Angela Lee

. Angela Lee is a paediatric nurse from Reading who was the founder of the Bicycle Helmet Initiative Trust (aka BeHIT).

She tells a moving story of cradling a dying child in her arms who had suffered a cycling related head injury. At that moment she became a True Believer and set out on a holy crusade to make all cyclists wear helmets.

Ms. Lee is not a cyclist. She is not a doctor, either. But she is passionate about helmets, and she does appear to have believed, quite sincerely, that helmet wearing is an unequivocal good.

It is cruel to be nasty about Angela Lee, she really does mean well. Unfortunately, she has rather painted herself into a corner, and her approach is unsympathetic and uncompromising, so she's not very popular with those who are not fans of helmet laws. And with some who are, apparently.

The emergence of evidence challenging the black-and-white picture presented by helmet proponents, coupled with an increasing awareness of the need to promote a healthy and benign form of travel, have resulted in a somewhat more cautious approach among legislators (or "wimps" as Ms. Lee has called them). The conflicting evidence has been pointed out to Ms. Lee and to BHIT; their response has been to repudiate it or ignore it: the King Canute approach, if you like.

There are also stories of parents of injured children who have been contacted by Ms. Lee in order to try to use them as poster children; some of these have been initially favourable but have turned against Ms. Lee due to a perceived aggressive, uncompromising and manipulative approach. She has also engaged in shroud-waving, such as in the case of Troy Parker.

The story, then, is one of a woman who has taken on a crusade, but who may have been passed by the tide of history. A more nuanced and holistic approach to cycle safety, such as the Bikeability scheme, appears to be in the ascendant. She has raised the profile of cycling injuries, but has failed to realise that the true bogeyman is motor traffic, that the proposed remedy does not fit the danger and so does not appear to work, and above all that the reduction of danger at source is the most important way to improve safety in any activity.

But: Angela Lee is well-connected, has a lobbying company working for her, and will probably keep demanding until she gets what she wants or dies trying. She came dangerously close with the Martlew Bill. And of course a helmet law is a once-only change, no legislature is ever mature enough to repeal laws which don't work (hence Australia and New Zealand are still engaged in policy-based evidence making to support their laws.