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The Case for Not Wearing a Bike Helmet
Helmets have been mandatory in the pro peloton for well over a decade. Where’s the data that it’s helping?
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Bicycle Network campaigns for helmet law reform
Australia's Bicycle Network has come out in favour of reforming Australia's mandatory bicycle helmet law.
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Cycling Tips: Commentary
Commentary: Why I stopped wearing a bike helmet
by Peter Flax
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Bicycling Magazine
It’s Okay If You Don’t Wear a Bike Helmet
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Carlton Reid, transport writer
I Do Not Wear A Bicycle Helmet
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More on Why We Shouldn't Have Mandatory Helmet Laws
Over on VOX, Joseph Stromberg rounds up the studies about bike helmets and concludes that if you want to get more people to ride bikes, then you shoul
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Give Kids Bikes, Not Helmets
Why helmet giveaways are an act of surrender
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Enough with the Smashed Watermelons! Helmet Mania Is Scaring Kids Away from Biking
Free Range Kids
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The primary fault with Australia's draft National Road Safety Strategy 2011-2020, according to a researcher, is its failure to make any reference to the country's mandatory bicycle helmet regulations and their broader impact on road safety and public health.
In a submission to the draft strategy, a detailed analysis is presented of the evidence on cycle use in Australia and casualty trends. It is argued that recent increases in cycling are merely a recovery from low numbers experienced throughout the 1990s when many Australian adults and children were discouraged from bike riding. Current cycling levels still lag behind pre-law numbers with a consequent impact on road safety, comprehensive data providing evidence of cycling discouragement 20 years after helmet law enactment.
An innovative part of the submission looks at the impact of helmet laws in Australia on road casualties for non-cyclists - the first time this has been done so far as is known. On the basis that fewer people cycling means more people driving and greater traffic density, a link is suggested between enactment of the laws and increases in road casualties that took place at the same time (ending a long period of declining casualties). Australian Transport Safety Bureau statistics show that the least number of all road casualties was recorded in 1992, the year that the last states enacted helmet legislation.
The analysis includes a great deal of new data including cycle use and road casualty figures from Australian and New Zealand helmet jurisdictions before and after helmet law enforcement. It is likely to be controversial, but deserves careful consideration.
Sat 5 Mar 2011
