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This article is now available as audio in two parts on AudioBoo.
Ethical Consumer has a feature called Love this, ban that! which asks an assortment of the green and the good which saintly products they love and which evil ones they’d ban. Sadly, only Mayor Boris took the opportunity to challenge the premise that banning things is the best way to steer society down a more sustainable path and to allay the well-founded suspicion among many outside the green ghetto that environmentalists tend to be ban-happy authoritarians.
Inexplicably, Ethical Consumer didn’t contact me to take part in their survey but I’d like to nominate the bicycle as my favourite “ethical consumer product” and the cycle helmet for an immediate, total ban backed up with the full force and violence of the criminal justice system.
I hope that choosing the bicycle as my preferred product needs little explanation or justification but my proposed ban on cycle helmets might be a little more problematic. For a long time I’ve harboured the suspicion in my more paranoid moments that there’s some kind of collusion between the road/oil lobby and elements of the cycling fraternity to ensure that cycling in Britain remains a marginalised, unpleasant and largely despised activity.
For those of us looking to travel between around a mile and eight miles without an extreme amount of cargo, the bike should be the default choice. Done right, cycling is convenient, cheap, safe, accessible, fun and sustianable.
It’s not possible to uninvent the bicycle but if Shadowy Forces wanted to minimise the number of people cycling so as to benefit their Evil Agenda they’d probably want to chip away at all the things that make cycling potentially great so as to diminish the whole experience. If you can’t ban it, knacker it.
Here’s how to do it:
Cycling is cheap? Can’t have that. Now, let’s see. Let’s start at the obvious place by making bikes more expensive. Load them with features that cost more to build (complex braking systems, gears, suspension) and require expensive expert maintenance rather than DIY. Turn the bike from an everyday utilitarian thing, a utensil, and make it a product. Desirable. Fashionable. Consumerable. There’s a lot of choice, so shop around. Read reviews. Get recommendations. Worry, because it matters. Who’d want to be seen riding a cheap bike? An unfashionable bike? A tatty bike? Now accessorise. That expensive bike needs an expensive lock — or two. Got to protect your investment. Buy insurance. (Shop around, shop around.) Compare the tensile strengths and style options and get a helmet. A bone dome. A skid lid. Don’t be cheap — your skull could depend on it. Get a hi-viz jacket that’s more breathable than a string vest and only fifty times the price. Padded shorts for that tiny, bony saddle. Special shoes to couple perfectly with your special pedals. A messenger bag from this week’s premium brand.
Here’s the safety strategy: Make it less safe and make it feel less safe. The best way to make cycling less safe is for cyclists to ride faster. Encourage this wherever possible. Forget ambling, casual, pedestrian images of cycling. Emphasise sport, fitness, competition. Measure speed. Sell speedometers and odometers. Get people to monitor their performance. Track their MPH, their heartrates, their calories, their carbon footprints. Compare with others. Compete. Idolise road racers, couriers, extreme mountain bikers, BMXers. Alleycatters. Lance Armstrong. Jump the red light. Race other cyclists. Race cars. Race the clock. Race, race. It’s not fun unless you’re taking risks. Life is one big risk, right? Cycling just got a whole lot more dangerous for the sake of a marginal shortening of the average journey. Ohh, wipeout. Nice one.
Now the perception of safety. Talk about safety, safety, safety so everyone thinks danger, danger, danger. Don’t show images of cyclists without helmets, especially not children. Never children. Sending your children out on bikes without helmets is tantamount to child abuse. Don’t you care? Don’t you care about the children? Would you send them out to their deaths? Photos of cyclists without helmets are like images of people with cigarettes. Historical documents. Anachronisms. Forbidden outside the intellectual safety of the academy. Be safe, be seen. Hi viz. Yellow jacket, yellow jersey. £100 lights that can dazzle shipping 20 miles off the coast. Lumens. Got to get more lumens. You need a bell? You need a foghorn. Radar. Missiles, if you could get them. And you need training, because it’s a war out there. Drivers hate you. Pedestrians hate you. Other cyclists hate you. The law is indifferent, the police don’t care. Every other road user will kill you if they get a chance. Unless you get trained. Unless you can stay one step ahead of them. Unless you can get them first. So you go to boot camp. You get trained. You are approved. You are a Cyclist. You feel a little bit safer in that dangerous place. Until you see the ghost bike. Don’t be a statistic like the pallid, mangled wreck chained to the lamppost at the roundabout. Don’t be a victim. Go faster. Be a winner. Beat them.
