Cycling Tourist Club Rages Against Protection (CT CRAP)

[steve.trent]

With the debate over the merits of wearing cycle helmets currently
raging, Headway took the opportunity to put its point across to the
two million viewers of the BBC Breakfast television programme on
Thursday 10 July.

Peter McCabe, Chief Executive of Headway UK, took part in a live
debate with Roger Griffin from the Cycling Touring Club (CTC), a
pro-cycling organisation that does not believe cyclists should wear
helmets while riding on UK roads.

As common sense would dictate, Headway believes that wearing a cycle
helmet has simply got to be safer than not wearing one. Headway's
position is backed up by numerous neurology experts as well as medical
studies that show that wearing a cycle helmet can help to reduce head
injury by up to 88 per cent.

Colin Shieff, Consultant Neurosurgeon at the Royal Free Hospital in
London and Chairman of Headway North London, said: "It is ridiculous
that the CTC is claiming the cycle helmets do not offer protection and
are of no use.

"As a neurosurgeon, I see the damage done to people's skulls when they
are involved in bicycle accidents and I am convinced that the severity
of brain injuries received by these people would be significantly
reduced if they all wore helmets.

"Anything that reduces the risk of impact to the brain can only be of
benefit."

The CTC argues that by forcing people to wear helmets we will see less
people cycling, which would have a detrimental effect on the overall
state of the UK's health. However, the evidence used to back up this
claim is contestable, with studies from Canada and the USA showing
this scenario is unlikely to occur.

The organisation also claims that helmets are not that effective, only
serving to stop 'bumps and scratches'. However, to conform to British
Standards, cycle helmets must be able to withstand 12mph of energy on
impact, which would cause more than mere 'bumps and scratches'.



http://www.headway.org.uk/news.asp?step=2&contentID=429&navID=108

[Peter Clinch]

steve.trent wrote:

> Peter McCabe, Chief Executive of Headway UK, took part in a live
> debate with Roger Griffin from the Cycling Touring Club (CTC), a
> pro-cycling organisation that does not believe cyclists should wear
> helmets while riding on UK roads.

So much for accuracy...
That's Geffen, not Griffin, and the CTC believes cyclists should not be
*forced* to wear helmets. As a brief perusal of its magazine will
demonstrate, it has no problem with folk that want to wear helmets
wearing helmets.

So before we've got anywhere much with this post we know it can't be
trusted to state even the basic facts and is not backed up by even a
modest level of decent research.

> As common sense would dictate, Headway believes that wearing a cycle
> helmet has simply got to be safer than not wearing one. Headway's
> position is backed up by numerous neurology experts as well as medical
> studies that show that wearing a cycle helmet can help to reduce head
> injury by up to 88 per cent.
>
> Colin Shieff, Consultant Neurosurgeon at the Royal Free Hospital in
> London and Chairman of Headway North London, said: "It is ridiculous
> that the CTC is claiming the cycle helmets do not offer protection and
> are of no use.
>
> "As a neurosurgeon, I see the damage done to people's skulls when they
> are involved in bicycle accidents and I am convinced that the severity
> of brain injuries received by these people would be significantly
> reduced if they all wore helmets.
>
> "Anything that reduces the risk of impact to the brain can only be of
> benefit."

That's odd...
Brian Walker, one of the leading experts on the mechanics of helmets,
and whose company Head Protection Evaluations is the principal UK test
laboratory for helmets, has said the following:
"the very eminent QC under whose instruction I was privileged to work,
tried repeatedly to persuade the equally eminent neurosurgeons acting
for either side, and the technical expert, to state that one must be
safer wearing a helmet than without. All three refused to so do, stating
that they had seen severe brain damage and fatal injury both with and
without cycle helmets being worn. In their view, the performance of
cycle helmets is much too complex a subject for such a sweeping claim to
be made."
Which is somewhat at odds with the above from Headway.

The magic 88% figure comes from a piece of work (Thompson RS, Rivara FP,
Thompson DC. A case-control study of the effectiveness of bicycle safety
helmets. N Engl J Med 1989; 320: 1361-7) that has been thoroughly
discredited (see http://www.cyclehelmets.org/mf.html?1131 for details).
It has so many holes that its use is now limited to flagging up
instances of folk who quote it very probably not knowing what they're
talking about.

> The CTC argues that by forcing people to wear helmets we will see less
> people cycling, which would have a detrimental effect on the overall
> state of the UK's health. However, the evidence used to back up this
> claim is contestable, with studies from Canada and the USA showing
> this scenario is unlikely to occur.

But the reasons given are in areas of the US and Canada where the laws
haven't been enforced, so it's bogus to use them to back up an argument.
If you look at Oz and NZ, where the laws have been enforced, the above
claims of CTC are very much just what has happened.

> The organisation also claims that helmets are not that effective, only
> serving to stop 'bumps and scratches'. However, to conform to British
> Standards, cycle helmets must be able to withstand 12mph of energy on
> impact, which would cause more than mere 'bumps and scratches'.

To put things into perspective, a 12 mph collision with the road is
roughly what you'll get with a stationary fall from standing without
breaking your fall. While people /have/ been killed by such accidents
it's most unlikely, and of course it can happen without the aid of a
bike. In fact, serious head injuries don't happen any more on a mile
for mile basis to cyclists than they do to pedestrians, according to DfT
figures.
Study of accidents across the UK population showed that raising helmet
wearing rates has not resulted in any change to the serious head injury
rate, so it's certainly not out of line to state they're not that
effective, since they haven't demonstrably done anything to alter the
rates of serious head injuries. Minor head injuries, while not
pleasant, are... well, /minor/.

