Early Day Motions (EDMs) are a means by which MPs promote their pet causes. Organisations will often persuade an MP to table an EDM to promote their cause or raise awareness of it. Be-HIT, a cycle hemet advocacy organisation more noted for their zeal than their accuracy, persuaded Alan Meale to table this EDM trotting out the usual inflated claims (which, as we all know by now, having read the links around this site, even their original authors have since stepped back from).
At least one MP is considering tabling an amendment correcting the more obvious factual errors, for example the quoted number of annual serious child cyclist head injuries is in excess of the total recorded annual cyclist injuries for all ages and severities.
But I believe a significant issue remains. These claims have been repeated so often that many legislators accept them without question. There is (albeit questionable) research behind them, the claims are made by educated people, doctors, and have beeen published in learned journals - and yet, when mandatory helmet legislation is passed based on these claims, cyclist head injury rates stubbornly remain the same. Victoria, Australia, and in British Columbia are probably the best-known examples. Any fall in injury numbers is in proportion to the drop in cycling numbers which inevitably follows passage of a helmet law (another observed phenomenon which only Be-HIT apparently deny).
I would therefore like to persuade an MP to table the following EDM:
Suggestion 1That this house recognises that there is a significant disparity between the claimed benefits of pedal cycle helmets and the observed effect in whole population and time-series data; notes that claims are made by advocates of bicycle helmets of up to 85% reduction in head injuries; notes that mandatory helmet laws in New Zealand, Australia and Canada, have not reduced the proportion of cyclists suffering head injuries, nor is there any discernible effect in head injury rates from the growth in helmet wearing in the UK or the US in recent years; notes that the reasons for this disparity are not understood although bodies including the Transport Reserach Laboratory have advanced possible explanations; recognises that the Department for Transport has already taken policy decisions based on a report which accepts the claims of helmet advocates and fails to acknowledge or address the evidence of lack of effect in whole population and time-series data; therefore calls on Her Majesty's Government to initiate a programme of research designed to establish: why increases in helmet wearing rates are not associated with reductions in head injury rates; why the countries with the lowest cyclist injury rates are those with the lowest helmet wearing rates; and why an item of personal protective equipment which is officially endorsed, widely used and strongly promoted does not appear to yield any measurable benefit in practice.
Suggestion 2That this House notes the substantial disparity between claims made for the efficacy of pedal cycle helmets and their measured effect in real populations; notes that the Transport Research Laboratory report that promotion of pedal cycle helmets may lead to increased injury rates and have suggested that further research is necessary; notes that while claims of up to 85% reductions in head injuries are widely quoted, increases of up to 50% in helmet wearing rates have not led to any differential change in injury rates in cyclist vs. pedestrian populations in the UK, Australia, Canada and the United States; notes that cyclist injury rates remain unchanged following passage of mandatory helmet legislation in several countries; recognises that cyclist safety is associated with the numbers cycling; notes that helmet promotion and compulsion are associated with reductions in numbers cycling; recognises that a recent report for the Department for Transport failed to address the issue of why the claims of helmet advocates are consistently not reflected in whole population and time-series data; therefore calls on Her Majesty's Government to initiate a programme of research designed to establish: why increases in helmet wearing rates are not associated with reductions in head injury rates; why the countries with the lowest helmet wearing rates are those with the lowest cyclist injury rates; and why an item of personal protective equipment which is officially endorsed, widely used and strongly promoted does not appear to yield any measurable benefit in practice. |