You know the year is flying in when it’s already time for the Isle of Man parliament’s quarterly debate about cyclists and the law (that’s a joke, just in case your local MP gets any ideas).
Because, just three months after the island’s infrastructure minister was forced to insist that there are currently “no plans” to ban cycling on the Mountain Road – after a petition calling for the ban attracted a staggering 339 signatures – the Isle of Man’s political class are now calling for a mandatory helmet law for cyclists.
In a written question submitted to infrastructure minister Michelle Haywood in the House of Keys, the lower house of the Isle of Man’s parliament, Rob Callister, the MHK for Onchan, asked whether the government was planning to make wearing a helmet compulsory for people on bikes.
In response, Haywood said that there are currently no plans to introduce a mandatory helmet law for cyclists, noting that the Road Traffic Act 1985 prevents the Department of Infrastructure from implementing such a measure.
According to the Act, it is compulsory for people to wear helmets while riding a motorbike or a horse, but not a pedal cycle, while the Isle of Man’s Highway Code suggests that a helmet should be worn by cyclists, but does not require them to do so.
“Section 24 of the Road Traffic Act 1985 allows the department to make regulations that require a person driving or riding in or on a motor vehicle of a specified class or riding on an animal of a specified class to wear a protective helmet of a specified description,” Dr Haywood, the MHK for Rushen, said in her written response to Callister’s question.
“However, this provision does not allow the Department to make regulations to require cyclists to wear protective helmets.
“Under Section 59 of the Isle of Man Highway Code, it is suggested that a cycle helmet which is the correct size and is securely fastened should be worn, as opposed to must be worn.”
Isle of Man TT course (credit: Simon Wilkinson)
Haywood added that her department does not have any plans to update the Road Traffic Act in order to introduce a bike helmet law – though she did note that the situation will be “monitored”.
“At this time, the department does not have any plans to update the Road Traffic Act 1985 to allow regulations to be made that make the wearing of helmets for cyclists mandatory,” she said.
“However, this situation will continue to be monitored, as the safety of cyclists and all road users is a priority to the department.”
This is the second time in under three months that Haywood’s department has been forced to put the brakes on calls for legislation concerning cyclists.
In June, the department also insisted that it has “no plans” to prohibit cycling on the island’s Mountain Road – despite a petition calling for cyclists to be banned from the “perilous” route attracting over 300 signatures. Yes, that many.
The petition, titled ‘Ban cyclists from the Mountain Road in Isle of Man’ and launched by resident Lee Smith on change.org, concerned the A18 Snaefell Mountain Road, a fast-moving 13-mile-long A-road connecting Ramsey and Douglas and featuring a derestricted speed limit.
The road is also part of the famous Isle of Man TT and ascends steadily to an elevation of 400 metres above sea level, characterised by its sweeping bends and often changeable weather.
Cyclists are currently not allowed to use the route during the early summer TT season or during the Manx Grand Prix in August and September, periods when other vehicles using the road are also limited in that they are only permitted to travel in the direction of the course.
Cyclist stopped by police while riding on Isle of Man Mountain Road (credit: Chris Glencorse)
According to Smith’s petition, cyclists should be banned from the road at all times, because they cause a “backlog of traffic” while also “increasing the risk of collisions”, arguing that people on bikes cause the “risk factors to multiply”, and that they should instead be forced to use alternative routes “without interfering with primary traffic”.
The petition failed to grain much traction with the Isle of Man’s residents, however, attracting just 25 signatures during its first two weeks – until, that is, 3 FM, the island’s self-proclaimed “feel-good radio station”, shared the campaign online, causing the number of supporters to jump to 339.
Nevertheless, those 339 signatures – bizarrely – weren’t enough to spur the Isle of Man’s government into action, with the Department for Infrastructure later admitting that it is yet to receive the petition.
“We have no plans to restrict cyclists from any roads in the island, except during the TT period,” a spokesperson for the department said.
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Of course, the Isle of Man’s (albeit brief) helmet debate this week isn’t new to these islands, where calls for legislation governing cyclists’ protective equipment pop up on a regular basis.
In June 2023, for example, Conservative MP Mark Pawsey introduced a compulsory cycle helmet bill into the House of Commons, arguing that if mandatory safety measures are acceptable for motorists, they “should surely be acceptable for cyclists”.
Addressing concerns that a mandatory bike helmet law would be difficult to enforce, Pawsey said: “While it would certainly create an additional burden on the police, it doesn’t strike me as being particularly difficult to enforce in comparison with other offences.
“If mandatory safety measures are acceptable for car drivers, they should surely be acceptable for cyclists. Now we know that cyclists are the most vulnerable road users.”
Cyclists at traffic lights, London (credit: Simon MacMichael)
And in December 2022, the Department for Transport insisted that the then-Conservative government had “no intention” of making helmets mandatory, following a question from the Tory MP for Shropshire constituency The Wrekin, Mark Pritchard.
In response to the MP’s question, the minister of state for the department at the time, Jesse Norman, said the matter had been considered “at length” during the cycling and walking safety review in 2018.
Norman, himself the Tory MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire, also added that while the Department for Transport “recommends that cyclists wear helmets”, the “safety benefits of mandating cycle helmets are likely to be outweighed by the fact that this would put some people off cycling”.
That attempt to reintroduce the ‘helmet debate’ into the Commons came in the same week that a new study from Australia – where helmet wearing has been mandatory for over three decades – found that an alarming number of motorists view cyclists wearing helmets and other safety gear as “less human”.
Of the 563 people surveyed for the study, conducted by Mark Limb of Queensland University of Technology and Sarah Collyer of Flinders University, 30 percent considered cyclists less than fully human, while cyclists with helmets were perceived as less human compared to those without, while cyclists with safety vests and no helmets were perceived as least human.
“Our findings add to this growing research, suggesting that cyclists wearing safety attire, particularly high-visibility vests, may be dehumanised more so than cyclists without safety attire,” the study concluded.