Helmet, Yes or No?

CRAIGO5000

bails87 wrote:

CRAIGO5000 wrote:

My limited opinion would suggest that it's probably safer to wear one than not.

In the same way that it's safer to wear full firefighters protective kit whenever you go near your oven....

But I know that the oven won't turn me into a flame ball?
I also know I won't fall backwards off my bike waiting at traffic lights of my own free will. What I don't know is that a car won't clip me from behind at those lights making me hit my head on the concrete.

So it's not really "in the same way" is it?

jedster

I think I'm a bit safer wearing a cycling helmet and I don't find mine uncomfortable so I wear one.

I have actually written-off two helmets coming off my road bike. Both times I lost my front wheel on a patch of diesel which I didnt see until I picked myself off the road and walked back to find out WTF happened. Both times my helmet smacked the tarmac pretty hard. I don't think I'd have been gibbering and eating my food through a straw without the helmets but it wouldn't have been pleasant.

Each to his own, etc. People should be free to make their own judgments.
J

wgwarburton

BigMat wrote:

There seem to be two anti-helmet arguments here:

1) Cycling isn't inherently dangerous so they aren't necessary. I can see that. I don't agree, but that's an individual choice. I have smashed a helmet up once and know several others who have done the same - none of whom have suffered head injuries. My view is that wearing a helmet helped, but I guess its a risk-benefit analysis for the individual;

What makes you think cycling is dangerous? Smashed helmets? Have a look and you'll see a pattern, in that people who wear helmets seem to smash them up pretty often. People who don't wear helmets don't appear to smash up their heads anything like so frequently... we don't have A+E departments and high-dependence wards full of brain-damaged cyclists, you know! Nor did we before helmet-wearing became commonplace.

2) "There is no evidence that helmets work". This is, frankly, boll***s. They work. They protect your head. Definitely not in all cases, but certainly in a lot of cases.

...and you have some proper evidence to back up this assertion, do you? No, you don't. The reason I know you don't is because it does not exist. You can bet your shirt that if it did it would be being rammed down our throats all the time!

I may be completely wrong about this. It could be that I am making a huge assumption but it appears to me that many (not all) of the people who pop up claiming we should all wear helmets have done no worthwhile reading or research on the topic, but simply assume that since helmets are portrayed as a safety measure and occasionally appear to offer protection they are clearly A Good Thing.

You state that "They work". Really? What are you basing that on? 'cos I've been looking (on and off) for some hard evidence that they are effective (at reducing serious injuries, I'm not fussed about the occasional graze) for a long time now and I've yet to find it. Please educate me! Or, if you find that you also cannot locate such evidence, perhaps you would do me the honour of opening your mind to notion that they may be counterproductive.. reinforcing the impression that a routine, everyday activity is in some way significantly more risky than walking or driving to the shops...

Thank-you for your attention.

Cheers,
W.

CRAIGO5000

Oh I agree. But put simply, I'd rather not have scalp abrasions if I did slide my head over some tarmac before coming to a halt. In the event of a 30mph downhill and then hitting a lamp post, then no, a helmet is likely going to offer sod all protection.

I do believe that for minor scrapes and tangles, they are likely to offer a 'good form of head/face and ear protection'®

For instance, a mate at work who wears a helmet was SMIDSY'd at a junction only meters from leaving work and he went over the bonnet and landed head first on the other side. He had knackered his pride but got up and walked away with a damaged helmet. His face/head would have surely been cut up/marked if it wasn't for the helmet and for this reason alone, I'd sooner wear one.

I understand it's not a safety device that gives me a bionic and unbreakable head whilst worn and I won't think that anyone not wearing one is a douche either. Each to their own.

rjsterry

WGWarburton wrote:

... I'm not fussed about the occasional graze...

Well that's the nub really isn't it. I am. I don't find them an inconvenience any more than the rest of my clothing, so why not. I wear gloves and glasses for similar reasons.

Aguila

CiB wrote:

Aguila wrote:

The only way to get conclusive evidence either way would be to perform a randomised trial where people were crashed into things under identical conditions, or a range of identical conditions, whilst wearing a helmet or not.

No need. Your view of cycling is that helmets are a necessity as riders are always crashing into things, ergo helmets are a vital addition to prevent injuries that would otherwise occur. Same with the idea a bit further up, that we do a controlled test where you slam into a car and land on the kerb, and then announce whether that would have been nicer with or without a helmet. Point = missed.

