The contentious subject of cycle helmets Options

[Guest_NNo_*]

Mrs Barnham is quoted in the Newbury Weekly News as saying "We have written to the foundation expressing concern at the amount of people not wearing helmets."

Perhaps she is not aware but there is considerable controversy over promotion of cycle helmets, primarily because the effectiveness of them is far from proven and cycling is as safe as many other activities where helmets are not considered. It should be left to personal choice.

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The risks of cycling do not warrant special protective equipment

You are in fact more likely to be killed in a mile of walking than a mile of cycling. Nor is cycling injuries particularly likely to be head injuries: a child injured while walking is more likely to suffer a head injury than a child injured while cycling. Pedestrians and car occupants suffer far more injuries which might be preventable through helmet-wearing than cyclists do.


The safety case for helmet-wearing is far from clear

Cycle helmets are only designed to withstand impact speeds of around 13mph (equivalent to falling from a stationary riding position), and not for collisions with moving traffic. 93% of the serious and fatal injuries which cyclists suffer on our roads are due to collisions with motor vehicles, and 22% of cyclist fatalities result from collisions with HGVs.

Compulsory helmet-wearing in Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere has not led to any detectable safety gains for cyclists compared with other road users. A series of recent reports (including four papers in peer-reviewed medical journals) have found no evidence of a link between cycle helmet wearing rates and cyclists' safety.

Lack of evidence does not prove the lack of an effect, however it is by no means unreasonable to question the overall benefits of helmet-wearing. There are many related factors which could make it self-defeating or even counter-productive to promote or enforce helmet wearing, and these merit further investigation.

One is that the resulting fall in cycle use could undermine the 'safety in numbers' effect for those cyclists remaining. Another is the possibility that some cyclists (particularly teenagers) ride less cautiously when wearing helmets (this is known as 'risk compensation'). These and other factors may increase the likelihood of cyclists hitting their heads in the first place, possibly eroding or outweighing such limited protection as helmets may provide in the event of an impact.

We need to find out why increased helmet use seems never to have produced detectable benefits for cyclists’ safety (and in some cases why it even appears to have worsened), before assuming that helmet-wearing is self-evidently beneficial. This is particularly important given the weight of evidence that making cyclists wear helmets is strongly linked to reduced cycling activity.

Moreover, if “risk compensation” is a significant factor, overstating the case for helmet-wearing could increase the likelihood of cyclists endangering themselves due to misplaced faith in the protective value of their helmets.


Recent Evidence

* The British Medical Journal (BMJ) published a paper by Dorothy Robinson (a statistician at the University of New England, New South Wales in Australia) reviewing the effects of helmet laws in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Robinson shows that, despite significant increases in helmet-wearing, there was no greater improvement in cycle safety than for pedestrian safety over the same period. On the other hand, there were substantial reductions in cycle use, amounting to a significant loss of the health and other benefits of cycling. Robinson says: "This contradiction may be due to risk compensation, incorrect helmet wearing, reduced safety in numbers (injury rates per cyclist are lower when more people cycle), or bias in case control studies." (Read more on the BMJ helmet debate).

* An article in Injury Prevention magazine by Paul Hewson finds no detectable relationship between helmet-rates and on-road cycle safety in Great Britain. A second article, also by Hewson (this one published in Accident Analysis and Prevention journal), reaches the same conclusion for child cyclists. Hewson emphasises that this doesn’t necessarily mean that helmets are ineffective; an alternative explanation is that there might be some benefits for particular groups and/or for particular types of cycling, and he points out that his own data cover on-road cycling only. However, he also argues that road safety professionals have no grounds for being involved in helmet promotion, given the lack of detectable benefits for on-road cyclists.

* Another peer-reviewed paper on helmet laws in San Diego also finds no relationship between helmet-wearing rates and cycle safety.

* Finally, a report on children’s cycling from the National Children’s Bureau includes a very useful appendix surveying the literature on helmets. It states, “Those of us who cycle should be under no illusion that helmets offer reliable protection in crash situations where our lives may be in danger. Neither should we believe that widespread adoption of helmet wearing would see many fewer cyclists killed or permanently disabled. The evidence so far suggests otherwise.” Coming from a children’s charity, this is an important finding.

This evidence all backs up the findings of a report from the SWOV Institute of Road Safety Research, The Netherlands in 2001, Promotion of mobility and safety of vulnerable road users (final report of the European research project PROMISING), which says:

“5.4.7. helmets

From the point of view of restrictiveness, even the official promotion of helmets may have negative consequences for bicycle use. If the importance of wearing a helmet is stressed, the implied message is that cycling is extraordinarily dangerous. [...] To prevent helmets having a negative effect on the use of bicycles, the best approach is to leave the promotion to the manufacturers and shopkeepers.”
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