The Sisyphus Comments

Helmet Stap Hazard for Bike Cops

The following messages are taken from the IPMBA e-mail list. This is potenially a very serious issue and I thought I would post the original message and some of the responses from veteran police cyclist instructors.

Original Message – PCI Matt Langridge

Following an incident involving the near-strangulation of a bike officer by his helmet straps, IPMBA PCI Matt Langridge has begun researching the frequency of such occurences and exploring ways of preventing them, possible through some sort of breakaway device.

Could you put out a request for contact from Officers, Medics etc. around the world with knowledge of incidents involving Public Safety Cyclists who have experienced strangulation by their helmet strap during confrontations with suspects etc? This is to enable me to take my research further and better arm myself in correspondence with manufacturers.

I want to include also incidents where Cyclists have unbuckled their helmets before engaging subjects and have lost their helmets in struggles as well as incidents where helmets have remained fastened and have prevented injury in ’Combat’.

Could any responses be to my work address matt.langridge@thamesvalley.pnn.police.uk.

Response from Al Simpson

Matt,

Helmets, are made to protect your head during riding.

Your police self-defense training and equipment is meant to protect you during physical confrontations.

Because of that, I have stressed in every Police Cyclist Course that I have taught, to always wear your helmet during riding. But,….to either remove it or at least unstrap it during interaction with anyone. Whether it is the little old lady coming home from the grocery store, or contacts that may turn more confrontational

Ask anyone who has had experience, or training, in any martial art, grappling or wrestling, and they will tell you ,….If you can control a person’s head, you can probably control them.

A bad-guy grabbing your helmet can certainly cause the police officer to experience a lot of pain or injury, as well as losing control of the physical confrontation.

Police officers appear to be “creatures of habit”. Because of that,….getting into the habit of unsnapping your helmet when you exit the bike, and keeping the bicycle between you and the contacted person, to do anything or speak to anyone, is a great habit to have!

Response from Kirby Beck

I am in agreement with Al Simpson. Bike helmets are not designed nor intended to protect police officers during physical conflicts with offenders. They offer too much risk if left strapped on. In training, I too suggest officers unhook the strap when off the bike and dealing with suspects. I don’t do a good job of insisting upon it while conducting a class.

I just got back from the UK where we did an Instructors Course. We had three bike instructors from the Netherlands Police there. Besides bikes, they also teach firearms and fighting. They were near religious about unhooking their helmets whenever they were off the bikes. It this what they train, it is the policy of the Dutch Police and they exemplified what they taught!

There will always be examples where leaving the helmet strapped on has “saved” an officer, but every piece of equipment has pros and cons. I still hear occasional stories where NOT wearing a seatbelt allegedly saved someone’s life. Despite that fact, I’ll still take my chances wearing a seatbelt when I drive.

I do not have any person example of strapped vs. unstrapped helmet protecting an officer. An officer from a nearby town was struck over the head with a pool cue, but the blow was struck straight down and a buckled strap would have made no difference.

I believe that an unstrapped helmet in a fight is better than a strapped up one, knowing there will be times when it turns out wrong. Besides, if a dirthead takes your helmet you can always add the charge of possession of stolen government property!

Response from Ed Croissant

I am of the same philosophy as Al Simpson and stress that riders should unbuckle their helmet as soon as they step off their bike. I also stress to never ever talk to anyone while straddling the bike, if a bad guy grabs you while in this position, he owns you. With that being said, I had an incident several years ago where the helmet probably saved my life if from nothing else being seriously injured.

My partner and I were riding through a neighborhood that is on the outskirts of one of the worst projects in Tampa, for the politically correct that would be public housing. This neighborhood is rife with open air drug sales and people who don’t like the police especially the bike cops. I approached an individual who was yelling at another person while holding an open beer bottle, the open beer is a violation of city ordinance and arrestable. He had his back to me so I rode right up on him, dismounted, unstraped my helmet but left it on my head without him knowing I was there. As I approached him, I place my bike between him and myself as my partner was positioning himself behind him, whom he never saw either. I identified myself as he turned and looked right at me, so he knew I was the police and started to back up, I reached up and grabbed and as I did he swung the beer bottle at me and hit me right in the left temple. Fortunately my helmet was in place and the bottle never made contact. I then used the bike by pushing it into him and then pulled him over it.

Needless to say, he went to the hospital that night then to jail and I went home. We also recovered a revolver off of him and I had yet another death threat in that area. I love community policing!! There is no doubt that if the dent that that Budweiser Big Mouth bottle made in the helmet was instead in my head. It would have killed me or made me dumber then I already am.

Get off your bike, unbuckle your helmet strap and go home the same way you came to work, on your own two feet.