human909 wrote:I don't see how individual freedom is now a questionable philosophical position. I would however admit my iPhone example may not be the best. If the issue is muddied it is because high_tea is deliberately doing so by bring into question the notion that freedom is not the default.
No. I simply stated that we are not in the default situation with respect to MHLs. Like it or not, repealing them is not going to happen absent some cogent argument in favour of repealing the law, which is quite distinct from an argument against enacting them in the first place. Whether that should be so is an interesting question, but that's how it is. My views on freedom (or anyone else's, for that matter) don't come into it.
When the regulation causes more negatives than positives, then you will be fighting a losing battle in the arena of ideas. Helmet laws for cyclists are not conclusively good for the population of cyclists
You have a lot of easier things to change like banning cigs and beers if you want to improve society. Don't ignore the elephants in the room while you claim triumph over the mice. Justify why MHL isn't good for peds as well. After all, it's apparently a minor inconvenience that will save your life
I find your distrust in organizations you actually have a say, albeit a small one, i.e. government, but faith in the market doing the right thing quite weird.
Just to make that clear, that is "faith in the market doing the right thing". Yes, the market will always correct it self, but we might not like what the correction involves so it might be better to avoid it through regulation etc.
"My bicycle masters boardwalk and quagmire with aplomb. Those that doubt me... suck THUMB by choice."
il padrone wrote:Australians' attitudes to the "hazards" of removing the MHL brings to mind memories of 'Logan's Run'.
"We've been outside! There's another world outside! We've seen it!"
Bizarre as it may seem, you don't die instantly on taking that foam helmet off
Hi il padrone,You have the best graphics on tap no doubt, they add life to the forum.
I find apart from any thing else re helmets, the problem of carrying the thing around when shopping. Used to be with the old plastic lump, I left it on the bars, so old and ugly, no one wanted to steal it.(sort of suited me actually). Now that I bought a really expensive $40-00 one from anaconda I have to lug it around in one of those green shopping bags, the whole "protect the helmet thing is a pain". Isn't there some sort of hard head test that you can pass and that would qualify a bloke from not needing a helmet? Tried telling the doc that the helmet gives me a head ache but got laughed out the door...... Just seems like a lot of hard heads in this forum.....I thought I might get some tips.
Re. your helmet and security - when I leave the bike I lock it. Sometimes I take the helmet with me; if it's going to be a nuisance I'll run the lock through the helmet straps (and my helmet cost a good bit more than $40). No-one is going to pinch it as they'd need to cut the straps, and then it's pretty useless to them.
Riding bikes in traffic - what seems dangerous is usually safe; what seems safe is often more dangerous.
My view, and experience, in that regard is such a person is: a) probably not going to bother stealing a helmet, they'll just ride their bike without a lid; and b) unlikely to be able to distinguish a good helmet from a cheapie.
Riding bikes in traffic - what seems dangerous is usually safe; what seems safe is often more dangerous.
simonn wrote: How many infant deaths are acceptable?
What about pedestrians? Pedestrian deaths are acceptable? This is precisely my argument - regulation seems to be acceptable and fine, unless it discriminates against cyclists
simonn wrote: How many infant deaths are acceptable?
What about pedestrians? Pedestrian deaths are acceptable? This is precisely my argument - regulation seems to be acceptable and fine, unless it discriminates against cyclists
I don't understand how this relates to your point:
Xplora wrote:Apple doesn't need to be told about radiation laws because they will be destroyed as a business if their products are dangerous.
"My bicycle masters boardwalk and quagmire with aplomb. Those that doubt me... suck THUMB by choice."
A Dutch viewpoint on the safety value of helmets and what really matters to boost safety:
David Hembrow wrote:So, where do helmets and fluorescent clothing fit in ? For some individuals, wearing such a thing improves their own feeling of safety to the level that they will ride. However, these items actually do little to improve actual safety and can have a negative effect on the subjective safety of other people due to making cycling look dangerous. Where cycling has a high degree of subjective safety, as it does here, no-one wears these safety aids. Dutch cyclists are safer without them than cyclists elsewhere are with them.
I was most put out when I had reason in Adelaide to check whether I had to wear a helment or not.
Sure enough, those on wheeled recreational devices WRDs) are required to wear helmets. In South Oz that includes scooters, inline and other skates, skateboards. They do not specify where unicycles are but I accept that they are also WRDs as it seems to be the common classificatiuon elsewhere.
So I am now the proud owner of a roadworthy helmet for parades and other events wehere I am either required to wear one or where it is on-message with the particular event.
Now I just have to ditch the old (and likely useless) 10 year old helmet with many layers of stickers from past events.
Though if I require one, then I really think that those women on high heeled platform shoes are in even more need a helmet.
Watched kids coming out mr school today while waiting on my two dragging their slow selfs out of school... Kids on bikes, scooters, skateboards, all doing similar speeds but only bike users wearing a lid.
Free helmets to boost Vic bike hire scheme From: AAP March 21, 2013 10:35AM Introduced in 2010, the scheme was slow to get off the ground because of Victoria's compulsory helmet laws.
The Victorian government began selling helmets for $5, with users able to claim $3 back upon their return.
Public Transport Minister Terry Mulder says the government will now give out 200 free helmets at the city's 51 hire sites to try to boost rentals.
