Has anyone else spotted the "new trend" in helmets ?

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
52,763
30,349
It would certainly have to be very quick acting to get over the crucial forehead area in time!

As ever in helmet promotion material, this sort of nonsense is included in the text:

"Every year about 40 people die and about 30,000 are injured in bicycling"

No mention of the fact that few are few are due to head injury as our recent London experience has brought sharply into focus. Of the peak of 13 deaths in one year not one was due to head injury, most were crushed.
 

rooel

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jun 14, 2007
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Yes, and if the governments of Scotland, England, and Wales, were to spend £300 per cyclist on building cycleways physically separated from motor traffic (as are pavements and railways) not only cyclists' heads but their whole bodies would be protected from the consequences of contact with motor vehicles.
 

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
52,763
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Yes, dreaming is right and always will be in Britain. We just don't have the space in this country, and especially not in our old towns and cities.
 

catsnapper

Pedelecer
I take your point, but it's not as simple as lack of space - Amsterdam is a compact city with a lot of narrow roads and old buildings, as well as canals. Attitudes, desires and society are rather different. That doesn't always mean better, it just depends how you evaluate such things.
There are plenty of cars in the Netherlands and driving can be quite fast and aggressive, but their laws regarding accidents with bikes favours the cyclist. Most towns are bike friendly rather than car friendly in a way that would seem odd to most UK residents.

One trend that I hope we don't import - it seems kids can obtain and use invalid scooters, then use them to create mayhem by racing them on the pavements...

Certainly agree that it's dreaming in the UK, especially with our present man in the Transport hot seat.
 

rooel

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jun 14, 2007
357
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I am not so sure that lack of space is always the problem. It lies rather with the misguided, pro-motoring policies of governments, Department for Transport, highway authorities, police, etc etc.

In Edinburgh for example we have miles of off-road routes (tarmacadamed disused railways, the Union Canal towpath, Granton promenade, and for the past 8 years, thanks to the access provisions of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, all footpaths in and around the city, including those in parks or over privately owned land. These, however, lack controlled crossings where they meet a main road, or lowered kerbs, or quite simply short links between them, the absence of which forces cyclists to divert into fast moving traffic to attain the next section of off-road route. Our understaffed and under-resourced cycling development officer is gradually attending to the missing bits but at the present rate of progress it will take years for a truly complete off-road system to be developed.

On-road, certainly, some of the streets may be too narrow, but most of the time they are artificially narrowed by their use as linear "residential" car parks. Also some have been narrowed by the highway authority. For example Niddrie Mains Road years ago was a wide road with two lanes in each direction through a fairly poor housing area. Very properly, the highway authority sought to reduce speeding (ie reckless driving) by altering it to one lane in each direction. Unfortunately this was done by widening the pavements to about three times their normal width, rather than using the disused road space for wide, and preferably kerb-segregated cycle lanes in each direction. Now motorists are held up by 15 mph cyclists (the route is flat) and the latter are endangered by impatient and too close overtaking. I think it is just a convenient excuse for politicians and officials to claim that thanks to our towns and cities not having been flattened in the Second World War the streets are too narrow for proper cycling facilities.

That is not an attitude which we should meekly accept.
 
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flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
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I think lack of space creates so many of the silly cycling facilities that we do have though. For example, the many cycle paths that suddenly terminate after a very short run or have so many breaks in them they become useless. There are many in my area that would require compulsory purchase and demolition of isolated buildings that protude, including listed ones, to improve them.

The reason places like Amsterdam aren't relevant is political, it comes down to votes. There, cycling is very widespread and carries many votes, here it's the car and housing lobbies that dominate, with cyclists as a small minority of poor relations. i.e. we have no political clout.
 

mike killay

Esteemed Pedelecer
Feb 17, 2011
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I don't think that many authorities consider cyclists.
Doesn't even cross their minds.
We have just had huge alterations in Swansea to accomodate the bendy buses because they don't bend enough.
There was plenty of room, but no thought was given to cycle lanes.
 

mike_j

Pedelecer
Jul 30, 2011
37
0
Back to helmets - I have recently been put onto rat poison (Warfarin) for a couple of months due to DVT after a long flight and the medics insisted that I started wearing a helmet. Apparently head injuries are especially dangerous when you are on anticoagulants. In about 60 years cycling I have had my share of falls and damage but never anything that a helmet would have saved. However I have got used to it quite easily and now feel unsafe without one. Strange really.
 

funkylyn

Esteemed Pedelecer
Feb 22, 2011
3,172
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South Shields, Tyne & Wear
Back to helmets - I have recently been put onto rat poison (Warfarin) for a couple of months due to DVT after a long flight and the medics insisted that I started wearing a helmet. Apparently head injuries are especially dangerous when you are on anticoagulants. In about 60 years cycling I have had my share of falls and damage but never anything that a helmet would have saved. However I have got used to it quite easily and now feel unsafe without one. Strange really.
Oh oh.....just when I thought this thread was managing to stay away from the infamous helmet debate LOL :) :)

But anyway, lets hope you never have to prove the benefits to you of the helmet.

I actually like the idea behind that collar helmet.....but cant see how it would work quick enough.....mind you, at that price it should....totally ridiculous....and take the point that most injuries/deaths are not head related.......

Lynda
 

mike killay

Esteemed Pedelecer
Feb 17, 2011
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I don't think its much use at all. It needs a sudden jerk to activate. My son in law hit his head on an ovehanging branch.