The helmet laws are undoubtedly present to protect bicyclists. I know what your knee-jerk reaction will be. “Yes, you moron, wearing a helmet protects your head while riding a bike, therefore helmets are safe”. And you would be right. But there’s just one factor that we have tactfully ignored when looking at helmet safety data. That is the fact that, as a collective, human beings are mind-numbing stupid. Like Tommy Lee Jones said in Men in Black, “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.”
So buckle up and strap on your helmet… or not. We’re going to take a look at why Western Australia’s seen an approximate 30% increase in cyclists admitted to the hospital since implementing the mandatory helmet laws.
The History Of Australian Bicycle Laws
So according to this statistical data, the number of cyclists in Western Australia skyrocketed in the 80s. It’s hard to pinpoint why, but Australia shares a lot in common with European cultures, and Europe loves its bicycles. So it’s probably safe to say that Australians were getting caught up in the trend. Whatever the reason, between 1982 and 1989, the number of cyclists in the region nearly doubled, from 220,000 to around 400,000.
During that same period, according to hospital data, the number of cyclists admitted to hospitals for serious injuries or death dropped to the tune of 33% and 48%. I am not going to get into the likely causes just yet. However, some of those figures can likely be explained with simple relative math. If 60 out of 100 people get injured, that’s 60%, but if 100 out of 1000 people get injured, it’s only 10%. The rate of injuries dropped by 50% even though 40 more people were injured. It’s the same thing.
In other words, a fraction of that 33% and 48% can be explained away by simply having a larger sample size. Of course, that is not the only reason, nor is it the biggest reason (which we will get to later), but it is one of the small factors that contribute.
In 1992, Western Australia introduced mandatory bike helmets for cyclists. Sounds like a good idea right? Protect the noggin of all the cyclists on the roads, reduce the rate of injuries even further, and make yourself look like the kind of politician who cares (and securing that pro-cycling niche must help during election season). But a peculiar thing happened.
Instead of the rate of serious injuries and fatalities dropping, it skyrocketed. The rates went up by as much as 30% between 1992-2000 and continue to be proportionally higher since the law’s introduction. According to a study released in 2009 by Macquarie University, the healthcare costs that result from the bike helmet laws are around $500,000,000 a year.
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So What’s The Impact Of Bicycle Laws
Is this just a case of having the same number of injuries but with fewer cyclists, inflating the percentage? Nope. While it is true that many people, especially women, either cycled less or stopped entirely after the laws came into effect, there is still a huge, measurable, and disturbing trend – wearing a helmet seems to make you more of a target for motorists.
Yup. You read that right. It’s not that the helmets themselves are a problem, it’s that for some reason wearing a helmet is like riding around with a “drive into me” sign on your back. Cyclists have reported that drivers are more aggressive around them, giving them less space to operate it, and are generally more likely to ignore safety measures when sharing the road with a helmeted cyclist.
Some people were quick to respond along the lines of “Well that’s just Australia, one place. It’s an isolated incident.” However, an experiment by Ian Walker from the University of Bath in England confirmed this theory. The general idea behind the theory is that the element of helmets affects the psychology of both cyclists and motorists – in other words, cyclists will take more risks, and motorists will take fewer precautions.
This is because the helmet doesn’t only make people more likely to survive a crash, it makes people feel safer too. This is an important thing to note because feeling safe has the unfortunate tendency to make us take unnecessary risks, because “Why not? I’m wearing a helmet, I’ll be fine.” This is combined with the fact that we have a huge problem with overestimating the capabilities of a bicycle helmet. They are not designed to withstand bad crashes. They’re made to protect you from getting concussed when you hit a curb or something, not when you get obliterated by a pick-up in an intersection.
That being said, innumerable piles of evidence support the idea of bike helmets saving lives, so we find ourselves in a catch-22, where you’re more likely to survive a bad crash when you wear a helmet but you’re less likely to be in a bad crash if you don’t wear one.
Should We Not Use Helmets?
Good question. The simple answer is, No. Do wear a helmet. Helmets are super important to wear and you should keep one on your head. A helmet can save your life. If you ever fall off your bike and hit your head you’ll be kicking your concussed self if you didn’t wear a helmet. We are not saying you shouldn’t wear one. We’re saying that if you do, it might put you at a higher risk of getting struck by a car.
Knowing that fact shouldn’t deter you from wearing a helmet, it should inspire you to exercise caution.
So What Does This Have To Do With The Mandatory Bike Helmet Laws?
Not every place that has adopted mandatory bike helmets has seen an increase in head injuries. In fact, in many regions of Canada, these laws have DECREASED the number of fatal head injuries among cyclists. So what is it? What’s going wrong here?
Well, for starters, let’s look at what keeps cyclists safe on the roads. A cyclist on the road is safest when riding in a bike lane, wearing safety gear on a route with heavy bike traffic separate from cars.
According to the West Australia Department of Transport, they have pretty standard cycling infrastructure. It’s nothing too impressive but it’s effective. That being said, many popular routes in the region lack bike lanes, so many cyclists inevitably wind up riding on the road. That alone probably contributes to some of the numbers, but not so much to the inflation of deaths and injuries post-helmet law.
