Mandatory Helmet Laws & stuff (MHL discussion)

[fat and old]

Any posts on a viable strategy or method to see the law removed?

There were two really strong periods of constructive posting and ideas on that where 99.9% of posters got on board. Then it went back to a collective circle jerk.

I'm not gonna trawl through 450 odd pages to find them again

[warthog1]

Fair enough. That would be something that would give the thread purpose imo.
There are a handful of people viewing and interacting on this thread.
A decent strategy to apply pressure to remove the law and to reach a wider audience makes sense.
I think everyone agrees more cyclists is a good thing and not having to wear a helmet everytime you get on a bike for whatever reason would help achieve that.

[tpcycle]

I think everyone agrees more cyclists is a good thing...

I'm unsure if the population in general shares that sentiment.

[bychosis]

I think everyone agrees more cyclists is a good thing...

I'm unsure if the population in general shares that sentiment.

Id agree that most think more cyclists are a good thing to reduce traffic congestion, but only if they stay off the roads and stop holding up traffic!

[warthog1]

I think everyone agrees more cyclists is a good thing...

I'm unsure if the population in general shares that sentiment.

Id agree that most think more cyclists are a good thing to reduce traffic congestion, but only if they stay off the roads and stop holding up traffic!

Yeah sorry.
Should have qualified that. I meant cyclists or people on here. Drivers not so much unfortunately

[fat and old]

Fair enough. That would be something that would give the thread purpose imo.
There are a handful of people viewing and interacting on this thread.
A decent strategy to apply pressure to remove the law and to reach a wider audience makes sense.
I think everyone agrees more cyclists is a good thing and not having to wear a helmet everytime you get on a bike for whatever reason would help achieve that.

Absolutely.

There is a semi-regular sort of "lets mass protest ride" thing, hasn't been up a while but was sorta hereabouts, especially around the dates that the anti-vaccine Freedom Rider types held their ride. But that sorta died along with everything else we know during covid. Even before then someone noted (Human I think) that the age group missing was the sub 40 year olds on the last ride.

But yes, there were two periods that were strong enough that I can remember them where a few different ideas came out. Mainly lobbying and such. There were a few times people got excited by Parliamentary Enquiries and thought the end was nigh but that was a furphy that degenerated into academic abuse and name calling when it was obvious the anti MHL'ers were a solid minority.

Problem is that people power equals a big fat zero in MHL reform. You need the recognised blood suckers advocacy groups on board pushing your case. And that just won't happen. No votes in it. Closest thing in politics we have here is One Nation, or that senator whose name escapes me...lljywenhilm?

[baabaa]

Any posts on a viable strategy or method to see the law removed?

Be keen to know what others, well just the anti MHL mob on this site, have really done to move legislation other than the pointless posting of POVs here again - please do post them up....

From my end - still not a big topic when so much needs to be done in all thing biking but have spoken ( and raised the topic ) with three Local government Councillors and the state member- all feel the wins are coming from bike infra and that as the roads are becoming more unsafe for all road users, the best way to get more people biking is to give them what they want and that is to get away from fast moving motor vehicles.

This project is a big win
https://www.esc.nsw.gov.au/council/majo ... b-strategy

Will try and get the fed members ear over the next few months but think the feds have a lot more important issues to consider.

Locally - People still use bikes to go to the beaches, schools and shopping but if they want to go for a long ride this off the road project is a nice option (even if some people need to drive to the start of the state forests)

[warthog1]

Any posts on a viable strategy or method to see the law removed?

Be keen to know what others, well just the anti MHL mob on this site, have really done to move legislation other than the pointless posting of POVs here again - please do post them up....

From my end - still not a big topic when so much needs to be done in all thing biking but have spoken ( and raised the topic ) with three Local government Councillors and the state member- all feel the wins are coming from bike infra and that as the roads are becoming more unsafe for all road users, the best way to get more people biking is to give them what they want and that is to get away from fast moving motor vehicles.

