Fines wiped if biker buys 'dorky' helmet

[Shazz]

A New Zealand biker – fined 11 times for refusing to wear a bike helmet – has been told that some of his fines will be converted into community service if he buys a helmet and brings it to court.
...
Judge Bridget Mackintosh said "This is ridiculous", ordering Boyce to buy a helmet and bring it back to the court, at which time she would remit some of the fines in return for a sentence of community work.

Hate to say it, but this is an article about a pushbike rider refusing to wear his helmet...the motorbike fraternity....are we that thick! NO... The judge would have taken our licence or worse, than offering us a 'cheaper' versions out of the fine!

[NighthawkNZ:Me]

Make all Bicyclists wear full protective body armour... helmet, gloves, boots, back armour, and kidnet belts. Make this new gear pure dayglow orange. On the back of the armour, have LCD flashing lights. The Bicycle, must also have a flag, and them spoke rattlers so you can hear them coming, as well as the rider going Brrroooom Broom at the lights (de-baffled sound)

This should also go for roller bladders, oh and while we are at it, pedestrians, just in case they get hit by a roller blader or a cyclist

"Most adult cyclists know what it is like to drive a car, but relatively few motorists ride bicycles in traffic, and so don't know the issues cyclists face.

Same goes for most cage drivers and motorcyclists

[Shazz]

Yeah you still got the magic....I didn't question your opinion...just the mentality of the push bike rider.... me sorry....hug.

[90s]

Wasn't there some study or something that somebody posted on KB that push-bike helmets do diddly shit -- or even worse? Can't remember. Too early in the day to think yet.

I hate them as well. They certainly don't feel very useful. Watching myriad lycragoons can it on Le Tour sans helmutts at 50-odd-kph -- then pick themselves up and carry on going, well... Perhaps it's just the drugs.

All kinds of wrong Xerces.
Studies of the biased unreliable "seatbelts don't make a difference" and "no links between smoking and cancer" kind in the 1980s were publisheed true. However, the evidence overall is very clear.

If you are 'pootling' up the highstreet maybe a lid won't make much difference unless you are very unlucky (and maybe a car hits you). At woodhill a few weeks ago a friend of mine - and I was there - was unlucky in being knocked out by a blow that was transmitted through the helmet - but imagine if he had no helmet on at all? And I hit 60k on scenic drive - do you think a lid would not help if I binned it?

If you had cracked a few giros as I have you would not question the power of the helmet. Lance Armstrong trained in helmets and the one time he did not he ended up so concussed he put it down as one of the worst oversights of his life - he was lucky not to have been killed.

If you feel your cheap crappy lid is no good maybe it isn't. You need a decent helmet with a decent retention system. Buy a good giro, met or bell and see how that feels.

[davereid]

The "Scuffham" report was commissioned by the NZ government, to demonstrate how effective our helmet law is.

I bet Mr. Scuffham had a battle to get paid, and actually had to fudge his results to get an answer that the government liked. (The helmet law caused a lot of bare-headed cyclists to stop riding. This of course caused the number of head injuries to reduce.)

He found :

Scuffham analysed data on the increase of voluntary wearing in New Zealand to 1995; he concluded that, after taking into account long-term trends, helmets had no measurable effect. His subsequent re-analysis without accounting for the long-term trends showed a small benefit. Scuffham's later cost-benefit analysis of the New Zealand helmet law showed that the cost of helmets outweighed the savings in injuries, even taking the most optimistic estimate of injuries prevented.


If you are really concerned about head injury, wear a helmet in your car. Thats the most likely place you will suffer your brain injury.

[gijoe1313]

Gordon Bennet, struth and luv'a'duck! I remember being a nipper on my little chopper (with high and low gear, dyno on the back wheel and the ubiquitious flag - no spokey-dokeys though)

And no helmet! Gads! The whole school back then was riding in blissful ignorance of the fact we had to enclad our scones! Even today, though I have a cycling helmet - I use the ol'MTB to ride to the dairy sans helmet!

