An excellent piece of tabloid journalism from the BBC News site:

Call for law change on quad bikes

“Doctors say the law should be changed to force people who use road-legal quad bikes to wear helmets.

Accident and emergency medics say lives are put at risk because riders do not have to wear protective gear – despite the fact the bikes can reach 90mph.”

Oh my word! Think of the children! Something must be done!

And yet…

“There are no separate statistics on the numbers of quad bike crashes, but two particularly high-profile accidents have made headlines and brought the dangers to wider public attention.

In 1998, comedian Rik Mayall suffered serious head injuries and spent five days in a coma after his quad bike overturned while he was riding it at his farm in Devon.

In 2003, rock musician Ozzy Osbourne spent eight days in a coma, broke eight ribs and punctured a lung while riding a quad bike in the grounds of his Buckinghamshire mansion. He was not wearing a helmet at the time of the crash.”

So there’s nothing to support such a cry for us to be protected from ourselves. And clearly the high profile accidents took place off road. Not sure what a crash helmet would have done to save Ozzy’s broken ribs and punctured lung, but hey, let’s not let facts get in the way of a hysterical piece of so-called journalism.