Cycling isn't dangerous per se. Sure there are incidents and people get hurt, but not at a rate significantly higher than a load of other activities and for which there is no clamour to force those involved to wear safety equipment. Me trundling around the quiet back lanes of Bucks & Oxon doesn't warrant me wearing a helmet anymore than it warrants me carrying a gun in case a tiger leaps out of a hedge and tries to eat me. It probably ain't gonna happen, and taking steps to prevent it is overkill. If you live in area where a helmet or an elephant gun is justified, go ahead. Your choice. All we're asking is that because you believe that your situation warrants an additional level of safety, please don't assume that everybody is in a similar position and that protection must be a legal requirement. Easy, isn't it?

You've completely misunderstood my point. I agree that cycling isn't dangerous, my view is that helmets may redude minor injuries and are neutral to severe injuries. I dont have any desire to experience minor injury so wear one. I dont buy the line that they can make things worse and am simply saying that there is not good evidence either way.

My point is that to prove a protective or causal link for anything the best evidence always comes from comparing 2 identical scenarios where the only thing that is different is the thing you want to test. hence the idea of a randomised trial, which will never happen.

somehow you have turned this statement into me being a rabid pro helmet preacher.

Point=missed as you say.

BelgianBeerGeek

Excellent - another pro/against helmet debate! Still, my 2 penn'th... I have come off my bike a couple of times, both times low speed, both times my fault. The one time I went to hospital in an ambulance, I rode into the back of the missus (leave it) as she stopped for a pedestrian crossing...SMIDSY...fell off onto road sideways and really tw*tted my head on the floor. I was wearing a helmet so it was the difference between a sore head for a few hours and something far worse I reckon. Kept the split helmet for a while to remind me what an eejit I was. Moral...you never know when you might need one, so why not? Its not as though they weigh a ton.

greg66_tri_v2.0

It's not the fall that hurts, it's the landing...

Cycling isn't dangerous. Helmets should be a matter of choice. Easy.

However.

Yes, cycling isn't dangerous if you look at (say) injuries per 1000km. And that's why I don't ride with a back board, wrist protectors, Kevlar padding, leathers, a full face helmet and a neck brace.

But cycling isn't perfectly safe either. Accidents happen. Of those accidents, some result in nothing more than a graze or a bruise. Some break bones. Some are worse. What I do know is that with a thin layer of Lycra between me and the world, if (and it is a big if) I have an accident, it may leave a mark. But I still don't wear Kevlar etc because (for the most part) bits of me below the neck that are injured will heal.

My brain, otoh, has a much more limited capacity to heal if it suffers shearing as a result of an impact. Evolution helps me by providing a thick skulll and a fluid insulation inside that, but it hasn't made me invulnerable to brain injuries. Nor has it given me the ability to recover from a broken brain in the same way I can from a broken leg (and prosthetic brains ain't much good either, I hear).

In any accident in which a helmet has been broken, energy that would otherwise have knocked a hewed about has been dissipated breaking the helmet. If you want to find put how much energy, buy a helmet, and a hammer, and use the latter to split open the former. Then imagine using that much energy on your own skull. So dissipating the energy of an impact by breaking a helmet seems to me to be a good thing.

So I wear a helmet. And I commend those who make a living doing something more sophisticated than dribbling, being incontinent and staring into the middle distance to do so as well. Ditto if you have dependents.

In the end though it's a matter of choice. But would you really wish to leave your family wondering "what if?"?

Flogger

I may be talking complete bollox but I'm just wondering what the the difference in forces are between hitting your head without a helmet at say 15mph and getting a football kicked straight at your head at 15mph, something many people have experienced in their youth.
Again, to reiterate, this is HIGHLY unscientific! :oops:

jonny_trousers

Greg66 wrote:

It's not the fall that hurts, it's the landing...

Cycling isn't dangerous. Helmets should be a matter of choice. Easy.

However.

Yes, cycling isn't dangerous if you look at (say) injuries per 1000km. And that's why I don't ride with a back board, wrist protectors, Kevlar padding, leathers, a full face helmet and a neck brace.

But cycling isn't perfectly safe either. Accidents happen. Of those accidents, some result in nothing more than a graze or a bruise. Some break bones. Some are worse. What I do know is that with a thin layer of Lycra between me and the world, if (and it is a big if) I have an accident, it may leave a mark. But I still don't wear Kevlar etc because (for the most part) bits of me below the neck that are injured will heal.

