Healthy, environmentally friendly holidays for the whole family.

So, the great helmet debate then?

There are some occasions where a helmet will protect you. There are some where it may increase the likelihood of an injury.

I prefer to wear one despite many years of riding a bike without one as a child, having several falls and not receiving any head injuries.

There are many arguments for and against presented by many different people/groups and it is always an emotive debate among cyclists.

Argument for helmets:

• They can protect against head and brain injury
• Particularly useful for children who have less coordination and bike skills

Arguments against helmets

• They can increase the likelihood of an impact as they make the head bigger
• They create an image that cycling itself is dangerous which puts people off
• They can increase the effects of an impact in some situations
• There is no scientific evidence that they save lives
• The testing for the European standard is limited to a single type of impact

Helmets are tested to a European standard that specifies the type of fall that a helmet should protect against. If they can do this, they pass the test. The test does not represent all forms of accidents on a bike.

There are also studies, particularly from Australia, that suggest that compulsory use of helmets reduces cycling participation and that has a knock-on effect to public health as a particular form of exercise is not available to them.

In many European countries, the majority of cyclists don’t wear helmets. In Holland this is certainly the case but cyclists are 4 times safer than in the UK and 18 times safer than in the US. Much of this has been put down to their much better infrastructure.

So many things affect the safety of the cyclist but helmet use is generally the only thing that gets debated. If cycle paths were properly segregated from the road (by a distance or a barrier for example) then cyclists wouldn’t get knocked off by motor vehicles. If more people cycled, drivers would be more aware of cyclists around them. If a cyclist can move quick enough to cycle “in the traffic” as opposed to in the gutter then motorists can see them better and have to overtake to get passed as opposed to squeezing between the cyclist and the centre line.

Cycling itself is not inherently dangerous. It’s the mixing with motorised traffic and pedestrians that causes the majority of accidents.

So, there are benefits to wearing helmets but they appear to be an easy solution for the authorities. It is much cheaper to encourage/insist that cyclists wear a helmet to protect them in the event of an accident than to address the issues that cause the accidents in the first place. This sort of attitude would not be acceptable in any other walk of life.

In the end though, cycling without a helmet is better for you generally than not exercising because you feel you have to wear a helmet.

It’s up to you, but until there is the sort of infrastructure that countries such as Holland have, I’ll be “Putting a lid on it.”

Don’t be put off cycling though. In terms of fatalities per mile travelled, cycling is still safer than being a pedestrian.