Heading into Cambridge with just a soft hat - I left my helmet at the office yesterday somehow. Wish me luck. I will report back later.
Can confirm, it was fine.
Losing the fight with the potholes - there's a new batch arrived overnight with the rain. 34mm tyres are really not enough with my level of skill.
"Great in theory, bold in practice when you've got Mr You Don't Even Pay Road Tax a cheese slice away from your back wheel. How many people even drive like that, let alone ride?"
Works for me. A mirror helps as you can watch what following traffic are doing. If they need to wait they need to wait. No different from cars needing wait to overtake on narrow rural roads. I would rather deal with the drivers I can see than risk the one I can't opening his door into my path.
Anyone who regularly rides within a door width of parked cars will eventually get doored.
Maybe it depends on where you ride but around Glasgow I have never had a driver a cheese slice away from my wheel because I was taking the lane.
Only two times I have had issues was in the USA. Some heavy horn. One ironically when I let him pass after the shoulder reappeared had a bike on a rack on his car. Malibu.
I agree with the majority, I think. Hiring a city bike is an on a whim scenario so I won't wear a helmet, as I'm using it as a form of transport and pootling around, and wasn't planning on going for a ride.
Always used to wear a helmet when commuting by bike and always wear one on the MTB.
Broke my first ever helmet cycling to work and lowsiding it on a patch of ice. Basically went sideways and the side of my helmet/head was the first thing to hit the ground. Only other time was when MTBing and going OTB, again the helmet did the job.
Was rear ended by a car whilst waiting at a roundabout, went OTB but managed to not land on my head.
Ultimately I'm glad it's a personal choice, unlike Australia. Let's be honest if a car is running over my head, a helmet isn't going to help much I'd imagine.
I'm of the mind that you only have the one head so if there's a clear and present risk that it might get ****ted then I'm going to cover it up.
So are you going to start wearing your helmet when walking and driving ? The risks are of the same level of magnitude.
Are you going to wear a neck brace and full body armour just in case?
So are you going to start wearing your helmet when walking and driving ? The risks are of the same level of magnitude.
I've never damaged my head, or broken any bones, in 54 years of walking, nor in 36 years of driving.
I have sacrificed 3 helmets and broken bones while riding a bike in the last 20 years. I'll do my own risk assessment based on my own experience. I won't criticise people who come to different conclusions.
some form of hi-viz way ahead of helmets. You can do what you like regarding your own safety but should be made to be mindful of everyone else's.
Hi-vis is no good if people don't take the time to look and concentrate, how do we legislate for that?
So are you going to start wearing your helmet when walking and driving ? The risks are of the same level of magnitude.
Are you going to wear a neck brace and full body armour just in case?
You keep banging the same drum over and over Jeremy
I was in the white truck, zero injuries, I've never banged my head in a car. There were multiple head injuries in the little Peugeot, but then they decided to come round a wet corner sideways at 70mph. It was a freak incident
If I was driving a Caterham (spiritedly) I might choose to wear a motorbike helmet. If I was driving it to the shops I probably wouldn't.
If I was going to the Alps, I might wear body armour and a neck brace.
Your dogged one line stance is as blinkered as the 'must wear a helmet at all times' brigade
Imbanging the drum for valid data showing that the emphasis on utility cyclists wearing helmets is displaced and daft. The risks to cyclists are similar to pedestrians and car drivers but only one of the three is told they must wear ppe
Anecdotes do not trump data
Evidence based practice
The thing about cycling in Cambridge is that a sizeable proportion of resident drivers are also cyclists, and all of them encounter cyclist every day. As a result it feels pretty safe to cycle around here .
There are also lots of 20mph zones now, and some quite good cycle paths. The Chisholm way bridge over the Cam gets you across the city without any need to encounter cars.
That still leaves hazards like hidden pot holes, inebriation and drivers from elsewhere (the worst).
I've never damaged my head, or broken any bones, in 54 years of walking, nor in 36 years of driving.
I have sacrificed 3 helmets and broken bones while riding a bike in the last 20 years. I'll do my own risk assessment based on my own experience. I won't criticise people who come to different conclusions.
