Motorcycles and the crash helmet law in the UK

I also don't use social nitwitting sites such as Farcebook, mainly because I don't have any friends, and would like the ability to sign in using a simple email address or code word authentification.

I Petra,

I suspect I'll make it possible to create a Weekly Gripe profile as well as the ability to sign in with an existing account. You'll also still be able to post as you do now.

Kenny,

I am happy to sign in with my e-mail address but I don't have an account with Facebook or any other social networking site so I am hoping that that is not the only way you are going to allow commenting in the future.

Please condider simple registration at this site with email address.

Thanks.

It would appear that you can but not to worry, after all it is still a free country

I am not posting realy just taking the easy route to see if one can still post as somone else

Thanks MikeP,

We're not quite finished yet. More features to add and the sign-in bit is one of them. Sorry, I had to get 'something' out as soon as possible as it's been dragging on for a while. Now that we're rolling I should make some progress.

Nice looking new site. Are the user names now protected or can anyone still post as someone else?

Don't get me started on pedal cyclists, the bane of the road, dangerous, uninsured idiots most of them...as afar as I am concerned they should be required to have at least 3rd party insurance and to have passed a cycling proficiency test..

I not long ago bought a american open face crash helmet,only to be told I cannot wear it,is this true or just a load of old tosh,surely one helmet is as good as another as far as safety goes?.If the law states all bikers must wear a lid,surely they can choose what style helmet they want even if it doesn't originate from the u.k.

Well in Aging Rocker. There is not one innovation on a foreign bike that did not start out on a Brit bike, where did the motor cycle industry go wrong? As for speed my inter was quick enough.

I passed my bike test in 1962 and still have bikes. In those days you could ride the biggest and most powerful bike you could afford and ride it with "L" plates and no helmet and no formal tuition. The good old days! Anyone from Manchester will remember the 1010, Skyways, The Ranch, Joes at Romiley, the list goes on.What a great bunch of motorcyclists. The bikes were nowhere as fast then as the modern superbikes and the roads weren't as congested as today. Neverthless I still feel we should have freedom to ride without a helmet, and really experience "The Wind In Your Face" sensation that motorcycling is all about.

I've been riding for over 25 years, and have always worn a lid.
Apart from the safety, it keeps my head warm and the rain out of my eyes.
Maybe twice in all that time I've forgotten to put in on, and ended up goin ghome for it, as I felt naked/exposed and vunerable.
The BIG issue here is the nasty little cyclists all over the road, with no licence or insurance.
They have total disregard for the law of the road (especially here in London).
I would happily recommend that ALL leg powered cycles be registered and have number plates. This would help to reduce accidents massively, as the idiots could then be traced.
The amount of dents and scratches put in cars by cyclists would be reduced and as importantly, if they were licenced and insured, then cyclists would have to take responsiblity for their actions.

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Does compulsory crash helmet usage in the UK reduce risk? All evidence offered as conclusive for the use of crash helmets as a successful safety/risk management device are based on a 1980 report produced in the USA for the American Journal of Public Health in which States who repealed their compulsory helmet laws were compared with States that didn't. This report was used by the British Medical Journal as evidence for the success of compulsory helmet law. It has since been shown that all the data used in the report were seriously flawed and the maths used to produce the alarming statistics were fundamentally flawed, (Adams, 1981). The reality, as ever, is very much different to the predictions of "experts". Real life statistics showed that the States who had repealed the compulsory helmet law actually had less fatal accidents than those which hadn't! What the "experts" refused to take into account were the realities of riding a motorcycle. As a motorcyclist of 25 years experience, I know that when I ride without a helmet I don't ride as fast because a bug hitting your face at 40 mph isn't as sore as one hitting your face at 60 mph and that I enjoy the feeling of the wind in my hair but I know that if I crash without a helmet the chances are it will hurt a bit more, therefore I ride more defensively. This common is sense, "If I feel more protected, I take more risks". Motorcycle statistics bear this out, accidents have increased as safety/risk management measures have increased. Fatality rates remain constant regardless of safety/risk management measures introduced since motorbikes became a common mode of transport.

