Boris Johnson

A letter to when he was MP for, where I worked at the time.

Dear Mr Johnson,

Thank you for your letter of 14 Jan regarding the private member's Bill compelling helmet use for children. I am pleased that you will not be supporting the Bill.

I understand that your reasons for opposing the Bill are pragmatic. Presumably you are also swayed by the failure of such laws in other countries to deliver any measurable benefit, in my view the most compelling pragmatic reason for opposing this Bill. A similar law in Alberta has been followed by a rise in head injury rates, which is unexpected: normally the rate simply fails to fall, although cycling invariably declines sharply.

I am aware of the improving statistics on child cyclist head injuries. While these might be another pragmatic grounds for not legislating (the head injury rate is already falling very much faster than the helmet wearing rate is increasing), it is also possible that child cyclists are simply being scared off the roads as has already happened with large numbers of both child and elderly pedestrians. Mayer Hillman describes this in his book One False Move. The numbers cannot, after all, warrant making it a crime for a toddler to ride a tricycle in the park bareheaded.

I disagree with you, though, regarding BHIT. They promote neither cycling nor bike safety. They promote helmet use. They have said that once everyone wears a helmet, their work will be done - but half of all fatal cyclist injuries are not head injuries, and most of those cyclists who die of head injuries have other mortal injuries as well. BHIT have never provided evidence to support prioritising helmets above, say, roadcraft training. Logic dictates that it is wiser to prevent crashes: maintenance, skills training, conspicuity, respect for the rules of the road among both cyclists and drivers - these will prevent crashes. Once crashes happen, a helmet may or may not help. Mounting evidence suggests that while helmets may prevent many trivial injuries their effect on the primary mechanisms of traumatic and fatal brain injury is negligible (e.g. Curnow).

I am not sure why you have chosen to present the example of seat belt legislation as a success story. Perhaps you are unaware that this law led to a 14% rise in pedestrian fatalities, 40% in cyclists and 27% in rear-seat passengers - as far as I am aware the largest such rises ever recorded. The reduction in driver fatalities fell well short of predictions, and closer analysis shows that most of this was at the classic "drink-drive" times so is now generally attributed to the coincidental introduction of evidential breath testing machines (after which many fewer drivers were found to be over the limit following crashes).

Most of this was known at the time, not least from analysis of other countries with and without seat belt laws. The Isles report was particularly persuasive but it "disappeared" prior to the final debate on the seat belt law and is known primarily through a leaked copy published some years later. As a journalist I know this will strike a chord with you: inconvenient facts conflicting with a Government's pre-existing agenda were simply buried.

In many ways the seat belt law is a perfect example of how safety laws can fail: the research underpinning it concentrated solely on injuries and did not even consider the possibility that more crashes might happen. It is a case strongly supporting the theory of "risk compensation," the mechanism whereby safety improvements are subconsciously consumed as performance benefits. Including by cyclists. Anecdotal evidence indicates that adolescent males, in particular, will try things when wearing a helmet that they would not consider without. If, as sceptics claim, the evidence for the benefits of helmets is inconclusive, that is a strong argument for being very careful indeed about the way helmets are promoted, as the TRL acknowledged in their report no. 286.

We were born, it seems, less than six months apart. Presumably you discovered cycling, as I did, as a first taste of independent mobility. My children are starting to experience the same freedom, but against a much tougher background of roads choked with aggressive and often inattentive drivers. I am teaching them roadcraft skills. I hope the forthcoming Way to Go consultation will yield improvements for cyclists, and I'm sure you too will be watching that with great interest.

Thank you again for your reply, and your assurance that you will not be supporting this Bill. While our reasons may overlap only partially, we clearly agree that it is a bad Bill.

Yours sincerely,

Guy Chapman