Do you smell? People shouldn’t smell. If you cycle, if you cycle fast, you’ll smell. You’ll need a shower. Does your workplace have showers? No? Don’t cycle. Does the pub have showers? No? Don’t cycle. Does the shopping centre have showers? No? Please, don’t cycle.
If you don’t mind smelling, you can’t cycle to work because they don’t have lockers. You need a locker for your helmet. Your jacket. Your padded shorts. Your special shoes that couple so, so perfectly with your special pedals. Your quick-release (eezy-steal) saddle. Your lights and all their lumens. Your handlebar computer with its data, its intimate knowledge of your body, your performance, your lifestyle. Your hydration system. Your lock. You worry about your lock. It cost more than your first bike. And the bike itself? That needs a CCTV-monitored, thumbprint-secured, climate-controlled vault. A lamppost won’t do because your bike takes a month’s work to buy but only a minute or two to steal.
Are you fat? Don’t cycle. You don’t, do you? Fit people cycle. Fat people do not cycle. (Fat people do not swim. Fat people do not run. Soon, fat people will not walk.) Cycling is about fitness. Fat people, un-fit people, do not cycle. Fat people look ridiculous on bikes. Fat people look crap in lycra. Fat people look even more fat in lycra, if such a tragically hilarious thing could be possible. Fat people can only go slowly but cyclists must go fast. They must race. They must perform. They must compete. Fat people are not fast off the lights. Fat people do not look like Lance Fuckingarmfuckingstrong. Fat people must enshroud themselves in cars as a prophylactic against polite society’s sight of their ungainly self-propelled movement. Fat people must squeeze themselves onto buses and trains and tubes with all the other huffers and puffers, the children and the old people, the timid and the nearly dead. They say obese but you read fat. People like you are an epidemic. You are contagious and the things you must do to make the rest of us safe you are not allowed to do. Fat is getting thinner all the time. If you are fat, don’t cycle. You don’t, do you?
Cycle helmets are the most visible and potent symbol of all that’s wrong with Britain’s (anti-)cycling culture. Cycle helmets say we cannot cycle without the right precautions, the right equipment, the right infrastructure, the right training. Cycle helmets say there must be more to cycling than a person, two wheels and the surface of the Earth. Cycle helmets say that cycling is more dangerous than not cycling. Let’s ban them now before it’s too late. Let’s lock up all the people who buy them, who sell them, who use them. Let’s drag them off to jail in handcuffs, in tears.
Tags: bikes, cycling, environmentalism, risk
So, the author’s trying to persuade us all to ride in jeans on a crappy bike with a lock that’s easily broken, lighting our way with the weakest and most pathetic lights we can find? Is this a fashion statement? It doesn’t sound like an adult approach to cycling.
I hate miniature Lance Armstrongs as much as the next man, but to vilify people for buying comfortable and safe equipment to bike with is pretty retarded. Save your ire for the transportation planners, not other cyclists.
And obviously obviously obviously there’s no good argument for not wearing a helmet. Can we just stop this…?
Owen, please just do what you said: just stop this and save the arguing for the transportation planners.
So, stop arguing that cycling is inherently dangerous in need of a plastic hat and irately yell for better cycling infrastructure.
Here’s the problem: Mr. Short, in his attempt to write a piece of satire, has cyclists arguing amongst themselves. In reading this article, I can’t tell where the satire is meant to end and the serious argument is meant to begin. If his argument is that the wearing of helmets should be optional, then we can have a rational discussion. If he is serious that helmets should be made illegal on the grounds that they are a symbol of something that he finds distasteful – that other peoples right of choice to wear a helmet should be criminalized – then he is a fascist and I can only find consolation in the fact that he hasn’t a hope in hell of getting his proposal passed.
Every cyclists should be free to decide whether they wear a helmet or not when they ride.
If they do like to ride, like I like to live, they’ll probably decide to wear one of their own volition.
They should neither be banned nor be compulsory.
