A bit rusty on my civil law, but don't think that judgements in the High Court set a precedent. Only those of Courts of Appeal and The House of Lords set precedents. If I'm right then the case changes nothing.

if you ride a bike without a safety helmet, you are either incredibly stupid, or somewhat arrogant!!

I've attended too many accident scenes in 25 years of riding (both on-road and off-road), skateboarding, rollerblading and bmx riding to ever question whether its worth wearing a helmet

without a doubt, wearing a helmet has saved my life on 6 distinct occasions:

whether in collisions with motor vehicles, riding my mountain bike and getting flipped over the bars into a tree and rocks, slamming into the bottom of a half-pipe in a skatepark, or receiving a chainring to the head whilst riding a bmx in a slippery concrete skatepark - my helmets have born the damage of these incidents and I have lived to tell the tales...

wearing a helmet has allowed me to either walk away....or stagger away (with a nasty concussion) and from examining the remains of these helmets conclude I would have received a serious head injury or been killed outright without these helmets

I have personally attended too many accidents at dirt jump trails, bmx tracks and freeride trails in woods where riders not wearing helmets have nearly died from serious head injuries, or have actually gone into cardiac arrest from head injuries and have been re-susitated before going onto to months of rehab and physio

a good friend of mine (richard taylor, RIP) died a few years ago whilst rollerblading in Barry, Wales to get some food from a local store, this was a pro skater who could go 10 foot out of a vert ramp whilst spinning upside down...his leg buckled, collided with a lamp post and low speed and he received a head injury which killed him within hours- no helmet

in the real world, regardless of whether manufacturers make healthy profits or test their helmets to 12mph, a good quality, well fitted helmet is going to provide another layer of protection between your fragile head and the hard ground / tree / whatever

if it "only" decreases the rate of acceleration when your head hits the ground and gives you a concussion rather than a haemorrage leading to your death, then its done its job

please, for everyone's sake (especially the first on-scene "responders", emergency services, doctors, nurses, neurosurgeons, coroners, family, friends, grief counsellors, etc.) please put a helmet on!

it won't cost much, and may save your life, if it doesn;t at least your dependents will get more compensation as you have taken "sensible" and "practical" measures to protect yourself

most modern all-mountain helmets, piss-pots and full face helmets provide more than adequate protection to the rear of the head....

rob cole

Rob Cole wrote:

'without a doubt, wearing a helmet has saved my life on 6 distinct occasions'.

You appear to live an INCREDIBLY risky life-style. A normal cyclist who rides an average of 5000 miles a year for 50 years still only runs a one in 50 or so risk of being killed, and this includes all those fatal crashes where wearing a helmet could make absolutely no difference to the chance of survival. (Multiple fatal injuries, injuries to organs other than the brain and so on).

Then again being willing to accept a higher level of risk is one of the main side effects of wearing a helmet…

Similarly, I have often heard mountain bikers claim that they would never attempt some rocky, steep descent unless they had a helmet on. The true path to safety is to reduce the risk at source, not to make some feeble attempt to reduce the consequences of a crash that might well never have happened in the first place if the individual had not been suffering from the self-delusion as long as one is wearing a cycle helmet it is 'safe' to take all sorts of risks that they would otherwise avoid.

As to a helmet reducing the impact to a significant degree in a high-impact crash, this runs counter to the laws of physics. The forces developed in a crash rise with the square of the speed so even if a helmet could reduce ALL of the energy created in a 12 Mph crash (which is doesn't), in an otherwise identical 40 Mph impact the same helmet would only reduce the impact load by the equivalent of around 1-2 Mph. (Assuming, of course, that it did not simply break up on impact as is normally the case with modern helmets due to all the holes in them). Further, in helmet testing it is assumed that the head is effectively independent of the body, with the testing load being just 5kg. If the rider's head is struck with an unyielding body weighing more that this, (say a car) or the energy otherwise generated in a crash is dissipated through the helmet, say from the riders own body mass in an 'over the bars’ header, the ability of the helmet to absorb the energy created will be an irrelevance in relation to the forces created.

Just do the maths!

Following on from the above, Kinetic energy = mass in kg x velocity squared in m/sec /2.

