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Bicycle Helmets Kill

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Being in europe for a few months certainly shows how stupid australia is with its helmet laws. So many people ride bikes here its amazing, even with much worse weather than most of australia and often more hilly, people just seem to love their bicycles - and i am sure that a large part of the reason is no stupid helmet laws.

Car drivers are also much better behaved towards cyclists and the infrastructure with bike paths and so on is much better.

One obvious benefit is much fitter people in these countries, its patently obvious that there are a lot less obese people here.

We are very backward in many ways compared to europe though, not just cycling!
 
It now appears that the forces of state control are being let loose in Sydney and NSW following the implementation of new laws on bicycle helmets.

Cycling fines are standardised at as of today at $71 but from Monday will more than quadruple to $319 for not wearing a helmet.

What is the world coming to? In The Netherlands which has the greatest use of bicycles per capita, nobody wears helmets.

Here in Australia,( the largest and only child day care centre completely surrounded by water ), cyclists are treated like children.

How many people's health is affected by being put off cycling by having to wear these silly helmets?

gg
 
Garpal Gumnut said:
It now appears that the forces of state control are being let loose in Sydney and NSW following the implementation of new laws on bicycle helmets.

Cycling fines are standardised at as of today at $71 but from Monday will more than quadruple to $319 for not wearing a helmet.

What is the world coming to? In The Netherlands which has the greatest use of bicycles per capita, nobody wears helmets.

Here in Australia,( the largest and only child day care centre completely surrounded by water ), cyclists are treated like children.

How many people's health is affected by being put off cycling by having to wear these silly helmets?

gg
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And they have to carry ID now ?

Just like motorists. Oh the shame !
 
Garpal Gumnut said:
What is the world coming to? In The Netherlands which has the greatest use of bicycles per capita, nobody wears helmets.

gg
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Australia is now no. 1 nanny state.
I was in Thailand last week and riding the "put puts" with no seatbelts watching people in motorbikes fly buy with girls on the back with no helmets.
I didn't once see any plastic bits on the ground at intersections and ramps and there seemed to be hardly any traffic and parking signs.

I felt free.
 
Knobby22 said:
Australia is now no. 1 nanny state.
I was in Thailand last week and riding the "put puts" with no seatbelts watching people in motorbikes fly buy with girls on the back with no helmets.
I didn't once see any plastic bits on the ground at intersections and ramps and there seemed to be hardly any traffic and parking signs.

I felt free.
Click to expand...

I go to Asia town a bit and yeah it's cheap, girls are friendly.... but mostly it's the freedom that keeps me going back.

Australia is pretty awesome for quality of life if measured by income, health, socialised / feminised sheeple type stuff bla bla but it's boring and sanitized as fark. I can't stand this place. I can't even buy my kid a slug gun FFS!!!

I don't ride a bike (got money, got 4X4) but I do go fishing and sailing - same thing, mandatory life jackets.
If conditions are bad i'll wear one - if not, I don't. Why does the government want to intervene with Darwin so much? and why do we have such a piss poor constitution that the government has such powers???
 
Monkey C Doo said:
Why does the government want to intervene with Darwin so much? and why do we have such a piss poor constitution that the government has such powers???
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Why is Darwin any different to the rest of the country ?

As to government powers, you can make a fair point that people should be able to look after their personal safety as long as they don't endanger others.

I doesn't really bother me if people ride around on bikes without helmets. If they fall over and injure themselves then that's their problem. If they run over me as a pedestrian and cause me injury without any ID to say who they are and pay me damages then that's my problem as well as theirs.

So there is a balance to be considered.
 
News cycling laws to be enforced next week.

These laws would never have been considered necessary except for the fact that a fair percentage of the lyra set are extremely aggressive and arrogant. I've seen them breaking laws, cutting in front of pedestrians, acting like complete a-holes. They brought it on themselevs.

As GG said, elsewhere on the planet, cyclists are much more pleasant. Here it's as if they are trying to prove something.

Yes, I have a bike - I use it occasionally. No lycra.
 
I personally think that bicyclists should have to sit a road and safety test and be licensed to ride a bike on public roads and be treated just like any other motor vehicle user on the road. They should be paying registration fees, ctp insurance etc as well.

If they sat the exact same course for motorcycle users to get through their L's and P's, it would be a step forward for everyone.
 
sikboy said:
I personally think that bicyclists should have to sit a road and safety test and be licensed to ride a bike on public roads and be treated just like any other motor vehicle user on the road. They should be paying registration fees, ctp insurance etc as well.

If they sat the exact same course for motorcycle users to get through their L's and P's, it would be a step forward for everyone.
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And some more nanny state above, what about pedestrians, with increased fees for children and older people who are more at risk of accident, not to forget breath tests for pedestrians....
As Knobby said:
Each time I go to Asia, I feel a fresh air of freedom.
As a kid, i once travelled past the iron wall in Hungary (the relaxed version of the communist dictatorship).
Well now in Australia, I can only see the troubling ressemblance, yet I am nearly Sure sikboy will not be a rabid communist supporter...
What about making people responsible? If i run over a person on my bike or even crash a car by my own mistake/stupidity, sue the crap out of me, [and allow me to do the same the other way round] that would be fairer than another level of government inefficiency, a few extra thousand public servants and a bigger budget deficit that your kids will never be able to pay.
 
