Sir, – Your report on the Road Safety Authority’s (RSA) latest helmet campaign highlights the devastating, lifelong reality of traumatic brain injury (“One fall without a helmet changed my life forever”, News, October 9th).
Yet if the RSA asked people who cycle regularly what would make them safe, the overwhelming answer would be protective infrastructure.
The RSA regularly commissions observational surveys on compliance with helmets and high-visibility clothing, despite neither being required by law for people using pedal cycles. Absent from its research, however, is any evaluation of how much of an average commuter journey takes place on segregated cycle lanes. On my own daily 7km commute through Dublin city centre, it amounts to less than 50m of flexible wands.
The persistence of this blind spot reflects an outdated mindset. Rather than urging vulnerable road users to armour themselves against increasingly heavy vehicles, we should look to countries like the Netherlands. There, the safety of children cycling to school is achieved by providing them with high-quality segregated routes, not plastic coatings. – Yours, etc,
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Dr SHANE O’HANLON,
Dublin 6.
