#115, nprnncbl

I was generalising, of course. The camps I mentioned are the ones at the noisy ends of the argument. You've rather demonstrated that you're not really in there because you concede that "helmets may have more limited protective value than I had thought."

Your strident debaters, pro or con, are incapable of making such a reasoned point.

To those suggesting he should have taken a bottle, pool cue etc, a friend of mine who really is a ninja (okay, ninjitsu brown belt) is fond of pointing out that there's no point having a weapon you do not know how to use.

If your enemy is more adept than you, you are taking a weapon into the fray for him *and* pissing him off.

Spiderking

I remember that too. The guy who invented it turned up to the Interbike show one year with a prototype, and sold the design to Giro.

Giro made a production version the following year and it completely and utterly bombed.

The idea was that disguising a helmet as a baseball cap would somehow make it easier to persuade kids to wear it, because it would look cool. Epic fail.

I'm a cycling journalist. I've been watching arguments about helmets for almost 20 years, and it always amazes me that helmet advocates get desperately strident at the notion that anyone could question the efficacy of helmets.

#73 is a great example. "Do not resuscitate". Do you have the slightest idea how absurd you sound? Do you apply that reasoning to everyone who chooses to take a risk that you don't?

I see people exceeding the speed limit in their cars all the time, a baheviour that both puts them at risk and puts other road users at risk. Do I think they should not be treated in the event of a crash? Of course not.

I once saw the owner of a major bike shop here in Sydney get up and leave the dinner table at a product launch because she was disgusted when I suggested that, just maybe, advocacy of helmets, which its implied message of "riding a bike is *dangerous*" wasn't the smartest thing the bike industry could do to promote itself.

Givrn that the helmet industry is trying to sell you something, its claims about the effeciveness of its products should be looked at as sceptically as any other salesperson's claims. Yet far too many people seem to believe them with almost religious fervour.

So, how's the evidence?

When helmet use became mandatory in Australia, the death rate among cyclists did indeed drop.

The problem for helmet advocates is that the death rate among pedestrians dropped too, by almost exactly the same amount.

Other road safety measures introduced at the same time, in particular random breath testing, seem to have actually improved road safety. The evidence that helmets make a significant difference is very thin indeed.

The deep problem seems to be that helmets are designed to prevent injury in falls at relatively low speeds, and that don't involve motor vehicles.

The British Standard for helmets is typical. The accident its test protocol simulates involves a collision with a flat surface or kerb when the rider is travelling at 10 mph.

A helmet that protects you in that circumstance is going to do almost nothing when you're struck by a a couple of tons of SUV doing 50mph. And those are the collisions that routinely kill cyclists.

This is why, #75, "mountain bikers rarely complain about wearing helmets, and they don't even have cars to contend with."

Mountain biking speeds are generally lower than road cycling speeds, crashes are far more frequent and the crash type is exactly the type helmets are designed to mitigate. I am sure my helmet has saved me a couple of trips to ER after mountain biking crashes; I am sure it's saved me a couple of concussions. Do I think it's saved my life? No. Not once.

Now, it turns out that the long-term effects of concussion can be rather unpleasant, and the effects of repeated concussion are very unpleasant indeed. For us mountain bikers, who crash comparatively often and are likely to sustain concussions that helmets can prevent, wearing a helmet makes lots of sense.

There's a cultural and image issue for mountain bikers too. We're gnarly dudes, ripping down hillsides on our bikes. We're serious, we're taking risks, we *need* protection, look at us. Look! At! Us! Attention whores, the lot of us.

At least we've stopped wearing the hideous dayglo way too many of us (myself included) wore in the late 80s.

Road cyclists, especially experienced ones, crash very infrequently. In 'Effective Cycling' John Forester cites evidence that the crash rate of experienced cyclists is about the same as that of car drivers.

Of course, nobody suggests car drivers should be wearing helmets, because the risk involved in driving a car is one we all routinely accept. They don't have this argument in European countries because cycling is seen as a routine, everyday activity, just like driving.

And that's the rub. This isn't an argument about the effectiveness or otherwise of helmets, it's between those who see cycling as a routine and mundane part of everyday life and those who see it as a special activity that's specially risky and therefore needs special equipment.

Mark Thomas' incredibly funny BBC Radio 4 one-off show about this, 'My Life in Serious Organised Crime', is worth seeking out.

For example, here's an exchange between Thomas and the police office at Charing Cross station in charge of doing the paperwork for the Parliament Square protests.

PC Paul McAnnaly: "You want a demonstration to defend surrealism?"

Mark Thomas: "Yeah I do. I can have a demonstration about anything I want."

PC Paul McAnnaly: "Indeed you can. I just didnae know surrealism was under threat."

Mark Thomas: "It is"

PC Paul McAnnaly: "How so?"

Mark Thomas: "Because we have a government of paradox. We have a government that seeks peace through war and protects civil liberties by eroding them. This is a paradox; this is adsurdism; adsurdism is the enemy of surrealism ergo surrealism is under attack."

PC Paul McAnnaly: "I'm sorry I asked."