"Scrap bike helmet law" says health expert

[dcrofty]

I read a report (trying to find online) where a researcher studied the distances kept by cars from cyclists when cyclists wore helmets vs when they didnt...

Motorists gave more room when cyclists had no helmet (and more room to females than males!). They concluded that this MAY reduce the chance of a crash. Obviously the problem of not wearing a helmet becomes apparent if and when you do actually crash...

I think I read that one. If its the one I think it was the dude got his figures about giving females more room by riding around in normal clothes and then putting on a dress and pretending to be a woman and comparing the reactions he got.

I always wondered whether that meant that drivers give more room to women or just try to stay the fuck away from men pedalling around in drag.

 

[frensham]

Adults don't always make good decisions.

Remember the head/brain injury a helmet saves could be yours.

I will be wearing a helmet!!!

Good for you! BUT this thread is not about whether you will or would wear a helmet. It's about a law FORCING you to wear a helmet. If the law is repealed you will still have the right to wear a helmet. I can assure you, no-one will stop you. The thread is about having the right to make that choice.

 

[frensham]

Well, if you can hire a bike why not hire a helmet at the same time (with a free hair net or similar). What's the big deal??

Ahhh, I think you need to take a look at the rationale behind the City Bike Scheme - Helmet hire just would not be feasible.

Here is a much better idea. Create (as other cities with compulsory helmet laws have done) a Helmet Law Exclusion Zone for the City Bike Program.

 

[okkie]

I just think not enough people have landed on their heads on concrete without a helmet on... They should run outside, bash their heads and tell us what they think then....

 

[GeoffR]

Laws are often designed to protect people from their own stupidity.
A few years ago I went o.t.b. at walking pace from the the top of a big mound and landed head first, destroying my helmet & making me a temporary quadriplegic. Thankfully, following some serious surgery I'm now pretty much normal, but without the bit of shock absorbence the helmet provided I'd be in a wheelchair needing 24/7 care.
Accidents can happen in the simplest of situations. Like safe sex, wear a helmet & protect yourself!

 

[Arete]

Laws are often designed to protect people from their own stupidity.
A few years ago I went o.t.b. at walking pace from the the top of a big mound and landed head first, destroying my helmet & making me a temporary quadriplegic. Thankfully, following some serious surgery I'm now pretty much normal, but without the bit of shock absorbence the helmet provided I'd be in a wheelchair needing 24/7 care.
Accidents can happen in the simplest of situations. Like safe sex, wear a helmet & protect yourself!

Or - you crashed at walking pace and you still ended up with a serious head injury which the helmet didn't prevent.

I've crashed before, ruined helmets and suffered head injuries - given the choice of helmet or no helmet I choose helmet. I've worn one for so long I kind of feel weird riding a bike without one on. Helmets get destroyed in crashes because that's what they are designed to do.

HOWEVER (and it is a big however) helmets are NOT I repeat NOT designed to protect you from the forces involved in getting hit by a car - or even crashing at significant speed on your own. The fact you destroyed a helmet AND suffered a significant head injury does not mean the helmet prevented a more serious injury. It means that the impact to your head exceeded the ability of the helmet to protect you from injury. As such, don't fall into the mindset that a helmet is going to offer you any sort of protection in a serious head impact on the road - they aren't designed for that. It's like insisting on driving in a convertible with the top up in case you have a rollover accident.

......

A hypothetical - we take Terry the lab rat, put him in a stryofoam cup and drop him off the lab bench. The cup partially crushes, Terry climbs out injury free, all well and good.

Phase 2, we take Terry and an identical cup down to the driving range, pull out the 1 wood and belt the crap out of him. Cup disintegrates, flying off in all directions, rat goes 100m down range. When we find him Terry is badly hurt, but miraculously, still alive. "Oh gee, glad we put him in that cup, or he'd be dead for sure!" Sound silly? It is - the driver vastly exceeds the cup's ability to protect Terry from the force of being struck, disintegrates and allows virtually all the force to be transferred to Terry. His survival has little, if anything to do with the styrofoam cup.

"I got hit by a car at 50km/h. My helmet was destroyed and I was in a coma for a few days. Gee if I wasn't wearing it I'd be dead!" This is a 50km/h crash test.

You can crush your average bike helmet in your bare hands. Doesn't take a mathematician to work out the energy expended in obliterating yuor helmet is negligible in this scenario.

 

[frensham]

I just think not enough people have landed on their heads on concrete without a helmet on... They should run outside, bash their heads and tell us what they think then....

A few years ago I tripped over whilst walking down the street and my head hit the concrete pretty hard. Should I now propose a law that makes it compulsory for all pedestrians to wear a helmet whilst walking down the street?

