DID you hear about the cycle helmet that was made of paper? Yes, it sounds like the first line of a joke, but Anirudha Surabhi’s invention is already on sale.

Instead of the polystyrene that lines standard helmets, Anirudha designed his with a double layer of paper in the shape of a honeycomb – creating tiny airbags throughout the helmet.

This helmet has met European standards, and is much better at protecting the head from serious injury than the polystyrene version; it absorbs more of the impact if you have crash.

Given that 40 per cent of people who are admitted to hospital after an accident on their bikes suffer a head injury, it is reassuring to learn of advances in helmet safety.

But why stop at better helmets? Much more could be done to keep cyclists safe on the road.

Thousands more people are discovering that two wheels are better than four and never has cycling been so fashionable. And yet, the risks to cyclists remain enormous.

Hardly a week goes past without us reading of a cyclist coming off their bike after a collision on our roads.

This week, I saw the aftermath of an accident for myself – a car turning right off Fulford Road and a cyclist felled on to the pavement.

Days earlier, I had had my own lucky escape. I was in the cycle lane on Heslington Road when a double-decker bus whizzed past my right shoulder at near touching distance. When I stopped swearing and shaking at the shock of it all, I rang the bus company, Transdev, to complain.

Encouragingly, they were very sympathetic and assured me they would investigate. Apparently many of their buses have CCTV fitted, so they are going to look see if there is any footage of the incident. If there is, I hope they show it to the driver and send them on a retraining course.

Ironically, one of the reasons people don’t wear helmets is that a study once showed that drivers were more aggressive to cyclists who wore them, perhaps seeing them as more proficient, or having more protection, and hence gave them less leeway on the road.

And yet the Highway Code is unequivocal. Rule 163 couldn’t be clearer: it tells drivers to “give motorcyclists, cyclists and horse riders at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car”.

The ideal, of course, would be for cyclists and motor vehicles to be kept apart and for more car-free cycle lanes to be built. That is a challenge for historic cities like York, and one our planners should make a priority.

In the meantime, cyclists should wear helmets for their own safety and motorists should overtake with more care.

And we’d all get where we’re going in one piece.

 

• MOVEMBER has firmly found its place in the calendar, when guys grow a moustache during the month of November for a brace of men’s health charities. Last year, efforts in the UK alone raised £15 million.

In a sad case of jumping on the bandwagon, sisters have dubbed January Fanuary and – yep, you’ve guessed it – urged each other to ban the bikini wax in favour of a more naturalistic look.

What was wrong with the Race For Life?

 

• ASTROPHYSICS student Gillian Finnerty is applying for the job of a lifetime – to set up the first human colony on Mars.

Gillian, 21, from Tholthorpe, near Easingwold, is one of 200,000 who applied for the job and is on a shortlist of more than 1,000 for one of the 24 coveted slots.

When I said it would be a job of a lifetime, I meant it. The logistics of it all would rule out a return to earth.

With this in mind, I can think of plenty of people I’d like to send on a one-way trip to Mars. The struggle would be limiting the list to just 24.