MORE JUNK SCIENCE OUT OF TORONTO - An article published in the September 1, 2008 edition of the journal Pediatrics (abstract) claimed that a decrease in child cyclist fatalities may be attributable in part to helmet legislation and therefore the authors conclude Ontario's helmet law should be extended to adults!
This finding is based exclusively on a decline in per capita child cyclist fatalities that occurred after the date that Ontario's helmet law came into effect yet nothing in this report shows an association between helmet use and cyclist deaths. The authors have simply assumed with no supporting evidence that helmet use increased. The facts suggest this is far from the case.
No province-wide helmet counts have been carried out in Ontario although the authors reference child helmet use data to 1997 from a study of counts done in York, a borough in the City of Toronto, Ontario. Ignored by the authors was a 2006 paper (by the same authors who produced the York counts - Macpherson et al, Economic disparity in bicycle helmet use by children six years after the introduction of legislation. Injury Prevention 12;231-235), that showed helmet use in the borough was higher for only a two year period and returned to pre-law levels by 1999.
Evidence also ignored was the prevailing downward trend in general traffic fatalities - and specifically Ontario's child pedestrian fatalities. (source: Ontario Road Safety Annual Reports).
Since child pedestrian fatalities also declined after the effective date of bicycle helmet legislation, would the authors of this nonsense suggest that such legislation reduces pedestrian fatalities too?

MINISTER ADMITS NZ HELMET LAW DETERS CYCLING - The press in New Zealand has reported that national government minister of Transportation (now ex-minister after defeat of the Labour government in November's election) has been wondering whether ditching the national helmet law would get more people on to bicycles. More ...   
  

HELMET PROMOTION PUTS WOMEN OFF CYCLING - Women are three times less likely to cycle than men because they are put off by "helmet hair" and getting sweaty, a report says. Famous model Ell Macpherson is one woman not deterred by helmet use. She simply doesn't wear one. More ...  
  

OZ RESEARCH SAYS EXCESSIVE FOCUS ON SAFETY PUTS OFF CYCLISTS - Dr Chris Rissel Sydney University, co-author of a 2008 research report on cycling says transport authorities should highlight the fun, convenience and health and environmental benefits of cycling, rather than what he views as an undue emphasis on danger and safety messages. More ...

WORLDWIDE BICYCLE ACCIDENT SURVEY - The 1,600 member New York Cycle Club based in New York City, is conducting a worldwide bicycle accident survey. The survey is for education and advocacy purposes. The results will be made freely available to the public at the conclusion of the survey. To complete go to survey ...

LONDON'S NEW MAYOR FAVOURS CHOICE. The City of London's new mayor, Boris Johnson, who recently defeated incumbent "Red" Ken Livingstone, has entered the discussion on mandatory bicycle helmet laws. Mayor Johnson says that we should be allowed, in our muddled way, to make up our own minds. Sometimes we will go for hatless, sun-blessed, windswept liberty; sometimes for helmeted security. He says that the important thing is that we assess the risk, we make the decision, and be it on our own heads - or, in the case of his helmet, sometimes not. Clearly Boris is not your typical nanny-state politician. More ....

HOST OF VEHICULAR CYCLIST ON CBC RADIO - Listen to safety and cycling discussion on CBC Radio One Sounds Like Canada broadcast June 11th.

CANADIAN AUTHORS ASKED TO CLARIFY THEIR HELMET STUDY - a letter published on the website of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) states that a study of data collected in East York, a district of Toronto, Ontario was incomplete when it found that Ontario's child helmet law didn't reduce cycling. Earlier studies of other jurisdictions have shown the opposite - that cycling did decline after helmet laws were implemented. Malcolm Wardlaw, the author of the letter to the BMJ, said that the key difference between the Ontario study and the earlier studies was that, unlike elsewhere, the law in Ontario was never enforced. He feels the authors should have made this fact clear. Wardlaw is concerned because the study was a primary factor in the British Medical Association's move to support an enforced all-ages helmet law. He feels that had this been known to the BMA, they might have come to a different conclusion.

The letter had echoed a similar view we expressed about the Ontario study in our 2005 critique of the arguments used in favour helmet legislation.

It is not the first time Wardlaw has challenged the safety establishment. In May 2006 we ran a piece about a BMJ article he authored that contained a satire in which pedestrians were encouraged to wear walking helmets.

He is now calling on the authors of the study to publish an open letter to the BMA to make clear that the 2001 paper referred to a law that was never enforced. More ...

COMPREHENSIVE REPORT ON HEALTH BENEFITS OF CYCLING BEING DISTRIBUTED TO HEALTH PROFESSIONALS IN ENGLAND - As a government agency, Cycling England, is likely the most authoritative voice on cycling in England. It has just published a detailed new report, Cycling and Health: What's the Evidence?, that unarguably demonstrates the links between cycling and improved health. The report is being sent to health professionals in order to help their efforts to counter obesity through the encouragement of more cycling.

This review provides more evidence that safety advocates' obsession with protecting our young cyclists through use of helmets is enormously out of proportion to the low risk involved in cycling. To these advocates, we say, "Cycling is a safe, fun, healthy activity. Stop exaggerating its risks. That discourages the uptake of cycling and from a health point of view is extremely counterproductive." More ...

UK HELMET BILL NIXED - A government minister says helmet compulsion is unlikely because it would lead to decreased cycle use. The UK's largest cycling organization, Cyclist's Touring Club welcomed the government's statement citing new evidence that the obesity crisis is far worse than previously realised, and with the reduction in cycling that would follow the implementation of a helmet law, the bill would shorten thousands more lives than it could possibly save. More...

HELMET CAMPAIGNER KILLED ON BIKE - A female cyclist from Charlotte, North Carolina and an advocate of bicycle helmets died with another cyclist when they were hit by an SUV on October 21 . The cyclist, Lee Anne Barry, who had suffered a brain injury as a child had become an activist for brain injury victims, having since 2001 regularly cycled across the US to raise awareness of the disability. She frequently appeared before audiences of school children, urging them to wear bicycle helmets using as props the battered headgear of people who had been involved in accidents. More...

Ontario's traffic act does not prohibit two abreast cycling and, as for many other cycling clubs, it is standard riding formation for the Ottawa club's group rides. (Click on Education at the OBC website).

The club had prepared arguments in defence of its tour leaders in order to protect the legality of group riding protocols and the safety of its members during club events. As it turned out, the club didn't have to present its arguments since the cases never proceeded to trial. Apparently, the Crown prosecutor had decided it either would not get a guilty verdict or didn't want to put any effort into pursuing the charges to verdict and so withdrew them before pleas were entered. The club believes that its tour leaders would have been found "not guilty" and the Crown's decision to withdraw is confirmation that "stay right" sections of the highway act cannot be used to prohibit two abreast cycling. More ...

(Note the host of vehicularcyclist.com acted as advisor and court representative on these two cases).