 

[rstwosix]

What is it about Australia? As a nation we seem to love being whipped into shape and beaten around the head (no pun intended) by government rules & regulations. Is it our penal colony past? We just love being told what to do. More and more we live in a 'Granny State'.
Travel around Europe and the United States and you find people have more of an attitude of wanting to decide for themselves what they do. A lot more people ride bikes over there and a lot of them don't wear helmets.
I'm with the professor on this one - repeal the law and get more people on bikes. Wearing a helmet is good sense, but making people wear one is dumb.

 

[flamin'trek]

In countries that do not have helmet laws more people ride bicycles. They do not have any more serious injuries than we do (per head of capita). Let adults make their own decisions. I rode bikes for many years before helmet laws and never had a problem.

I'm not sure of the link between helmet laws and bike usage is valid. The places with higher usage probably have much better facilities, shorter distances, better parking, more acceptance of a bit of BO and messed up hair etc, it may just be a coincidence that helmets are not compulsory there. If you want you can get a study or statistic to prove anything. Fact is it's safer with a helmet.

Saying 'I won't ride if I have to wear a stupid helmet' is just a lame excuse to stay lazy. I know my helmet is a pain sometimes, but I put up with it coz its a law. If there was no law then most riders would probably take more risks without a helmet on the short/slow/cruise trips. Before the laws even serious roadies and MTB'ers didn't wear helmets.

maybe we do need a helmet free zone for a hire a bike scheme, but if you are hiring a bike then you can probably hire a helmet without too much hassle.

I still believe the laws should stand.

 

[mishrob]

Helmets save lives, what is going to be in between your skull and the road, tree or anything else. There would be many people out there that would be dead if they did not wear a helmet.

I know it is one more law that we have to conform to, but the bottom line is that this law saves lives. Ask yourself this question:

Would you get into a car without wearing your seat belt?

 

[dain2772]

A hypothetical - we take Terry the lab rat, put him in a stryofoam cup and drop him off the lab bench. The cup partially crushes, Terry climbs out injury free, all well and good.

Phase 2, we take Terry and an identical cup down to the driving range, pull out the 1 wood and belt the crap out of him. Cup disintegrates, flying off in all directions, rat goes 100m down range. When we find him Terry is badly hurt, but miraculously, still alive. "Oh gee, glad we put him in that cup, or he'd be dead for sure!" Sound silly? It is - the driver vastly exceeds the cup's ability to protect Terry from the force of being struck, disintegrates and allows virtually all the force to be transferred to Terry. His survival has little, if anything to do with the styrofoam cup.

I would like to see you get ethics approval for that one!

poor Terry, never saw it coming.

 

[Mark S]

Let's just say the helmet laws were repealed. As soon as one persom, without a helmet, stacks and sustains a serious injury, the campaign would be on (hello Herald-Sun) to bring them back. The pollies / legislators know this, that's why nothing will change.

 

[Arete]

Helmets save lives, what is going to be in between your skull and the road, tree or anything else. There would be many people out there that would be dead if they did not wear a helmet.

T-shirts save lives, what else is going to be between a bullet and your chest? Ripping through a T-shirt is going to absorb some of a bullet's energy before it hits you - which will save your life. There would be many people dead if they did not wear a T-shirt to a gunfight.

 

[thecat]

Helmets save lives... There would be many people out there that would be dead if they did not wear a helmet.

Did you even read the report?

If you want to save lives you'd look at the cause of the accidents. In most bike/ car collisions the drivers claim not to have seen the rider. Making high viability vests and wearing a flashing light on your head mandatory would prevent more accidents and therefore save more lives and thus make more sense and mandatory helmet laws.

 

[jbro24]

A number of European countries have Strict Liability, where it's always the motorist at fault when they collide with vulnerable road users like pedestrians and cyclists. (This applies equally to a cyclist hitting a pedestrian - the cyclist is at fault).

Basically, cars kill. Those who drive cars and kill or injure people are liable, simply because of the responsibility involved in operating a 2000 kg machine.

- Strict liability entitles a crash victim to compensation unless the driver can prove the cyclist or pedestrian was at fault.
- Strict liability encourages more careful driving (and cycling, because a cyclist would be deemed to be at fault for crashing into a pedestrian).
- Strict liability would be a matter of civil rather than criminal law so would not affect criminal prosecutions.

If we are going to scrap bike helmet laws then we need to look at amending other laws to improve safety for cyclist. (I am sure this could be a thread all on its own).

Until cyclist are given a basic level of respect by all drivers, I believe the helmet law should remain!

 

[PINT of Stella. mate!]

Accidents can happen in the simplest of situations. Like safe sex, wear a helmet & protect yourself!

You wear a helmet during sex? Kinky!