My brain, otoh, has a much more limited capacity to heal if it suffers shearing as a result of an impact. Evolution helps me by providing a thick skulll and a fluid insulation inside that, but it hasn't made me invulnerable to brain injuries. Nor has it given me the ability to recover from a broken brain in the same way I can from a broken leg (and prosthetic brains ain't much good either, I hear).

In any accident in which a helmet has been broken, energy that would otherwise have knocked a hewed about has been dissipated breaking the helmet. If you want to find put how much energy, buy a helmet, and a hammer, and use the latter to split open the former. Then imagine using that much energy on your own skull. So dissipating the energy of an impact by breaking a helmet seems to me to be a good thing.

So I wear a helmet. And I commend those who make a living doing something more sophisticated than dribbling, being incontinent and staring into the middle distance to do so as well. Ditto if you have dependents.

In the end though it's a matter of choice. But would you really wish to leave your family wondering "what if?"?

Great post!

wgwarburton

Greg66 wrote:

...In any accident in which a helmet has been broken, energy that would otherwise have knocked a hewed about has been dissipated breaking the helmet. ...
So I wear a helmet. And I commend those who make a living doing something more sophisticated than dribbling, being incontinent and staring into the middle distance to do so as well. Ditto if you have dependents.

In the end though it's a matter of choice. But would you really wish to leave your family wondering "what if?"?

It's common sense isn't it? ...and yet, there's no evidence to back it up... despite people spending a good deal of time and money looking for it.

In essence what you're saying, Greg, is that you have Faith in your helmet, because, intuitively it seems that it should help.

Now that's fine. I'm happy for you. What bothers me a little is the constant implicit or explicit assertion that this faith is supported by some sort of sound, researched evidence . People quite often tell me I should wear a helmet... few, if any, of them do so from any informed and reasoned position.

Cheers,
W.

bunter

met make helmets for people (like me) with really big heads. can't remember the model I wear but it probably isn't made anymore anyway. testagrossa seems to be the latest.

greg66_tri_v2.0

WGWarburton wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

...In any accident in which a helmet has been broken, energy that would otherwise have knocked a hewed about has been dissipated breaking the helmet. ...
So I wear a helmet. And I commend those who make a living doing something more sophisticated than dribbling, being incontinent and staring into the middle distance to do so as well. Ditto if you have dependents.

In the end though it's a matter of choice. But would you really wish to leave your family wondering "what if?"?

It's common sense isn't it? ...and yet, there's no evidence to back it up... despite people spending a good deal of time and money looking for it.

In essence what you're saying, Greg, is that you have Faith in your helmet, because, intuitively it seems that it should help.

Now that's fine. I'm happy for you. What bothers me a little is the constant implicit or explicit assertion that this faith is supported by some sort of sound, researched evidence . People quite often tell me I should wear a helmet... few, if any, of them do so from any informed and reasoned position.

Cheers,
W.

Conversely, is there any hard empirical evidence that shows that your head will fare better in a collision with a car or a pavement if you are not wearing a helmet?

I can't make it any clearer for you than with the hammer & helmet example. If you don't see that as evidence of the amount of energy a helmet will absorb which would otherwise have to be absorbed by your head, then I can't do any better.

If you think that is "intuition", or "Faith", I'm tempted to suggest that you've entrenched your mindset a bit too deeply. Do you think that it is wrong that motorcyclists are obliged to wear helmets?

But as I said, it is your choice.

bigmat

Oh for god's sake - wearing a helmet will help if you fall off and bang your head. Its common sense. I don't need "proper scientific evidence" to reach that conclusion. I have on occasions worn a thick woolly hat for similar reasons (it was ruddy cold in Belgium). If modern helmets didn't exist, maybe I'd wear an old hairnet style one. For me it makes perfect sense - I don't find them hot or uncomfortable and wearing one has become second nature. As for cycling "not being dangerous", well these things are all relative. But I have fallen off and whacked my head hard enough to split a helmet like a watermelon. As have a number of my friends. Maybe the helmets only saved us from a gashed head and concussion, but that's good enough for me. If people don't want to wear a helmet, that's up to them, but the arguments against it don't stack up for me.

tarquin_foxglove

Greg66 wrote:

So I wear a helmet. And I commend those who make a living doing something more sophisticated than dribbling, being incontinent and staring into the middle distance to do so as well. Ditto if you have dependents.

