Safe Speed Forums

Ooooo, the irony!




http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... lised.html

What do you think Brake means by 'introduced'?

As a legal requirement on a cyclist, as part of the hire or socially?

Forcing cyclists to wear helmets would be a good way of reducing cycling and would you want to wear a helmet that was supplied with the bike?

Typically ridiculous statement from Brake, for once the irony comes across clearly in a forum post

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

The injuries might have been simply from trying to lift the heavy buggers.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Here we go again; you need to be protected from yourself. Just put your goggles on and go to bed..

I’m with you on this one weepej. I actually do wear a helmet to work but it should be my choice!

Stop interferring in my life!

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Wear children?

Out of interest, why?

Wishing to conform?

Worried about falling off?

Worried about crashing into something, i.e. a ped that steps in front of you, the rear/side of a car?

Worried abut getting hit by another vehicle?

If I'm honest weepej, it's two fold and here I go again...

"Oh no, is he going to talk about his job?". Well, in my defence, it’s what I see and if others saw what I see it may change their point of view, so cut me some slack please everyone...

I’ve said it before but I honestly do believe shock tactics work and they should be used in the media, especially in this ‘X-Factor, cry to win’ world where war is something unreal and make-belief which kids today use just to ‘get off on’ with their X-Box wot Daddy bought them!

I see what happens to people in real life who, if they survive, carry on to live life pretty much a cabbage; people who may not have had that fate if they had just worn a helmet. (But of course I could say that of many other incidents too ).

Seriously! I think I've mentioned it before here but the one person I met years ago from a cycling accident had a head which literally disappeared just above his eyebrows, with a kind of hump towards the rear of his head during the Craniotomy which followed. He has a good head of hair, fortunately, which disguises him from looking like a complete freak as carers push him around in a wheel chair like a baby.

This once fit and functional young man can control some things a bit, thanks to what people like me do, just, if you can call it functional... I see many like him so, as you might expect, it affects and disturbs me and makes me want to 'save everyone'...

Next #2: I wear one so that if or when some knocks me off and my worst nightmare becomes my reality, I tick all the H&S boxes and if they get the driver who did it to me it will be deemed his fault 100% and what is left of my family can at least know the son of a bitch who caused it got some punishment, whatever that’s worth in GB today!

When I ride in the Wyre Forest National Park I don't use a helmet, and it feels just GREAT! Like how it used to be on our roads, ya know? But I cycle on roads around Birmingham today which, probably like you in London weep, is gorged with these same homicidal self-centred fools! (And foolish cyclists, let’s not forget).

I guess it's a case of I have to protect myself because others are inconsiderate, ignorant and selfish So while I shouldn’t have to wear one I do. But I would still prefer choice about the matter.

Do you wear one on your commutes around London weep? No hidden agenda, just curious. I wouldn't ever want anything to happen to you, no matter how much we have crossed swords.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Tone. my admiration for someone who does your job and remains cheerful is unbounded. But... In your job you only see the worst scenarios - the dozen or so cyclists with serious head injuries which [i]might have been prevented if they had been wearing a helmet. You don't see the hundreds of cyclists who have had minor accidents and survived unscathed despite not wearing helmets nor the thousands of helmet-less cyclists who don't have accidents. Yes, if all cyclists wore helmets the number of KSIs might be reduced, just as if we all drove at 20mph the number of KSIs might be reduced.

As for the argument that a helmet might reduce the severity of an accident and save you from becoming a basket case consider this - a helmet might reduce the severity of an accident so that instead of being killed you become a basket case. I know which of the two outcomes I would prefer.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Thanks dcb and you make a very fair and valid point and yes, if I had the option of being dead or living like ??? I would want option 'A' too.

But I have to say something here which you or others may not have considered, before I take to bed...

The people, (and you and me have openly admitted to being them), who would wish to have checked-out rather than live like something unimaginable, (although not to me), have taught me so very much about life and true love like I cannot even begin to tell!!! (But that's another topic altogether)

Whenever I get this deep I feel like I'm making a fool of myself. I think the reason I do it is because I can be mocked, or whatever, but it is still a forum and I'm not going to meet anyone tomorrow who can jeer me. So I can speak from the heart and SS understands and affords me this courtesy, I think. (Hope this was okay?)

