Northern Ireland Helmet Law DON'T CONFUSE ME WITH FACTS

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
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Yes, but have you read the blurb that goes with that link:

"Casco have designed the E.motion helmets specifically for electric bicycle riders. The result is future-retro styling, great ventilation, easy fitting and superb safety."

What a load of *******.

a) Designed specifically for electric bicycle riders means designed specifically for people that they think have more money than sense, hence the price of the helmet!

Allen.
Yes, I have seen that blurb long ago Allen, but you are being far, far too harsh since it's all good sense but for possibly one point and I refute your statement at a) above.

Consider these points:

E-bike riders do not have to work so hard and often say they use them to avoid sweat problems. Accordingly cooling is not so great a problem so a wrap around helmet which gives far more protection is viable for them, so it qualifies as an e-bike specific design.

They do have good ventilation provision, they do have a comfortable looking fitting and plenty of type choices to aid that, and they do have superior safety over the pimple-perched-on-a-haystack things that many cyclists use. The price range from £25 to around ten times that compares with some of the things that cyclists currently wear, so par for the market. Check out this page. There is no rule that says people have to undersell market practice.

The seemingly odd bit is the reference to "future-retro styling", but this particular way of marketing the combination of old and new is all the rage currently. Everywhere retro is being incorporated in modern products, DAB radios looking like grandads old wireless set, a Minox digital camera looking like their spy camera of the early cold war years, radio-controlled digital pocket watches, baths on legs looking like their 19th century forebears. In this case, modern helmet materials and construction design are being combined with the old styling of helmets like the 1950s "Corker" and those that horse riders have worn for many decades past.
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Northern Irelander

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Jun 4, 2009
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Ahhhhhhhhhhhh yes NI politicians, numpties up in Stormont advised by idiots, I wouldn't trust any of them as far as I could throw them. Wasting the tax payers money

hmmm I wonder how many of them cycle to parliament buildings everyday in all weather :rolleyes:
This is something which clearly isn't an issue here, less than 2% of accidents involved cyclists. It has no added value to the NI cycling community or road safety.

Latest news BBC News - MLAs support cycling helmets bill

They'll never enforce it for starters, PSNI is under threat of cuts and the spides (aka chavs) already know how to consume vast amounts of police time.

We have a Restricted driver scheme, whereby a newly qualified driver must display R plates on the car for 1 year after they pass their test. The R speed limit is 45mph. Since when did this ever help the road safety campaign, per capita..... we have shocking stats on car accidents.

PS I wear a helmet as a matter of preference, as it's not you but the other idiot on the road that you have to watch out for.
 
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Northern Irelander

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Jun 4, 2009
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Here in Wales they want to ban plastic bags , but as a first move they get the shops to charge 7 pence and say that the money raised must go to environmental projects , but nobody is collecting the money , except the shop . .
They are introducing the plastic bag levy here too, 15p a bag :eek:

Some economist worked out that it would raise £4m to the NI economy each year..........yeah right :rolleyes: Crazy sons of b!tches

Nobody in the right mind will pay 15p for a plastic bag (except those who shop in M&S)
 

Northern Irelander

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Jun 4, 2009
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Scientist Dr Ian Walker did practical tests and concluded that ~~

Wearing helmets 'more dangerous'
Cyclists who wear protective helmets are more likely to be knocked down by passing vehicles, new research from Bath University suggests.
The study found drivers tend to pass closer when overtaking cyclists wearing helmets than those who are bare-headed.

More information in A to B magazine October 2006 issue 56 page 28.

Dave
BBC NEWS | UK | England | Somerset | Wearing helmets 'more dangerous'
I haven't looked at the data on this, but one of my favourite stats is:

There is a distinct positive correlation between the number of ice-creams sold and crime rate. As the number of ice-creams sales rises so does crime rate. Totally unrelated of course, involving another factor.

Has to be another factor skewing the results.
 

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
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There is a distinct positive correlation between the number of ice-creams sold and crime rate. As the number of ice-creams sales rises so does crime rate.
I remember when this was true for Glasgow, the notorious "ice cream wars" that occurred when criminal types competed to dominate ice cream van selling territories. The situation got so far out of control that some of those involved were actually murdered or crippled. From Wikipedia:


The Glasgow Ice Cream Wars were conflicts in the East End of Glasgow in Scotland in the 1980s between rival ice cream van operators, over lucrative territory and suggested use of ice cream vans as a cover for selling drugs. The conflicts involved daily violence and intimidation, and led to the deaths by arson of several members of the family of one ice cream van driver and a consequent court case that lasted for 20 years. The conflicts generated widespread public outrage, and earned the Strathclyde Police the nickname the "serious chimes squad" (a pun on Serious Crime Squad) for its perceived failure to address them.
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Streethawk

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jan 12, 2011
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Hmmm, never minded paying lots for a helmet. Question is, how much do you value your head? Do you have a £20 head or a £100 head? That Bell is a skate style helmet, which might work well for electric bikes, but in general get too hot for normal cycling as it has too few vents. BMXers love them though, but they dont do long periods of sweaty hard pedalling either.
 

allen-uk

Esteemed Pedelecer
May 1, 2010
909
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Anyone tried the Bell Faction? never used a cycling helmet myself but this would be the style (and price) i would opt for.

Bell Faction: Amazon.co.uk: Sports & Leisure
That's the one for me, biged, without a doubt.

And Streethawk: you're jumping back a few steps to the premise that helmets are per se a good thing; twenty quid for an each-way bet sounds okay, though.


