Nuxx:MPG.267d900ad5e3ba2c989781@news.zen.co.uk

Path: num2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!num1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!number.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!nx01.iad01.newshosting.com!newshosting.com!news2.euro.net!feeder.news-service.com!tudelft.nl!txtfeed1.tudelft.nl!dedekind.zen.co.uk!zen.net.uk!hamilton.zen.co.uk!reader02.news.zen.co.uk.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID:  From: Guy Cuthbertson  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling Subject: Helmets: The Story So Far Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2010 13:38:12 +0100 Lines: 36 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit User-Agent: MicroPlanet-Gravity/2.9.14 X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 100612-0, 12/06/2010), Outbound message X-Antivirus-Status: Clean Organization: Zen Internet NNTP-Posting-Host: 459b93f3.news.zen.co.uk X-Trace: DXC=hW3M60=KeJPR5C\68]hc6WYjZGX^207P[`<MJMoM3PF]kIf`JUoCg_WBH4535cfTOP1N;Z\_8Y_VP78h5\D2Lif^ X-Complaints-To: abuse@zen.co.uk Bytes: 3091 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:769221

So let's see if I've got this right. There is a small but vocal group of extremists who think that cycling is "morally superior" to motoring, and that this means that cyclists should never be made to do anything, no matter how sensible (and conversely, motorists should continually have absurd restrictions placed on them together with draconian enforcement). It's all for the common good; it's perfectly OK to use laws which are ostensibly about safety to conduct social engineering (i.e. "encouraging" people out of their cars and onto bicycles no matter how impractical it is).

And so that is why those people are so determined to show that helmets don't improve cyclist safety. They know that as soon as they admit that helmets *do* improve cyclist safety, they will get questions like the following: "If you think it's OK to make drivers wear seatbelts for their own safety, then surely you think cyclists should be made to wear helmets for their own safety as well?" And of course there's no way out of that but to agree with it.

In other words, the extremists are quite happy to compromise the safety of cyclists by pretending that helmets don't improve cyclist safety (and shouting down anyone who claims otherwise)...it's OK to take a position against cyclist safety as long as doing so encourages more people to cycle. It's the same with speed cameras of course: everyone knows by now that they make the roads more dangerous for cyclists, but that's OK, because they also discourage motoring and therefore encourage cycling, and a few lives lost here and there in order to fulfil that is just fine.

It's a despicable attitude, and the extremists should be ashamed of themselves. When are they going to start campaigning for proper cyclist safety rather than things which are dressed up as cyclist safety but are actually the polar opposite? No wonder they set up URCM...can't have people telling unpalatable truths like this in there, can we?

Blood on hands, and no amount of bullying/censoring of those who dare to say that helmets save lives will change that one iota. BLOOD ON HANDS.