Letter to the Editor

"Just zis Guy, you know?" wrote in message
...

That someone else stated:

I think the skilful cyclist Joseba Beloki who, in the Tour de France,
skidded at 50mph on unexpected wet tar and ended up with many broken
bones, was thankful that when his head hit the ground he was wearing a
helmet.

Which is irrelevent to Mrs Miggins cycling to her pie shop at 8mph.

I'm sure Nikki Lauda was thankful that when his car caught fire he was
wearing a Nomex suit.
Which is also irrelevent to Mrs Miggins driving to her pie shop at 30mph.


Pete

"Robert Bruce" wrote in message
...

I don't have a video of the incident, but I don't think Beloki's helmet
made
contact with the road at all. My experience with falling/being knocked off
my bike at speed is that one's natural body reactions protect the head to
such an extent that it hardly ever makes rapid contact with solid objects.
When I commuted in London I had a serious prang about once a year. I wore
a
helmet because my partner would have worried herself sick if I didn't.
After
seven years there was not one scratch on the helmet despite several trips
to
casualty. Beloki broke bones that were not in his head. So did Hamilton.
From this limited evidence, I would conclude that shoulder and elbow pads,
with maybe some protection for the ribs would more useful than a helmet.

Yep. My last visit to A&E (precautionary as I was having some problems
breathing due to cracked ribs) comprised 10 minutes being grilled on why I
wasn't wearing a helmet and being provided with a little leaflet that told
me they would protect me from 99% of all known accidents, 5 minutes being
grilled on the extent of my injuries -- none of which were to my head, 3
hours waiting and 2 minutes being checked out by the quack.

Anyway, just how representative was Beloki's fall? What percentage of
cyclists are throwing themselves down an Alp on a closed road, in race
conditions, with Lance Armstrong on their tail on the hottest day of the
year?

Grrrrrr.

On Sat, 02 Aug 2003 20:45:42 +0100 someone who may be "Just zis Guy,
you know?" wrote this:-

From Angela Lee:

I was hoping Mr G Chapman's letter (Chronicle, July 17) would not
reflect the usual, outdated arguments to suggest wearing helmets
somehow contributes to a decline in the benefits of cycling, but it
did.

She is starting to hector. Good, it shows that Guy is getting under
her skin.

This was the reason why in Victoria, Australia, the number of young
adults riding bicycles declined - the government merely reduced the
legal age for driving a vehicle at the same time as it introduced
mandatory helmet use.

Even if all those concerned suddenly took up motoring and abandoned
cycling it still doesn't explain the figures.

I think the skilful cyclist Joseba Beloki who, in the Tour de France,
skidded at 50mph on unexpected wet tar and ended up with many broken
bones, was thankful that when his head hit the ground he was wearing a
helmet.

Everyone can come up with one incident. There are dead racing
cyclists who were wearing helmets when they died, I don't notice the
helmet zealots mentioning these.

If all children wore one, my job would be done,m

I doubt it very much. I suspect she would soon find another group to
pick on.

and a great many lives would be saved,

Great many? How many people does she think are killed cycling every
year?

thousands of children could be spared long-term care

Thousands?

and the NHS money freed up could become available for other
medical and health care needs.

It would be a very small amount of money, if any at all.

I have yet to hear a rational argument for not wearing a helmet.

Incorrect.

She may well not accept any rational argument for not wearing a
helmet, but she certainly has heard several.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.

And a real odd-ball:

From Patricia Pease
===================

It is highly commendable that Angela Lee responds to the various
letters which attempt to denigrate the use of helmets among the
uder-16s

It is transparent the authors of these letters will continue to argue
helmets are ineffective at all costs, and that is contemptible.

The rationale for wearing a helmet is simple: it takes care of the "if
only" scenario, and in doing so it will protect a great many people
who recognise they are only human and therefore prone to errors of
judgement and to encounter unexpected events.

I suggest Mr Chapman and the others are in denial of the dangers of
cycling.

They fly in the face of the growing number of people wearing helmets;
the outstanding results achieved by Miss Lee; the increasing number of
bodies involved in healthcare endorsing the use of helmets; the rapid
increase in the number of companies, institutions and organisations
providing helmets and not least, the government advertising for the
under-16s.

The only organsiation I know that is lobbying against helmet use is
the Cycling Touring Club, which, in its newsletter, asked its members
to write to all and sundry and confront people like Angela Lee and the
government with its agenda.

I believe the recent letters result from the Cycling Touring Club's
wish for more bicycles on our roads and for an enormous amount of
revenue to be spent to support adult cyclists in urban conditions.

There is indeed a hidden agenda in all the correspondence opposing
helmet use

These people do not want cycling to decline any further; yet that is
the trend in Britain and globally.