ONTARIO LIBERAL GOVERNMENT PLAYS DANGEROUS ROLE OF NANNY - in an announcement of its intention to give away free bicycle helmets, the Ontario Liberal government of Dalton McGuinty is putting young cyclists at risk by sending the message that all they need to stay safe on a bicycle is to wear a helmet. Imagine by-passing driver's ed. for a young motorist - "here's the keys to the family car" says dad, "and don't forget to buckle your seat belt"! This reminds us of the words of journalist Auberon Waugh, "it is a sad feature of our times that whenever the government tries, with the best will in the world, to improve things, it always makes them worse".

Much of the money for the helmet program will go to the ThinkFirst Foundation, a charitable organization that lobbies for mandatory bicycle helmet legislation. It's sad that while there are qualified Can-Bike instructors in Ottawa, Toronto and elsewhere waiting to deliver cycle skills and on road traffic training to kids, taxpayers dollars are going to an organization that has absolutely no cycling expertise and is not qualified to advise on anything related to cycle safety. This alliance of a government desperate to get re-elected in October 2007 and a bunch of zealous do-gooders has nothing to do with protecting our young cyclists. We have questioned ThinkFirst's ethics before. More ...

HELMET DIDN'T SAVE THESE LIVES We frequently hear stories about how a helmet saved someone's life in a cycle accident. Such claims often have no basis but nevertheless they are powerful in grossly exaggerating the protective value of bicycle helmet use. Web host, Jim Tubman of Calgary, Alberta believes that many people find anecdotes more convincing than statistical evidence. So he thought he would look at it from the other side and searched the Web to find stories about cyclists who died in accidents while wearing their helmets. More ...

ROTATIONAL HEAD INJURIES Anyone who has examined any national helmet certification procedure, eg CPSC or Snell, will know that bicycle helmets are tested only for direct (linear) impacts. These procedures contain no standards which require protection against oblique impacts that might result in rotation of the brain inside the skull. The inventor of a motorcycle helmet that mimics the protective properties of the human head , Dr. Kenneth Phillips explains this problem well on the Phillips Helmets website. It has been suggested that the presence of a helmet in certain types of conditions actually increases the rotational effect on the brain and in turn increases the severity of an injury.

HELMET LAW OR FREEDOM OF CHOICE? - the July/August Canadian edition of the magazine of North American retail megastore Costco, carries a debate between the host of Vehicular Cyclist and Ontario legislator, John Milloy, on the question, "should adult cyclists have to wear helmets?" Visit the on-line version, by clicking on "contents" at the top of the page, and then by selecting "debate" in the pull down menu. To enlarge the font click on "+". On the right of the page is a facility to comment and vote on the question.

This version of the magazine will stay on-line until the end of August 2007 at which time it will be filed in the archives.

COCHRANE REVIEW BEING USED TO CAMPAIGN STATES HELMET RESEARCH FOUNDATION - The prestigious Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, which has published a paper on five North American studies of the effects of bicycle helmet legislation, has been roundly criticized by the Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation (BHRF) for allowing itself to be used for helmet campaigning. The BHRF is an international body that exists to undertake, encourage and spread the scientific study of the use of bicycle helmets. It states that the Cochrane Database has a reputation as a reliable research base, but the paper will be seen by many to damage that reputation by allowing use of the Database as a platform for campaigning in favour of a pre-determined point of view instead of sound science. More at BHRF ...

CYCLE KINGSTON RESISTS BIKE LANES. According to an article in The Kingston Whig Standard a local cycling organization has managed to convince City Council to defer a decision to implement a bike lane plan. The group have told councillors that bike lanes actually increase the risk to cyclists.

CHRIS BOARDMAN IS PRO-CHOICE. In the June 2007 edition of ProCycling, former British pro-cyclist, Chris Boardman has come out strongly in support of cyclists whose choice it is to ride bareheaded. Boardman expresses reservations over how helmet campaigning has been turned into a religion. More ...

DOES ONTARIO'S HIGHWAY TRAFFIC ACT NEED TO BE REVISED? Periodically, misguided attempts are made to amend Ontario's Highway Traffic Act (HTA). They rarely originate with cycling organizations. Typically proposals are authored by environmental, far left, and anarchist political activists for reasons that have little to do with the safety of cyclists. In May 2007 such a proposal arose on the discussion website of the Cycling Ontario. It cited a website named Ecopolitics. Fortunately an insane proposal to allow cyclists travelling straight through an intersection to ride to the right of right turning motorists gained no support from members of Cycle Ontario.

Ontario's HTA treats a cyclist as a driver of a vehicle and bestows on a cyclist the same rights and responsibilities as a driver of a motorized vehicle. This principle protects the interests and safety of Ontario cyclists. When traffic law treats cyclists separately then cyclists are disadvantaged compared to motorists as is the case in provinces such as Quebec and British Columbia.

The Vehicular Cyclist rejects any proposal that would grant special privileges to cyclists. It has however identified a limited number of changes that are required to eliminate discrimination and ambiguity. More ...

CITY UNANIMOUSLY REJECTS HELMET LAW A few days ago we reported that the City Council of Saskatoon in the Province of Saskatchewan were about to vote on a helmet law proposal. Last night (April 16) victory was declared by local cyclists when Council rejected the helmet law proposal more...

FEDERAL OZ AGENCY CLAIMS CHALLENGED IN SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS - Bill Curnow, an Australian critic of helmet laws has attacked the Australian Transport Safety Bureau for continuing to advise the Government that bicycle helmets reduce the risk of death or brain injury. See Curnow's message to The Vehicular Cyclist.

JUDGE CONSIDERS OPENING ARGUMENTS IN BC HELMET LAW TRIAL Previously we reported on the case in British Columbia of cyclist, Bill Wilson, who is pleading his case against a ticket for cycling without a helmet using the defence that his rights are being violated under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, more... Last month, both the prosecution and defence presented opening arguments in Provincial court. The judge has adjourned the case to consider technical points in the Charter and to decide whether to let the case proceed and to listen to additional arguments. We should have more news soon.

WESTERN STANDARD WADES INTO HELMET DEBATE - saying, "although helmet use has increased in the U.S., there is no reliable evidence that this has reduced head injuries or fatalities" more ...

ANOTHER HELMET TRAGEDY in March 1999 we reported that children had been strangled by their helmet straps. Another case has been reported in Australia more ...

WERE YOU BORN BEFORE 1985? - and before helmets and before other regulations to save us from ourselves? more ...

EDITOR OF INJURY PREVENTION ATTACKS HELMET CRITICS - Canadian editor of Injury Prevention (IP), Barry Pless has launched an astonishing attack on critics of pro-helmet articles. In the November on-line edition he attacked Malcolm Wardlaw over the latter's opposition to helmet laws. Wardlaw had raised two issues related to an article appearing in an earlier edition of IP. In the December 2006 edition, Pless attacked critics again naming among others D.L.Robinson, author of many peer reviewed papers that have exposed weaknesses in the pro-helmet law arguments including Pless's, and A. Burdett (me), host of the Vehicular Cyclist website. Pless has been using and abusing his position as editor of the British Medical Journal's sister publication to push his helmet law agenda, making it a welcoming home for the less-than-stellar science of Canadian helmet law activists such as Alison Macpherson (Ontario) and Brent Hagel (Alberta). Now he is using it to launch personal attacks on critics of articles carried in the journal. In a broad sweep of the pen he states, "unlike Letters to the Editor in basic science or clinical journals (where the issues are usually scientific), in journals like this one, many eletters put forward points of view that may have little to do with what an author has actually written." This accusation is blatantly false and readers can judge for themselves by examining the letters to IP cited at the bottom of his editorial.

