> Coming to this news group from cyclingforums.com is like stepping from the rabit enclosure to the
> lions cage at a Zoo. I think that the welcome would be a lot warmer the other way round. Some
> people in this news group treat you like the son of the devil if you ever contemplated turning up
> at a race or have a bike that doesn't run of chain saw oil! Its very funny really.
Sorry if my reply seemed a bit unfriendly! Believe it or not this is one of the more pleasant
newsgroups I read - there's very little flaming etc and most of the 'aggro' you find is nitpicking
and of course the infamous urc pedantry. Little mercy is given in the helmet debates however, haing
been through several incredibly long threads in the recent past where the whole topic has been done
several times over. Hence long boring diatribes like mine - even if you're not convinced by the
argument the thought of having to wade through another overly long and badly written post should put
you off arguing the point
> Believe it or not, there are lots of cyclists that don't care if helmets are compulsary or not and
> just ride their bikes. For a new person visiting this news group it seems strange that a 'pro
> cycling newsgroup' would have such a problem over helmets - hence all the posts about it.
There's a private members bill going through parliament now seeking to make it madatory for kids
under 16 to wear helmets, before that there was an Early Day Motion about compulsory helmets for
people on bikes. BHIT, a rabidly pro-compulsion pro-helmet organisation is actively campaigning for
it to be made illegal to ride without a helmet. They have received a quarter of a million pounds of
public money to support their activities promoting helmets. They have also lied and mislead
parliament and actively and knowingly misrepresent figures, or failing that, just lie. To stop this
silliness we have, er, um well a few websites and letters to our MPs.
Helmets being compulsory would lead to a big drop in people cycling, less people taking up cycling,
and (strangely) no change in the safety of cylists. As a pro-cycling newsgroup this is a very good
reason to care if helmets are made compulsory!
> But thanks to Mark I stand corrected.
Yeah sorry 'bout that. Stick smilies at the end of any bits that seem aggressive.
If you haven't been there already www.cyclehelmets.org tells you almost everything about the
whole issue