I am a scoff law of the highest order, riding on the pavement on the wrong side, without a helmet to go... 200m I felt in mortal peril for my blighted soul and could see that I was opening myself up to all sorts of physical danger.

What next, handrails in toilets, showers and baths to stop us cracking our heads as we get up/out? Warning labels on vaccum cleaners saying "This is not a sex toy"? Direction arrows on jam lids to tell us which way to twist? Toilet paper with printing on it saying "Use this side"? A general sign on the pavement saying "This is a general walkway, No running allowed" since people get impact injuries from traiing... Rant rave arf bark rhubarb custard apple!

[90s]

The "Scuffham" report was commissioned by the NZ government, to demonstrate how effective our helmet law is.

I bet Mr. Scuffham had a battle to get paid, and actually had to fudge his results to get an answer that the government liked. (The helmet law caused a lot of bare-headed cyclists to stop riding. This of course caused the number of head injuries to reduce.)

He found :

Scuffham analysed data on the increase of voluntary wearing in New Zealand to 1995; he concluded that, after taking into account long-term trends, helmets had no measurable effect. His subsequent re-analysis without accounting for the long-term trends showed a small benefit. Scuffham's later cost-benefit analysis of the New Zealand helmet law showed that the cost of helmets outweighed the savings in injuries, even taking the most optimistic estimate of injuries prevented.


If you are really concerned about head injury, wear a helmet in your car. Thats the most likely place you will suffer your brain injury.

This is very emotive, and I don't want to want to follow this up again, but here are some thoughts - because it does relate to motorbikers and helmet law.
1) dealing with a single population as does Scuffham is not very useful for this analysis
2) the arguments against helmets fall into the camp of i) civil liberties people; ii) fitness arguments; iii) technical arguments
OK so http://www.cyclinghealth.org.nz/ takes the civil liberties approach. If you are against seatbelts and any kind of safety legislation stop wearing your motorbike helmet on principle too. We can ignore this type of argument as it does not deal with whether wearing helmets is a good idea of not.
The there are the fitness arguments. The theory is here if you let everyone ride without helmets, more people will ride and therefore the aggregate health benefits outweigh the cost to the nation of extra head injuries - if there are any. Even if there are, more people live because of being fitter than die due to injury. Some comfort for the pawns lowering health taxes who do die. But are they significantly likely increase as a percentage of riders because of helmet wearing?
The tecnical camp is deeply flawed in terms of studies and execution. Aggregate figures confuse the issues and there are wildly contradictory results. A major argument here is that most cyclists (usually London based studies are used, ie. 66% of London cyclists are crushed by trucks and 97% involve traffic collisions: Gilbert K, McCarthy M. Deaths of cyclists in London 1985-92: the hazards of road traffic. BMJ 1994;308:1534-1537) are crushed by vans and cars and helmets do not save them. This confuses all our stats.
Same with motobike helmet safety studies - when you take a certain amount of overall injury to the body the helmet will not save you either.

So the critical factor when deciding to wear a helmet of interest is this - when it comes to head injury accidents, ie. non-fatal crashes, do helmets protect against head injuries that would have been worse if you had not been wearing a helmet?
One leading "anit-helmet propnent Dr Richard Keatinge (http://www.magma.ca/%7eocbc/keating.htm) says in his view "The design intention is that the foam should compress, thus slowing deceleration of the head ... In fact, it requires very little energy to break a helmet, even to smash it. Most broken helmets have simply failed."
Mechanical engeneers will be weeping reading such misinformed rubbish. Your shoei's deformation is in fact not evidemnce it saved your life - your helmet failed?

It comes back to motorbikes because no helmet will save you if an artic hits you head on. So you are protecting yourself against a class of survivable accident. If you ride where you push it at all, will having a helmet on increase your chances of not getting certain types of injury, or making them less severe?
You bet.
If not stop wearing it - motorbike or cycle.
If you believe wearing a motorbike helmet is the right choice, then wearing a cycle helmet is also the right choice - esp. if you are a cyclist , not just someone who toodles down to the dairy sometimes.