We must recognise cycling is limited as a form of transport, and even
more so when considered in the context of our changing and demanding
lifestyles.

Mr Chapman goes as far as to suggest cycling will add ten years to
your life. What value is that if you end up dead or incapacitated
because you did not take the right precautions?

It strikes me cycle manufacturers are the winners in Mr Chapman's
argument and people like Mr Chapman are a cost-effective way of
lobbying on their behalf.

I put it to you the agenda is based on fear that, in the short term,
if it became compulsory for helmets to be worn by adults the sales of
cycles will decline further.

That appears to be the crux of the argument. It has nothing to do
with safety, quality of life or concern for people's lives.

I would like to know what would be the cost of a cycling
infrastructure which would still demand you wear a helmet, if you were
to remain safe from harm in an accident.

Guy
===
** WARNING ** This posting may contain traces of irony.
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On Sat, 02 Aug 2003 18:01:15 +0100, "Just zis Guy, you know?"
wrote:

And here's my current draft of the reply:


You wait ages for one cycling-related letter in the Chronicle and
sevearl come along at once!

"Cycle paths are there to be used" - 25 July: Mr Lewendon states that
it disturbs him to see the 'elite' type cyclists zooming along the
road when there is a safe track just feet away.

Would that it were so, Mr Lewendon. The path in question is a
shared-use pavement. Leaving aside the desirability of mixing bikes
travelling in excess of 20mph with pedestrians, shared use pavements
are anything but safe. Consider the situation at junctions: cyclists
are out of drivers' line of sight and have to look in every direction
at once. This, when added to the danger inherent from street
furniture, driveways and so on, probably goes a good way to explain
why shared-use pavements are so much more dangerous than riding on the
road. Take comfort in the fact that this misunderstanding is
widespread and has taken years to challenge. Thankfully shared-use
pavements are now regarded as a last resort when planning cycle
provision.

Angela Lee, too, appears to be under a misapprehension. Those of us
who are against the aggressive promotion or compulsion of cycle
helmets are not against cycle helmets per se. We don't claim they are
worthless, we don't urge people not to wear them, we do not lobby
against hemets or their use - we believe that it should be a matter
for individual informed choice. Our argument is with exaggeration of
benefits and uprovable assertions, and the parallel exaggeration of
the dangers of cycling.

Let us exampine, for example, BHIT's claim that "in real terms
[compulsion] equates to 20,000 young people being spared such
tragedies each year. The savings in healthcare costs alone would
approximate to £2,000,000,000 annually."

I compared the census count of children aged 0-16 (11.8 million) with
the ONS data for NHS spending by age:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/ssdataset.asp?vlnk=5034&More=Y
- I am no statistician, but it would appear that either the Chronicle
has mis-copied BHITs figures or BHIT know something the Office of
National Statistics don't: the ONS apparently put the amount spent by
the NHS on children aged 5-15 each year at around £1.5bn. So if BHIT
are right cycling injuries in under-16s cost the NHS more than the
amount they are actually spending. In fact, if BHITs figures are
anything like accurate it would be cheaper for the NHS simply to issue
free cycle helmets to children on demand and be done with it. Not a
bad idea - the last one we bought was nearly fifty quid.

One telling comment was: "Australians have accepted wearing a bicycle
helmet as normal practice, as we have accepted the compulsory use of
seatbelts." Maybe that's literally true: in the same way that British
drivers accepted the safety benefit of seat belts and consumed it as a
performance benefit, leaving no measurable improvement in injury
rates, so perhaps Australian cyclists ride less carefully and this
accounts for the failure of compulsory helmets to improve cyclist
injury rates. I am grateful to Ms Lee for this insight.

I am happy to clarify my position in relation to children: I encourage
my children to wear helmets. I have told them that this is to prevent
a nasty headache or cut head if they fall off. I have not told them
that cycling is dangerous, because it isn't, and I have not told them
that a helmet will save their life in a crash, because I don't believe
it will. I have spent many hours working on nine-year-old Michael's
road-sense and cycling skills, and he is becoming a competent and
careful cyclist. It is the establishment of ingrained habits of care
and awareness that I hope will protect him. I stand by my judgement
that compulsion woudl not cover the circumstances of many if not most
child cycle accidents, since 90% of them occur off road - and by
implication on private property.

It is somewhat galling to be accused of making "trite statements" when
what I have said is verifiably true, notably the statement that
"Cycling on the road skilfully and as part of the traffic is a safe,
healthy way to travel." This is not trite, it's a simple statement of
fact. To portray cycling as a dangerous activity requiring special
protective clothing is a travesty. The benefits of cycling outweigh
the risks by at least 20:1 - and it gets better the more people ride.
Cycling in Reading is on the increase, according to recent reports,
and that is great news for every cyclist. I don't deny that there are
risks - as a daily cyclist that would require me to wear rose-tinted
glasses - but I do dispute that the risks are extraordinary,
especially given the benefits.