Each time I go to Asia, I feel a fresh air of freedom.
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Sure, but life is cheap in Asia. You lose people when an overcrowded ferry sinks or an overcrowded train gets derailed, or a shoddy building collapses and people don't care because there are plenty more people.

As I said before, there is a balance.
 
Knobby22 said:
Australia is now no. 1 nanny state.
I was in Thailand last week and riding the "put puts" with no seatbelts watching people in motorbikes fly buy with girls on the back with no helmets.
I didn't once see any plastic bits on the ground at intersections and ramps and there seemed to be hardly any traffic and parking signs.

I felt free.
Click to expand...

Gringotts Bank said:
News cycling laws to be enforced next week.

These laws would never have been considered necessary except for the fact that a fair percentage of the lyra set are extremely aggressive and arrogant. I've seen them breaking laws, cutting in front of pedestrians, acting like complete a-holes. They brought it on themselevs.

As GG said, elsewhere on the planet, cyclists are much more pleasant. Here it's as if they are trying to prove something.

Yes, I have a bike - I use it occasionally. No lycra.
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I couldn't agree more Kn22 and GB.

1. Australia has become a nanny state.
2. These bicycle laws have been brought in because of the lycra set, not because of such as I smoking a Marlboro sachaying down to the Newsagent to buy a copy of Bacon Busters Magazine on my Malvern Star..

gg
 
SirRumpole said:
Sure, but life is cheap in Asia. You lose people when an overcrowded ferry sinks or an overcrowded train gets derailed, or a shoddy building collapses and people don't care because there are plenty more people.

As I said before, there is a balance.
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True, but I know I left Europe 20y ago and had a breath of fresh air ariving here, sadly, it is not true anymore.
20y is all it took to transform Oz into a nanny state where people are entiotled to (just because they are) and have adapted a selfish moronic mostly (sorry) way of life.
Spoilt rotten by an engineered RE explosion and a mining boom only very few contributed to.
Harsh but I am and feel australian now so I can have a voice; The bikes laws (same for motorbikes /car by the way, pool regulations, H&S at work, on pavements/playground) are just symptoms of a very sick society in my opinion.
 
qldfrog said:
True, but I know I left Europe 20y ago and had a breath of fresh air ariving here, sadly, it is not true anymore.
20y is all it took to transform Oz into a nanny state where people are entiotled to (just because they are) and have adapted a selfish moronic mostly (sorry) way of life.
Spoilt rotten by an engineered RE explosion and a mining boom only very few contributed to.
Harsh but I am and feel australian now so I can have a voice; The bikes laws (same for motorbikes /car by the way, pool regulations, H&S at work, on pavements/playground) are just symptoms of a very sick society in my opinion.
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We certainly have a lot of cultural problems to overcome. Irresponsibility and the alcohol culture are two of those.

Why we have them I don't particularly know apart from the fact that our origins are from lawless convicts with a dna for sticking it to authority and no real cultural role models to look up to apart from a few daggy rock stars and sporting heroes. Warney !!!

If we were more responsible as a nation then we wouldn't need as many nanny state laws. Better education systems would be part of the solution, but then of course we would get cries of "social engineering" and "Lefty agendas".

I don't know, it all encourages me to look elsewhere. Maybe Scandinavia but I don't like the cold.
 
Those that feel the impulse can write to their local member citing the logic of The NSW transport minister Duncan Gay, His reasoning being that it is safer to dice on the roads with B-Doubles, concrete trucks, semi trailers with the mandatory styrofoam cap, because this is legal. Than alternatively amble down unused and under used foot paths at not much more than walking speed giving way to any pedestrian you encounter, this activity being illegal for those of adult age.
These laws could have been better formulated by cretins.

Exercise diminishes your chances of contracting type2 diabetes... 280 Australian will be diagnosed with type2 today and tomorrow and on and on ... 2010 stats are that 7750 australians died due to diabetes that year.

Nothing statistically points to high safety by mandatory helmet use by cyclists.
Taken at a societal level mandatory bicycle helmets kill people
 
The new laws in NSW are another lurch toward the nanny state. Get rid of a few governments that have to justify their existence by doing "something". And while we're at it get rid of the half wits who swallow every bit of media spin hook, line and sinker.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...rying-bust-cyclists-SPEEDING-Sydney-park.html

I've cycled in that park thousands of times, I literally cycle there most mornings. The Highway Patrol should just rename itself State Revenue.
 
McLovin said:
Who cares if they do. Cyclists are not motorists.
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You want to be a protected species ?

Basically I'm against entrapment of any kind; ie setting people up to be booked. Going 10 kph over the speed limit in a motor vehicle on a straight road should get a warning not a fine. Same for cyclists unless they are being reckless or dangerous.

What's good for the goose...
 
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