In addition to attacking his critics, Pless displays an ignorance of cycling by contending it is dangerous. Of course any moving activity is dangerous if the participant fails to acquire a rudimentary set of skills and knowledge of the activity. Pless provides us with an example. He cites, and advertises with the picture (reproduced above), his crash into a car door that was "suddenly and carelessly opened". Any competent cyclist knows that you never ride within the door zone of a car. It is one of the basic tenets of self preservation. His own example shows that Pless is in no position to offer advice to others about their cycling practices.

Anyway, it looks like Injury Prevention readers won't have to suffer him much longer. According to a notice in the same edition of Injury Prevention, a new editor is to be hired.

UPDATE. On December 14th, MPP John Milloy got his attempt at 15 more seconds of fame (see Hansard transcript) but attracted the attention of the media only in Waterloo, his home town. It would appear that even Canada's media finds Milloy's crusade tiresome. This is the third attempt in the past four years that Milloy and his friends have tried to legislate helmets on to adult Ontario cyclists. Milloy has been fronting for a small, unrepresentative group of zealots, none of whom has any cycling expertise. The group includes Charles Tator (see ThinkFirst Foundation), and Alison Macpherson, author of pro-helmet papers of doubtful credibility (see examination of one of her papers. Milloy also attempted and failed to recruit any cycling group to support his motion. The house leader of the opposition Progressive Conservative Party, said that the motion now "disappears into the ether". If only Milloy would.

HELMET BILL SPONSOR LOOKS FOR ANOTHER 15 SECONDS OF FAME In September 2005 we reported that Ontario Bill 129 imposing mandatory helmet use on adults had died on the order paper when the government prorogued the legislature. We have now received news that sponsor Liberal MPP John Milloy has drafted a new motion for the legislature's consideration. Milloy's office sent it in a message to Cycle Ontario, a cyclist advocacy group.

In response to an e-mail message from me (Avery Burdett), Bob Runciman, Opposition House Leader for the Progressive Conservative Party assured me that no private members' bills will be passed by the house before the next election. If that is the case, any bill Milloy places in the queue will die on the order paper when the current session of the Legislature ends. We shall cautiously follow its demise.

WHEN KIDS PUT ON HELMETS THEY BEHAVE MORE RECKLESSLY a Canadian study shows. Three researchers from the University of Guelph conducted trials with children 7-12 years of age to determine if there are differences in child behaviour when the children wear "safety" equipment and when they don't. The children navigated an obstacle course twice, once wearing helmets and wrist guards and once without. The researchers found that children went more quickly and behaved more recklessly while wearing the equipment. The authors said that the observations of the change in behaviour provided evidence of risk compensation. The results are consistent with findings Risk compensation in children’s activities: A pilot study whose list of authors included Canadian helmet crusaders Barry Pless and Brent Hagel.

BC HELMET LAW CHALLENGER FINALLY GETTING A COURT HEARING? After 10 years and 11 tickets for refusing to wear a helmet, it looks like Bill Wilson's day in court finally looms. (See our news item February 1999). For ten years the Province of British Columbia's Crown Prosecutor has avoided pursuing a court conviction when given the opportunity to do so by Wilson. It now appears the prosecutor will be in court on February 22nd, 2007 to respond to Wilson's claim that BC's helmet law violates the latter's rights as guaranteed under sections 1 and 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Wilson's most recent confrontation with police occurred in December 2005 and resulted in his bike being seized. The City of Victoria employed six police officers to complete the operation and threatened Wilson with arrest for obstructing justice when he objected! Wilson said he felt that the cops' action was not directed from higher echelons of the City police force and described the activity as just "the bumbling of a bunch of Keystone Cops. It occurred only a half block from (the location of the ) previous incident March 2001 where they held up their pursuit of a bank robber to give me a helmet ticket."

MASSAGING THE NUMBERS - a report on helmet use in Alberta in the journal, Injury Prevention appears to have been based on an observation method designed to avoid the probability of finding a change in the level of cycling following the introduction of Alberta's child helmet law in May 2002. Despite the report's finding that the prevalence of helmet use among child cyclists had increased following the law's implementation, an analysis of the data shows a large drop in the proportion of children cycling. In addition, it is not clear why the authors chose to use a finding derived from obsolete data collected in Toronto rather more relevant data collected in Alberta to argue extension of Alberta's child helmet law to adults. Was it because the Alberta data do not support an extension?

No effort was made to determine if the law could be associated with lower head injury rates - the only possible factor that could justify legislation. Perhaps the results haven't been so good. The Vehicular Cyclist - News July 2003, reported that the Calgary Sun published figures from all nine health regions which showed a sharp rise in the percentage of bicycle-related head injury cases immediately following the introduction of Alberta's law. Although nothing has been published since to show a reversal of this trend, helmet advocates in Alberta are still trying to extend a clearly failed law to adults.

Criticisms of the Alberta report can be accessed via the IP web page listed at the beginning of this news update. Barry Pless, helmet law advocate and the Canadian editor of Injury Prevention, refused my request to reproduce my criticisms (author A. Burdett) in the printed version of the journal. A follow up rapid response letter comments on Hagel and Rowe's defence of their work.

AUSTIN, TEXAS SAYS NO TO ADULT HELMET LAW AGAIN - an attempt to bring back an adult helmet law to the City of Austin failed last month following a sometimes emotional City Council debate. In March 2000 we reported the repeal of Austin's adult helmet law. For more on this see the articles in the Austin Chronicle and the website of The League of Bicycling Voters

WEARING A HELMET MIGHT INCREASE YOUR RISK OF GETTING HIT FROM BEHIND - a paper, soon to be published in the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention, describes research showing that cyclists who wear protective helmets are more likely to be knocked down by passing vehicles. The researcher Dr. Ian Walker,was struck by a bus and a truck during the experiment. He was wearing a helmet both times.

CLAIMS FOR HELMET EFFECTIVENESS DERIVE FROM IMPERFECT OBSERVATIONAL DATA - In two research papers, Paul Hewson, a lecturer in statistics at Plymouth University, England explains the probable reason why claims for helmet effectiveness from hospital case control studies do not translate into detectable benefits at population levels. (The most widely quoted claim, that helmets reduce the risk of head injury by 85%, comes from a case control study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1989. The authors have been active advocates of bicycle helmet laws. Although almost twenty years out of date and despite serious shortcomings in the case control methodology applied, it's the one still most frequently cited by helmet advocates to justify mandatory helmet laws.)
Hewson examined UK police casualty, hospital injury and helmet wearing data and found that, (a) results of case control studies are confounded by the lower risk strategy of helmeted cyclists and thus cannot be extrapolated to the population level (Accident Analysis and Prevention, September 2005), and (b) when road casualties are examined, there is no evidence that helmets reduce the overall injury burden at the population level (Traffic Injury Prevention, June 2005).