Mr Mulder said a similar trial was successful in Brisbane.
"The bikes that have free helmets attached to them in Brisbane had an uptake of three times greater than those that didn't," he told reporters in Melbourne on Thursday.
Advertisements would be put on the bikes to recoup some of the costs of running the scheme.
The minister said the scheme was picking up, with 137,000 usages in 2011/12, compared to 102,000 in 2010/11.
The government has spent $5 million on the scheme in its first three years, Mr Mulder said.
Ross wrote:Free helmets to boost Vic bike hire scheme From: AAP March 21, 2013 10:35AM
BWAHAHAHAHHHAAAAAHHAAAAAAA!!!
Sorry, just so ridiculous. Total inefffectiveness by Mulder. Who is he anyway???
news.com.au wrote:The minister said the scheme was picking up, with 137,000 usages in 2011/12, compared to 102,000 in 2010/11.
Hmm......
cycle-helmets.com wrote:It should be noted that in the Irish city of Dublin (population 1.7 million, no helmet law) referenced above, more than 40,000 people signed up in the first year of a bike hire scheme launched in 2009. Operators report that well over a million bicycles were hired in the first 12 months.
Growth rate of 35% for Melbourne's bikeshare. I may have the calculations wrong but at that rate I make it just 21 years until we catch up to Dublin's usage figures
Ross wrote:The minister said the scheme was picking up, with 137,000 usages in 2011/12, compared to 102,000 in 2010/11.
The government has spent $5 million on the scheme in its first three years, Mr Mulder said.
Lets call it an average of 120,000 uses each year, so..... $5,000,000/(120,000uses/year * 3 years) =~ $14 per use.
So the government has spent approximately $14 per use. Unfortunately this will be seen by the government as a failure of cycling rather than a failure of MHLs.
If they did drop the helmet requirement completely for the bikeshare, the greatest problem they will then face is the ongoing perception amongst the public that you need a helmet so it's still just too much bother
il padrone wrote:If they did drop the helmet requirement completely for the bikeshare, the greatest problem they will then face is the ongoing perception amongst the public that you need a helmet so it's still just too much bother
But the tourists from non-mandatory helmet countries won't have this perception... And the non-mandatory helmet supporters wouldn't either.
Summernight wrote:But the tourists from non-mandatory helmet countries won't have this perception... And the non-mandatory helmet supporters wouldn't either.
Fair point, they'll be OK. But I think in many of the cities where these schemes are working really well, the greater bulk of users are locals, just ordinary Joe Average.
Agreed, but my belief is if people start seeing oodles of tourists and normal anti MHL-cyclists riding around on the bikes without helmets (if the exemption came in) and possibly in their suits and work clothes etc. then they'd start thinking 'it isn't so dangerous' and then the rate would increase and the perception cycle (pun intended) that it is safe would continue and participation would increase. Like presumably what happened with the successful bikeshare schemes in other cities.
Not to mention people would try out the bikes without helmets as a novelty BECAUSE they can ride the bike without a helmet and they cannot do so on a normal bike (without risking a fine). Riding past a police car would be a thrill.
Of course, any such exemption would have to be clearly advertised in the media etc. because otherwise you'd have idiots saying "put on a helmet" to the bikeshare people.
Summernight wrote:Of course, any such exemption would have to be clearly advertised in the media etc. because otherwise you'd have idiots saying "put on a helmet" to the bikeshare people.
Creating the delightful irony that the idiots yelling at the bikeshare cyclists are the most serious danger to that cyclist...
The question instantly becomes "why must the rest of us wear the helmet if the bikeshare don't? What is the fundamental difference in the two modes?"
Summernight wrote:Of course, any such exemption would have to be clearly advertised in the media etc. because otherwise you'd have idiots saying "put on a helmet" to the bikeshare people.
Creating the delightful irony that the idiots yelling at the bikeshare cyclists are the most serious danger to that cyclist...
The question instantly becomes "why must the rest of us wear the helmet if the bikeshare don't? What is the fundamental difference in the two modes?"
The answer is of course that there are none
Exactly, and that is the excuse currently being used to NOT bring the exemption in for the bikeshare scheme at all. It was spoken in that video il Padrone posted by the ex Victorian Transport Minister if I remember correctly.
The video mentioned that the bikeshare scheme in Melbourne is not working and that the mandatory helmet laws in Australia don't correlate to lesser bicycle injuries - apparently the non-mandatory helmet wearing countries have less bicycle accidents than we do and we're supposedly the safer country with our helmet wearing.
The way to get a law overturned is to create so many exemptions that it is useless (if those in power don't see reason on the law prior). That is the definition of a bad law and is the tipping point to getting it changed. The people in charge are very aware of that and the precedent that would be set if they granted the bikeshare exemption. I think it is a reason why they are now trialling the handing out of free helmets.
The minister is now, belatedly, acknowledging that the helmet-law is a problem, but is unwilling to take the sensible, most-obvious way to resolve it. Free helmets for every citizen would still not save the Melbourne Bikeshare. It's a dog with MHLs.
When I, a committed cyclist, can ride my bike wearing my helmet to the station to catch a train, but then lock the helmet with the bike (for security and because I don't want to be burdened with carrying it), then get into the CBD where I wish I could just use a bikeshare bike for transport...... what hope is there to attract Joe Average ??
