Teaching at a young age.

jenster88

This is a little bit off the normal topics but today whilst out and about in sunny kent, I sore a group of school kids having cycling lesson on quite a busy road. To my amazement out of the 15-20 kids on bikes only 3 of these had helmets on.
I Had to pull over a little down the road and got talking to one of the instructors,when I question her regarding the lack of kids wearing helmets she replied " that it is'nt a legal requirement" Yeah ! I no that I replied but surely kids should be made to wear them to come on your course. "The problem is" she replied " is that the parents wont buy them the helmets so we have to carry on regardless".
I know with my 2 young girls that they remind me to wear ther helmets before even going on there bikes and get quite upset when I tell them not to bother if just riding round the garden.
Surely it time to make this a legal requirement for children under 16yrs whilst riding on the main roads.

What are your thoughts?

Not sure if this has been covered before.

huggy

I thought it was a legal requirement thing for children, that group must have had good insurance. Definitely should be enforced for kids!

Slow Downcp

Make it a legal requirement and less kids will cycle, which leads to more obesity. I accept that there's more traffic on the roads than 20 years ago, but I never wore a helmet as a kid. Yes I wear one now and my kids if they're riding with me, but not if they're playing with their mates.

I'd have been more inclined to ask why they were having lessons on a busy main road, rather than a quieter back street.

feel

the bones in children's skull are not fused together so they bounce better than adult skulls - so no they don't need helmets

Doobz

the bones in children's skull are not fused together so they bounce better than adult skulls - so no they don't need helmets

LOL - I like it

graham_g

I know you only had the best of intentions but this kind of unnecessary alarmist attitude is the reason so many kids aren't even allowed out on bikes in the first place. The fact that they're getting some training/guidance will probably make them safer than a lid will. I wouldn't have been seen dead in one when I was a kid (although they weren't too common then) and I suspect that many kids today are much the same - people are self-conscious and the sooner people realise that you don't have to wear all the gear to ride a bike (helmet, hi-viz etc. etc.), the sooner they'll get out there and be making shorter utility journeys. Maybe one day the roads will be civilised enough for the majority of people to feel they don't need them.

claash

Sorry to disappoint Graham G, but I am afraid some of what you said is a little off the mark:
Here in Switzerland it isn't a legal obligation to wear helmets, but the kids (from the time they start learning ) are encouraged to wear them and then good old peer pressure does the rest. You rarely see a kiddie on a bike without a lid (ok some of the teenage girlies prefer the wind swept look when arriving in class :roll: ) but by and large they are being trained as a lid wearing generation!

Of course training is great, BUT training plus a helmet is the optimum surely??

Jez mon

When I did Cycling Proficiency, we had to use helmets and very quiet roads. i.e. ones with no traffic, we were also made to WALK to the quiet area, even though the journey to it used safe roads.

I wouldn't force helmet wearing amongst young people, but i would encourage parents to promote it.

JC.152

I'm 15 and I don't think that its that big a problem, most young people use helmets and for racing british cycling ran events you have to wear one and under 18s have to wear a helmet in CTT Time trials.

Theres far more older riders and veterans that don't use helmets then young people

DavidTQ

Jez mon wrote:

When I did Cycling Proficiency, we had to use helmets and very quiet roads. i.e. ones with no traffic, we were also made to WALK to the quiet area, even though the journey to it used safe roads.

I wouldn't force helmet wearing amongst young people, but i would encourage parents to promote it.

Helmets werent even mentioned for cycling proficiency when I did it... I think it was a couple of years later that bike helmets started to become big news, my secondary school required students cycling in to have helmets I believe, but thinking about it that wasnt right from the start of secondary school it might have been the third year or so.

CrookedCucumber

When I was a kid there was no such thing as a bicycle helmet.

But times change. These days there are; and they are inexpensive, generally light in weight, and often attractive in appearance. Oh, and they might save your child from spending the rest of his life as a drooling imbecile if he has the bad fortune to smack his head on something.

Whatever the law says, if you let young children ride on the roads without helmets, then you are acting very irresponsibly. There is simply no justification for it. None whatsoever.

Of course most children would prefer not to wear helmets. But they generally aren't mature enough to make the cost-benefit decision for themselves. We often insist that children do things in the interest of safety that they would prefer not to do. This is part of responsible parenthood.

If insisting that children wear crash helmets discourages them from cycling, then so be it.

In my area, kids are not allowed on local authority cycling courses without helmets. It is clearly stated when you sign up for them that helmets are required. If any individual instructor was allowing children to cycle without helmets, I would withdraw my kids and advise other parents to do the same.