Remember kids... always wear a helmet. (The almighty bikeradar helmet thread)

any debate / concern about road safety without mentioning drivers and car use is counterproductive. this is what i think the school brass and by all accounts many of you are missing. appeasing this bullshit in anyway is merely an exercise in blame shifting. what's their reaction going to be when some poor little sod gets clattered and is wearing a helmet? his fault because they weren't wearing hi viz?

My mother and several friends are classroom teachers, so I was jumping to their defense (i.e. not senior management). I what they have to deal with just to teach their lessons, let alone field parents and internal/external assessment requirements. I wasn't meaning for my posts to come across as attacking head teachers and I appreciate the wealth of other stuff that falls under their remit.

I can be an arse too. Peace?

Completely agree. It's the same type of argument/reasoning that means our daughters shouldn't go out wearing short skirts and skimpy tops and enjoy a drink and a good time with their friends, because they're just asking to be felt up or worse. Bollocks!
We need to stop passing responsibility onto (potential) victims. I for one would argue with the school for my childs right to choose to wear helmet or not.

I'm anti-MHL so if that was my daughter's school I'd be kicking up a stink about.

Teachers are great/undervalued/underpaid/etc, but that doesn't give them the right to make up arbitrary rules about things beyond their remit.

[EDIT] And, to be clear, I'd have no problem if my daughter was required to wear a helmet at a track session. The risk profiles are completely different. I, personally, do not think anyone should be forced to wear a helmet for on-road cycling (leisure/commuting/etc).

Indeed. Peace. I've moved on. My wife moved on too. She now has charge of 6 secondary schools in the Swindon area and surrounding. Not expecting any issues there then! Happy days.

The risk profiles are completely different

FWIW I'd much rather fall over on flat wooden boards with no 2 tonne metal blocks coming towards me than on the road if I wasn't wearing a helmet. But that's what happens when its compulsory long enough that you don't question it

Anyway, crack on boys

My club ask that we wear helmets on club runs, I chose to ride with them and thus have to abide by their rules.

A child is obliged to go to school but the school should not oblige the child to wear a helmet.

To threaten to take a child's property sounds a lot like theft.

C'mon, lets see what you were gonna say James :)

I misread your post, my bad.

But having seen quite a few incidents on the track I'd hazard a guess track is more dangerous per mile travelled than commuting.

The school don't even say if it was cyclists that were hit by drivers.

We will however not be allowing any child to cycle away from school
without a helmet on.

Easy solution, get the lad to push his bike off the school premises. It is a matter of settled law that a person pushing a bicycle is a pedestrian with baggage, not a driver conducting a carriage.

Why not just fall into line and leave the school

I think you wrote and when you meant or.
Oh, no, my bad, you can't leave the school because there is no meaningful school choice in this country, they all have everything dictated to them by the same morons.

There's a bit more information on the Australian helmet laws review here. The title of this article is: Why Australia’s Bike Helmet Laws Kill People It makes for an interesting read. It is certainly looking like Australia may scrap their helmet laws next year. Let's wait and see ...

http://www.icebike.org/bike-helmet-laws/

Twitter gold:

https://mobile.twitter.com/Byclemore/status/921215948333334528

All kicked off on twitter about scouts being forced to wear helmets to get badges, I've asked the chief scouts view...

Been delivering some bike training with our local scouts in Deptford. Not one of them turned up with a helmet. We were mostly doing the mechanics bit, so it wasn’t a huge issue, although we had planned to cover correct fitting. You can do that with any old helmet. The whole set of badge requirements for scouts is pretty extensive and will take ages to get through. If a youngster gets through all of it, I’d be very unhappy if they were refused their badge just because they didn’t have a helmet. But once the badge is awarded, surely it couldn’t be taken away if they were spotted riding without one. Think of all those stitches you’d have to unpick!

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/article/20171126-Chris-Boardman-0

As ever Sir Chris says it like it is...
Apparently a mainstream paper that commissioned this article then refused to print it....

Edit: it was the Sunday Times that commissioned the article then didn't print it

To the government, I say shame on you that this even has to be discussed (again) and shame on you that we even have to campaign, so we and our children can travel safely in a way that benefits everyone, on the roads we all pay for.

Fucking nailed it.

Apparently a mainstream paper that commissioned this article then refused to print it

he sent it to the wrong address

Spotted this in the Times a la weekend..

1 Attachment

Fairly balanced.

Shame about the headline.

Oh yeh.

Forgive the Mail link, but this is actually worth it. Peter Hitchens writes a balanced, well-reasoned article on compulsory helmet laws. No, seriously.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-5117751/Cycle-helmets-lives-risk.html

What the hell has happened to the Mail!