Riding skills can save your life, a helmet could save you a nasty
headache. That is the correct balance in my view, and will remain so
until I see credible evidence to prove otherwise - particularly since
the dangers of exaggerating the protective effects of helmets must be
obvious to even the most ardent helmet advocate.

It is also legitimate to question the source of the danger which so
worries BHIT. I suggest that cyclists can rightly be dismissive of
the suggestion that the danger posed by carelessly driven motor
vehicles is best solved by forcing cyclists to buy and wear helmets.
Helmet promotion (and compulsion) looks suspiciously like a way for
Governments to pretend they are doing something about this issue,
placing all the costs on the victims, without offending the road lobby
by pointing out that most of the three thousand odd people killed on
the roads every year would still be alive if we could all just be
persuaded to drive a bit more carefully. And if the source of the
danger is carelessly ridden cycles, as it sometimes is, then again
prevention would clearly be infinitely preferable. Those "accidents"
are usually due to negligence on the part of one party or the other.

Ms Lee mentions the DfT website, which is a useful resource for those
interested in the pro-helmet argument. For a balanced view I would
commend the analysis of the helmet debate by John Franklin, author of
the Government's own advanced cycling manual Cyclecraft. It is
available online at
http://www.lesberries.co.uk/cycling/helmets/helmets.html. Further
information is available at http://www.cyclehelmets.org.

As an aside, I found Ms Lee's mention of Joseba Beloki's crash in the
Tour de France rather odd. I am an unusually fit cyclist, I was
twelfth fastest bike in the Goring Hairy Legs Challenge this year and
my usual time from St Albans and Reading is under two hours. The
average speed on the Tour this year was nearly half as fast again, and
they rode over the Alps and the Pyrennees. Beloki crashed at 50mph,
fully ten percent faster than I've ever ridden a bicycle - and I
wasn't cornering hard on tubular tyres with the glue melting on
overheated rims at the time. Obviously Ms Lee is a much faster rider
than I if she is worried about this kind of crash. And his lack of
head injury seemed to me to owe more to his head not having hit the
ground than to his wearing a helmet, but I only watched the action
replay a few dozen times. The fact remains, this is about as relevant
to everyday cycling as crashes in Formula 1 are to everyday driving.

Finally, I come to Patricia Pease's comments. Evidently I was not
sufficiently clear in what I said: the BMA estimates that in terms of
whole-life risk a regular cyclist lives around ten years longer. That
means that the risks of being killed or seriously injured on the roads
are comprehensively outweighed by the benefits of cycling. The BMA's
estimates include death from all causes, including traffic crashes.
Of course, if you don't take the "proper precautions" of maintaining
your machine, keeping your skills up to date, observing what's going
on around you, riding predictably and engaging with the traffic around
you - well, then I wouldn't be queueing to sell you life insurance.

She is right to identify, though, that I fly in the face of Government
promotion of helmets to the under-16s. Spot on. The Government
launched a website which suggested that wearing a helmet was the
first, best thing a young cyclist could do to protect themself. This
is both wrong and dangerous. They have since, under pressure, toned
the site down considerably. She is right, too, to suggest that "these
people" want to prevent a declien in cycling. Well, almost. Actually
we want to continue the rising trend - cycle use is increasing, not
decreasing. No need for enormous amounts of revenue, small sums on
simple schemes like advanced stop lines at traffic lights are
sufficient. We'd quite like councils to stop building pinch-points,
though, as these have no measurable effect on trafic speeds and are
inimical to cyclists. But that's another issue.

Ms Pease, yes, the agenda is based on fear that if it became
compulsory for helmets to be worn by adults the use of cycles would
decline, reversing the current rising trend. Heart disease and
obesity-related disorders are major killers, which is why the
Government shares the CTC's objective to increase cycling. It is
precisely about quality of life. The mroe people who cycle, the safer
it is. Over-reliance on helmets rather than crash prevention skills
is dangerous. It is precisely about concern for people's lives.

Ms Pease says that cycling is "limited" as a means of transport. In
our family it's limited to commuting, shopping, taking the children to
school, local leisure journeys, family outings and visiting friends
and relatives. Maybe my lifestyle isn't "demanding" enough, it's
certainly immensely simplified by the fact that merely getting to and
from work keeps me fit. As US Congressman Earl Blumenauer said: "Let
us have a moment of silence for all Americans who are now stuck in
traffic on their way to a health club to ride a stationary bicycle."