But here’s the other thing – cyclists are safest when surrounded by other cyclists. And many cyclists did not respond well to the mandatory bike helmet laws. The number of people cycling as a part of their commute dropped. One of the biggest reasons for the drop in injuries and deaths before the introduction of the helmet law was the kind of herd protection provided when you’re with a group of cyclists.
One lone cyclist can be difficult to spot, and with the psychological impact that helmets have on both cyclists and motorists, it becomes easy to see how some poor guy on a bike can get obliterated by a careless driver. On the other hand, it’s a lot less likely for a motorist to accidentally plow through a group of cyclists. As a group, they have a much larger presence.
In other words, if cyclists aren’t clustering together, they are more likely to get struck. Since the mandatory bike helmet laws rubbed many people the wrong way, there were fewer cyclists on the roads, making things less safe for the ones who remained.
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Is The law ineffective?
It’s hard to say if the law itself is the problem, or if it’s just the symptom of the problem. What is clear though is that something has to change – whether this is a sign that the law itself is broken and needs to be changed or removed, or it’s a sign that Australia needs to put more time and energy into cycling infrastructure, is a matter for debate.
Whether the law is a failure or not also depends on the metric by which you measure its success – is the purpose of this law to reduce fatalities and serious injuries among cyclists? If so, then clearly they screwed up somehow.
Is this law merely designed to force people to wear helmets? If so then the law itself isn’t so bad. But this brings up a different issue related to the helmet law; in many places that have mandatory helmet laws, the law isn’t enforced very efficiently, so many cyclists who didn’t wear helmets before aren’t going to start after. I am personally guilty of not wearing a helmet as a teenager, a habit that I had to break as an adult. People are stubborn – if they don’t want to wear a helmet, they most likely won’t.
As I said above, this issue is not specific to just Western Australia. It’s something that’s been observed in many places that have put in mandatory helmet laws for cyclists. There is currently a debate on this very topic hitting the USA. Critics have also pointed out that mandatory helmet laws hurt the economics of cycling, making that business niche less profitable and putting less pressure on politicians to develop and invest in cycling infrastructure.
That said, many supporters have drawn comparisons between mandatory helmets and seatbelt laws. In their opinion, bike helmets are an essential part of safety. But the numbers don’t lie – there is a direct correlation between bike helmet laws and an increase in serious injuries among cyclists. Bike helmets aren’t saving as many lives as lawmakers and supporters have hoped.
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So What’s The Solution?
For adults, it’s clear that helmets are not the most essential factor when it comes to cyclists and safety. There are other, more important factors to a cyclist’s safety. On top of that, as I said earlier, bicycle helmets are not sturdy enough to offer realistic protection in a bad car accident.
So what should Australia do? Based on the evidence, I think they should scrap the mandatory helmet laws for adults. The laws haven’t effectively protected people like they thought they would. Yes, helmets save lives. But forcing people to wear them has the opposite effect.
Instead of focusing on forcing people to wear helmets when they don’t help the general public, the best way to protect cyclists is to focus on other methods. One of the best methods is to improve cycling infrastructure. As we’ve seen in cities like Copenhagen and New York, more bike lanes and better infrastructure save lives. And this solution has the added benefit of having all kinds of non-safety-related perks that vastly improve cities.
Furthermore, the government should focus on making cycling a more viable mode of transportation for commuters, increasing the number of cyclists on the road. More cyclists mean that not only will more and more people benefit from being healthier physically, but all cyclists will also be much safer. I said earlier that the more cyclists there are, the safer each cyclist becomes. And there is a good way to boost the number of cyclists in Western Australia fast: getting rid of the helmet law.
FAQs
Can you get fined for not wearing a helmet in Australia?
Yes, it is possible to get fined for not wearing a helmet in Australia.
Can you ride a bike without a helmet Sydney?
No, you have to wear a helmet for a bicycle ride in Sydney.
Is it illegal to ride a bike without a helmet in Oregon?
It is legal to ride a bike without a helmet in Oregon if you are above 18 years old.
Do you have to wear a helmet on a bicycle in New York?
In New York, if you are under the age of 14, you have to wear a helmet.
Can I ride a bike without a helmet in California?
You can ride without a helmet in California if you are above 18 years of age.
Conclusion
According to a study published by the Health Promotion Journal of Australia, getting rid of the law could double the number of cyclists. My personal take on the matter is that the law should be removed. The law was passed with good intentions – the supporters genuinely believed it would help, and Western Australia was the first place to have such large-scale mandatory helmet laws. But they didn’t work. It’s nobody’s fault, and I do believe that wearing a helmet is a good idea regardless, but people shouldn’t be forced to.
What’s your take on it? Let me know in the comments.
Also Read:
- 15 Best Bikes For Heavy Riders
- The Purpose Of Cycling Caps
- 10 Common Bicycle Sharing Problems And Their Solutions
- What You Need To Know About Cycling Mirrors
- 4 Basic Hand Bike Signals You Should Know About!
- 10 Most Dangerous Bad Driving Habits Around The World
The post Why Australia’s Bike Helmet Laws Do More Harm Than Good appeared first on Icebike.org.