To helmet or not to helmet?
I started using my chrome-look BMX bikers’ helmet the year a hot-headed motorist clipped my back wheel and knocked me into the gutter on Upper Street on my journey north from City Road to St John’s Villas in Archway. She was eventually charged with dangerous driving and I ended up with a cut over my left brow, which bled dramatic drops of crimson all the way to University College London Hospital A&E on Euston Road, and a black eye the colour of a ripe aubergine. A helmet would have saved me from both.
However, while bike helmets are good for low-speed falls like mine, the debate about how well they protect your head during a full-on collision has raged since their introduction in the 1970s.
Objectors say that not only do they offer minimal protection, but an ill-fitting helmet can actually cause serious neck injuries in a crash. Add to that the University of Bath study which discovered that drivers are actually less careful around helmet-wearing cyclists (believing them to be more experienced road users) than those without, and my chrome dome starts to look less shiny.
The London Cycling Campaign refrains from promoting the use of a helmet but does offer useful advice for anyone wanting to buy one. For my part I’ll stick with mine – even if it does provoke people to compare me to Barbarella and Dusty Bin in one fell swoop. Fiona McAuslan
Route rating
Intended route 3.09 miles (City Road to St John’s Villas)
Actual route 1.9 miles (City Road to UCLH A&E part by ambulance)
Treatment received Butterfly stitches to head. Rump steak to eye.
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6 comments
'Why adhere to a law that endangers me?' (re illegal pavement cycling) The same stupid selfish comment could possibly be made about knife-carrying. Get off the pavement, you selfish git - even if people say nothing to you don't take it as tacit acceptance, it's probably because they're frightened. Read letters in the local press and reports of local community and police meetings - it's you and others like you who are making the pavements in London a no-go area for old, disabled and vulnerable people. What a stupid and irresponsible article for Time Out to endorse - I will not be purchasing it again.
I was with a cyclist who was catapulted off her bike in an accident last week. She landed on her head and shoulder. Result: Helmet severely dented, concussion, face had a nasty case of road rash, broken collar bone. Without a helmet I think it could have been much worse.
Re: amazing statistics - the trouble with accident statistics is it is impossible to measure all the accidents that don't happen...
Did the writer really mean;
'Anarchic behaviour under the guise of protest is selfish and self-defeating.'
Or perhaps;
Selfish behaviour under the guise of protest is self-defeating.
Or maybe;
Selfish behaviour under the guise of anarchy is self-defeating.
Clean up on the stereotypes mate.
I ride through that road system most days and, as I've found generally with cycling in London at all times of day and night, if you ride with your wits about you, it isn't a problem. A cycle lane past Central St. Martin's would be safer and there's loads of pavement but in the mean time the author should grow a pair and use the road.
LB 's Southwark and Lewisham provide free Adult Cycle Training for all those who live, work or study in the borough. Available via www.cyclinginstructor.com. Online Booking!
Statistics show that amazingly cyclists who wear helmets have more accidents than cyclists who don't. This is because, the study says, drivers of cars and other vehicles tend to take it "slightly easy" when they see a cyclist wearing a helmet as opposed to when a cyclist is unprotected. A model Catch-22 situation innit?