Safe Speed Forums

Exactly, Criminal culpability and civil liability are diferent things.

Sadly frequently confused (particularly by the media )

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

I have never failed to understand and of course I see the distinction between criminal and civil law. I can also tell the difference between a mouse and an elephant. So stop criticising me for things I never said.



There is a huge gulf between slipping on the obviously slippery surface of an ice rink and being knocked off a bicycle by a criminally impatient speeding motorcyclist. The first is entirely predictable. The second is a rare event. Not so rare as a machete wielding maniac but sufficiently uncommon not to require the taking of elaborate precautions. You are confounding these criminal events with the far larger numbers of simple accidents which result in cyclists injuring their heads and concluding that because a considerable number of of cyclists injure their heads then a helmet-less cyclist who's injury is occasioned by a criminal is in some way culpable.



(Only when those things are likely to happen and easy to influence. I am not going to donate my entire savings to Space Gaurd to help reduce the danger of the Earth being hit by an asteroid. The risk is too small and the influence of a few thousand pound to small.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

You're being ridiculous now. Its time to stop clinging to your untenable position. Incidents where blame is attached and compensation sought are not uncommon, and wearing a helmet when undertaking an activity with an elevated risk of head injury is not an "elaborate precaution".

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

Got to agree with Robin here, I have ended up buying a helmet for cycling (many years ago) because of an accident where niether I (nor anyone else) was to blame (20mph crash on black ice) and for snowboarding when I had a coming to gether with another boarder that left me dazed and confused for several minutes.
I hae to wear a helmet for work. If I have an accident, wheter self inflicted or caused by anyone else or, if I am injured in the corse of my duties and have not been wearing a helmet I am likely to get reduced compensation. This also goes for not wearing steel toe capped boots (and I bloody hate them).

bloody hell are you lot still going ?

Hard shell industrial safety helmets and steel capped boots have a proven safety effect. The evidence on the effect of wearing a polystyrene cycling helmet is still ambiguous - they may even worsen injuries. That is the reason I oppose compulsion and oppose taking not wearing one into account when assessing compensation.

Having to wear something that worsens ones injuries so that one can claim full compensation for those injuries seems unreasonable.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

I really would like to draw the line under this but I get called "huffy" when I do

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

This precedent clearly only applies when a helmet would have had a beneficial effect. The court has ruled, I believe they have got it right. You disagree, but for reasons that have been shown to be ostensibly shaky. I think that's quite an adequate line to be drawn under the matter; you are entitled to your opinion, regardless of it's accuracy.

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

And you, of course, are equally entitled to your severely biased opinion.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

There seems to be quite a lot of stuff on the effectiveness of cycle helmets:

http://www.rospa.com/roadsafety/info/cycle_helmets.pdf

http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk:8080/We ... e/C139.pdf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9450120

http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/cgi/con ... ct/9/3/266

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I won't slave for beggar's pay,
likewise gold and jewels,
but I would slave to learn the way
to sink your ship of fools

Linking to Chapman Central, Prof? Are you in fact Spinfrift?

When I used Scholar to search, his site had the actually paper in pdf on it, so I used the link. Me quoting him will hopefully annoy him

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I won't slave for beggar's pay,
likewise gold and jewels,
but I would slave to learn the way
to sink your ship of fools

Which has, of course, been ratified by the courts, so I feel suitably vindicated!

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

I thought that we had agreed to draw a line under this but since you won't I can only say that I feel equally vindicated by the legislature's unwillingness to introduce compulsion

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Nor would I agree with it if they did! People should be able to make their own choices, and also take responsibility for those choices.

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

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A Line: Drawn under it!

I meant what I wrote.

Mandating drivers to wear seatbelts is an overall a good idea (I think most would agree there), mandating cyclists to wear helmets is not (IMO).

When I drive I wear a seatbelt (and probably would even if it wasn't a legal requirement), when I cycle I do not wear a helmet.

I don't know of anybody who won't drive because they have to wear a seatbelt, having to wear a helmet does discourage cycling and you really do not want to do that.

Why?? (really, Why? Did being made to wear crash hats stop/discourage people from motorcycling?))

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

Because it's a pain to some people,they have to carry the helmet around at their destination, it ruins their hair, and it discourages casual cycling. It also re-enforces the perception that cycling is dangerous.

And there are no clear safety benefits (unlike motorcycle helmets and seatbelts).

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/pdf_extract/332/ ... ULTFORMAT=



http://www.bikebiz.com/news/20198/CTC-slams-BHIT

Very difficult to tell. Has anyone done a poll of non-motorcyclists to find out if the reason they don't motor cycle is because of the helmet legislation?

Having to wear a helmet would certainly discourage me from cycling though I would probably just ignore the legislation.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown