Guardian diary notices Martlew

For them as wants the site:
http://tinyurl.com/2583f


For them as wants the words [we don' need no stinkin' copyright]:


Diary=20

Marina Hyde
Friday April 2, 2004
The Guardian=20

=B7 We're thrilled to make the acquaintance of Carlisle MP, Eric=20
Martlew, currently proposing a private member's bill to make cycle=20
helmets mandatory. Concerned at its implications, the Association of=20
Cycle Traders suggested its members send a standard letter to Eric to=20
register this. A handful, mostly from Eric's constituency, agreed. Did=20
he, we ask him, then take the measured step of calling one of them and=20
threatening to expose him in the local media as a gentleman more=20
interested in selling bikes than saving lives? "That," says Eric, "is=20
utterly untrue. I would never call up and threaten to make a=20
constituent's letter public. But I was very upset. They contained=20
inaccuracies." Such as? "Implying my bill could make criminals out of=20
youngsters." Golly. "So what I said to this guy -" You've remembered a=20
call now? "I never said I didn't call anyone. He is not from my=20
constituency, he's a good mile away -" Ah. "And I thought there should=20
be a public debate. I was angry. But I later said he needn't retract=20
it." Ever so slightly alarmed at his impending ruin, the chap did=20
anyway. "Look, if a trade association gets members to send me a letter=20
and I don't know which one it is, am I not right to be angry and try=20
to find out?" You certainly flushed them out. "Yeah, I did." Most=20
heroic. One to watch, this Martlew.=20

--=20
Mark, UK.
Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail,
And say there is no sin but to be rich;
And, being rich, my virtue then shall be,
To say there is no vice, but beggary.

Mark McN wrote:
For them as wants the site:
http://tinyurl.com/2583f

My reply sent this AM:


How foolish to suggest that Eric Martlew's bill will criminalise children.
Of course it won't.

It'll criminalise their parents. Or teachers. Or friends who happen to be
over 16. Or the employees of the local bike shop. Or you, if you happen to
lend your bike to someone under 16 who then decides to ride it without a
helmet. Why do you think cycle traders, who after all sell helmets, are
against this stupid bill? Not only will it decimate cycling, as it has in
every other country where it's been tried, it will raise the very real
prospect of criminal convictions for shop staff.

It is, in short, a very draconian bill. A very large sledge hammer to crack
a very small nut. Which ignores a huge pile of much larger nuts which are
much easier to crack. And ignores the existence of several perfectly good
nutcrackers, such as cycle training and CTC's Benchmarking project.

It seeks to solve a problem whose extent is greatly exaggerated. Around a
dozen children a year die of head injuries due to cycling, around 2,000 are
admitted to hospital in England with head injuries resulting from cycling.
That puts it behind walking, climbing stairs, banging your head on
something, being a pedestrian and even assault as a cause of child head
injury hospitalisations. There are around six million child cyclists in the
UK; cycling is a low-risk activity which is good for the heart and combats
obesity. Which is why the BMA and the Royal College of General
Practitioners are opposed to the bill. As are the Association of cycle
Traders, British Cycling, CTC (the national cyclists' organisation), the
National Cycling Strategy Board, the English Regions Cycling Development
Team and just about everybody else in the UK who is involved in cycling.

But hey, think of the children. It worked in the case of one child whose
mother was persuaded to go to London to campaign for the bill. She has been
informed that a helmet would have saved her son's life. Well, it's
possible, although unlikely - helmets are not designed to protect in crashes
involving motor vehicles and can't prevent brain injuries caused by
rotational forces, which are the cause of most serious permanent brain
injury. What is certain is that her son's death would have been markedly
less likely if he hadn't been riding on the pavement. On a bike with
defective brakes. Which is what the coroner's report said, but they keep
very quiet about that.

And that is the problem with the whole helmet compulsion campaign: it
completely ignores the fact that almost all fatal cyclist injuries are the
result of road traffic crashes. The idea that a plastic hat is a substitute
for safe cycling is both absurd and dangerous, yet that seems to be
precisely what is being suggested. It ignores the known facts that helmets
are only designed to protect in simple falls, and that half or more of
cyclists who die of head injuries have other mortal injuries as well.