Not sure your personal past experience is a good basis for risk assessment! I’ve never broken a bone on a bike but have written off a helmet and given myself concussion (MTB). Never on a road bike. Never in a car. I have broken a bone walking. Conclusion: risk goes in this order - walking > MTB > Road bike = Car
The risks to cyclists are similar to pedestrians and car drivers but only one of the three is told they must wear ppe
Actually cyclists are told the should (not must) wear PPE, but all car drivers are essentially wearing a giant suit of armour with very strict rules and testing on crumple zones, airbags etc and MUST wear the device that straps them into the box. Similar advice is given to pedestrians on clothing as is given to cyclists, only the helmet really differs. Step one in avoiding harm is being seen.
Step one in avoiding harm is being seen.
Not in the professional H&S hierarchy it isn't. Though I'm a big fan of helping the hard of seeing notice me.
Poly
And yet thise car drivers have similar rates of head injuries to cyclists. Why aren't they told tbey should wear helmets?
Because they are essentially sitting inside a large helmet. Think of all the safety aids a car is mandated to have. Are you suggesting that airbags and ABS should be mandatory on bikes? Cars are chock full of safety features. The only difference is, you don’t have to wear them. Let’s face it, if an airbag does not save you a bike helmet isn’t going to.
I was in the white truck, zero injuries, I've never banged my head in a car.
That's a point in itself. Who bangs their head in a car? About the only time that's even possible short of an accident you're not walking away from is if you don't duck far enough when getting in, surely.
Imbanging the drum for valid data showing that the emphasis on utility cyclists wearing helmets is displaced and daft. The risks to cyclists are similar to pedestrians and car drivers but only one of the three is told they must wear ppe
Hang on. This is a straw man, who's telling you what you must wear?
You're correct that only one of those three groups is being told to wear PPE, it's the car drivers and we call it a "seat belt."
Some interesting stats on cycling injuries in the panacea that is the Netherlands. Not sure how that looks reflected in KSIs per mile
https://leva-eu.com/the-netherlands-saw-270-cycling-deaths-in-2023/
That's a spurious comparison, it's almost as though you've cherry-picked two totally different metrics in order to go "look, these things are the same!" If you're measuring something per mile or per hour then you need to pick one and use the same in both cases otherwise it's about as relevant as head injuries annually on cruise ships.
I disagree.
The miles per gallon.passenger of an A320 is roughly the same as a modern car.
Does that mean air travel is fine form a carbon emissions perspective, no it doesn't because without it people wouldn't be traveling 5000miles for a weekend break.
Same with cars. Saying that the odds of a head injury are roughly the same per hour on a bike or in a car is a valid comparison because people will use their car to drive 20min to a Tesco Extra with a car park rather than cycle 20min to a Tesco Express on a high street. Or for leisure, comparing roadies to motorcyclists you need to look at the odds of a crash in a 100km road ride against a 300mile day on the motorbike.
Whereas walking/jogging Vs cycling is slightly more comparable, for most people it's just a quicker way to get to the most local school/shop/gym/etc, unlike a car you wouldn't tend to ride past something just because you could.
If you're comparing two things then you have to use the same baseline or it's simply disingenuous. And even then it's easy to massage stats to demonstrate whatever point you're trying to make.
Leaving aside the fact that no-one is going to be driving across the Atlantic any time soon, and assuming for the sake of argument that you're correct about fuel, how does your "miles per gallon per passenger" stack up with emissions? You've not hung figures on that at all.
You say that without planes people wouldn't travel, and technically correct as we all know is the best kind of correct, but you could say the same thing of cars, horses and legs. What's the emissions rate from joggers in farts per mile?
Step one in avoiding harm is being seen.
Not in the professional H&S hierarchy it isn't. Though I'm a big fan of helping the hard of seeing notice me.
safety of cyclists isn’t normally covered by “professional H&S”; so thinking in those terms is probably flawed - you’d want to remove the hazard first - which means infrastructure engineering so clearly outside the control of the cyclists. If you want other road users to avoid you they need to know you are there which can be road positioning, lights, clothing etc - not foolproof but would certainly be my priority over a lump of polystyrene which might help in some types of accident, but will do nothing in many others.Not in the professional H&S hierarchy it isn't. Though I'm a big fan of helping the hard of seeing notice me.
Poly
And yet thise car drivers have similar rates of head injuries to cyclists. Why aren't they told tbey should wear helmets?
I’ve no idea if the rates are comparable, or if any data that says they are then if the data is still up-to-date given the latest airbag tech.