I was trundling along with my 11 year old step-son when an elderly woman doing 80kph nailed 90kg me and the clipped the young fella. Both of us were wearing helmets. The result was a written off Mitsubishi Lancer, my broken shoulder and some scrapes on my step-son. Both of us got up and walked away to ride another day. No shit. Smash on!
“…if helmets do work, why is this proving so difficult to see? In countries where helmets have been made mandatory, and where usage went from low to high levels almost overnight, there is just no real evidence of a concomitant drop in injuries. Indeed, what we see instead is a big drop in the number of people cycling, which is a disaster – far worse for public health than the few head injuries the helmet laws tried to prevent.”
http://www.howwedrive.com/2008/10/01/to-wear-or-not-to-wear-and-is-that-even-the-right-question-ian-walker-on-cycle-helmets/
Increased helmet use correlated with INCREASED rates of head injury:
http://lobv.org/15reasons.html
At last – a voice of reason in our over-risk assessed nanny state! Long live the freewheelers who pedal with the wind in their hair, wno enjoy the health-giving spontaneity of cycling!!
Fantastic! A joy to read. Thank you
Absolutely brilliant article and I commend your dry wit enormously!
As for fat people, I saw a 20 ton girl riding her bike today, I hesitate to say it was just as Freddy Mercury envisaged. Thing is she was doing something she loved and I admire that, and the fact she bothered to get off her arse.
Love it. You have captured my sentiments entirely.
I can only assume that Mr Short was either bored, had been taking a number of illegal substances when he wrote this or this was intended as comedy, but i can’t be sure. To be honest I’ve not read so much rubbish for a long time !!
Think about it, you are being given the choice to use a piece of equipment which could minimise injury in the event of an accident. That’s it, nothing more.
What he seems to have missed is that we all have the power of choice. If you don’t want to wear a helmet, don’t, it’s up to you. But don’t whine if you fall off and smack your head on a kerb. A helmet won’t stop the idiot in the car from hitting you, but it might minimise any damage should you hit your head on the road. From experience, and a number of broken helmets, I can say that they’re worth it. But guess what….. if you don’t want to wear one, don’t !
The same goes for everything else written on here, if you don’t want to, don’t. No one’s forcing you. I seriously don’t understand the point of this article. If you want to get on a bike and pedal, do so. If you want to dress head to toe in Lycra, do so. Simple.
This article seems to be a rant for the sake of it. I might write one about whether I should mow my lawn or not. I don’t have to, but it’s a good idea…… hmmmm I think I’ll have a moan about the fact that the choice is mine but it could be beneficial to myslef.
Mr Short you are a knob!, if you dont want to wear a helmet don’t that’s your choice……erm….that’s it, no need to write a frankly unfunny ‘rant’ about it.
Fabulous read – thanks
listen mate – get a life. leave people alone, if you don’t want to wear a helmet – don’t. just don’t try to tell other people what to do. have you not heard of the concept of PERSONAL CHOICE?
I love how 98% of the commenters think this is a rant about helmets. Way to miss the point.
spot on
funny stuff but…
two couples, friends of mine, were out leisurely riding along and stopped to take in a great view. one of the gals was rolling to a slow stop, put her foot down, stepped on a small rock and fell over backwards. hit her head on a bigger rock and has permanent brain damage. a helmet would have absorbed that hit.
i’ll keep my helmet on. they can fix my knee if it gets busted up but not my brain. i have no intention of relearning the alphabet if i can in any way help it. i bike 7 to 8 thousand miles a year.
Rick, isn’t that story arguing for wearing helmets all the time, or at least while camping or spending time in places where you can step on rocks?
Getting sweaty is not directly related to smelling bad. You don’t necessarily need a shower after a bike ride. Unfortunately, some don’t commute by bike for fear of this.
I shower before going to work, and put on normal clothing. 13 miles later, I put on a fresh shirt and I am ready to work. Even in 100 degree weather.
I asked my coworkers about this and they say I am fresh as a daisy. No, they are not just being nice to me; we give each other grief all the time.
