indeed, in two incidents I know
of, experienced riders in their early seventies were pitched over the bars on hitting a pothole (a
very rare but dangerous type of crash). One died, the other survived. The one who died was the one
wearing a helmet, the survivor wore only a cotton cycling cap. Equally, those who survive crashes
while wearing helmets always attribute their survival to the helmet, but this too is wrong. The
human skull is a tough customer. While recognising that immature skulls are less strong than adult
ones, it is nonetheless foolish to suppose that the helmet is the only thing between a falling
cyclist and death or brain injury.

The majority of falls from cycles end in nothing more serious than cuts and abrasions, generally not
even affecting the head. The injuries which most concern us, those where a motor vehicle is
involved, are outside the design envelope of cycle helmets as we know them. Helmets may make a
marginal difference in some crashes, protecting reasonably well against cuts and abrasions but
bringing an increased risk of some rare injuries due to increased size and mass of the head.

One thing which helmets do nothing to prevent is the type of twisting injury known as Diffuse Axonal
Injury (DAI). This is considered the leading traumatic cause of permanent intellectual disablement.
There is even some evidence that helmets make this more likely, but that is controversial.

Finally, I have to ask why it is, if compulsion advocates have such a strong case, that they
feel the need to exaggerate. This includes the use of a figure for helmet efficacy which was
produced in only one study, and was corrected by its authors in 1996; claims for child cyclist
head injury numbers which exceed the total numbers of all cyclists injured with any severity;
claims for potential savings to the NHS which are a third greater than the total NHS spend on
children aged 4-16.

Not everybody is so hysterical, though. Some studies are sober, peer-reviewed and place the risks in
proportion. The best estimate I have seen from such studies is that compulsory helmet wearing for
children might, if the numbers cycling remains unchanged, save two lives a year. Is it worth risking
a one-third reduction in child cycling for this? Those two lives are a tragedy, but place them in
context alongside the three thousand plus non-cyclists killed on the UK's roads last year and it
seems that maybe we are solving the wrong problem.

If you want to "think of the children" you will have far more effect by driving carefully than by
forcing them to wear plastic hats.

Guy
===
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
chapmancentral.demon.co.ukchapmancentral.demon.co.ukOpen ↗

"Just zis Guy, you know?" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"John and Pauline at Thornbury" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:MifLb.10201$d27.1411@news-
binary.blueyonder.co.uk...

Quoted message said:

And of course any sane person would agree that a helmet could actually save a

life.

Read the evidence.

cyclehelmets.orgcyclehelmets.orgOpen ↗

--

I'm not sure the Thornburys would be interested in the evidence, but I also don't think it can be
denied that in some occasional rare types of accident a helmet might actually save a person's life,
given the right circumstances. What also cannot be denied is that the evidence suggests that helmet
wearing will not save significant numbers of lives, and that a compulsory helmet law could actually
see more lives being lost than saved, if factors of risk compensation and discouragement of cycling
exercise are taken into account. What further also cannot be denied IMO is that some of the
arguments against a compulsory helmet law (specifically the two just mentioned) constitute a reason
for an individual and personal decision not to wear a helmet - just because some people may engage
in risk-compensatory behaviour or be discouraged from cycling if they have to wear a helmet it
doesn't mean that I, or you, or other urc contributors, have to do so or would do so.

Rich