This project is a big win
https://www.esc.nsw.gov.au/council/majo ... b-strategy

Will try and get the fed members ear over the next few months but think the feds have a lot more important issues to consider.

Locally - People still use bikes to go to the beaches, schools and shopping but if they want to go for a long ride this off the road project is a nice option (even if some people need to drive to the start of the state forests)

I used to be a solid, we have the right to be on the roads and should exercise that right, sort of rider.
I am becoming less so.
So much distraction, incompetence and aggression. It is so easy to be killed if you strike the wrong driver.
The more time you are on the road the more chance of that happening.
I know a couple of riders who have been killed and more who have been hit and had multiple close instances myself.
I strongly support more separated infrastructure now.

Love your work baabaa

[fat and old]

I came across this today

https://roads-waterways.transport.nsw.g ... w-1993.pdf

Anyone here (face it, Thoglette) familiar with it? Has it been considered to be impartial or has it been discredited?

[DavidS]

Nice one Fat and Old, not 1 post which demonises anyone for wearing a helmet. Yes there is criticism of those who advocate telling everyone else they have to, but not 1 post demonising anyone for wearing a helmet.

Fail, keep trying.

DS

[fat and old]

Nice one Fat and Old, not 1 post which demonises anyone for wearing a helmet. Yes there is criticism of those who advocate telling everyone else they have to, but not 1 post demonising anyone for wearing a helmet.

Fail, keep trying.

DS

Hey, no problem. You see things your way, I see them my way. I’m not gonna call you names or criticise you for having a different opinion

[BobtheBuilder]

random quotes but none about demonising people for wearing a helmet

[trailgumby]

I came across this today

https://roads-waterways.transport.nsw.g ... w-1993.pdf

Anyone here (face it, Thoglette) familiar with it? Has it been considered to be impartial or has it been discredited?

Haven't read through the full document yet, but interesting to note it comments the numbers of kids riding on the road and at schools sites had continued to drop - 30% on the previous year at page 8 of the document.

It attempts to make some weak arguments about why the results should not be used to estimate ridership, but I would have thought that school attitude to cycling would to some degree be correlated to the introduction of the helmet law and the implication it brings that riding must therefore be a "dangerous" activity. While failing to collect data for the same routes is an example of poor study design, collecting from the same school sites overcomes this in relation to conclusions about school ridership.

Thanks for posting the link. It's a rare example of an attempt to collect contemporaneous data about the impact of helmet law compulsion, albeit at cross-purposes to what we are interested to know today.

[uart]

random quotes but none about demonising people for wearing a helmet

I see that the Monty Python "5 minute argument" sketch is now considered an example of demonising people for just wanting to wear their helmet???

Here is one of those "demonising" quotes in context.

that's not an argument

why isn't that an argument?

Your type makes me puke!!!
<link now broken to Mont Python sketch>

[uart]

Haven't read through the full document yet, but interesting to note it comments the numbers of kids riding on the road and at schools sites had continued to drop - 30% on the previous year at page 8 of the document.

It's also interesting that the compliance for riders 19+ y.o. was 90%. I'm not sure how many people here were riding in 1993, I was, and the enforcement of MHL at that time was essentially zero. To me this really underlines the futility of MHL for adults, as it's a pretty safe bet that helmet wearing would still be 90% or more with simple helmet advocacy (rather then MHL). Considering that helmet comfort and design has improved immensely since 1993, I'd estimate it would be well over 90%, and in the higher risk categories (roadies and full on MTB), probably closer to 99% for those guys, even without MHL.

[BobtheBuilder]

I came across this today

https://roads-waterways.transport.nsw.g ... w-1993.pdf

Anyone here (face it, Thoglette) familiar with it? Has it been considered to be impartial or has it been discredited?

The first thing I found interesting about this report is that it managed to condense a fairly comprehensive study in 34 pages. These days that'd be barely past the table of contents and the exec summary! To be followed by a few hundred pages of turgid prose and impenetrable figures.