BUT if they are is there a helmet which would help? It strikes me a typical motorcycle helmet might restrict vision for a typical driver? And a bike helmet is designed for totally different speeds etc.
to be clear I’m not a fan of even the “should” rule, but we need to be quite clear nobody is being told they must.
That's a point in itself. Who bangs their head in a car? About the only time that's even possible short of an accident you're not walking away from is if you don't duck far enough when getting in, surely.
IIRC you're right, the most common cause of death in car accidents is still a head injury.
The point is that we don't encourage helmets in cars, even though if you wanted to save lives it would be an obvious thing to do.
They could even mandate head restraint systems to avoid all those whiplash injuries.........
It's not a serious suggestion it's a way of pointing out the fallacies in encouraging cycle helmet use, because the same arguments apply, just without the downsides.
Mandatory cycle helmets:
+ might save a few cyclists lives
- discourages cycling leading to an overall reduction in life expectancy for the whole population
Mandatory helmets in cars:
+ Would save far more lives than mandatory cycle helmets because there are far more car crashes.
+Discourages car use leading to an overall increase in life expectancy.
A similar argument get's made for proper seatbelts / harnesses in planes. They would save a few lives each year by making crashes that weren't 100% fatal a bit more survivable. The cost increase is almost negligible and in any other industry you'd be expected to implement that sort of cost per life saved. But no airline want's to face customers with that reality. Can you imagine if Ryanair installed them and O'leary issued a statement about how they were statistically cheaper than the compensation in the event of a crash?
Leaving aside the fact that no-one is going to be driving across the Atlantic any time soon, and assuming for the sake of argument that you're correct about fuel, how does your "miles per gallon per passenger" stack up with emissions? You've not hung figures on that at all.
You say that without planes people wouldn't travel, and technically correct as we all know is the best kind of correct, but you could say the same thing of cars, horses and legs. What's the emissions rate from joggers in farts per mile?
You can just google it? The first hit says:
The end result was that the A320 consumes 50% less fuel than the 727. According to a study cited by the Stockholm Environmental Institute, the A320 burns 11,608 kilograms of jet fuel flying between Los Angeles and New York City, which is about 77.4 kilograms per passenger in an A320 with 150 seats.
That's about 2800 miles, say it's romantic getaway so 2 people, and the car does 70mpg (uk gallons). About 40 gallons of diesel, 20 per person, about 90 liters or 76.5kg.
Basically the emissions are pretty much the same (and a kilo of JetA1 will have roughly the same carbon emissions as a kilo of Diesel)
You could do the same comparison driving across Europe in the absence of a transatlantic bridge.
The point is that clearly almost no one does that (a few MTBers driving to the Alps aside), but the jet enables you to because people will happily travel ~3 hours for a weekend away whether its by planes or car.
Same argument applies to the supermarket. People will walk/ride/drive 15min to get their haircut, milk and bread, fruit and veg, go to school, etc. The car just allows them to do the same thing but further away usually. So when comparing risks then doing it on a time basis makes more sense than distance. People who commute by bike are going to make other decisions like living closer to work, closer to shops, closer to family, schools, childcare, friends, so the risk needs to be assessed on the basis of that hour commute by bike, or the hour long commute by car. Not against the inflated distances that cars allow.
What's the emissions rate from joggers in farts per mile?
It's actually an uncomfortable truth that electric cars can actually emit less CO2 per mile than cycling. I CBA to use the rubbish search function but I calculated it years ago on here with the full working and even on an older (worse) UK grid mix there were more emissions from farming the necessary potatoes to fuel the cyclist than to charge the car.
But again, it's irrelevant because Mr Tesla is commuting 50 miles each way, Mr Trek is commuting 5 because he makes arguably more sensible decisions about where to live and work.
Basically the emissions are pretty much the same (and a kilo of JetA1 will have roughly the same carbon emissions as a kilo of Diesel)
Will it?
Mandatory cycle helmets:
+ might save a few cyclists lives
- discourages cycling leading to an overall reduction in life expectancy for the whole population
Mandatory helmets in cars:
+ Would save far more lives than mandatory cycle helmets because there are far more car crashes.
+Discourages car use leading to an overall increase in life expectancy.
Does it?
You might well be correct but there's a lot of "facts" being thrown about here with zero evidence provided to back them up and it's not the reader's job to do your research for you.
