Compulsory helmets for cyclists

Professor Gandevia (December 2004 JRSM¹) says ‘Wearing helmets by all cyclists should also seem common sense’. Diffidently, I suggest that common sense dictates the use of protection, but not necessarily protection with a helmet. There are a few million Sikhs of the ‘Keshadhari’ faith. They wear their hair long, with a turban. A helmet over a turban would be hard to wear. As there are hundreds of thousands such Sikhs in Europe and Australia—and they do use the push-bike amongst other modes of transport—it should be possible to conduct an epidemiological study of the value of the turban in protecting against head injury. On a historical (and legal) note: Lord Devlin gave judgment some forty years ago in favour of a Sikh motorcyclist who refused to wear a helmet.