Interesting here (see excerpt below), in what seems a fairly pro-MHL report, that they point out the reduction in head injuries is correlated with a (lesser) reduction in non-head injuries and tangentially make the point that this could be due to both overall decrease in ridership as well as decrease in high-risk riders (teenagers). Sadly their recommendation for "careful monitoring of [...] bicycle riding participation rates" doesn't appear to have been acted upon.

Under 1.2 Helmet wearing
"Research results show that increases in helmet wearing have clearly resulted in a significant reduction in head injuries since legislation was introduced. Cameron et al. (1992) observed the significant increase in helmet wearing was associated with a reduction of cyclists admitted to hospital with head injury (37% reduction in cyclists killed, 51% of cyclists injured). But there was also a substantial (21 % and 24%) decrease in severely injured cyclists who did not suffer head injury, possibly due to helmet legislation reducing participation and / or less riding. In particular, deterrence of teenage riders, who may be relatively more likely to practice other unsafe riding behaviour, has been observed. Thus whilst research into the effectiveness of bicycle helmets in reducing fatalities is being carried out careful monitoring of both helmet wearing and bicycle riding participation rates is needed."

[Thoglette]

I came across this today

https://roads-waterways.transport.nsw.g ... w-1993.pdf

Anyone here (face it, Thoglette) familiar with it? Has it been considered to be impartial or has it been discredited?

Interesting here (see excerpt below), in what seems a fairly pro-MHL report,

You said it, not me.

A quick read (no, I've not seen it before, thanks 'for finding it F&O) suggests that it's mostly trying to ignore the bloody obvious in the data while trying to get excited about levels of compliance.

E.g. the references to other people's work (as you highlight) about how wonderful helmets are (and therefore how wonderful MHL must be) while saying 'ignore the drop in riders' (e.g. "report should not be used for estimates of ridership" pg4, "the slight decline in numbers could be due..." p44 ) despite telling us that the survey is pretty much identical to the last two.

See Tables 3.2 , 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 3.11 for actual numbers. Only 3.1 is slightly different and might be accounted for by the change of methodology.

They also point out the driver for this behaviour: people already wearing helmets kept riding, those who didn't started to disappear.

In line with previous surveys the 91~93 observations again found that riders wearing cycling clothes had a very much higher level of helmet wearing. Three explanations are advanced for this: (i) those who dress properly are "serious cyclists" and thus likely to comply; (ii) those who equip themselves with cycling clothes will also have a helmet; and (iii) cycling clothes are seldom worn on very short trips and helmets may also be less likely to be used for these types of trips

Apparently, being A Serious Cyclist makes you less likely to break the rules. Someone should have told Lance.

Oh, and, surprise surprise, teenagers really don't like helmets (p44)

And they remind us that it's the cyclist's fault if they get hit by a car on the road (e.g. section 3.4 on p41), although admitting that "perhaps an engineering solution to this important problem might be considered" p44.

The conclusions are well worth reading, particularly if you're a fan of Sir Humphrey Appleby

(all page numbers are per PDF page counts - the article has several unnumbered pages and two numbering systems)

[uart]

The conclusions are well worth reading, particularly if you're a fan of Sir Humphrey Appleby

It seems a bit excessive to make every social science type report have to write an individual conclusion when a generic pro forma like below would suffice.

Conclusion.
In the light of all the data presented above, our conclusion is, well - um - the politically correct one of course.

[tpcycle]

It's also interesting that the compliance for riders 19+ y.o. was 90%. I'm not sure how many people here were riding in 1993, I was, and the enforcement of MHL at that time was essentially zero.

That is the polar opposite of my experience. I was living in Nambucca Heads. The local plod took great delight in handing out fines and it took a huge toll on the local cycling population. Before MHL many people rode short trips. After MHL I was one of the few who continued riding - and yes I went to Coffs Harbor and bought a helmet so I'd avoid the fines which you were pretty much guaranteed to be given if you had the temerity to ride without a helmet - non-compliance wasn't an option.

[uart]

That is the polar opposite of my experience. I was living in Nambucca Heads.

Ok, it must have been very much region dependent. Here in Newcastle it wasn't initially policed with much vigour.