In the end though it's a matter of choice. But would you really wish to leave your family wondering "what if?"?

Why does the "pro choice but I wear a helmet" brigade always roll out the dribbling/incontinent think of your family argument, to try & make it not a matter of choice?

Surely the cycling equivalent of "Some of my best friends are ..."

If you watch the one show episode, linked higher up in the thread, there is a woman who has severe brain injury etc, she was wearing a helmet & it's her belief she would have died without it.

Arguably a helmet ensured a life of dribbling incontinence rather than prevented it.

thelawnet

BigMat wrote:

Oh for god's sake - wearing a helmet will help if you fall off and bang your head. Its common sense. I don't need "proper scientific evidence" to reach that conclusion. I have on occasions worn a thick woolly hat for similar reasons (it was ruddy cold in Belgium). If modern helmets didn't exist, maybe I'd wear an old hairnet style one. For me it makes perfect sense - I don't find them hot or uncomfortable and wearing one has become second nature. As for cycling "not being dangerous", well these things are all relative. But I have fallen off and whacked my head hard enough to split a helmet like a watermelon. As have a number of my friends. Maybe the helmets only saved us from a gashed head and concussion, but that's good enough for me. If people don't want to wear a helmet, that's up to them, but the arguments against it don't stack up for me.

Funny thing is, there are remarkably few incidents of 'heads splitting like a watermelon' among non-helmet-wearing cyclists. Why might this be?

wgwarburton

BigMat wrote:

Oh for god's sake - wearing a helmet will help if you fall off and bang your head. Its common sense.

It may very well be common sense, but it's not actually true! Or (just possibly, I'm as open minded about this as all the other parts of this argument) it may be that wearing a helmet helps if you fall off, but makes falling off more likely. At any rate, it seems that if you look a little deeper what you find is that the wearing of helmets doesn't reduce the number of cyclists being killed or seriously injured.

I don't need "proper scientific evidence" to reach that conclusion.

No, you dont, which is probably just as well, because the absence of it would get in the way! :-). Unfortunately, simply reaching that conclusion does not mean that it's correct.

Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't wear a helmet. that's up to you... what I would like is that you refrain from posting inaccurate statements like those above...

.... ... If people don't want to wear a helmet, that's up to them, but the arguments against it don't stack up for me.

...I don't think you'll find many people saying you shouldn't wear a helmet. That's your choice. What you might find is people objecting to any unfounded and inaccurate claim, implicit or explicit, that they are effective and therefore desireable, when there is little evidence that the relative risks of cycling warrant any extra safety gear and also none that helmets are actually effective in reducing death and serious injuries amongst cyclists.

Cheers,
W.

bigmat

WGWarburton wrote:

BigMat wrote:

Oh for god's sake - wearing a helmet will help if you fall off and bang your head. Its common sense.

It may very well be common sense, but it's not actually true! Or (just possibly, I'm as open minded about this as all the other parts of this argument) it may be that wearing a helmet helps if you fall off, but makes falling off more likely. At any rate, it seems that if you look a little deeper what you find is that the wearing of helmets doesn't reduce the number of cyclists being killed or seriously injured.

I don't need "proper scientific evidence" to reach that conclusion.

No, you dont, which is probably just as well, because the absence of it would get in the way! :-). Unfortunately, simply reaching that conclusion does not mean that it's correct.

Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't wear a helmet. that's up to you... what I would like is that you refrain from posting inaccurate statements like those above...

.... ... If people don't want to wear a helmet, that's up to them, but the arguments against it don't stack up for me.

...I don't think you'll find many people saying you shouldn't wear a helmet. That's your choice. What you might find is people objecting to any unfounded and inaccurate claim, implicit or explicit, that they are effective and therefore desireable, when there is little evidence that the relative risks of cycling warrant any extra safety gear and also none that helmets are actually effective in reducing death and serious injuries amongst cyclists.

Cheers,
W.