Road traffic crashes account for one in ten child hospitalisations, but half
of child injury deaths. Most of these are child pedestrians (who suffer,
incidentally, a higher proportion of head injuries overall than child
cyclists); these outnumber cyclist fatalities five times. Indeed, the
entire annual death toll of children in cycling crashes is less than two
days' worth of road traffic fatalities.

If MPs want to make a real difference to the numbers of children injured
they need to start with the source of the danger.

"Mark McN" wrote in
message ...


register this. A handful, mostly from Eric's constituency, agreed. Did
he, we ask him, then take the measured step of calling one of them and
threatening to expose him in the local media as a gentleman more
interested in selling bikes than saving lives?

ME:
Interesting.
Not as if the most famous face pushing for helmets is hawking a rather
strange helmet around the world.

I wonder whether the "facesaver" was designed as a safety device, or a
gimmick that looks a bit like a formula 1 helmet.

On Fri, 2 Apr 2004 13:46:30 +0100, "Just zis Guy, you know?"
wrote:


Yet another outstanding effort, Guy. You're one of the few people on
the newsgroups who make me wish I knew 'em in the real world so I
could buy 'em a pint or four.

I take my (imaginary & rather ineffectual) plastic hat off to you!

Keep up the good work,

Vic.

Vic wrote:

Yet another outstanding effort, Guy. You're one of the few people on
the newsgroups who make me wish I knew 'em in the real world so I
could buy 'em a pint or four.

blush

I think there might be another urcmoot at York this year; certainly the
Chapman Family Tent is being prepared for that eventuality.

--
Guy
===
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

"Just zis Guy, you know?" typed


I think there might be another urcmoot at York this year; certainly the
Chapman Family Tent is being prepared for that eventuality.

I won't be there for the first time in 13 years. Choral concert clash :-(

--
Helen D. Vecht:
Edgware.

I'd be very tempted (and if anyone with greater facility with words
than me wants to have a go, feel free) to email Ms Hyde along the
lines of

Hi -

If you want to have another go at Martlew, ask him e.g. why he
wouldn't be better at prioritising staircase helmets instead, since
they would save more lives? Or, isn't his brilliant sense of
political timing beautifully illustrated, pushing this bill just as
everyone's getting concerned at childhood obesity? Or, since the
British Medical Association is against compulsion since more people
would die from lack of exercise than would be saved by cycle helmets,
isn't he more interested in pushing a single-issue agenda than saving
lives? [Add more anti-compulsion arguments to taste]
Yours ever, MWMcN


It would need to be better than that, but it might do some good: the
Grauniad diary does like to make return trips to its victims, and I
sometimes wonder if the BHIT's shroud-waving shouldn't be answered
with sheer finger-pointing-and-giggling as well as more sober
approaches.

--
Mark, UK.
Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail,
And say there is no sin but to be rich;
And, being rich, my virtue then shall be,
To say there is no vice, but beggary.

Mark McN wrote:
I'd be very tempted (and if anyone with greater facility with words
than me wants to have a go, feel free) to email Ms Hyde along the
lines of

Hi -

If you want to have another go at Martlew, ask him e.g. why he
wouldn't be better at prioritising staircase helmets instead, since
they would save more lives? Or, isn't his brilliant sense of
political timing beautifully illustrated, pushing this bill just as
everyone's getting concerned at childhood obesity? Or, since the
British Medical Association is against compulsion since more people
would die from lack of exercise than would be saved by cycle helmets,
isn't he more interested in pushing a single-issue agenda than saving
lives? [Add more anti-compulsion arguments to taste]
Yours ever, MWMcN


It would need to be better than that, but it might do some good:

Send it like that, its only a hint to the diary writer, they will write the
article after following up your leads.




--
Andy Morris

AndyAtJinkasDotFreeserve.Co.UK


Love this:
Put an end to Outlook Express's messy quotes
http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/

On 2/4/04 7:53 pm, in article , "Mark McN"
wrote:

It would need to be better than that, but it might do some good: the
Grauniad diary does like to make return trips to its victims, and I
sometimes wonder if the BHIT's shroud-waving shouldn't be answered
with sheer finger-pointing-and-giggling as well as more sober
approaches.

It might also be apposite to ask whether putting a plastic hat on a 5 year
old is an appropriate substitute for supervising them when cycling near
working milk tankers..

...d