Compulsory Helmet Controversy

Safety experts urge cyclists to sit up and take notice
MATTHEW MOORE URBAN AFFAIRS EDITOR
SMH March 16, 2010 For discussion only and non-profit use

SYDNEY will never be a bicycle-friendly city until it develops a ''second cycling culture'' which encourages relaxed European-style riding without the compulsory use of helmets, experts have warned.

Instead of advocating racing bikes with drop handle-bars, or mountain bikes with flat bars, cycling groups should encourage the use of traditional upright European styles, often called Amsterdam bikes, to make cycling a mass, utilitarian activity where bikes are used for shopping, running errands and commuting.

John Pucher, a US professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey who has written a paper explaining why Sydney cycling levels are half those of Melbourne, believes scrapping two decade-old laws requiring all cyclists to wear helmets would encourage a lot more people on to bikes and provide an overall improvement in community health levels.

While he agrees helmets save lives in accidents, he said they were not compulsory in any city in Europe, where cycling injury rates were far lower than in Sydney, a city which he said had very aggressive attitudes to cycling and which needed to encourage a much higher use of pedal power. ''I would be in favour of doing away with the helmet use law for adults,'' he said.

Compulsory wearing of helmets was ''a Band-Aid strategy'' adopted by governments shying away from more difficult initiatives of building separated cycle ways, calming neighbourhoods and educating drivers and riders.

British research showed motorists drove closer to bike riders who wore helmets. There was also evidence helmet laws stigmatised cycling as dangerous and encouraged cyclists to take more risks and ride faster than they might otherwise.

His views were echoed by Mike Rubbo, a cycling blogger who has made more than a dozen short films about cycling. He says introducing the upright bikes used in Europe is the best way of creating a new cycling culture that would encourage slow cycling and a friendly ''come ride with me'' attitude.

''If we can get more people on this type of bike we will get rid of the monoculture of those people, bent down over the bars with sunglasses … who are happy on roads and don't want to share bikeways with slower riders,'' he said.

The owner of Concord Sports Store, Mike Ryman, said the ''more elegant, classic'' European style of bike was becoming increasingly popular for commuters in flatter areas where there were good cycleways.

The vice-president of Bicycle NSW, Richard Birdsey, said European bikes were not what local riders needed. ''Upright bikes are all well and good in low speed and flat environments, but I don't think they are suitable for what you have here in Sydney,'' he said. ''They are designed, without sounding sexist, for women.

''If you are moving in the serious traffic here you need something a bit quick, something you can throw around, something more performance oriented.''

He was also strongly in favour of retaining the helmet laws even though Australia and New Zealand were virtually the only countries with them.

''We don't have the same riding environment with the lower speeds, greater awareness of cyclists they have in Europe. We don't think we should be weakening those for anybody.''

Andrew McIntosh, associate professor at the University of NSW, is researching bicycle helmets and defended the laws as ''an incredibly cheap approach'' to improving safety.

While he agreed cyclists needed better facilities, he said these could be built without removing helmet laws.