Wearing a helmet whilst driving

[flemke]

doogz said:

flemke said:

Is it not legal for a person who is blind in one eye to drive?

Yes.

Or No.

Depending on how you read that sentence, but if you are blind in one eye, you can still drive, a guy i know can only see in one eye, passed his test a few years back.

Exactly. Deaf people are allowed to drive, and a hearing person is allowed to drive with headphones on. One is allowed to drive wearing tinted lenses.
How would they define "helmet"? A construction worker's hard hat? A soldier's helmet? If the issue with auto racing helmets is peripheral vision, would such a law preclude open-face racing helmets, where there is no effect on peripheral vision?

[Mattt]

XG332 said:

If i were to be driving a road car with a full cage i wouldnt hesitate to wear a helmet.

Headbutting a roll bar even with padding, isnt going to go well.

I have a roll cage (leather trimmed) and don't wear a helmet.

[XG332]

Is it in easy head contact area?

We all know what happened to Hammond even though he was wearing a helmet. (extreme example)

[sjabrown]

When rallying I almost always remove my helmet for road sections between stages. The only times I haven't have been where the road section is little more than crossing a public road from forest to forest. To cut noise the rest of the time I use an intercom-headphone system.

[Ozzie Osmond]

flemke said:

Deaf people are allowed to drive

Yes

flemke said:

and a hearing person is allowed to drive with headphones on.

Don't bet on it. Same issue as a helmet.

flemke said:

If the issue with auto racing helmets is peripheral vision, would such a law preclude open-face racing helmets, where there is no effect on peripheral vision?

The issue is simply anything which reduces the driver's awareness of the situation around him so that he's not able to drive with "due care and attention".

[flemke]

Ozzie Osmond said:

flemke said:

Deaf people are allowed to drive

Yes

flemke said:

and a hearing person is allowed to drive with headphones on.

Don't bet on it. Same issue as a helmet.

flemke said:

If the issue with auto racing helmets is peripheral vision, would such a law preclude open-face racing helmets, where there is no effect on peripheral vision?

The issue is simply anything which reduces the driver's awareness of the situation around him so that he's not able to drive with "due care and attention".

Yes, same issue as with a helmet. If you could show us the language in the statute book that bans driving in helmets, headphones, sunglasses or anything else, I'm sure we'd all be interested.
DWDCA applies regardless of what you're wearing. If you're saying that you could get pulled and charged with DWDCA simply because you were wearing a helmet, with no actual evidence that your driving had been below standard, then I suppose that that is possible, and I suppose that it is possible that somewhere there would be a magistrate who would be simple-minded enough to convict on that basis. We have also had people here who have been pulled and charged because the witnessing officer disliked the way that they pulled out of a traffic-free junction. Anything can happen.
Just as with wearing a helmet, overtaking on the nearside is not proscribed. If, in the course of doing so, you drive without DCA, you may have a legal problem.
I believe that the OP's question was whether driving whilst wearing a helmet was disallowed per se. Unless someone can demonstrate that it is, it isn't.