[MisterD]

I think it's interesting how this kind of stuff links into the whole "perceived risk" thing...forced to wear a helmet, therefore feel safer and so ride like a twat to return your preceived risk level to the point it was at before.

I hate my (cycle) helmet, but I wouldn't be without it on a fast moving bunch ride.

[ajturbo]

Yeah - that was your daughter.

I'm quite skillful, expert and pretty ferkin' smart.
Quite capable of making my decisions about risk without being nanna'd into wearing a stupid hat to save me from something I've been successfully doing for 46 years.

i'm with you here....

the frigging greeny, nana state, tree hugging, bra-less..(mmmmm) anti smaking, touchy feely, cotten wool wraping, do gooders telling me that i am safer to ride a push bike with a helmet.. fuck them... but IF i decide to go for a race, off road hoon, i will wear one... but if i am just slowly riding around the, in no hurry to get anywhere, i will not be wearing one...

[Sanx]

...about the only time I can think a helmet might make a crash worse.

Based upon my highly scientific research (i.e. I occasionally look and notice) most cycle helmets aren't fitted. Provided they're actually fastened in the first place, they're often too loose. In the event of an accident the helmet can be pushed forward on the head, which concentrates the impact force on the bridge of the nose. And I'm sure a medic will tell you what happens whenn the bride of the nose gets focibly broken by a blunt object and the shards of bone pushed back into the brain.

[madandy]

Pro-choice is great.
Now go get some full private medical insurance so my tax dollar doesn't have to pay for your brain surgery in the unfortunate event that you require your head fixing.

[skidMark]

hang on...hes on a pushbike.....pushbikes don't have numberplates....

why the fuck did he stop...

i never wear a helemet on a pushy they look gay...i did once wear one piece leathers and a helmet on my pushbike once for a laugh.

[madandy]

Why do you wear that orange reflectve vest thingee?

[skidMark]

By MARTY SHARPE - The Dominion Post | Saturday, 01 December 2007

Nomination for the Darwin Awards?

A hamilton n00bwith 11 unpaid fines for refusing to wear a bike helmet has been told some will be swapped for community work if he buys a helmet and brings it to court.

The problem is Zeroindex, 21, has sold his bike - but reckons he will buy a cheap helmet anyway, to save a bit of money. He has refused to wear one because he says "they look dorky". Getting fined $185 for not wearing a bike helmet would persuade most people to start wearing one. But 11 fines later - the first in 2002 and the most recent in July - he still does not have a helmet. Nor has he paid a cent of the fines.

He was arrested on Thursday for having outstanding fines of $4320 - of which $2035 were for not wearing his helmet. The others were for various driving offences and disorderly behaviour. Zeroindexappeared before a bewildered Judge Bridget Mackintosh in hamilton District Court yesterday.

"Mr Zeroindex, why would you not wear a cycle helmet?

"Do you have a problem with that?" she asked, failing to elicit a response.

"I tell you what, you'd have a big problem if you were involved in an accident without a helmet. You know that?"

"Um, yeah," Zeroindex responded.

"This is ridiculous," said the judge, ordering him to buy a helmet and bring it back to the court in two weeks. She said if he showed her the helmet on that day she would remit some of the fines in return for a sentence of community work.

Talking to The Dominion Post later, Zeroindex said he had sold his bike not long after his last offence and now walked. He said he was happy to do community work rather than pay the fine money and he planned to buy a cheap helmet before going to court next time.

"I'll never use it, but it'll save me heaps."

they got the napier bit wrong...Zero index is from hamilton...

[skidMark]

Why do you wear that orange reflectve vest thingee?

cowpoos thought he would take the piss at the memorial trackday and make me look like a dick, so i went along with it hahahaha

all in good fun for a laugh LOL