So when comparing risks then doing it on a time basis makes more sense than distance.
Alright, sure. So do the same in both cases. TJ was comparing per-mile walking with per-hour driving which is what I originally questioned.
TJ was comparing per-mile walking with per-hour driving which is what I originally questioned.
Well, obviously it is compared in a way which is most favorable to cycling.
TJ, I see you have not answered my questions about the evidence for your claim that
"Risk compensation both first and third party is real and has been observed in studies. Its not controversial in tbe slightest"
So it is so uncontroversial that you can't link to any evidence relevant to cycling?
There are two pages linked that contain all the data. Cycling uk page on helmets and tbe bmj paper.
Cougar and JR
Just read them and follow the links.
I love the idea that risk compenstion a well accepted wide ranging uncontroversial psychological phenomenon somehow does not apply to cycling
Alright, sure. So do the same in both cases. TJ was comparing per-mile walking with per-hour driving which is what I originally questioned.
And I pointed out that walking and cycling should be compared on a distance basis as you won't walk/cycle to a further destination, for most trips it's to your nearest shop/gym/etc. That distance is fixed. It's only when you start looking at cars that can travel at 10x those speeds (or planes that can do 100x) that it makes far more sense to compare distances.
Will it?
Yes, your burning long chained hydrocarbons, 2Cn(H2n) + 3O2 => 2H2O + 2CO2, it doesn't really matter what n is because we're comparing them on a mass basis.
You can get into rabitholes over which is worse because planes emit it at high altitude which is worse for climate change, cars emit it at ground level which is worse in other ways for your lungs.
But that's a tangent to the main topic. It was just a demonstration that people will chose a destination that's a convenient time away, not based on distance. You'll ride 15 minutes to a shop, or you'll drive 15 minutes to a supermarket. You'll drive 3 hours to a wekeend away, or you'll fly 3 hours.
Does it?
We know that mandatory helmet laws decrease cycling
For example:
Other studies show fatal head injuries falling by ~46% after the law.
Other studies put 2&2 together and show that the net result is still a lower life expectancy for the population as a whole. Helmets save lives, helmet compulsion though kills people.
We know that regular moderate exercise like cycling has a huge impact on life expectancy
For example: Physical activity and life expectancy: a life-table analysis | British Journal of Sports Medicine
That in particular has been covered from hundreds of angles, the best one I found (no I can't be bothered to search though hundreds of BMJ articles to find the exact one for you) was one that demonstrated that somewhere in the middle of the S-curve (i.e. excluding Pro's having heart attacks who don't benefit form more exercise and the chronically unfit who benefit far more) there was a 1:1 ratio between hours spent riding a bike and extended life expectancy. Similar studies for driving show a negative 20minutes loss of life expectancy for every hours spent driving.
You might well be correct but there's a lot of "facts" being thrown about here with zero evidence provided to back them up and it's not the reader's job to do your research for you.
You're on a computer, you have access to google, you are the proverbial horse at the water.
So it is so uncontroversial that you can't link to any evidence relevant to cycling?
If further explanation of why burning two similar fuels results in similar emissions is required I'm afraid I'm going to ruin someone's naivety that pink Nissan Micra's don't actually run on fairy dust.
I'd imagine the chance of being clipped by a car and hitting the deck is quite high?
Not really, and you're not likely to hit your head if it happens anyway.
I'd imagine the chance of being clipped by a car and hitting the deck is quite high?
again from my experience of the town - not really.
traffic is slow, most roads twenty, a few 30. On most routes, bikes outnumber cars, and on the main trunk roads where they dont, there are usually cycle lanes or cycle path-pavements.
Junctions, especially ones where bikes have different signal priority or unsignalled ones where bikes can come and go from directions where cars cant, are the most likely causes of car-bike crashes.
Compare this to riding on a normal road in most other parts of the country where someone mowing you down from behind does seem like a very real risk, in cambridge it really isnt.
In 6 years there I could describe any number of near misses from incompetent, careless or reckless driving and cycling (including admitting a few errors of my own). Not a single one involved getting hit from behind from a car or by a wing mirror of a car overtaking too close.
Can someone let me know when this thread turns up something new in the Helmet Debate
Nope. Nothing new. Sorry.
We do have however all the old classics. 😜