Before MHL many people rode short trips.

Yeah, it's the short or impromptu local trips, such as to the shops or to visit friends etc, that MHL really seemed to hit the hardest.

[fat and old]

I came across this today

https://roads-waterways.transport.nsw.g ... w-1993.pdf

Anyone here (face it, Thoglette) familiar with it? Has it been considered to be impartial or has it been discredited?

Haven't read through the full document yet, but interesting to note it comments the numbers of kids riding on the road and at schools sites had continued to drop - 30% on the previous year at page 8 of the document.

The drop in school kid rates is always one of the big points raised, and while I have reason to doubt it there was nothing like that in my personal school experience. I started riding to school in grade 5, and was one of 3 who did so. Year 7 and it’s off to big boys school, and I was one of about 15-20. In a school of app 600. Yr 7 was 1977. It floated around that until Yr 10, then it just dropped right off. That was 1980. I remember that cos they got rid of most of the bike racks, they just weren’t being used.

Location of the schools was a big factor I think. Primary was in what was a very sketchy area. Very. And Secondary had main arterial roads all around it you couldn’t avoid.

I still reckon the rise of the second car in the 70’s and media in the 80’s was a big driver of the long term drop in numbers

[warthog1]

I am a bit younger than you F&O but still crusty. Far call rode to my high school too. Year7 1980.
I rode the whole way through too. Yr12 '86.
One other yr 12 did.
There was ~150 yr12s.

I hated being claustrophobically jammed in on the bus.
I rode even if it was pissing down raining. Just dried out over the course of the day
I still hate public transport when it is crowded to this day.
Matter of fact I just hate crowds.

[DavidS]

I was at school the same time as F&O, high school 1977 to 1982. Heaps of kids rode to school, large bike racks, were still full when I finished school. The drop came later where I am from.

DS

[fat and old]

I am a bit younger than you F&O but still crusty. Far call rode to my high school too. Year7 1980.
I rode the whole way through too. Yr12 '86.
One other yr 12 did.
There was ~150 yr12s.

I hated being claustrophobically jammed in on the bus.
I rode even if it was pissing down raining. Just dried out over the course of the day
I still hate public transport when it is crowded to this day.
Matter of fact I just hate crowds.

I hate everyone

Yr 12, I was 1 of 1 riding an M/C. The long hair and leather jacket did not endear me to my Catholic masters. Yeah, I played it up for all I could

[trailgumby]

I came across this today

https://roads-waterways.transport.nsw.g ... w-1993.pdf

Anyone here (face it, Thoglette) familiar with it? Has it been considered to be impartial or has it been discredited?

Haven't read through the full document yet, but interesting to note it comments the numbers of kids riding on the road and at schools sites had continued to drop - 30% on the previous year at page 8 of the document.

The drop in school kid rates is always one of the big points raised, and while I have reason to doubt it there was nothing like that in my personal school experience. I started riding to school in grade 5, and was one of 3 who did so. Year 7 and it’s off to big boys school, and I was one of about 15-20. In a school of app 600. Yr 7 was 1977. It floated around that until Yr 10, then it just dropped right off. That was 1980. I remember that cos they got rid of most of the bike racks, they just weren’t being used.

Location of the schools was a big factor I think. Primary was in what was a very sketchy area. Very. And Secondary had main arterial roads all around it you couldn’t avoid.

I still reckon the rise of the second car in the 70’s and media in the 80’s was a big driver of the long term drop in numbers

Mandatory helmet laws didn't come in until the early 90s. Your school experience is 7 to 10 years too early, unless you became a teacher.

il padrone, who used to be a regular on the forum here, was a teacher during this period. When the helmet laws began to be enforced in Victoria from July 1990 onwards, he cites a huge drop. According to his account, the bike racks at the school went from mostly full to almost empty within months, and never recovered, if I remember correctly.

Seems to me that is far too much of a coincidence timing-wise.

I was far more interested in surfing than cycling at that time in my life, so it wasn't on my radar. But it was definitely on his.