Headway haven't got even the most basic facts straight. Not even the
name of the CTC's campaigns manager.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

[Colin McKenzie]

steve.trent wrote:
> With the debate over the merits of wearing cycle helmets currently
> raging, Headway took the opportunity to put its point across to the
> two million viewers of the BBC Breakfast television programme on
> Thursday 10 July.

Your statement misrepresents the views of CTC, misspells the names of
the organisation and their representative, and refers to a figure for
helmet effectiveness which is now not even supported by those who
published it.

I also fail to see the relevance to uk.rec.driving, unless you're
looking for support in your anti-cycling campaign.

And I suspect I've been trolled. Whoops.

Colin McKenzie

--
No-one has ever proved that cycle helmets make cycling any safer at
the population level, and anyway cycling is about as safe per mile as
walking.
Make an informed choice - visit www.cyclehelmets.org.

[steve.trent]

On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 08:58:34 +0100, Peter Clinch
> wrote:

>steve.trent wrote:
>
>> Peter McCabe, Chief Executive of Headway UK, took part in a live
>> debate with Roger Griffin from the Cycling Touring Club (CTC), a
>> pro-cycling organisation that does not believe cyclists should wear
>> helmets while riding on UK roads.
>
>So much for accuracy...
>That's Geffen, not Griffin, and the CTC believes cyclists should not be
>*forced* to wear helmets. As a brief perusal of its magazine will
>demonstrate, it has no problem with folk that want to wear helmets
>wearing helmets.


Spot on - CTC are not against people wearing helmets and take a very
balanced view of the evidence.

They even have their own page on Helmets which gives a very balanced
view:

It says:
Several recent reports (including four papers in peer-reviewed medical
journals) have found no link between changes in helmet wearing rates
and cyclists' safety - and there are even cases where safety seems to
have worsened as helmet-wearing increased.

And it then allows you to read those four articles - all very much
against helmets.

Unfortunately you have to be CTC Member to see the other reports -
wouldn't want non-cyclists getting the wrong idea would they

Very balanced.

[Peter Clinch]

steve.trent wrote:

> Unfortunately you have to be CTC Member to see the other reports -
> wouldn't want non-cyclists getting the wrong idea would they
>
> Very balanced.

Not very smart of them, but ultimately it's not their information and it
doesn't take too much digging to turn it up elsewhere.
www.cyclehelmets.org, for example.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

[Zog The Undeniable]

steve.trent wrote:

<snip hackneyed old martlehat stuff>

If helmets are so effective and comfortable, why aren't they compulsory
for car drivers, who suffer more annual head injuries than cyclists?
No, I didn't think you'd be able to answer that.

[lardyninja]

steve.trent wrote, On 21/07/2008 07:17:
Snipped verbage

There do seem to be a helluva lot of nutters using the same email
address:

Unfortunately one of the regulars here also uses it so I can't just put
it in the bozo bin.

LN

[Alistair Gunn]

On 21 Jul, 07:17, steve.trent > wrote:
> The organisation also claims that helmets are not that effective, only
> serving to stop 'bumps and scratches'. However, to conform to British
> Standards, cycle helmets must be able to withstand 12mph of energy on
> impact, which would cause more than mere 'bumps and scratches'.

So when is the reduction of the national speed limit to 12mph coming
in then?

[Peter Clinch]

Zog The Undeniable wrote:
> steve.trent wrote:
>
> <snip hackneyed old martlehat stuff>
>
> If helmets are so effective and comfortable, why aren't they compulsory
> for car drivers, who suffer more annual head injuries than cyclists? No,
> I didn't think you'd be able to answer that.

Steve simply quoted the Headway press release, full URL given at the bottom.

I don't know if he believes it or not.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

[Paul Boyd[_3_]]

lardyninja said the following on 21/07/2008 13:31:

> There do seem to be a helluva lot of nutters using the same email
> address:

Ahem!!!

> Unfortunately one of the regulars here also uses it so I can't just put
> it in the bozo bin.

I use it when posting from work, but I suppose I really ought to change
it for something less attractive to bozos :-)

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

[Daniel Barlow]

lardyninja > writes:

> There do seem to be a helluva lot of nutters using the same email
> address:

There do seem to be more than the usual number of trolls overall
lately (not you, I mean, I'm just attaching my observation to yours as
a convenient place): it's even making JNugent look normal and
reasonable.

Is it just that summer is here and real cyclists are more likely to
be outside doing real cycling?

(I'm recovering from doing London-Brighton on Friday and then the
Dunwich Dynamo on Saturday: both utterly splendid rides which I would
recommend without hesitation, but I overcooked it a bit on the hills
in the former and adding 110 miles to Dunwich before they'd grown back
meant I couldn't bend my knees without pain by Sunday evening)


-dan

[Martin[_2_]]

lardyninja wrote:
> steve.trent wrote, On 21/07/2008 07:17:
> Snipped verbage
>
> There do seem to be a helluva lot of nutters using the same email
> address:
>
> Unfortunately one of the regulars here also uses it so I can't just put
> it in the bozo bin.

There so seem to be a lot of people using the same ISP (individual.net)
and the same news reader software (Forte Agent 4.2/32.1118)
Many of them do not seem to have much of a posting history on usenet
(apart from TrollJ of course).

There is a least one regular legitimate contributor using that version
of Forte, so we can't filter on that.

[JNugent[_4_]]

Daniel Barlow wrote:

> lardyninja > writes:

>> There do seem to be a helluva lot of nutters using the same email
>> address:

> There do seem to be more than the usual number of trolls overall
> lately (not you, I mean, I'm just attaching my observation to yours as
> a convenient place): it's even making JNugent look normal and
> reasonable.

I am always reasonable, and do my best not to abuse other posters.

Whether being reasonable and non-abusive is normal (whether here or
elsewhere on usenet) is another question.