From among the many valuable insights that were shared by some really excellent speakers at the 2024 MASS annual conference, it is one relatively casual reference which has continued to recur in my mind ever since.
It came during a discussion about representing the needs of injured cyclists, when I confess I was slightly surprised to learn that the mandatory wearing of cycle helmets was not something which received unwavering support from Cycling UK.
The Moral Dimension
From what I could glean from the comments of the Senior Policy Officer, Monica Scigliano (I would highly recommend her as a speaker, by the way), the evidence that cycle helmets actually offer the protection we all tend to assume it does remains – save in a handful of the most catastrophic cases – relatively scant, whereas the burden of a mandatory requirement has the effect of increasing the equipment cost to the would-be cyclist, who is frankly disincentivised and may very well decide not to bother at all, and thus fails to take advantage of a healthy pursuit (which brings its own challenges and cost to the public health system).
It’s what might be termed the “moral dimension”.
Now, I have not chased down the evidence in this instance, and my paraphrase may be an oversimplification of the issues. But this got me to thinking about the way in which we attempt to safeguard those who are most catastrophically injured by applying a rule which could appear burdensome to others.
On the one hand, we lawyers who represent the victim like ‘regulations’; we hold actions up against them and can tell when something has fallen short of a standard. We point to them, underline them in red, and then we highlight them in bright yellow ink.
Regulation vs Deregulation
Over the course of a career which began in the 1980’s, I have observed passages of time where it was felt necessary to massively increase regulation, inevitably followed by periods when we needed to deregulate.
We appear to be moving towards the latter again these days.
That may be fine. However, when doing so we still need to remember the victims.
If regulations are no longer there to protect members of the public, those poor souls who are killed or catastrophically (possibly even less seriously) injured have had their lives turned utterly and irredeemably upside down.
They are going to have to rely upon a robust application of the principles of common law to protect them once the regulators have left the field of play.
Legal VAR
If you will forgive me straying into another popular leisure activity in search of a metaphor: victims’ lawyers will continue to raise the “offside” flag, and members of the judiciary will be responsible for operating this legal “VAR”.
The moral dimension demands that in safeguarding a perceived wider public interest injured persons’ remain protected, and their representatives can and will vociferously remind those adjudicating that just because something isn’t regulated, that doesn’t make it acceptable, nor should it ever be an excuse for denying the victim his or her due recompense to allow them to rebuild a shattered life.
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“Cycle helmets, deregulation and VAR: the ‘moral dimension’” is a MASS original blog, first published on Tuesday 4th March 2025, written by Paul White, Senior Associate and Fatal Accidents Specialist, for Wolferstans Solicitors, a MASS member solicitors firm.