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Personally ,I don't . Because of your job mainly .If ever I see a kiddie near a teapot/hot cup of liquid , I get just as bad . Won't go into the bits, but I've spent about three months a a parent in a kiddies burn ward, and have seen the consequences of a seconds lapse of attention .Likewise I've spent approx eight months visiting a dementia ward of folks from sixty upward -all very physically able ,but mentally aged kiddies ,and with little control of certain functions .
I couldn't work in either circumstance or be there if-it wasn't for a personal commitment .So you have my admiration .
Only reason I could attend the first was that the kid we were visiting was my daughter, and in the second instance the patient was my dad .( Personally ,I'd sooner pop my clogs than get to that) .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

That one for me.

I've come off a few times while commuting, every one due to black ice. Not landed on my head since I was a kid but there's lots of hard stuff around these days, more signposts than there used to be for starters.

For once I am entirely in agreement with Botach. If anyone mocks you for your sensitivity and decent feeling they are the fool not you.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

If you met Big Tone, you'd find he's even jollier than his internet persona .

I don't wear a helmet.
a. Nothing in head worth saving
b. Very big head (I'm a big chap) so only times I ever tried them on I found them very tight

Joking apart, I think if I could have found one to fit when I used to cycle in London I probably would have done.

Thanks again, I sometimes wonder what’s worse; physical pain or the dementia you mention Botach.. I just hope my end is swift. Taking of which...

I think it’s quite funny that we cycle in the full knowledge that if we come off it’s going to hurt or kill us. I mean it is actually a very dangerous thing to do but we don’t go along thinking “what if I fall off?” or “ what if someone hits me?”. We may think about it in the moment of a close encounter but otherwise we just get on with it I think. I always cringe when I see the cyclists come off in the Tour De France. They are almost naked and that's the really scary thing about cycling for me. I remember that one time when they were going full pelt towards the finishing line when one cyclist clipped a barrier and it was like an explosion of cyclists!

I think the same when I’m driving on a S/C at 60mph and all it takes is for someone coming the opposite way to drift, using the mobile phone or skid a foot or so, and BANG! A 120mph collision, yet it doesn’t put us off driving does it? Maybe we’re all mad, putting so much faith in not having an accident when it takes so very little?

Actually, the one time I do constantly think about falling off is when I have ridden horses. I am always very aware that I may fall off and, as I know only too well, the height of a horse is just about right, and gives you just the right amount of time, to fall on your head. How people pluck up the courage to ride them fast is beyond me...

(Sorry for the bit of drifting there).

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

I'd like to see some figures for cyclists injuries to put it into some context. The illnesses that come with over eating and a sedentary lifestyle are (I think) the biggest causes of premature death in this country, are they not? So I would guess that if you are a regular cyclist you are getting more exercise and therefore less predisposed to getting heart disease and other related illnesses.

Common sense tells me that wearing a helmet has to be a good thing, but whether or not this is actually the case is a different matter.

So, to summarise. Get off the sofa, ride a bike to your hearts content, but do so using a bit of common sense for your own safety.

I was riding the Embankment last year, there was a lady in L2 doing her make up as she was pootling along (at about 25 as I was keeping pace with her), then guy in a BMW X5 barrels up behind her at speed, brakes, blasts his horn, and sticks his foot down, proper and undertakes her.

I had seen this coming (it's quite a common manoeuvre you see along there), so I was already out of his way. He wasn't looking ahead of course, instead staring right at the object of his annoyance, he kept his foot down (moving at quite a speed by then) and swerved back into L2.

At the next set of lights I have a word with him, how he could have lost control, rear ended me etc... etc..., he gets nasty, says "well you should be wearing a helmet!".

Naturally I ask what a helmet would've done to protect me from being smashed into from behind by a BMW X5 doing 50 or 60mph, more swearing, more hard acceleration, and I get to smile sweetly at him at the next TWO sets of lights (before I left him behind in a jam).

Didn’t you fear he could have hit you, (with fist or car), because you dared to confront him or are you built like a brick outhouse?

I tend to back off from confrontation because, let’s face it, their ‘weapon’ is bigger than anything I’ve got. Maybe I'm just a chicken but what's always in the back of my mind is if I so much as poke him with my little finger because he spat at me it's still assault and I could wave my good CRB check, and livelihood, goodbye...

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

IIRC weepy has told us in the past he IS built like a brick outhouse

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Weepej, you'll probably find Mr AgressiveX5-Driver is one of those Alpha Male types that puts his own needs before those of others no matter what he was doing, no excuse for putting your makeup on while driving. If it was a new X5, he could well have been rushing back to The City to loose some more of our money