@http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=171566
"under UK legislation you don't need tax, insurance or MoT and, since bicycle laws apply, you don't have to wear a helmet if you don't want to."

I'm aware that an electric bike(and mobility scooter) have a limiter top speed of around 18 mph. under this and it classed as a bicycle.

anybicycle with a engine (mechanical propulsion) and the law says you must wear a helmet.

but the real question is. what if you dont wear a helmet. whats the penalty? fine? point?

its seems in Leicestershire if you Dont have a helmet tax MOT etc and ride you pitbike on the path, roads and make as much noise as possible the police will just drive past!

A rateher good debate this taht does get to the core of the issue however I see some false presumptions still survive. For eg the idea of compulsory motor bike helmets is to save lives, and time has shown that this is now the case.

I think you will find that there is not one scintilla of evidence to support this, at least not in the UK where almost 90% of riders were wearing helmets voluntarily before the law was introduced. Certainly there was no drop in fatalities in the year following the introduction of compulsion as had been predicted.
The helmet law does place a disproprtionate degree of responsibility on those subject to it. I say disproportionate inasmuch as the loss of civil liberty is out of proportion to the gain which is not hard to see when the gain is unquantifiably small and probably non existant.
Speaking for The Motorcycle Action Group I would certainly not want to see cyclists subjected to the same abuse of civil rights to which motorcyclists have been subjected. MAG is in the business of defending liberties rather than destroying them.

It is very interesting to see this issue gaining currency against the background of the cycling helmet debate and it opens up the whole philosophic question which extends way beyond the helmet issue.

There probably is a pragmatic case to be made for criminalising obesity though I would not be the one to advance it but there is no case to be made for the helmet law because it doesn't make any difference.

Part of the problem with the argument is that many if not most people seem incapable of recognising a distinction between the advantages of a safety protcol and the criminalisation of those who refuse to adopt it.

Ian Mutch
MAG President

My apologies Congo, if I misunderstood your meaning. Did you not then, indicate that freedom of choice should be abolished where that choice may lead to unnecessary drain on the resources of the health service? My examples were deliberately facetious in order to illustrate a point. I felt that extending them to ridiculous conclusions was quite warrented to this end.


Returning to the purpose of my post: I accept that the wearing of a motorcycle crash helmet is a safety issue. Will you accept that the compulsion to do so is a civil rights issue?

'Jon Mag'

Extending your points to ridiculous and unwarranted conclusions does not do you credit.

You have in no way followed my argument to any sort of "logical conclusion".

Congo,

I understand and accept your argument but are you really suggesting that loss of freedom is the necessary cost of freedom? Now that is a long and slippery slope.

I am free to choose to over eat but should not expect free health care for my resultant obesity. I am free to choose to smoke but should not expect free health care for my resultant cancer. I am free to choose to ride a motorcycle but should not expect free health care for injuries I may sustain in an accident because I had no protective "cage" around me (air bags, crumple zones, seat belt, et al).

Alternatively, following your argument to the logical conclusion; obesity, smoking and the riding of motorcycles should be illegal.

Motorcyclists accept (or even defend) helmet compulsion at their peril, for in so doing they signal fundamental acceptance that anything which is more dangerous than its alternative can be legitimately prohibited. The survival of the helmet law provides a precedent that the nanny state mentality can deploy in support of any measure to emasculate and ultimately prohibit motorcycling on the basis that it is more dangerous than its alternatives.

'Jon Mag'

In any civilised society, freedom of choice should be concomitant with acceptance of responsibility

Congo for one would be perfectly content to accept that motorcycle riders may be able to decide not to wear crash helmets provided those who chose to do so accept that any injuries sustained as a result of their failure to take even this elementary precaution will be treated entirely at their expense.

If however such persons would like the comfort of knowing the State will bear these often enormous costs then it seems only fair that they abrogate such freedom of choice.