These latest findings are more evidence that helmet laws are inappropriate road transport policy. Hewson feels there are other injury reduction measures deserving of serious attention.

JUDGE FINES CYCLIST FOR RIDING ON A PUBLIC ROADWAY - According to an article on the Cycle Network website cyclist Daniel Cadden has been found guilty by Telford Magistrates Court of a charge of inconsiderate riding brought by the police because he cycled home from work by road instead of using a parallel cycle track. He was fined £100 with £200 costs. This was despite being supported by expert witness John Franklin and the Cycling and Touring Club Cyclists Defence Fund. An appeal is planned. Also see article in the Shropshire Star (may be time dependent).

HOUSE ARREST FOR DRIVER WHO RAN DOWN CLUB CYCLISTS - August 9th, a pickup truck driver was sentenced to 12 months house arrest after deliberately clipping the lead rider in a group of Ottawa Bicycle Club. The group of 12 was riding two abreast in the right lane of a four lane suburban Ottawa road June 2004. The judge believed the claim by the cyclists and witnesses that the group was riding lawfully and competently as required by the club on club rides. Transcript of Ottawa Citizen article.

PUTTING INJURY STATISTICS IN CONTEXT HONESTLY - A supporter pointed us to this interesting piece, Bicycle Safety, by Brian F. Schreurs. In it he comments 'For once we'd like to hear the helmet lobby say something like, "Hey, this activity is really, really safe, especially for sober adults. We've got the helmets if you consider yourself at high risk." Instead they sell millions of helmets by claiming the sky is falling. Is it any wonder some of us are skeptical of the altruism?'

ANOTHER RESEARCHER SHOWS HELMET LAWS TO BE COUNTERPRODUCTIVE - Colin Clarke, Yorks and Humber regional representative for the UK Cyclist's Touring Club told the 16th Canadian Multidisciplinary Road Safety Conference held in Winnipeg, Manitoba on June 11 that bicycle helmet laws reduce the health of populations by discouraging physical activity without improving cyclist safety. In the paper he presented, among the questioned asked were whether,

helmet laws discourage cycling, and if so, whether any resulting lack of exercise exceeded the predicted benefits from helmet use.

May 2006

NORTH AMERICAN HELMET ZEALOTS MAKE ASTONISHING CLAIM - In their response in the BMJ to the latest research showing failure of helmet laws, three members of the Canadian medical community and one from the American medical community appear to be acknowledgeing that helmet laws reduce cycling. In an incredible attack on the author however, they scrape deep to the bottom of the barrel by saying "without evidence that those who allegedly stopped cycling rode enough to confer a heart health benefit or that they did not take up another healthy activity in its place, Robinson (the author) cannot conclude that decreases in cycling are harmful to health."

So that's it folks. Based on the perverse logic of these zealots, helmet laws should be implemented and lower levels of cycling accepted until it is proven that there is a resulting loss of health benefits.

HEAD PROTECTION EXPERT DISPUTES MEDICAL CASE STUDIES - Brian Walker of Head Protection Evaluations, the principal UK test laboratory for helmets, says that medical case studies commonly quoted as evidence for the effectiveness of cycle helmets arrive at erroneous conclusions. His views are expressed on the website of the Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation. Walker also authored an article "Heads Up" for Cycle Magazine, the bi-monthly journal of CTC, the UK's national cyclists' organisation.

In both opinion pieces, Walker describes a court case in which he appeared as an expert witness. Apparently, a lawyer had repeatedly tried to persuade three neurosurgeons to state that one must be safer wearing a helmet than would be the case if one were not. All three disagreed, claiming that they had seen severe brain damage and fatal injury both with and without cycle helmets being worn. The judge accepted the views of the neurosurgeons in handing down his ruling.

Also on the Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation website are links to four reports that find little evidence of the effectiveness of helmets.

CYCLING IS A SAFE ACTIVITY BUT WHO WOULD KNOW IT? In an article on the BBC UK website, business analyst and cyclist, Malcolm Wardlaw, exposes an example of the all-too-common-practice of exaggerating the risks of ordinary, every day cycling. He analyzes claims made by one local authority and presents data that contradicts its findings. He shows that cycling is safe and getting safer.

This is not the first time Wardlaw has challenged conventional thinking in the safety community. We first became aware of his piercing insight when we read an an article in the British Medical Journal which ridiculed such thinking in a make believe scenario in which pedestrians in Britain were encourged to wear walking helmets. This devastating piece of satire was a lead-in to a serious criticism of helmet mania and the latter's effect in distorting public perception. He says attitudes have to change and cycling must be put on the political agenda. In a letter to BMJ Wardlaw called on professionals to start doing their jobs.

Recently we came across another brilliant piece of his research Assessing the actual risks faced by cyclists in the December 2002 edition of tec (Traffic Engineering and Control) magazine. In this, Wardlaw demonstrated that:
• Pedestrians bear a higher fatality rate than cyclists, by a factor of almost 1.5;
• Cycling in Britain is safer than driving in many other countries, including France and Belgium;
• Cycling is far safer than driving anywhere when the health benefits and reduced risk to third parties are included;
• Cycling gets safer as it gets more popular;
• There is no known example in recent decades when an increase in cycling led to an increase in cyclist deaths.

Wardlaw appears to share our belief that cycling is a fun and safe activity, but when the authorities and the safety industry try to help they end up making things worse.

UK AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT HAPPENS WHEN BIKE LANE STRIPES PAINTED ON ROADWAYS - the UK's state broadcaster, the BBC, reports that the national government will effectively be restricting full use of roadways by cyclists if the new Highway Code is implemented. Although not technically traffic law, the code has the same effect since it defines how UK road users shall behave when using public highways. In tort law, the courts rely heavily on its instructions to road users. In this case, UK cycling organizations fear among other concerns that insurance companies will use it to reduce payouts when cyclists make claim for incidents where a facility is not used.

The CTC, the UK's national cyclists' organisation, is leading a campaign to try to get the wording in the Highway Code changed. It has presented a number of examples of where bike lanes decrease the safety of cyclists including one location that resulted in the death of a cyclist two weeks after lane stripes were painted.

MORE CYCLING, FEWER ACCIDENTS say French cycling organizations. Cycling is less dangerous than many people think and the more cyclists there are, the fewer accidents. These are the two messages to come from a meeting of Sécurité Routière on Tuesday, the eve of Spring, time when cyclists start riding again.