If we take a mass of ‘5kg’ (the load helmets are actually tested with) the kinetic energy generated in a 14 mph impact would be 5 x (6.3m/sec x 6.3m/sec) /2 = 100 Joules. Now, this figure correlates with the test load for a Snell B-90 certified helmet, a HIGHER standard than almost all modern helmet meet. ALSO note that the test standard does not require the helmet to absorb ALL the energy developed in such an impact, merely to reduce to acceleration experienced by the brain to 400g (A value which research shows is probably still to high to avoid serious brain injury). ALSO note that this standard relates only to crown impacts onto a flat surface, with the performance of the helmet being LESS for point and ‘kerb edge’ impacts. ALSO note that these are values derived from tightly-controlled laboratory impacts, not real-world impacts. ALSO note that these tests only relate to linear de-accelerations, and studies indicate that the major problem in a high-impact crash is the rotational forces generated, with the brain being torn as it ‘swirls’ around inside the skull. This is something that no helmet can prevent and in reality wearing a helmet can make these ‘rotational’ forces HIGHER due to the extra mass and size of a hemeted head.

Now, back to the maths… In a 42 Mph impact the kinetic energy generated would be: 5 x (18.8 m/sec x 18.8 m/sec) /2 =884 Joules.

Now let us assume our helmet works as intended and does not simply break up, something that modern helmets full of vents and holes often do. Let us also assume that it will absorb ALL of the energy of a 14 Mph impact. (In reality it will absorb only a proportion of this).

Our 'perfect' helmet would reduce the impact load to an equivalent of 884 -100 = 784 Joules. Now this still equates to an ‘unsurvivable’ impact speed of 39.6 Mph.

Of course, if the mass is higher than 5kg the energy generated will be still higher. A 75 kg cyclist going 'over the bars' at 21 Mph has a kinetic energy of 3314 Joules, over 331 times greater than even a Snell-certified helmet is designed to cope with! A 2 tonne 4x4 doing 40 Mph has a kinetic energy of over 320,000 Joules.

To place these figures into perspective, a Snell-certified cycle helmet is 'good' for just 100 Joules maximum, less against a non-flat suface. Also, as Brian Walker of Head Protection Evaluations has noted:

'Due in the main to the introduction of the weak EN1078 standard present day cycle helmets generally, offer a lower level of protection than those sold in the early 1990's. In the early 1990's market research suggested that in excess of 90% of the cycle helmets sold in the UK were certified to the Snell B-90 standard, at that time the most stringent cycle helmet standard in the world. In 1998 Head Protection Evaluations (HPE) my safety helmet laboratory, conducted a test program for the Consumers Association's assessment of cycle helmets available in the UK. By that year all of the helmets were manufactured to the EN1078 the European harmonised standard for cycle helmets. The results showed that with one or two exceptions all of the helmets tested were totally incapable of meeting the higher Snell B-90 standard, to which many of the models had been previously certified. Some tests suggested that certain helmets were even incapable of meeting the weak EN1078. standard.'

rob cole wrote:

'if you ride a bike without a safety helmet, you are either incredibly stupid, or somewhat arrogant!!'

I wonder, do you wear a helmet when walking? If not how do you justify this give that the overall injury and fatality figures for pedestrians are much higher than those for cyclists, and the fact that the 'per km travelled' fatality rates for pedestrians are also higher for pedestrians than cyclists? If you don't wear a waking helmet do you not fear being called 'stupid' or 'arrogant' for such an failure?

P.s I have just noticed a typo in the above. Our 'over the bars' cyclist has a kinetic energy 33.1 times greater than a Snell certified helmet is tested with, not 331 times!

(That 40 Mph 4x4 has a kinetic energy 3,200 times greater than the load a Snell certified helmet is tested with...)

careful - You are correct to state that another High Court/CA/HL judge is not bound by this decision in the sense that he has to follow it. However, you are wrong to state that the case will change nothing.

First of all, the court applied the principles of a 1976 Court of Appeal judgment to the facts. In effect, the judge felt that he was bound by this Court of Appeal decision.

Secondly, the fact that a judge in a future case does not have to follow a previous case does not mean that this case does not represent current law. It merely means that it can be disagreed with in the future, but until this happens, the judgment stands as current law. This case will not be overruled within the current proceedings because the claimant won the action, he was not contributory negligent, so has no reason to appeal.

The case was significant because it presents the opportunity in future for defendants to claim that a cyclist contributed to his injuries and therefore should have his compensation reduced. Modern helmets are said to give protection where at the point of impact, the cyclist's torso was travelling at a speed of 12 mph or less.

