News

The Centre for Accident Research & Road Safety in Queensland has carried out a comprehensive research project on bicycle helmets. The report 'Bicycle Helmet Research - Monograph 5' can be found via its  website: http://www.carrsq.qut.edu.au/   The report looks very clearly at the protective benefits offered by bicycle helmets in reducing the level of head injury that relates to the Australian perspective for helmet use.

Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital have shown that cycle helmet laws are associated with significantly lower fatality and injury rates in children under 16 who have been involved in cycle-motor vehicle incidents.

The study analysed more than 11,000 records from motor vehicle crashes between 1999 and 2010. In the United States, detailed data is recorded about serious vehicle incidents, including its location and other factors such as blood alcohol levels of the driver and helmet use of adults and children who may be involved. With many states having mandatory helmet laws for children, the researchers cross-referenced the incident details with its location to judge the effect of helmet legislation.

The study found that in the states with helmet laws, after compensating for other factors, there was a reduction of 20% in death and and injury for children under 16 who were involved in a cycle-motor vehicle incident. These results show that having laws in place directly contributes to increased safety of young cyclists, with researchers theorising that legislation makes it much easier for parents to adhere to best practice guidelines.

In October 2014 it became compulsory for children aged 13 years and under to wear a cycle helmet whilst riding a bicycle on a road or cycle track.

It is the first law of its kind be passed in any jurisdiction in the British Isles and follows a vote in the States Assembly of Jersey on July 17th 2014.

The proposition to introduce a cycle helmet law on the island was first property by Deputy Andrew Green MBE in 2010.

He said: “I have been a passionate proponent of cycle helmets for more than two decades. Twenty six years ago our nine-year-old son, Christopher, was knocked off a friend’s bike. He was not wearing a helmet and sustained a severe brain injury. His life and ours changed forever in an instant.

“It’s surely now time that the children of the UK are given the same protection as children in Jersey and numerous other countries across the world.”

This report published by the TRL demonstrates the reasoning behind the legislation.

https://www.headway.org.uk/Core/DownloadDoc.aspx?documentID=3725

After 16 years as The Bicycle Helmet Initiative Trust the charity has launched its new name and logo. The new name The Cycle-Smart Foundation reflects the fact that the charity covers all aspects of safer cycling for children – not just helmets.

Angela Lee, the charity’s founder and chief executive, said: “The name - The Bicycle Helmet Initiative Trust - served the charity well for 16 years but The Cycle-Smart Foundation is much snappier and young people identify with the word smart as in terms of smart technology and smart TV. Our focus will still be helmets but we will also continue to encompass all aspects of safer cycling for example high visibility clothing, bike lights, cycle training and bicycle maintenance.”  The charity has set targets for the next 3 years and will further expand school and parent safety programmes.

A new report by the Transport Research Laboratory has concluded that if worn correctly and a good fit, cycle helmets are effective at reducing the risk of head injury.

The report, which was commissioned by the States Assembly of Jersey, said cycle helmets would be expected to be effective in a range of accidents including falls over handlebars and another vehicle glancing a cyclist or tipping them over causing their head to strike the ground.

The report also concluded that cycle helmets are particularly effective for children because children are smaller and therefore do not fall as far as adults.

The report found no evidence of an increased risk of rotational head injury with a helmet compared to without a helmet (TRL Report PPR 697. TRL Report PPR 446 and PPR 697 can be found at: www.trl.co.uk/library/reports_publications/

or

https://www.headway.org.uk/Core/DownloadDoc.aspx?documentID=3726

Common arguments against cycle helmet legislation are considered in this report published in the British Medical Journal in 2006

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1410864/

The Netherlands remain one of the safest countries in the world in which to cycle thanks to the significant investment that has been made in cycling infrastructure. However the report published in The Netherlands by SWOV goes onto consider that

• Of the cyclists with serious injury who are admitted to hospital following a crash with motorized traffic, almost half (47%) are diagnosed with head/brain injury. After crashes not involving motorized traffic this is the diagnosis for just under one third (29%) of the cyclists.

• Proportionally, head/brain injury occurs most frequently among children and youths. In crashes with motorized traffic more than 60% of the young seriously injured cyclists (0-17 years old) have sustained head/brain injury, compared with an average of 47%; in the case of crashes not involving motorized traffic

• Approximately three-quarters of all head/brain injury sustained by cyclists are the consequence of crashes not involving motorized traffic (n=2,229). For young children (0-5 years old) as many as nine out of ten head/brain injuries are the consequence of bicycle crashes not involving motor vehicles. These are mostly cyclist-only crashes, i.e. crashes without another road user being involved,

The report concludes that helmets are particularly effective for preventing head and brain injury amongst child cyclists.

SWOV Fact Sheet 2012

The study was presented at the International Research Council on the Biomechanics of Injury in 2014.

The authors considered cases of cycling injury from 2 major hospitals in Germany. Amongst those who wore helmets the serverity of head/brain injury was much lower.

 - of cyclists wearing a helmet who had received a head injury, less than 3% had suffered a skull fracture or cerebral damage

- of those cyclists not wearing a helmet who had received a head injury, nearly 10% had suffered a skull fracture or cerebral damage

Head Injuries in Bicyclists and Associated Crash Characteristics, Axel Malczyk, Klaus Bauer, Christian Juhra, Sylvia Schick, 2014

The Government is to consider cycling as "a legitimate form of transport" and place it on an equal footing with cars and trains according to the Times Newspaper

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/cyclesafety/article4331991.ece

The work of the Cycle-Smart Foundation has been noted by the Child Accident Prevention Trust (CAPT) in this recent article

http://www.capt.org.uk/who-we-are/news/safety-signpost-cycle-smart-foundation-campaigning-safer-cycling-children