"In 2003 there were 190 cyclists killed and 848 seriously injured", declared Remy Heitz, ministerial representative at the meeting, to a press conference. During the first 8 months of 2004 (statistics for the full year are not yet available by category), there were 24 fewer casualties than the previous year. The statistics show that with 0.4% participants dead, cyclists are the least likely to be killed of all road users, after pedestrians 2.3%, powered two-wheelers 1.5% and car occupants 1.3%. Currently 4% of daily journeys are made by cycle.

The message "more cyclists, fewer accidents" was underligned by Genevieve Laferrere of CERTU (Centre of studies on networks, transport, towns and public works). We don't know why, she said, but the reasons may be many. The statistics show also that pedestrians (26%) and car users (24%) suffer more injuries to the head than cyclists (17%), which is music to the ears of those who oppose mandatory cycle helmets.

In this regard, Monique Giroud, president of FUBicy, French federation of cyclists, stressed that in Australia, where helmets have been obligatory since 1990, the measure "hasn't had a significant influence on the trend in injuries but has led to a fall of 30% on average in the number of cyclists". She however noted that the two groups most at risk cycling, young children and sports riders, were not in her federation.

Representing sports cyclists, Dominique Lamouller, president of the French federation of cycle touring, declared that he was not in favour of mandatory helmets but that he recommended their use. In 2004, 94% of participants in events of the federation wore a helmet, he added. "The question of mandation doesn't arise today" indicated M Heitz, recalling that Sécurité Routière recommends helmets for all cyclists, adults or children, in town and in the country.

Sécurité Routière is the national organisation concerned with road safety.

(This is a translation of a French press report on Sécurité Routière, the national road safety institution of France on the subject of cyclists injuries and helmets. We are trying to determine the precise source.)

April 2006 NEW RESEARCH - NO EVIDENCE THAT ENFORCED HELMET LAWS IMPROVE PUBLIC HEALTH - Forcing helmets on cyclists has done nothing to reduce head injury rates, but has discouraged people from cycling according to newly published research in the British Medical Journal, March 25th. Researcher Dorothy Robinson compared cycling and injury patterns before and after helmets were made compulsory in different jurisdictions and found the laws had no effect on head injury trends which were already falling, but cut cyclist numbers by 30 per cent. Helmet advocates in the Canadian medical community disputed the findings.

November 2005 A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR OF BICYCLE HELMET LEGISLATION - It is becoming increasingly irritating to have the Canadian experience quoted as justification for helmet laws in jurisdictions without such laws. Based on much anecdotal evidence and some data, laws in Canada by and large are not enforced and once the publicity over a law abates, people who quit cycling rather than wear a helmet drift back and ride without helmets as they always did. (Zealous police enforcement in Victoria, British Columbia and Halifax, Nova Scotia make the latter two cities notable exceptions). It is not surprising then that the most oft-quoted Canadian studies of the effect of provincial bicycle helmet legislation are also the most flawed in their conclusions.

One study challenges the well documented evidence that helmet laws have the effect of discouraging cycling. The challenge emanates from a small study of a single Toronto borough which showed that cycling levels were unnaffected by legislation. What the authors of this study knew but failed to point out was that (a) unlike jurisdictions where cycling did decline, the law in Ontario was never enforced, (b) that particular borough had been a virtual laboratory for bicycle safety and helmet promotion for over a decade and therefore could not be considered as typical of the rest of Ontario, and (c) within two years helmet use had started to decline to pre-law levels and in the third year was back to pre-law levels.

The second, a study of the effect of Nova Scotia's helmet law on helmet use in the City of Halifax, implicitly suggested that increased helmet use rates accounted for a decrease in the rate of head injuries. What the report's data actually demonstrated was that the principal effect of the legislation was to reduce cycling.

The third study attempted to correlate lower head injury rates in legislation provinces when compared to non-legislation provinces. Unfortunately, the devil was in the detail. Undermining the credibility of the findings was that the data shows the largest decreases in head injury rates did not correlate with legislation dates.

This article examines the three studies.

SANITY UNCOVERED IN THE UK TOO! Last July we reported that a little bit of sanity had been uncovered in Manitoba, Canada. Now we have uncovered a little bit in Britain too, well at least in the UK House of Lords at Westminster. The BikeBiz website reports the Government whip, Lord Davies of Oldham slapped down a child helmet compulsion bid. The Lord, a former president of the Royal Society of the Prevention of Accidents, rebutted an amendment to the Road Safety Bill calling for compulsory helmets for children under 16. Lord Davies said the compulsory use of helmets might reduce cycling, which would be a loss to the nation. The City Council in the City of Saskatoon, Canada might wish to follow suit.

October 2005

HELMET BYLAW IN SASKATOON? The city council of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan has directed bureaucrats to draft a "mandatory all-wheeled activities helmet bylaw" for consideration at a future meeting of council. The proposed bylaw appears to be in response to intensive lobbying by the ThinkFirst Foundation, a zealous group of (non-cycling) helmet activists. During the anti-law campaign in Ontario, ThinkFirst had been the subject of a Vehicular Cyclist exposé on abuse of statistics and exaggeration of the risks of cycling. Despite the "all-wheeled" nomenclature in the bylaw's title, the law won't apply to the wheeled vehicles - wheelchairs and cars specifically - that members of pro-law groups like ThinkFirst use.

The proposal has not been welcomed with unanimity locally where letters to the Saskatoon StarPhoenix concerning the bylaw have been published. One of the dissenting letters raised the spectre of health professionals responding with a barrage of statistics, adding the comment statistics serve the needs of liars and politicians. One letter from the local head of ThinkFirst supporting the bylaw contains at least two blatantly misleading statements. The letter states helmet bylaws haven't be shown to discourage (cycling) participation. Maybe municipal bylaws haven't been shown to discourage cycling (has there been one studied?) but certainly provincial laws in Canada and national laws elsewhere have resulted in declines in cycling. ThinkFirst's letter also states that helmets save lives, even though there is an absence of evidence from anywhere in the world to support such a statement. The StarPhoenix ran an article Maybe we should wear helmets all of the time ridiculing the city's proposal.

COUNTERPRODUCTIVE OZ HELMET LAW UPDATE A few weeks ago The Vehicular Cyclist reported on an admission by an Australian state minister that bicycle helmet laws may be counterproductive. (See story below.) We sent a message to the Minister asking if she could provide more information. We now have received a reply. Judge for yourself whether it sheds any more light on the government failure to act on the Minister's belief that helmet laws may be counterproductive. It certainly confirms there is considerable a number of Australians that won't cycle because of helmet laws. Given the axiom that the greater number of people cycling, the safer all cyclists are, the government's inaction is despicable. For more details on Western Australia cyclists' behaviour and attitudes see the 1999 to 2001 Study.