A
 

Scimitar

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jul 31, 2010
1,772
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Ireland
They are introducing the plastic bag levy here too, 15p a bag :eek:

Some economist worked out that it would raise £4m to the NI economy each year..........yeah right :rolleyes: Crazy sons of b!tches

Nobody in the right mind will pay 15p for a plastic bag (except those who shop in M&S)
Hah. I wonder if they've taken into account the massive drop in usage of plastic bags once they tax them. In the South the usage dropped by about 80% iirc. Mind you, it has made a massive difference to the number you find blowing about in the ditches, but that's more than made up for by dirty bstrds lobbing pop bottles and crisp bags out of their cars as they pass along.
 

RoadieRoger

Esteemed Pedelecer
Nov 8, 2010
720
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£100 OR £500 Head

Streethawk I had the same thing said to me concerning my £100 HJC Full Face Motorcycle Helmet by someone with a £500 Arai . It was before the expensive helmets were found to have come out worse in the Tests than some cheaper ones . Arai protested it was the wrong sort of Test .
I presume all the cycle helmets are subjected to the same test for Cycle Helmets, whether they cost £110 or £10 ?
 

allen-uk

Esteemed Pedelecer
May 1, 2010
909
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I'm not sure there are any good BS levels for cycle helmets - I think the marks you get on them refer to the quality of the polystyrene, rather than the efficacy of the helmets.

And I think a couple of points need bearing in mind:

One, that helmet-wearing has NOT been proved to improve survival when riding a bike. On the contrary, there are studies (plus much personal/anecdotal evidence) to point towards motorists adopting an even more gung-ho attitude than usual when they pass a helmeted cyclist.

Two, the nonsense on the current thread between £20 and £100 heads is just that, nonsense. ALL cycle helmets make you look like a prat, to one degree or another; I'd rather look like a £17.50 prat than a £100 one - at least it means I haven't wasted my money on a Fashion Statement...


Allen.
 

Streethawk

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jan 12, 2011
634
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Streethawk I had the same thing said to me concerning my £100 HJC Full Face Motorcycle Helmet by someone with a £500 Arai . It was before the expensive helmets were found to have come out worse in the Tests than some cheaper ones . Arai protested it was the wrong sort of Test .
I presume all the cycle helmets are subjected to the same test for Cycle Helmets, whether they cost £110 or £10 ?
Yes, i know about the Sharp helmet tests, as it happens my motorcycle helmet is a HJC HQ-1, which was 5 Star rated by those tests, even though i owned it before the tests its still been very well demonstrated that they are very flawed tests, they did not and will not in the future factor in my helmet buying decision.
 

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
52,756
30,338
They are introducing the plastic bag levy here too, 15p a bag :eek:

Some economist worked out that it would raise £4m to the NI economy each year..........yeah right :rolleyes: Crazy sons of b!tches

Nobody in the right mind will pay 15p for a plastic bag (except those who shop in M&S)
Bag for life makes sense though. I paid for a reusable one at Sainsburys, and when it eventually wears out they replace it free. That greatly reduces the plastic bag usage for a single small charge, and I find they last a long time, a year at least in my case.

I have two with my utility bike and two in each car so they are always available.
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lectureral

Esteemed Pedelecer
Apr 30, 2007
397
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Suva, Fiji
Here in France none of the supermarkets give bags - everyone has sturdy bag for life type and you just get used to having some in the car and the bike panniers. I must say it seems unproblematic to me.
 

Streethawk

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jan 12, 2011
634
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Here in France none of the supermarkets give bags - everyone has sturdy bag for life type and you just get used to having some in the car and the bike panniers. I must say it seems unproblematic to me.
Is this you?;)


Edit: This thread has made me really want a Casco eMotion helmet...
 
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lectureral

Esteemed Pedelecer
Apr 30, 2007
397
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Suva, Fiji
The similarity is uncanny but not me - oddly I have yet to see a bicycling onion seller, with or without beret, in the 3 years I have lived here. Mind you I didn't see many Beefeaters in Newcastle when I lived there either.
 

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
52,756
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- oddly I have yet to see a bicycling onion seller, with or without beret, in the 3 years I have lived here.
Do they even still exist?

We used to get loads of them along the English South Coast towns in the late 1940s and early 1950s when France was in post war poverty, but I doubt if such a limited income would be any use in today's world.
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allen-uk

Esteemed Pedelecer
May 1, 2010
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Even up until the early 60s in suburban Essex. Us grammar school boys used to practise our terrible French on them.

A
 

Northern Irelander

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Jun 4, 2009
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I remember when this was true for Glasgow, the notorious "ice cream wars" that occurred when criminal types competed to dominate ice cream van selling territories. The situation got so far out of control that some of those involved were actually murdered or crippled. From Wikipedia:


The Glasgow Ice Cream Wars were conflicts in the East End of Glasgow in Scotland in the 1980s between rival ice cream van operators, over lucrative territory and suggested use of ice cream vans as a cover for selling drugs. The conflicts involved daily violence and intimidation, and led to the deaths by arson of several members of the family of one ice cream van driver and a consequent court case that lasted for 20 years. The conflicts generated widespread public outrage, and earned the Strathclyde Police the nickname the "serious chimes squad" (a pun on Serious Crime Squad) for its perceived failure to address them.
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Blimey! all that for an ice-cream cone (with extra topping ;) ).

It was an old stats lecturer of mine who came out with the correlation,

now that you mention the turf wars.......................wasn't there a British film made about it, possibly Italians in the turf war???