I think my position is pretty clear - wearing something on your head is likely to offer some protection if you bang your head. That's all I'm saying. You could wear a cycle helmet, motorcycle helmet, wooly hat, whatever. I'm not getting into the debate as to whether cycle helmets reduce death or serious injury. I imagine that on occasion they do. I've certainly seen a fair few crashes where riders have landed head first and walked away with very limited head injuries, seemingly due to wearing helmets. Its impossible to say what the injuries might have been but for the helmet though. We certainly know that in a serious crash, a helmet won't save you. I just think its a risk / benefit analysis for the individual. For me, the benefit of wearing a helmet is that it will protect my head in certain circumstances. I have fallen off my bike a few times, banged my head once or twice, I cycle in congested traffic and on quiter roads at speed, so it makes sense for me to have that protection. What is the "risk" of wearing a helmet? That it messes up my hair? That it causes cars to drive more dangerously around me? That it puts me at greater risk of rotational injuries? That it makes me too hot? None of these seem an adequate reason to not wear a helmet. Still, for the record, I am most definitely pro choice and anti compulsion!

Libraio

When I was twelve I was late for school, I hung my gymbag from my handlebars and raced like a maniac to get to school in time. I was doing around 20 miles an hour when said bag decided to get stuck in my front wheel. I made a beautiful front flip wich I landed on my head. I had a headache and a 1cm gash on the top of my head. The only time I drible is when my gf makes me a nice curry . Now, what was my mistake? I'm guesing not wearing a helmet was not it but I've never hung a bag from my handlebars again.
I do however wear a helmet when riding fast on my own. Never on the commute or on a ride with my gf.
Now where that popcorn emoticon I see so much on helmet debate threads.

greg66_tri_v2.0

WGWarburton wrote:

What you might find is people objecting to any unfounded and inaccurate claim, implicit or explicit, that they are effective and therefore desireable, when there is little evidence that the relative risks of cycling warrant any extra safety gear and also none that helmets are actually effective in reducing death and serious injuries amongst cyclists.

You've elided two very distinct concepts there: (a) cycling is relatively safe; (b) safety gear is wholly unnecessary for the occasions when it is not.

WGWarburton wrote:

Or (just possibly, I'm as open minded about this as all the other parts of this argument) it may be that wearing a helmet helps if you fall off, but makes falling off more likely.

Source?


You do realise that you sound a bit like Big Tobacco in the 1960s and 1970s, when they were telling the world that there was no evidence to link smoking to adverse health effects, don't you?

greg66_tri_v2.0

tarquin_foxglove wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

So I wear a helmet. And I commend those who make a living doing something more sophisticated than dribbling, being incontinent and staring into the middle distance to do so as well. Ditto if you have dependents.

In the end though it's a matter of choice. But would you really wish to leave your family wondering "what if?"?

Why does the "pro choice but I wear a helmet" brigade always roll out the dribbling/incontinent think of your family argument, to try & make it not a matter of choice?

I realise it was a bit early in the morning when you posted, but what bit of "it's a matter of choice" did you have trouble with?

If you're confident of the choice you've made, then surely the dribbling/incontinence/think of your family points make no difference to you. If, on the other hand, you feel that they are compelling you towards wearing a helmet, perhaps you should re-assess your choice.

wgwarburton

Greg66 wrote:

...I can't make it any clearer for you than with the hammer & helmet example. If you don't see that as evidence of the amount of energy a helmet will absorb which would otherwise have to be absorbed by your head, then I can't do any better.

The problem with that argument is that it's too simplistic. Real life is more complicated than that, and the simple fact that a helmet may help in this particular situation doesn't tell you enough about its overall effectiveness. Still less about whether it's a proportionate response to a real problem.

If you think that is "intuition", or "Faith", I'm tempted to suggest that you've entrenched your mindset a bit too deeply.

I'm open to the idea that helmets may be effective- I might even wear one if they were so, even though it's clear that they aren't really necessary. What I don't see is anything that really supports that idea...
If I start from the premise that I think a helmet might be useful, the next step is to find out whether that's actually the case. A bit of digging soon suggests that it may not be... Hmm, curious. So I do a lot more digging and it becomes clear that it isn't, though many people believe that it is, and some are so convinced that they'd like to enforce wearing them (indeed have done so, in countries similar to ours).... Now that's a bit of a concern! I wouldn't want that to happen!
Is it likely to..? No, I don't think so, but it's clearly much more likely to happen if the general population believe that helmets are a sensible, proportionate response to a real risk... and here we are, many of us experienced cyclists who ought to know better, reinforcing precisely that position...

Do you think that it is wrong that motorcyclists are obliged to wear helmets?

No. Nor do I think that's relevant.

But as I said, it is your choice.

I don't think anyone's debating that.

Cheers,
W.