September 2005

HELMET BILL DEAD IN ONTARIO We reported in The Vehicular Cyclist last July that we thought the helmet bill was dead. Now we are sure it is dead. On Friday September 17th, 2005, Premier McGuinty declared that parliament would be prorogued and the fall session would start with a new speech from the throne. This means that all house business stops, and bills on the legislative schedule "die on the order paper". A few important government bills will be reintroduced in the new session but Bill 129 the "adult helmet" bill won't be one of them. Bill 129 was a private member's bill not endorsed by the government that had passed first and second readings. A bill needs to succeed at third reading to become law. The Ontario Coalition for Better Cycling had been reformed in 2004 to lead a campaign against Bill 129. It would appear it's campaign has been successful. We have archived our Campaign Guide but it remains available to others organizing anti-law campaigns elsewhere.

HELMETS NOT PROTECTING COMPETITIVE CYCLISTS. Ordinary cycling may be low risk but competitive cycling is looking decidely risky. Perhaps helmets are encouraging cyclists to take unreasonable risks in a search for competitive success. In one August week, five racing cyclists died as a result of separate crashes.
Cyclingnews.com reported that on August 12th the U23 Vuelta Juventud held during four days in Costa Rica was halted when a leading group of 20 riders crashed into a bus while going down a Cat. 2 hill. A 17 year old cyclist died. In sanctioned races, cyclists are required to wear a helmet. On August 15th, Cyclingnews.com reported that on the previous weekend, a mountain biker landed on his head in a Norwegian Championship MTB race and died shortly after. Two days later, it reported another cyclist lost his life in a head-on collision with another cyclist in Plano, Texas. According to the description the cyclist was riding counter-clockwise on a circuit route near an industrial part of southeast Plano when he collided with another cyclist who was training clockwise on the same course. Both cyclists were wearing helmets, but one suffered severe head trauma and died soon after the accident. On August 16th, Cyclingnews.com reported that a cat 4 racing cyclist died of head injuries when he was involved in a collision with a car in the North Park area of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The day before, it reported that a cyclist died of severe head and chest wounds on August 9th when he collided with a truck while training for a triathlon in Loma Linda, California. In the latter two cases it was not reported whether helmets were worn but helmet use is almost universal among American triathletes and racing cyclists.

AUSTRALIAN MINISTER ACKNOWLEDGES HELMET LAW COUNTERPRODUCTIVE. A memo dated 4 May 2000 has surfaced in which the current minister responsible for transportation for the State of Western Australia admitted that bicycle helmet legislation may be counterproductive. In the memo to Julian Grill, former transport minister, Alannah MacTiernan, WA's Minister of Planning and Infrastructure, said that the (alleged) safety benefits of legislation may be offset by the decrease in the number of people cycling. When Australian journalist Chris Gillham got hold of the letter he wasn't surprised. For years he has complained that successive Australian governments have ignored the negative effects of bicycle helmet legislation. It's curious that even though the Minister raised this issue five years ago, neither she nor her government has done anything to reassess its bicycle helmet law. We have sent a message to the Minister asking if she can shed more light on this issue.

WHILE CYCLING IS DISCOURAGED, THE OBESITY EPIDEMIC WORSENS. According to the BBC (the UK's state broadcasting system), in the past year the adult obesity rate rose in 48 of America's states, and nationally from 23.7% to 24.5%. Reporting on the findings of the Trust for America's Health, the BBC states that currently about 119 million, or 64.5%, of US adults are either overweight or obese. Although the report covers only the US, other developed and developing countries are reporting similar trends. The gross foolishness of authorities who have stimulated declines in cycling by enforcing helmet laws grows all the more apparent by the rapidly deteriorating health of the majority of citizens. The latter situation being attributable mainly to insufficient regular exercise. Cycling is a low risk activity whose life extending qualities are unquestionable. Misguided legislators continue to risk killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

PEDESTRIAN GROUP FORCES COUNTY TO REMOVE CYCLISTS FROM SIDEWALK - a UK advocacy group acting on behalf of pedestrians forced Cornwall County Council to reverse a decision to allow cycling on the pedestrian promenade in Penzance, Cornwall, a popular resort town in the south west of England. Two reports examining the County's original decision both found that cycling on the sidewalk endangered cyclists themselves as well as pedestrians. These findings are consistent research by Aultman-Hall in Toronto and Ottawa and with what we have been saying on this website for years - cyclists belong on roads and attempts to remove cyclists into separate facilities is against cyclists' interests. See the Living Streets website for more detail.

August 2005 MORE ABUSE OF STATISTICS - this time from the City of Ottawa's Medical Officer of Health. Earlier this year, we asked why it was that politicians and lobbyists were misrepresenting the head injury "problem". A position statement supporting legislated bicycle helmet use dated November 29, 2004 written on Ottawa Public Health notepaper contains a number of false and unsubstantiated claims. Evidence continues to pile up that suggests some authorities are misleading the public. We have updated our article to reflect new information including an analysis of the City of Ottawa's statement and exposure of an inaccurate claim carried on the Alberta Government website.

MORE CYCLISTS = SAFER CYCLING - a report in the Health Promotion Journal of Australia looks at research from the US showing that when cycling (and walking) increases, accident rates fall. Ominously the converse is true - if cycling halves, the risk to cyclists doubles. This finding has particular implications for jurisdictions with, or considering, bicycle helmet legislation since enforcement of helmet laws in a number of jurisdictions has had the effect of reducing the amount of cycling.

BUILD THEM AND CYCLISTS WILL COME ... BUT NOT IN DUBLIN - cycling advocates frequently claim that people would give up their cars and ride bicycles if more cyclist-specific facilities were made available. Certainly in surveys would-be cyclists respond favourably to the possibility of more bike lanes and bike paths. Unfortunately, when they are built it seems to have no effect on levels of cycling. In parts of the world that have comprehensive bicycle facility construction programs cycling continues to fall. Dublin is such a case. According to a report in Irish Independent, the City has spent over €30m on creating 220 kilometres of bike lanes, despite that, the percentage of people cycling to work in the city almost halved in the same period. Given our earlier report on bike lanes Irish-style maybe the City of Dublin needs to reconsider how useful its expenditure of taxpayers' resources is.

July 2005 A LITTLE BIT OF SANITY FINALLY UNCOVERED IN CANADA - a Manitoba provincial government task force decided to consider the wider health implications and rejected a recommendation to mandate the use of bicycle helmets for children. The latter was pushed by prominent local helmet advocates, including task force member and Manitoba member of the legislature, John Gerrard. Gerrard is the sponsor of a bill calling for compulsory helmet use. The task force, struck to examine issues concerning child health, was made up of representatives of all parties in the Manitoba legislature. It recommended that the health of children could be improved by focussing on nutrition, active transportation and exercise. It's worth reading. A copy of the report can be downloaded from the government's web site.

..BUT BRIT DOCTORS' ORGANIZATION GOES IN OPPOSITE DIRECTION - in a short "debate" and farcical display of unscientific babbling, delegates at the British Medical Association's annual representatives meeting reversed the organization's long-standing opposition to compulsory helmet legislation. The most idiotic comment came from a member of the BMA's Scientific Board saying "cycling helmets, we all know, are effective cheap devices that save lives and cycling accidents. This is incontrovertible." Not only was the falsehood that helmets save lives (there's no evidence of such from anywhere on the planet) allowed to go unchallenged but apparently helmet use prevents accidents! Sounds like the practice of white magic is now a legitimate alternative method of treatment endorsed by the previously august body.

