EDM 1783

The following is the text of Alan Meale's Early Day Motion 1783 from the 2002-2003 session.

BICYCLE HELMET INITIATIVE TRUST

That this House notes that every year in the UK approximately 28,000 children under the age of 16 years receive a serious head injury as a result of a cycling accident and that sadly a number die as a result, whilst for many others their accident will have a devastating impact on their life, in many cases restricting their abilities to develop, learn new skills, make new friends and face the lifelong challenges of the world; recognizes that by simply wearing a bicycle helmet 85 per cent. of such head injuries could be prevented; commends the excellent campaign of the Bicycle Helmet Initiative Trust to get Parliament to introduce legislation to enforce the wearing of helmets by all bicyclists in the UK; and calls upon her Majesty's Government to give its full support to such a proposal which would both save lives and stop injuries on our roads.

Key points:
 * 28,000 is the figure for all recorded child head injuries, not just those from cycling; this figure is higher than the total number of cyclists injured in the UK (all severities, all injury types). The actual number of child head injuries from cycling is closer to 1,200.
 * the 85% figure was amended by its authors in 1996, as anybody active in the field of road safety will be aware (see here for one reason the liddites keep using it)
 * the text of the EDM uses the usual compulsionist trick of casting the net as wide as possible when counting injuries, then describing the worst possible injury, thus implying that the number of serious or life-threatening injuries is several orders of magnitude larger than it actually is.