Gussio

I've learned something today, having looked up what 'elided' means.

rolf_f

thelawnet wrote:

Funny thing is, there are remarkably few incidents of 'heads splitting like a watermelon' among non-helmet-wearing cyclists. Why might this be?

That's because the non-helmet wearing-cyclists that had incidents are either dead or dribbling

WGWarburton wrote:

If I start from the premise that I think a helmet might be useful, the next step is to find out whether that's actually the case. A bit of digging soon suggests that it may not be... Hmm, curious. So I do a lot more digging and it becomes clear that it isn't, though many people believe that it is, and some are so convinced that they'd like to enforce wearing them (indeed have done so, in countries similar to ours)....

You're still putting a deliberate spin on this; if you really had confidence in your arguments you wouldn't need to do that. You start from a premise that a helmet might be useful but your failure to find evidence causes you to say that 'it is clear that it isn't useful'. That simply isn't the case. Failure to prove a point isn't the same as disproving it. You are undermining your own arguments.

Ultimately, the complexity of the real world you rightly raise is one reason why this is more of a grey area than perhaps would be expected. As for me, as I've said before, I'll stop wearing cycle helmets at the same time I start removing my eggs from their carton before I've got home!

Cycloslalomeur

Gussio wrote:

I've learned something today, having looked up what 'elided' means.

Ditto.

sketchley

I posted this a couple of pages ago, read some of the stuff on here it's good stuff, properly referenced as well. It's starting to change my mind a little. Or least making me think there should be some kind of campaign to make cycle helmets better.

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/

The consulsion to be drawn from this is that there are little if any benefits from wearing a modern helmets. Different story for older helmets pre 1990 though.

But I'm still in the I'd rather be wearing one than not camp, as wearing must still be safer than not. But this is interesting too, a study that showed when wearing a helmet cars passed cyclists closer than without.

http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/articles/arc ... 10906.html

CiB

I thought my 'may as well carry a gun to protect me from a tiger jumping out of a hedge' analogy was as good a reason as any, for my particular set of circumstances at least. I still don't see why anyone should get so het up at people who you've never met not wearing helmets though. I don't order you around, or express a desire to see yet more pointless unnecessary laws brought in to solve a non-existent problem, or demand that you explain to me why you don't wear safety gear in the shower, walking in snow, whatever. For your part please accept that some of us are quite happy to take a non-existent risk.

No-ones going to change their minds, except maybe for Sketchley who deserves a gold pointy badge for at least reading up on it. Me? I'll carry on without thanks.

My biggest angst about all this is that come the day when some politician wants to make a name for hisself by introducing a helmet law, there won't be enough people prepared to say 'hold on, there's no real need, how can all cycle rides be deemed so unsafe as to warrant a crash hat' etc etc, and it'll be introduced by apathy, and then it'll be a criminal act to pop down the shops, down the park on the cycle paths with the kids, to church on a Sunday morning, to ride along quiet country lanes and so on, just because some people who ride around London all agree that people who won't wear helmets deserve to become dribbling wrecks, and that that is an inevitable consequence of riding a bike without a hat.

Clever Pun

Greg66 wrote:

I can't make it any clearer for you than with the hammer & helmet example. If you don't see that as evidence of the amount of energy a helmet will absorb which would otherwise have to be absorbed by your head, then I can't do any better.

This example you talk of, I'm assuming you'd put a melon(or something similar in the helmet otherwise the experiment is rather flawed. Also to reflect a more real life example the hammers head should have a large flat surface attached to it to represent the floor/car windscreen or bonnet. So like being hit by a placard?
As you well know the point of a stiletto exerts more force per square inch than being stood on by an elephant.

I appreciate this doesn't cover mashing your head into a corner of something like a bookcase, but then why would you be cycling inside? </removes tongue from cheek>

I couldn't care less if other people wear helmets or not, just like seeing experiments/examples done correctly to have meaning

jonny_trousers

Cycloslalomeur wrote:

Gussio wrote:

I've learned something today, having looked up what 'elided' means.

Ditto.

Me too, b' let's not be disrespectful to those who 'ave taken the time an' effort t' argue their points clearly and intelligently (on both sides) by drawing attention t' something that was obviously a typo.

sketchley

I also happen to think that a large number of the people campaigning for manadatory helmet wearing are doing so because they know it will reduce the number of cyclists, the same as the ones that argue for insurance and license plates. They see too many cyclist on "thier" roads and want to get rid of them.