May 2005 WE ALWAYS THOUGHT HELMET CLAIMS WERE BOGUS - a paper in the May edition of the journal Accident Analysis & Prevention, has found that a widely quoted estimate of reduction in risk of brain injury from helmet use is unreliable. The estimated 88% reduction appeared in a Seattle study by Thompson, Rivara & Thompson was published in 1989 in the New England Journal of Medicine and repeated in subsequent work. It has been the favourite helmet claim of helmet law lobbyists, and has been a factor in virtually all helmet law proposals despite that no such benefits ever having been found in studies of large populations. The review of the Seattle work, Curnow, W.J., 2005 The Cochrane Collaboration and bicycle helmets. Accid. Anal. Prev. 37 (3) 569-574 undermines the credibility of much, if not all, of the authors' findings. In the past, Thompson et al have rejected all criticisms of their review and simply re-stated their claims. They might find it more difficult to do the same to criticisms in a refereed article in a reputable journal. See also BikeBiz.Com.

In a related story, the March 2005 edition of Cycling Plus, a leading UK cycling magazine, reports that the Advertising Standards Association (UK) says that the helmet advocacy group, Bicycle Helmet Initiative Trust has been misleading the public over the 88% claim.

NUTTY SOUTH AFRICAN GOVERNMENT LEGISLATES BICYCLE HELMETS - There's a report that South Africa, overrun by AIDS, violent crime and poverty, has addressed its problems by legislating bicycle helmet use. Given that the vast majority of South Africans can't even afford a bicycle, one wonders if this is just a silly adoption of white middle class values.

EX UK MINISTER - HELMET ACTIVISTS ARE POTTY- in a BBC article, the chair of the UK government's National Cycling Strategy Board and former Conservative Minister, Steven Norris, has angered safety campaigners by suggesting it is "potty" for adults to have to wear cycling helmets.

CYCLING HEALTH stands for Helmet Law Truth and Honesty and is a group fighting New Zealand's helmet law.

CycloPath2001 PRESENTS cycling facilities Irish-style.
If you ever want evidence that cyclists are treated as second class road users, here's some proof from Dublin.

August 2004 CYCLIST PHYSICIAN QUESTIONS VALIDITY OF COMMONLY QUOTED HELMET RESEARCH. A Welsh physician writing in the Irish Medical Times August 6, 2004 adds his name to a list of professionals that have thrown cold water on the widely quoted claim that helmet use reduces the risk of head injury by 85%. Elsewhere, research carried out by Aziz Sheikh and Adrian Cook published in the journal Injury Prevention claiming a 60% helmet reduction benefit has been ridiculed in the journal's electronic letters section for containing multiple errors.

July 2004 HELMET ZEALOT REVERSES POSITION ON BEHAVIOUR THEORIES. Self-confessed injury prevention zealot and editor of the journal Injury Prevention, Barry Pless, has co-authored a report that validates a couple of theories concerning helmet users. In Risk compensation in children’s activities: A pilot study, Pless et al found that the majority of children wearing protective equipment for sports and leisure activities were low risk takers. They also found that the effectiveness of protective equipment for children may be modified risk compensation, that is the wearing of the equipment may stimulate increased risk taking. In the past, Pless has disputed both theories and has been dismissive of those who have suggested such explain inconsistent findings in bicycle helmet research.

The findings are consistent with the belief among many in the cycling world that low risk takers will adopt bicycle helmets in greater numbers than high risk takers. As helmet uptake increases among cyclists so does the risk taking. Both behavioural phenomena have been identified by critics of hospital case control studies as being uncontrolled confounding factors that skew results. The widely quoted claim of 85% helmet effectiveness by Thompson et al that appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1989 is one such study which is subject to this criticism.

LAWS AND HELMET USE STILL HAVE NO EFFECT ON FATALITIES. Despite six provinces having enacted bicycle helmet laws and despite significant uptake in bicycle helmet use, the trend in Canadian cycling fatalities still remains no different from the trend in Canadian pedestrian fatalities. An analysis of 28 years of data (to year 2002) from the Canadian government agency, Transport Canada, shows cyclist and pedestrian fatalities following identical trends. Similar findings have been detected beyond Canada's borders, including the USA in an analysis of US data sourced from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, in an analysis of New Zealand data, and elsewhere worldwide in cyclehelmet.org's article What evidence is there that cycle helmets save lives?

LONDON-BASED SKILLS TRAINING ORGANIZATION, Cycling UK, has been added to our list of links because it focuses firstly on skills development and avoids pontificating about helmets. It emphasizes the importance of assertive road positioning and endeavours to demonstrate that it is feasible for children to cycle on roads safely.

June 2004 PROPOSED UK HELMET LAW FAILS TO PASS A UK child helmet law proposed by Labour MP Eric Marlew failed to get parliamentary approval April 23 when it received second reading. A low turnout of MPs resulted in the bill being put at the back of a queue of Private Member’s Bills waiting to be heard. Under the UK parliamentary system, this has the effect of allowing the bill to lapse.

According to the May edition of the magazine Cycling Plus, the Labour government's transport minister does not support mandatory helmet use. The magazine also reports that the Cyclists' Public Affairs Group (C-PAG) collected international information showing that forced helmet use leads to reduced bicycle use and thus undermines health and other benefits of cycling. CTC, the UK's largest cyclist organization, has also been campaigning against the proposed law. It not only opposes legislation but also helmet promotion which it feels exaggerates the dangers of cycling and overestimates the benefits of helmets. See CTC's position paper

ANOTHER BILL CALLS FOR HELMET CLAIMS TO BE INVESTIGATED Another Labour MP has introduced a bill that calls on the Department for Transport to initiate a programme of research designed to establish why increases in helmet wearing rates are not associated with reductions in head injury rates, and why the countries with the lowest helmet wearing rates are those with the lowest cyclist injury rates. The full draft of the bill is on the Early Day Motion web site.

HAZARDS OF VANCOUVER'S BIKE PATHS CBC TV shows behaviour on a Vancouver bike paths that is typical of bike paths. It demonstrates why cyclists riding on them are almost three times more likely to get injured than if they are riding on the road.

MORE ON HELMET DESIGN FLAW In August 2003 we reported that two articles in the New Scientist had identified a serious flaw in helmet design. Now the May 13th 2004 edition of The Economist is reporting on the development of a new motorcycle helmet that confirms the existence of the flaw. The Vehicular Cyclist has complained for years about the same shortcomings in respect of bicycle helmet design (see Frequently Asked Questions 5 and 6). The Economist is reporting that Dr. Kenneth Phillips, British physician and inventor, has designed a motorcycle crash helmet that mimics the protective properties of the human head.