We will therefore have to wait until another cyclist case until we can conclude. But the principles from this case were not created by the High Court judge, they were based on principles which are already set in stone from higher courts. The judge's reasoning was actually quite sound. The 1976 case I mentioned earlier stated that a passenger who didn't wear a seatbelt could be held to have contributed to his injuries at a time when seatbelts were not compuslory which is why it has been followed here.

What is also interesting is how determined many judges appear to be to prevent precedents being set that would see motorists being held to be more responsible for their actions when they cause harm to others. For example, consider the case where a motorist called Peter Cottrell ran down and killed a cyclist called John Morris, leaving the cyclist to die in the road and driving off to attend a bowls match.

The police and CPS decided that there was sufficient evidence to bring a charge of manslaughter against the driver on the basis that the medical evidence showed that if the cyclist had receive more prompt attention (it was some time before he was found dying at the side of the road), he would have survived. This medical evidence was presented to the court, but the judge then ruled that the driver had to be found not guilty and would not allow the jury to bring in their own verdict.

It can only be assumed that the judge in this case was determined prevent a precedent being set and to ensure that ‘hit and run’ offences, which have become the norm in many parts of the country, continue to be treated as a merely ‘technical’ offence.

The driver was found guilty of perverting the course of justice. (He had tried to get his car repaired to avoid being associated with the killing). To my mind the judge was as guilty of this charge as the driver! What’s the point of having a jury system at all if some old buffer can make rulings such as this?

As the say, motoring offences generally involve a motorist being judged by 12 other motorists all overseen by yet another motorist wearing a wig…

Hi,

I am new to this forum and have spent the last half an hour reading all the posts including the essays. There appear to be one or two lawyers commenting here as well as cyclists who either do or don't where helmets.

I think it all comes down to common sense, attitude to risk and what you are comfortable with as a vulnerable road user and potentially high injury sport.

Just before the speeding car drove into me whilst I was on my training bike coming home from work back in 1999, I screamed "Don't break my legs!" I can't remember being worried about my head. I felt weightless as I flew through the air and like a sac of spuds I hit the road in front of him in the middle of the busy roundabout. I lay their for what seemed like an age but was probably a minute or so. I was breathing. My first thought was to see if I could move my legs, then arms, then head then assess damage to my bike...............I was trying to orientate my myself to find my camera.

The police and ambulance arrived pretty quickly. The first thing they had to contend with was the driver of the speeding car in their faces telling them it was my fault, I sonehow drove into him. I didn't as he was behind me. The police took a diifferent view as did the judge and foud him guilty. The first thing both the police and ambulance crew asked me was "How are you feeling, have you hit your head?" The ambulance crew immediately did a head examination, asking me to do and say certain things. I was basically ok. I was very cold, shivering. They put a blanket over me. I hadn't hit my head although I didn't realise at the time my helmet must have taken much of the blow as my head swung toward the tarmac. My neck hurt a bit but I was ok. As for the rest of me my left side knee cap was cut open lots of blood and my the fingers of my left hand a bit shredded (I do wear fingerless gloves), my left elbow was badly cut up and the whole of my left side beneath my clothing was absolutely killing me. I daren't look. I couldn't, I was in too much pain to bend.

My bike was a mess too. The rear wheel and stays had been totally bent, my front left handle bar bent and my beautiful Campag Chorus STI lever mashed. I was in hospital for 3 days. The first night I can't remember much save for a nurse injecting a large screw driver sized syringe of heavy duty painkiller into my left hip area to try to ease my pain. I couldn't move. Apparently during the first night the nurse told me later I was tossing and turning and shouted on several occasions "Don't break my legs!" My whole left side from the level of my kidneys down to lower thigh was one big haematoma, a mother of all bruises. I had also suffered a fracture to the edge of my left hip and damaged a nerve that passes adjacent to it. So I now 10 years on I still get sensations down my left leg and into my foot. I problems with my back. I pain in my hip when it is cold and damp which is pretty much all the time in the UK.

