This page sets the record straight in response to claims (e.g. by Eric Martlew MP, during a parliamentary debate on road safety in March 2005) that CTC's position on cycle helmets has been "discredited".

This claim relates to complaints which were taken to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over a booklet issued jointly by CTC, the Cycle Campaign Network (CCN) and London Cycling Campaign (LCC), in response to Mr Martlew's Private Members Bill which called for compulsory helmet-wearing for children.

The complaints related to 11 points in the leaflet and it is true that the ASA found the leaflet to be flawed on 7 of these points. However the seven successful complaints related to potential misunderstandings of relatively minor points in the leaflet, and not to any major points of substance in our argument.

On the other hand, three of the four complaints which ASA declined to uphold were much more significant; ASA ruled that the following statements in the booklet were justified:

• "The likelihood of serious head injury is widely exaggerated"

• "Cycling gets safer the more people do it."

• "The benefits of helmets in reducing injury are greatly overstated"

CTC's briefing on the ASA ruling shows that, by contrast with the three key points above, the seven upheld complaints represent no more than minor details of wording.

At around the same time, the ASA also considered complaints in relation to four points in a leaflet published by the Bicycle Helmet Initiative Trust (BHIT), the sponsors of Mr Martlew’s Bill. BHIT opted to settle the complaint informally, i.e. it agreed not to repeat the claims. This is somewhat like an 'out-of-court settlement' of the matter, and it means that ASA's draft ruling was not considered by ASA's board for confirmation, and it cannot now be published. However we understand that the draft ruling against BHIT was far more damning than that against the joint CTC/CCN/LCC leaflet.

BHIT’s claims that "50 children a year under the age of 16 still die of cycling related head injuries", that "a further 22,500 suffer head injuries", that "cycle helmets have been shown to reduce head injury by up to 89%", and that "at least 75% of head injuries would never have occurred had the cyclist involved been wearing a helmet" were all rejected outright.

This draft ruling is wholly consistent with ASA’s acceptance (in its ruling on our own booklet) that there is wide exaggeration about both the risk of serious head injury while cycling and the alleged benefits of helmets in addressing this risk.