Gary Hogg's Page

Hi Gary and Paul, 

Okay first up Gary I have to say I'm on the anti-helmet laws side of the fence, but if I can ask a couple of questions:

How did the bike helmet save your life?  i.e. how did you come off your bike? Were on or off road, did your bike fail somehow, or were you hit by a car?

You clearly understand the basics of risk assessment and mitigation (e.g. risk can be, in simple terms, an equation of likelihood of occurrence balanced against the negative effect). You obviously feel that the likelihood of having a bike accident causing head injury, combined with the possible effect of the injury (i.e. brain injury) is enough to make wearing a bike helmet a good choice. However two things stem from this:

First, when you are talking about a law that mandates helmets for other people as well as yourself, including those who do not share your risk assessment position, you have to be doing one of two things: either stating that other people's opinions are to be ignored and valueless because they disagree with your risk assessment, and therefore dictatorially your view should legally prevail; or that the risk which you state outweighs the personal freedom of people to choose must be an economic or social risk inherited by all society, e.g. cyclists' head injuries result in too high a cost to society in medical treatment and ongoing care.  I don't think you would agree that your opinion is to be law just because it is your opinion, and I think the latter argument of social cost is undermined because the lack of cycling in society due to helmet laws creates a far greater social cost through obesity and other health related trends, traffic congestion and higher infrastructure costs.

Secondly, would your risk assessment be different if it was proven to you that abolishing the helmet laws would in fact make the probability of head injury significantly less?  This I think is proven in the Netherlands.  

This is my final comment.

I will ask you again: Do you wear a helmet when driving?

If not, you logic is flawed and your assessment of risk seriously maligned for an H&S officer! If you do wear a car helmet, then I believe you.

I'm a medical specialist, an Anaesthetist. I see plenty of trauma in both the emergency department and the operating theatre (if they get that far), where I am part of a team to resuscitate these people. I can assure you that most of them are motor vehicle occupants and oddly, none are wearing helmets.

I have studied human anatomy & physiology for many, many years and I know more about how the body works than 99% of the population. I have also been privileged to spend a lot of time at the John Tonge Centre attending autopsies. I can't recall when the last cyclist that came through but there are motor vehicle occupants delivered fresh daily.

I am not suggesting for a moment that you should not wear a helmet, nor that they offer no protection. My argument is against a law mandating their use for bicycle riders when they are not mandatory for other riskier activities. Why no helmets for car occupants? The seatbelt analogy is incongruous:

- there are no seatbelts school or council buses

- seatbelts prevent occupant from being projectiles, risking other occupants' lives

- a driver's seatbelt keeps the driver in the seat to help maintain control, thereby minimising the risk to third parties.

Based on your opinion of risk assessment and helmets in general, I would be very disappointed if you didn't wear a helmet when in a motor vehicle as that is far more likely to result in a disabling head injury than riding a bicycle or walking down the road. Do you wear a car helmet? A serious question.

With a huge cycling rate (most of the population) & no helmets for 'everyday cycling', Dutch streets aren't littered with the dead & brain injured.

RE: hard shell helmets: In the coming weeks there is a study to be published which shows that soft shell helmets (most bicycle helmets) practically no protection for the head compared to hard shell helmets (old stak hats).

Gary (in response to your comment to Aaron Hall)

You skull is nothing like an 'egg shell'... I know an awful lot about human anatomy & physiology and such a simplification is disingenuous. It just goes to show the power of advertising (we all remember the adverts with the broken eggs...) which is where you learned this. You can break your brain without so much as a scratch on your 'skull', unlike an egg... I could go on...

I do agree with you though on one point - helmets certainly do absorb some impact force (much less than you think though which concerns me) and depending on your risk level and activity it is worthwhile wearing one - I would never suggest that people shouldn't wear one if they wish.

However, making all cyclists wear them by law is not good for cycling (I'm not talking about the sport of cycling here...) and is bad public policy.

Most people can't see the difference in these arguments, which is a great shame. Have a read of this site. I wear a helmet on my road bike, etc. but I don't when I ride to the shops on on my dutch bike. Why should that be a crime? The runners are faster than me and just as likely to fall over (ie. very unlikely)!