Suffice to say the police were brilliant. Witnesses came forward and turned up to court. The RAC guy said of me "He was lit up like a f*****g Christmas tree." The driver and his defence contended I was a novice cyclist who had lost control of my bike and shouldn't have been on the road??!!! When asked how I held the handlebars prior to the defendant colliding with me I answered as tightly as Miguel Indurain in a final sprint finish along the Champs Elysee. The court didn't even know who Miguel was but felt sure that cycling must take place on the Champs Elysee being in France where cyclists are common. Suffice to say after a period of long legal hot air about what penalty the errant driver should face, he was convicted of driving without care and attention and fined a woefull amount £150 I think with 3 points on his licence. As disappointing as this amount was it did however help no end my civil claim against him. I instructed solicitors to bring a civil action and successfully sued for my injuries and damage to bike, lost earnings, etc.

My point is that when you have a moderately serious accident on a bicycle you need all the protection you can get. You are vulnerable. Flesh and bones have surprisingly little resistance to impacts with hard things such as metal, tarmac and rocks or trees and even less resistance to sharp pointy things as well. The first thing any half decent rescuer, paramedic, amabulance crew or police officer will ask, "Are you ok, have you hit your head?" They ask this as they no the brain is the most important organ in the body believe it or not. It is my feeling that you can do alot yourself to try to protect your head, first by using it and wearing a helmet. In hindsight after the accident that killed you unqualified theorists might say well the impact would have killed him anyway so it wasn't worth wearing it which is utter nonsense. I would advise anyone who takes their own safety seroiusly to wear a helmet. It strikes me that it is always those who have never had a moderately serious or left threatening injury are the ones who question a safety measure's efficacy, produce meaningless statistics, advocate abstaining from a safety measure or actively resist it's introduction. Car seat belts are a case in point. I remember very clearly the same type of case made against introducing them 30 years ago and yet they have proved a total success at reducing road traffic fatalites and seroius injuries. There have been lots of other safety measures introduced into car design such impact absorption, but the compulsory wearing of seatbelts has been a major success in reducing road traffic deaths and injuires. Period.

I believe my helmet prevented me from being seriously injured in this particular collision. Had I not been wearing one then I might not be here writing this thread or I might have suffered injury to my brain such that my cerebral function would be grossly impaired. You know a helmet might not save you from being flattened by a 40 tonne artic or bus, or even falling off a cliff, but the counter arguement is that in not wearing any of this protective equipment one is a long time dead. So to taking responsibility for your own safety by using practicable and reasonable measures to safeguard your safety you might survive a little longer on the event of impact. This seems desirable to me.

What is more troubling is the number of cyclists some with families, dependants, who have no insurance in place so should they become injured or be killed as a result of a collision which is their fault then they have no means of financial support or for their families. They are then reliant on claiming from the other party providing the other party is insured and is found to be at fault and the claimant is not contributory negligent. And by contributory negligent courts now seem to be taking a reasonable and practical view albeit aftrer pressure from defendants' insurers. Ok their reasoning is to try to limit the damages they have to pay out to claimants, but if you are wearing a helmet anyway this does not become an issue. Anyway each case will turn on it's own facts.

Cycling is a matter of self preservation and particularly commuting on the roads it's survival. Unfortunately traffic volumes and speeds are now excessive and there is little desire in the UK to change this. So I think what can I do to protect myself? £50 for a decent helmet which might help me might not is not too much. When you compare it to the vale of some bikes £3,000 it's peanuts. I still wear a helmet and have recently started wearing a high viz sleeveless tunic with loads of Scotchlite bars over my already highly visible yellow Altura jacket. I DO NOT then wear a rucksack on my back, pointless wearing the reflective jacket in the first place, I have decent panniers. I cycle between 8 and 10,000 miles a year. I don't compromise on safety. I eyeball anything I hear approaching from behind until it is safely passed. It works. You're a long time dead and I still have a lot of things I want to do. So if you aren't wearing a helmet or hi viz clothing yet you ought to be. It might just save your life. Your family might just be pleased you did as well.

Safe cycling.

Alex

Hi,

I would just like to add one more comment. One of the most chilling cycling scenes I have seen was just before I left London in 1997 was cycling home out of central London over Forest Hill, it might not have been Forest Hill, but the point is that there was a traffic light controlled cross road junction right on top of the small brow of this hill the road rised up sharply to the brow and then dropped down sharply on the other side. As I rode up I could see flashing lights of the emergrncy services. It wasn't particularly busy, possibly because the raod had been closed I don't know, but as I climbed up to the junction in the middle, literally in the middle of the junction was a red mound, sitcking out was a single cycling shoe and lying on the road forlornly nearby was cycling helmet split in 2 and a badly damaged Roberts expedition bike. As I went by I saw that 3 paramedics were trying to save under the red blanket this cyclist's life.

