The Bureaucratic Skull

Apparently, the human skull has a sophisticated understanding of vehicle classification.

At ordinary cycling speeds, a cycle helmet is regarded as appropriate. Travel more slowly on a small motorcycle, however, and the same helmet becomes legally inadequate. Not because the likely impact is necessarily greater, but because the machine beneath you has crossed an invisible bureaucratic frontier.

I have some personal experience here. I once came off what was, in essence, a bicycle with a 50cc engine attached, at well under 15 mph, and suffered a bilateral subdural haematoma.

So I am not arguing that low-speed motorcycling is harmless, nor that proper motorcycle helmets are unnecessary. Quite the reverse. Low speed is not the same thing as low consequence. The road, the kerb and the inside of the human skull are entirely indifferent to whether the machine has pedals, an engine or both.

A cycle helmet is accepted and recommended for a cyclist travelling at 15 or 20 mph, yet becomes legally inadequate when worn by a motorcyclist travelling more slowly. The road does not know which vehicle category you selected. Nor, as I discovered, does the brain.

The absurdity is not that the motorcyclist must wear a motorcycle helmet. It is that the law treats the adequacy of the helmet as depending more on the vehicle category than on the speed, the fall or the actual risk.

Naturally, there is a reason. The law likes simple categories. Bicycle: helmet optional. Motorcycle: approved helmet compulsory. It is tidy, enforceable and saves everyone the distress of having to consider circumstances.

But it does leave us with the curious conclusion that physics concerns itself with speed, force and impact, while British law concerns itself with which box the vehicle occupies on a form.

The skull, having once expressed a fairly robust opinion on the matter, remains unconvinced.