Maybe its time to make it law for everybody who rides a bike should wear a helmet after all its illegal to drive a motorcycle without one.

Wise choice for wearing a helmet and good parenting for intilling the notion of never not.

However, as the law changed, i always thought it was illegal to ride on the pavement?

ace, people suffer head injuries in cars too. Would you support making it compulsory to wear a helmet when in a car?

I think we need fewer nanny statist laws and more personal freedom and responsibility.

A lucky escape but perhaps if she'd have been on the road (as per the law) this would not have happened.

Black Flag:

Surely its common sense not nanny statist.

Just look at all the pro cycling teams. Their governing body has made helmets mandatory and they ride on closed roads!

Crikey, a close one. I cycle about 16 miles to and from work, always with the helmet, and a high-vis jacket. Safety first, folks...

No it shouldn't be compulsory to wear cycle helmets,should be down to individual choice NOT compulsion and illegality of individuals for not doing so;how would such a law be enforced Ace? Police can't be everywhere at once to do it.

If i ride my bike without a helmet then get hurt or killed in an accident too bad for me, It's my choice!. That goes for car seatbelts too!!!!!!! nanny state soon you won't be able to wipe your own backsides without permission from somewhere.

Lone Cumbrian, it would be nanny statist, as it would be a law designed purely to protect people from the consequences of their own actions.

If I'm putting somebody else in danger, it is reasonable for the law to take action, but if I'm the only person being put at risk by my actions, that should be my choice alone.

The issue of pro cycling is different. It is the rule of an organised sport, which is different to the law of the land.

Under 10's can legally ride on the pavement. I expect this ( and all other )government to legislate for the benefit of the individual and society as a whole.

There's a debate about the effectiveness of cycle helmets, I wear one , especially in the winter ( it keeps you warm ) but legislating in this case would be a retro step in the promotion of cycling.

Having said that, young children should be encouraged to wear them, helemts are in fact very trendy in many cycle disciplines.

It may well be common sense to wear a helmet, but if it was enforced as a law that takes away people's need to think for themselves

Is there a minimum age for using bicyles on the road, as there is with cars? I would think 11 is a bit young?

People with helmets take more risks. If I choose not to wear one, it's my business and my funeral.

If you are on the road there should be reasonable enforcements of safety. While it would be difficult to police helmets for cyclists,as it has proven to be with children in seatbelts!?/Mobile phones etc. It would be much easier to encourage the younger generations to wear them if they knew it was the law.
A policeman died recently , who might not have if he'd had his SEATBELT on.
Common sense. If you are on the road you should be taking all the precautions available to you, if not for yourself & your own family then for the poor sap who might be the one to knock you off your bike.

Black Flag
I think you need banning from these postings as your stupid as usual ,we wear seatbelts to stop people dying in cars people who ride bikes should be made to wear helmets,and have third part insurance if they use the same roads as cars.

Quote Ace "if they use the same roads as cars ".
Cyclists DONT use the same roads , they use the gutters because most drivers are a risk to them.
Ace isn't anti cycling as we all nkow.

Andy, Wythenshawe
Ive just come back from salford down the A6 so you should tell those cyclists who ride down the white line that they should ride in the gutter? most cyclists i see usually ride either down the nearside of traffic or down the white line...either way they usually put car drivers in a bad position i try and stop as near to the nearside kerb as possible to stop cyclists comming down the inside at traffic lights or junctions ,they are a pain.

" i try and stop as near to the nearside kerb as possible to stop cyclists comming down the inside at traffic lights or junctions "

What a petty pathetic individual you are ,showing your true colours, an absolute disgrace,your mentality is no better than the 'yoof's ' you are so willing to birch.

Andy, Wythenshawe
I wonder how many cyclist have been killed or injured because theve ridden up the inside of traffic and cars have turned left i know ive had it done a few times to me cyclists are a law onto themselves they think they are above the law and the highway code dosnt apply to them.

Filtering on the inside is a legal manoeuvre.

You deliberately blocking cyclists is an illegal manoeuvre.
You know full well 100% of motorists break the speed limits ,motorists are equally " are a law onto themselves ", the only difference being cyclist that contravene laws risk their own life, car drivers that contravene laws risk the lives of innocent people.

ace: "Black Flag I think you need banning from these postings"

That's because you're a small minded busy-body who thinks he has some right to demand that everybody fits in with his vision of the world.

Unlike you, I don't think your postings should be banned, they should just be challenged by intelligent people. If the only way you can deal with a debate is to call for the people you disagree with to be banned from speaking, you've got a problem.

Thank goodness this ended happily! However it would be wrong to leap to the conclusion that Savannah's helmet "saved her life", for three reasons.

Firstly, it may well not be true. Cycle helmets are only designed to withstand minor knocks and bumps. It seems unlikely that her helmet could have protected her head from the force or weight of a car, particularly after it had shattered. The car is said to have run over her arm and shoulder as well, yet fortunately neither of them was broken either, despite being totally unprotected. So why assume that a wafer-thin shell and a bit of brittle polystyrene made all the difference to Savannah's head?

The fact is that efforts to drive up helmet use (e.g. by passing helmet laws) have never been linked with improvements in cyclists' safety. Surprising as this may seem, there are all sorts of ways in which helmets may make cyclists more prone to hit their heads in the first place, and this disbenefit could outweigh any limited protection they may provide in the event of an impact. For example, drivers are known to leave less space when overtaking cyclists with helmets than those without, and some cyclists (especially teenagers) also ride less cautiously when told to wear helmets.

So my second concern relates to the fact that Savannah had apparently just passed her "cycle proficiency" test immediately before this injury. Good cycle training should have made sure she knew how ride confidently and safely on the road (not on the pavement), to adopt a road position where drivers will see and notice you, and to look carefully and signal before pulling out. That advice might have saved her from being hit in the first place. If instead she was led to believe that the most important tip for staying safe on a bike is wearing a helmet, that could have influenced the mistake which so nearly proved fateful.

The good news is that incidents like Savannah's are actually very rare - you are about as unlikely to be killed in a mile of cycling as a mile of walking. That brings me to my third concern. The only proven effect of helmet laws is not to improve cycle safety but to seriously reduce cycle use (particularly among teenagers) by making it out to be far more 'dangerous' than it really is. Scaring people into not cycling would shorten far far more lives (e.g. due to obesity and physical inactivity) than helmets could ever hope to save, and the health of our streets and environment would suffer horribly too. Please let us not condemn our children to car-dependent sedentary lifestyles irrational fears about cycling without helmets. In countries like Holland, Denmark and Germany, there are far more cyclists and their safety is far better than in Britain, yet helmet-wearing is almost unheard of. Cycling without a helmet is no more "dangerous" than walking without a helmet - should that be banned too?

Roger Geffen
Campaigns & Policy Manager
CTC, the national cyclists' organisation

The law is there to protect everyone, including cyclists. But if they make it law for cyclists to wear helmets, hivis, etc, I BET cyclists will just go on to break it, like they break every other traffic laws.

Exactly. Cyclists should be free to make their own decisions as to wear hiviz jackets/clothing and cyclehelmets;by compulsion and force and the lack of police around to totally enforce it, it would be extremely difficult to enforce.

"For example, drivers are known to leave less space when overtaking cyclists with helmets than those without"

less space?
no way am i going to wear a helmet then, the bus and car which hit me while overtaking last week would have to have driven over me to leave any less room

many moons ago when I was a kid, 32 now.


Push bike helmets did exist but no kid would been seen dead wearing one.


Now, you wont get me on my mountain bike without one, even for a short ride.


Times change, this time for the better.