It’s not the sweat that stinks; it’s the action of the bacteria working on it, and mostly on the secretions of the apocrine glands (concentrated in the armpits and groin). It takes time for the bacteria to make the sweat stink. The apocrine sweat glands are not very active during physical activity. They release oils that can smell after exposure to the bacteria on the skin . The merocrine sweat glands are the most active during physical activity, and are the glands that cool us off. They release mostly water and salt.
So ride your bike to work and don’t worry about having a shower waiting there for you. If you are reasonably hygienic, you will be fine.
Great article! Thanks for the insightful read! not all of the readers will understand your topic is about much more than plastic hats.
I love this story and all the comments are entertaining as well… and I want to say to David Wiley, who suggested “That’s just capitalism” about selling more higher priced garbage… well, maybe capatalism is the problem, hm?
Excellent. Simply excellent.
If I think this is about helmets and am missing the point, could you please explain the point?
Who’s running this conspiracy?? When I go to work, everyone just says how much they hated trying to overtake the cyclist on the way in. I think that’s the biggest impediment to cycling: other road users hate us.
I wear a helmet and cycle every day. I would always wear one under any circumstances, as I value my head and wish to protect it. I’ve crashed and struck my head on a bus, and the road, and walked away twice. My helmet is the most valuable item I have, and cost about 1/20th that of my bike. It is hardly noticeable while riding, so why wouldn’t you?
Old people shouldn’t cycle either. As a society we should discourage them from cycling whenever possible. Place them together in assisted living facilities and drive them around in buses. Much safer. Much better for them. If they were to cycle, then they would want nicely built bicycle paths and a transportation infrastructure that supported cycling. It would be like Amsterdam everywhere. Who wants that?
Viva La Revolution! Once you stop drinking the cycle-fear cool-aid, things look different. Want people safely riding bikes? Safety in Numbers. Get more people out there. Thus, avoid things that make biking look like a dangerous, pain in the ass. Now, that the cool-aids is wearing off, my head feels better. Oh, that’s cause I don’t have that dammed helmet on anymore…(Unless the conditions warrant(Snow…)).
Of course the proposal to ban helmets is tongue in cheek, but many of the responses prove Adrian’s basic point – people wildly overestimate both the dangers of cycling and helmets’ ability to reduce them.
Sadly it is all too easy to think of the worst case, however unlikely it is in reality, and base your planning on that.
If you are wondering whether or not to wear a cycle helmet, consider:
- increases in helmet-wearing rates have never led to reductions in cyclist injury rates
- a human skull can stand a harder impact than a cycle helmet can
- life-threatening impacts are way beyond the design strength of cycle helmets
- serious head injuries from cycling are rare – about as rare per mile as ones from walking
- any impact slow enough to be within cycle helmets’ design speed is slow enough for normal human reactions to prevent head impact altogether
- overall, cyclists live longer – the extra health is worth a couple of extra years of life on average.
YES! So well said! I live in America, and we have that same culture of fear. Sadly, I will continue wearing a helmet because it is so deeply ingrained in me – unless I’m on a bike path, I feel paranoid without one. I still live the happy bicycling lifestyle by keeping everything else simple.
Great rant. I posted it as a reprint on my blog.
Love your sense of humour. I like slow biking, it’s pleasant and fun. My wife and i cycled all around paris and Amsterdam.
In Canada it’s very hard to find slow bikes. I had to have two shipped to me from a used shop in Amsterdam. Cost me about $600.00 Euro all in, but the same Batavus bikes in Canada New are about 700.00 Euro each and there arn’t any used because anyone who buy one keeps it becasue they are so f-ing great to ride.
cheers
sw canada
“cycling is more dangerous than not cycling?” Of course it is. I’ve been cycling for thirty years, most of that time without a helmet. Today I wouldn’t get on my bike without one. Why? because I choose to wear one. I’ve looked at the arguments, assesed the data and decided it’s better to wear one. I might get hit from behind by some idiot or get crushed by an lorry, neither of which I can do anything about. But if I get knocked off and hit my head my helmet might save me.
I started wearing helmets years ago when a friend who worked as a nurse in the local hospital, told me of a case where a cyclist had been cycling down a gravel path, hit something, went over the handlebars and got scalped, his scalp had to be sewn back together, she said it was one of the worse things she had seen.
Personally I couldn’t care less what anyone else does. I choose to wear a helmet.