I an indeed a cycling advocate, unpaid by the industry which profits
from my activities. My advocacy takes the form of riding a bike every
day and showing it can be done. If any of the local bike shops or
manufacturers want to sponsor me a new road bike would be very nice,
but the benefits in fitness and enjoyment of the journey are actually
quite sufficient.

Guy
===
** WARNING ** This posting may contain traces of irony.
http://www.chapmancentral.com
New! Improved!! Now with added extra Demon!

In ,
Angela Lee, too, appears to be under a misapprehension. Those of us
who are against the aggressive promotion or compulsion of cycle
helmets are not against cycle helmets per se. We don't claim they are
worthless, we don't urge people not to wear them, we do not lobby
against hemets or their use -

Some of the views expressed here come pretty close to arguing just this

Viz Helemt = bigger target = collison with ground when unhelmeted would have
missed:
and Increased torsional forces = more twisting of head = more damage with a
helmet than without.

both of these I have read here recently

pk

"Robert Bruce" wrote in message
...
"Peter B" wrote in message
...

That someone else stated:

I think the skilful cyclist Joseba Beloki who, in the Tour de France,
skidded at 50mph on unexpected wet tar and ended up with many broken
bones, was thankful that when his head hit the ground he was wearing a
helmet.

I don't have a video of the incident, but I don't think Beloki's helmet
made
contact with the road at all.

I watched it several times, and it did look like the helmet did hit the
road.
BUT it seemed to happen only right at the end of the crash, and probably
would have saved him a bit of bruising and a scrape.
(OTOH it could have been him flopping right at the end).
Still thankful perhaps.

Lesson to ordinary cyclist: don't ride on full race tyres on very very hot
roads whilst going down huge hills at very high speeds whilst still having
to brake to be able to get round the bends.

Note: I do wear a helmet a fair bit. Other precautions in my life include
"no DIY on friday nights" as I don't want to be sat around in casualty for
hours with ****ed psychos.

On Sun, 3 Aug 2003 10:11:33 +0000 (UTC), "Paul Kelly"
wrote:

Those of us
who are against the aggressive promotion or compulsion of cycle
helmets are not against cycle helmets per se. We don't claim they are
worthless, we don't urge people not to wear them, we do not lobby
against hemets or their use -

Some of the views expressed here come pretty close to arguing just this

It's a good point.

The simple fact is that widespread and/or compulsory helmet use has
consistently failed to deliver any measurable reduction in head
injuries, anywhere on the world. The business of advancing reasons
why this might be is an interesting exercise - maybe one day we'll
understand the reasons and possibly even eliminate them.

On balance, helmets appear to make no measurable difference. Wear one
or not, it's your choice. Of course, if the message really goes home
it is possible that we could eliminate risk compensation and,
ironically, actually deliver the benefit whose absence we are warning
against...

Guy
===
** WARNING ** This posting may contain traces of irony.
http://www.chapmancentral.com
New! Improved!! Now with added extra Demon!

On Sat, 2 Aug 2003 22:47:18 +0100, "Robert Bruce" wrote:

I don't have a video of the incident, but I don't think Beloki's helmet made
contact with the road at all.

Robert

No video here either but I don't think Beloki's head hit the road at
all, contra to Eurosport's (I think) commentary.

James

--
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On Sun, 03 Aug 2003 09:53:23 +0100 someone who may be "Just zis Guy,
you know?" wrote this:-

From Patricia Pease
===================

It is transparent the authors of these letters will continue to argue
helmets are ineffective at all costs,

I think that they will continue to argue while there is no proper
evidence to back up things like the 85% claim.

and that is contemptible.

And that is very good.

I suggest Mr Chapman and the others are in denial of the dangers of
cycling.

I wonder how much Ms Pease knows about the dangers of cycling. She
isn't another member of the medical mob by any chance?

the outstanding results achieved by Miss Lee;

I must have missed these.

the increasing number of
bodies involved in healthcare endorsing the use of helmets;

Bodies whose expertise is in repairing damage to humans, not the
causes of it.

The health care body that has some experience of the world outside
the narrow world of the health system is the BMA, which represents
GPs. This has had long discussions on the subject, acknowledging the
difficulties.

There is indeed a hidden agenda in all the correspondence opposing
helmet use

Fascinating.

We must recognise cycling is limited as a form of transport, and even
more so when considered in the context of our changing and demanding
lifestyles.

Ditto.

Mr Chapman goes as far as to suggest cycling will add ten years to
your life. What value is that if you end up dead or incapacitated
because you did not take the right precautions?

The lady obviously doesn't understand the work done for the BMA.

It strikes me cycle manufacturers are the winners in Mr Chapman's
argument

Fascinating.

Cycle helmet manufacturers are presumably not the winners in Ms
Lee's argument. Fascinating.



--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.