Later that evening I watched the London local news and the cyclist had died at the scene from collision with a car that went through a red light.

RIP.

I just signed up to say Thankyou Alex (dilemma) for posting your experience

I'm just getting back into cycling and having never worn a helmet in the past I have been reading up.

Your detailed (and well written) account is the most compelling thing I have read and encourages me not only to get a helmet, but to exchange my usual dark clothing for something more visible when on the roads.

Thankyou.

Personally I can't see how wearing a helmet could be anything other than a good thing. There will always be evidence for and against something, and the arguements are often based around possible legislation so will have a spin/bias. Me, i don't want a cracked head/bloody scalp/shaved bits where the stitches went (would take a long time to grow my hair back on a shaved bit!)

Personally, I think it should be law to wear a helmet on a bike, but the law should be exercised by the police with common sense. If you ride at night without your lights on (something I advise strongly against) the police will not lock you up in a maximum security jail, but will probably just tell you it's dangerous for you and other road users, and to get some the next time you ride in the dark. Perfect use of common sense.

dilemna wrote:

'10 years on I still get sensations down my left leg and into my foot. I problems with my back. I pain in my hip when it is cold and damp which is pretty much all the time in the UK.'

As I have argued, the real path to better safety is to reduce the risk at source, not via the use of 'after the event' secondary safety measures, such as helmets, that offer zero protection to the majority of the body.

dilemna wrote:

'My point is that when you have a moderately serious accident on a bicycle you need all the protection you can get. '

I wonder, do you ride at all time in MTB-style body armour? If not why not?

dilemna wrote:

'In hindsight after the accident that killed you unqualified theorists might say well the impact would have killed him anyway so it wasn't worth wearing it which is utter nonsense. '

Which is simply another way of trying to argue that the laws of physics are nonsense...

diaemna wrote:

'Suffice to say the police were brilliant.'

Lucky you. When I was run down and seriously injured by an uninsured, disqualified, 'hit and run' motorist the police took no interest at all, despite the fact that numerous independent witnesses came forward who all said that the driver was entirely at fault.

dilemna wrote:

'It strikes me that it is always those who have never had a moderately serious or left threatening injury are the ones who question a safety measure's efficacy, produce meaningless statistics, advocate abstaining from a safety measure or actively resist it's introduction.'

What was you saying about 'unqualified theorists'? What you say certainly isn't true in my case.

dilemna wrote:

'There have been lots of other safety measures introduced into car design such impact absorption, but the compulsory wearing of seatbelts has been a major success in reducing road traffic deaths and injuires. Period.'

Seatbelts do help to protect those involved in a crash, but the sense of safety they give also encourages a higher level of risk taking. A number of studies looking at casualty rates after the introduction of the seatbelt law concluded that the fall in casualties observed amongst motor vehicle users was mostly due to the stronger drink-drive legislation introduced at the same time. One DfT report also acknowledged that a large INCREASE in pedestrian and cyclist fatalities at that time could be attibuted to an increase in risk taking behaviour by drivers who felt 'safer' because of the use of seat belts.

diemna wrote:

'...nearby was cycling helmet split in 2...Later that evening I watched the London local news and the cyclist had died at the scene from collision with a car that went through a red light.'

A good argument for forgetting about flimsy polystyrene hats and instead focusing on deviant driver behaviours.

bigchazrocks wrote:

'Personally, I think it should be law to wear a helmet on a bike, but the law should be exercised by the police with common sense.'

Yeah right! Just like they do with the law concerning cycling on footways, what with the police ignoring the relevant Home Office guidelines and instead operating zero tolerance 'crackdowns'. Dream on!

Article on this here

http://www.newlaw-directories.co.uk/jobboard/cands/newsview.asp?id=1492

Quote "Why can't people seem to see the common sense value of wearing a helmet."

Perhaps because accident ward figures contradict what "common sense" dictates. Helmet wearers seem to have more accidents and the helmet only prolongs dying not prevent death (same for skiing and snowboarding where helmets are stronger).

Personally I'm not stupid enough to run in to walls or think that wearing a helmet would stop it hurting. :-)

Oddly enough- five pros have died racing during the six years since compulsory helmet wear was introduced and that equals the worst figure for any single TEN year period since 1930. Isn't that strange...