The doctor states that when a head hits the ground during a crash, it is subjected to two kinds of acceleration: linear and rotational. Only a linear acceleration is addressed by helmet design. Our FAQ notes that bicycle helmets are not designed to protect against the most deadly form of head injury and those are the ones that result from rotational acceleration. What is more disturbing is that the laws of physics suggest that a helmet is likely to increase the "spinning effect" on the head and the result may be more serious injuries in certain circumstances. Gennarelli et al in 1972 carried out tests on squirrel monkeys. They showed that rotational accelerations at much lower levels than linear accelerations resulted in more severe injuries. In some cases injury occurred when a linear acceleration at the same level resulted in no injury.

Dr Phillips, who apparently has first hand experience in treating head injuries, claims he looked to the head itself for inspiration for an improved helmet. The scalp, he observed, provides the brain with protection against rotational forces because it is elastic, compressible and moves around the skull without friction. So when a head hits a surface, the scalp absorbs some of the rotational part of the impact by moving across the skull. As a result, he says, less energy is transferred to the delicate tissues of the brain.

The doctor has designed a helmet with an outer shell that moves independently of the inner cushion. Slow-motion video footage taken during crash tests at Britain's Transport Research Laboratory, in Berkshire, shows that the outer shell does indeed move freely around the inner one, and the head is kept steady. He believes the cost of manufacturing his helmet should not be much more than current helmets. It looks like the helmet establishment however doesn't want any suggestion that its current products don't do a satisfactory job as Dr. Phillips was unable to get the interest of any existing manufacturer. Having drawn a blank, he has started his own company Phillips Helmets.

October 2003 FACILITIES AND HELMET MYTHS TAKE ANOTHER BEATING This month a couple of incidents showed that riding in separate cycling facilities is no guarantee of safety and in one of the incidents, a helmet didn't "save-a-cyclist-life" either. On September 24th, Tim Aubin, an experienced cyclist and member of the Ottawa Bicycle Club, was rear-ended by a car while riding legally in the centre of a 2m (6'8") bike lane. Tim suffered serious injuries including two broken ribs and a broken ankle. Two weeks later, on Friday October 8th, a male cyclist was killed in a collision with another cyclist in Littleton, Colorado. According to a report in the Denver Post, the cyclist not only was riding on a supposedly "safe" bike path but was also wearing a helmet another alleged "safety" device. For more on the hazards of bike facilities see article and Alan Wachtel's research

INJURED UK CYCLIST AWARDED £5 MILLION (CAD$12M) after an insurance company dropped an attempt to hold him negligent for riding bareheaded according to a report by the BBC. An earlier report in cyclingnews.com had said that Royal Sun Alliance, an insurance company had abandoned its claim for contributory negligence against cyclist Richard Harrison who suffered severe brain damage in the collision on the A695 in Hexham, Northumberland, in May 1999. The company's claim was based on the cyclist not wearing a helmet at the time of the crash. His solicitor has stated that insurers were trying to use helmets as an excuse to reduce damages to cyclists and would continue to do so, that meant cyclists' representatives would have to be vigilant in ensuring they did not succeed. According to cyclingnews.com, this is third case of its kind in the UK where insurers have used the negligence argument and the third time the argument has been dropped and the case settled out of court.

DEFEAT FOR SPONSOR OF MHL In Ontario's provincial election October 2, 2003, member of the Ontario Legislature and cabinet minister Dianne Cunningham suffered a resounding seven thousand vote defeat in her bid for re-election. Cunningham was the author of a private member's bill that led to Ontario's mandatory bicycle helmet legislation. Although she was a member of the opposition Conservative Party, the bill was passed while the socialist New Democratic Party held power. Introduced in the early 1990's, it was approved by the legislature in 1994 for implementation in October 1995. It applied to all cyclists. Cunningham was subsequently humiliated however by her own party when it won the 1995 election and immediately exempted adult cyclists in response to a public campaign run by the Ontario Coalition for Better Cycling.Cunningham knew very little about cycling or cycling accidents and their causes but despite that got involved after her son suffered a debilitating head injury while a teenage passenger in a car. It was alleged alcohol was involved. She was known to be extremely dismissive towards cyclists who opposed her. When defeated on facts, she wasn't above using emotional manipulation to gather support. In one public hearing she arranged to have a head injured young person in a wheelchair attend. Apparently, the young man when a toddler had ridden out of a driveway straight into the path of a car.

No tears are shed here for Ms. Cunningham's defeat.

ONTARIO'S NEW LEADER A CYCLE COMMUTER Dalton McGuinty, Ontario's newly elected Premier was a regular cycle commuter to his constituency office in the 1990's before he became leader of the province's Liberal Party. It's not known how much cycling the Premier does now, but back then he was a notable supporter of the Ontario Coalition for Better Cycling's opposition to bicycle helmet legislation. Let's hope the new premier will remember the philosophy he espoused at the time - prevent cyclist injuries by preventing accidents through education of cyclists and drivers alike - and bring his views to bear on the Transportation policy of his new government.

September 2003 CYCLEHELMETS.ORG LAUNCHED cyclehelmets.org is the website of an international coalition of people with a special interest in cycling and cycle helmets. The coalition includes doctors, cycling safety experts, statisticians and people with professional involvement in helmet design and performance. cyclehelmets.org joins the growing list of credible bodies expressing concern about the exaggerated value of bicycle helmets and the negative effect it has on cycling and on health in general.

August 2003 BICYCLE HELMET STANDARDS HAVE A DESIGN FLAW that could leave cyclists vulnerable to serious head injuries, say researchers in Belgium. An August 9th article in New Scientist, the leading UK science and technology journal, criticizes current helmet standards for failing to recognize rotational forces, the major factor in brain injuries. Bart Depreitere at the biomechanics lab of the University Hospital Gasthuisberg Leuven is quoted as saying that while the standards will help to protect against a skull fracture, research shows that many of the more serious head injuries, such as contusions and haemorrhages, were the result of rotational acceleration in which the head twists. "It is certainly wrong that there's nothing in the standards about rotational acceleration" he says.
This report supports our long held view that while helmets may offer some protection against lesser injuries such as lacerations and skull fractures, they haven't been shown to reduce disabling brain injuries and deaths. An earlier article in the New Scientist drew attention to similar shortcomings of current helmet design. July 2003 CANADIAN HELMET LAW STATS A SURPRISE to Alberta helmet promoters but not to us. A report in the Calgary Sun on July 12, 2003 says new stats suggest that cyclist head injury rates have increased since the introduction of Alberta's child helmet law in May 2002. In June 2001 we reported on the unrealistic expectations being set by Alberta physicians that were behind a campaign for helmet legislation. At the moment it is not clear what impact data reporting changes referred to in the report had on the rate calculations. We will try to find out.

NO HELMET EFFECT ON NEW ZEALAND'S CYCLIST FATALITIES an analysis of road traffic fatality data for New Zealand since 1976 revealed no indication that the increased use of bicycle helmets or bicycle helmet legislation has had an effect on cyclist fatality trends. If anything it shows cyclists lagging behind pedestrians, the other vulnerable road user. The results replicate those for Canada and the United States.

Past news announcements