il padrone wrote: Nothing needs to be 'relaxed' nor repealed. The Commisioner for Police could simply issue a directive for his officers not to enforce the rule upon people riding Bikeshare bikes. Simple. And it has been done before relating to other rules.
i'd be flabbergasted if that were true. the police have a very clear role - to enforce the law. they have discretionary powers, but not for those purposes. that's clearly something that would be enacted at a policy level. the police are policy takers, not makers.
il padrone wrote: As far as the alleged liability law minefield - I wonder how things are going in the NT, now that they've repealed the helmet compulsion for adults on bike paths and trails, and police are generally not enforcing helmet rules upon anyone?
when you make a law, it must be justified. for right or wrong - the NT has obviously decided helmet laws are not justified - but it's clear.
but to say that most cyclists must wear a helmet for safety reasons, while a small subset of cyclists for whom it's inconvenient needn't wear one, would be difficult to justify. you'd need to explain why it wasn't safe for other cyclists to ride without a helmet, while it was for bike hirers. the proposal appears to be "nah, it's not any safer, but it's just convenient and we want more bike hires." i doubt that's going to fly, but who knows.