Re: another town having trouble with law breakin cyclists

On 02/10/2010 13:07, Tony Raven wrote:

JNugent wrote:

The logic that says its OK to ride public hire vehicle without a helmet but
not your own is?

Easy.

The same logic which says that you may drive a car three years old or older
to a MOT-testing station even though it hasn't got a MOT certificate. And
that you can legally drive it home again even if it has failed the test.

Try doing that without seat belts and see how you get on.

What point are you trying, but failing, to make there?

The same logic that says that a police-car driver may break the speed limit
in an emergency even though that limit is supposed to represent the limit
of "safe" speed on that stretch of road (and will be bullishly asserted as
such by nutters like Brunstrom and his adherents).

That is someone that has been trained for those circumstances and it is only
allowed if the needs of the emergency justify the increased risk to the public.

That defence in law does not require such training.

The same logic which says that a driver may ignore the seat-belt
requirement when carrying out any maneouvre which involves reversing, or
whilst pregnant, or when suffering from a medical condition which makes the
wearing a seat-belt "difficult".

But not for anyone driving along in normal circumstances and without special
medical exemptions.

The point is still that wearing the seat-belt is seen as an essential safety measure, but even though essential, its requirement can be waived in certain circumstances. Those circumstances don't have to be forced on the citizen. The journey doesn't have to be either essential or urgent. Sight-seeing along Blackpool Promenade on a late October evening is fine.

The same logic which says that members of certain religious groups are
exempt from the safety-related requirement to wear a crash helmet whilst
riding or being carried on a motor-cycle.

About the only thing you posted that comes anywhere near. But that would only
provide an exemption to those people from wearing cycle helmets. Choosing to
ride a Boris Bike isn't yet considered a religion and those some grounds
would apply equally to someone riding their own bike.

Either a crash helmet is an essential safety tool or it isn't. The law says it is. But there are still non-urgent and non-essential circumstances where the law requiring its use is relaxed.

The same logic which - albeit in certain specified and limited
circumstances - can provide a defence of force majeure against an
excess-alcohol driving charge (eg, doctors rushiung to - but not from - the
scene of a medical emergency where their services are urgently required).

But not without some external force majeure which requires it. I don't see
people being forced to ride Boris Bikes at gunpoint but maybe you do.

Calm down, dear. They are examples of a principle at work.

They don't have to be identical to the case you put. They only have to be analagous. And they all are.

Why go to all that complication when you could just accept
treating all cyclists as the same. Either its dangerous enough to need a
helmet or it isn't.

An amended law would have at its base that the requirements of ssfaety *do*
require a helmet to be used but that there are some - limited -
circumstances where that would not be competely practical and that the law
may be relaxed in some of those circumstances.
Just the same sort of principle that is seen in action in each of the five
examples I have provided for your delectation, above. Not, of course, that
you were unaware of them.

I was aware of them.
Quite what most of them have to do with voluntary riding
of a Boris Bike being different in law to riding your own bike I fail to see.

*Of course* you "fail" to see it.

Seeing it would undermine your position.

So you won't see it.

I can see though that if there were a mandatory helmet law you might make an
exemption for turban wearers.

Or for persons still recovering from certain sorts of head injuries. Or for persons whose helmet has been stolen or damaged whilst engaged in a journey and who ned to get home and get their property home. All sorts of reasonable temporary waivers could suggest themselves to a reasonable person.

But of course, their existence doesn't buttress your dogmatic belief that helmets should never be compulsory. You know... the sort of belief some people used to have about seat-belts.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: another town having trouble with law breakin cyclists
    ... exempt from the safety-related requirement to wear a crash helmet whilst riding or being carried on a motor-cycle. ... Choosing to ride a Boris Bike isn't yet considered a religion and those some grounds would apply equally to someone riding their own bike. ... An amended law would have at its base that the requirements of ssfaety *do* require a helmet to be used but that there are some - limited - circumstances where that would not be competely practical and that the law may be relaxed in some of those circumstances. ...
    (uk.rec.cycling)
  • Re: JC isnt Reading for Comprehension
    ... that skiing and riding are identical activities. ... They do have helmet use in common. ... that one doesn't like about the law itself. ... I'd already been discussing riding horses. ...
    (rec.equestrian)
  • Re: Helmets anyone?
    ... I have spent a great deal of time studying the evidence, ... The same is not the case with seat belts in automobiles. ... Seat belt laws are a great example of the law of unintended ... assume that wearing a helmet will not affect your likelihood of your ...
    (rec.sport.unicycling)
  • Washington state helmet hassle
    ... We'd just covered over a thousand miles of touring, camping out and seeing the sites in Eastern Oregon, Washington and Idaho. ... I then told him there was nothing wrong with my helmet and showed him the DOT sticker on the back of it. ... The new law, effective on the 22nd says that Washington is going to adopt federal guidelines for helmet construction." ... I decided to try to obtain a link to the NHTSA's standards for helmet construction. ...
    (rec.motorcycles.harley)
  • Re: To our UK, Lebanese, & Egyptian brothers
    ... so if a person owns a company that makes bicycle helmets, they pay ... >their money back X 10 because of this law. ... I'm sure the bike helmet industry has one hell of a powerful ... >Should people also be arrested for buying their kids dirt bikes and the ...
    (alt.marketing.online.ebay)