 

[Elbo]

One of the main problems I see with making helmet wearing a personal choice is that it creates a dilemma for parents teaching their kids to ride. Some parents will want their kids to wear helmets, others won't mind, and even still, others won't care. But if the child has an accident and sustains damage that could've been prevented by a helmet then who do you think will wish that helmet's were made compulsory again? (I'm not saying helmets are overly successful at saving their wearers from brain damage, and not useful at all for preventing neck damage, but they do save from fractures and the need for stitches.) People will get angry that they were given the choice in the first place… because they will point to anyone but themselves and say, "look what you've done in removing helmet laws."

The bicycle share scheme in Melbourne will not work while there are compulsory helmet laws, if I have my helmet then I also have my bike so I dont need to hire one, who carries a helmet around on the off chance they will need a bike?

Maybe the helmet laws need to be removed within the CBD as a trial to see if it increases short trips on bikes and kicks off the bike hire initiative.

On this note, perhaps removing helmet laws from CBD's is a good idea, combined with transforming specific laneways or boulevards from mixed users into cycling only arteries into the city, it could work well.
I don't understand why we have such crippled transport systems in Australia, from shocking train services in Melbourne to the flailing Melbourne Bike program, why don't we hire the experts from Japan for train services or successful urban designers with some form of knowledge about bikes for the bike program.
The helmet problem with the Melbourne bike program can be fixed—if the council was fully behind making it actually work. New York City asked fuse project to design a helmet specifically for NYC. Why can't Melbourne follow suite? Even if helmet laws are removed, these types of helmets can be left with each bike and worn by any number of people. Each person is given a "helmet skin" they can carry around (no bulkier than a beanie) and put over the shell so that it's all hygienic. (Sure, those fuseproject helmets look pretty ugly, but it just shows, the options are there to help fix these problems, with or without changing helmet laws—people can choose to wear a helmet and still not have to carry one around themselves.)
On the other hand, places like Paris, with its Vélib' system, run excellently without helmets.
See here for another opinion on helmets and bike share systems.


I guess I support changing the helmet laws only for inner city riding, to encourage more short trips, commuting and social interaction on the street. But this needs to be done in conjunction with making it much safer for bicyclists to ride at the same time. I'm still not sure about those who aren't able (or willing) to accept responsibility for their decisions for themselves and their children.

 

[Chul]

I am no expert but i believe they apportion the blame here...so the driver might be 80% and the pedestrian 20% etc ?

BTW. Using any single persons experience as a data point is terrible contribution to the discussion.

Personal Liberties discussions are always difficult. As always the answer is we need more shades of grey..but its too hard so the simpler black and white solutions always throw up stupid instances when singled out.

 

[Choppa73]

As many have already said common sense and personal responsibility is what is needed. This country has a morbid fascination with making laws to protect ourselves from ourselves. I will admit it now I hate nanny laws, all they do is dumb down the population and teach people to not think for themselves instead relying on laws to pass the blame for their own stupidity. Why must I be told to do what I already know to do?

I don't need a law to tell me what is safe and what is not, any human with an IQ over 1 would know that wearing a helmet will reduce injury should your head hit any foreign object, taking a walk down the street can be just as dangerous, so should we wear helmets when we walk the streets? I wear a helmet when I ride trails because the chance of falling off my bike is high, when I'm taking the dog for a run around our local parks I don't. Race car drivers wear helmets because head injuries in car accidents are very real, so should we make a law to wear helmets in cars when we drive on public roads?, it may save a life. I also wear padding to reduce the chance of injury/death but should we make a law that padding is compulsory because it may save the life of a person that doesn't wear protective equipment?

Laws only affect the law abiding and end up costing everyone in more taxes to support the people who need to look after the administration of the laws. I for one would rather see our police chasing criminals instead of chasing people riding in a park without a helmet. I would rather see the money spent on policing the law used to support the cycling community.

Thinking about it, me along with all friends grew up (late 70's early 80's) riding our bmx bikes everywhere without helmets, come to think of it none of us wore helmets. We would ride to the local bmx track and once there the competition would heat up to see who could jump the highest and furthest, touch wood none of us ever suffered a brain injury, actually none of us ever ended up in hospital, worst accident I can remember was knocking on the door of a local house and asking them to call our friends mum to come and pick up her son who couldn't ride home because he had sprained his wrist. So would that law have made any difference to us then, NO but it would have added to the taxes my parents were paying to make the law and enforce the law.

Its your head and body if you choose not to protect it then wear the consequences.

just my 2cents

 

[dcrofty]

This country has a morbid fascination with making laws to protect ourselves from ourselves.

How do you feel about the laws relating to not using asbestos anymore? Or fall arrest systems on work sites to stop the 16 year old apprentice from dying on the third day of their job?