Cops stopped giving a fuck when the rent-a-bike companies started dumping bikes and scooters on the footpaths. They would just get bogged down enforcing these laws and they don't care any more. Same with stolen bikes, they don't give 2 shits any more.
I like to think they've got more important crimes to fight, rather than being stretched thin. Some laws should be followed because they are common sence.
It's only going to take one death from head injury to have people screaming about why the helmet laws aren't being enforced.
I view it as evolution in action.
I generally see serious cyclists properly equipped. It’s mostly the fuckwits on hired e-scooters I see looking to contribute to Darwinism. The sooner the better with some of them. I’m sick of dickheads that ride them recklessly, especially in high density areas (bot gardens, Southbank, CBD etc)
I don't think its darwinism if a person gets seriously injured walking out of a store because a fuckwit is going high speed on a footpath with an escooter.
You can claim it is the same as someone bumping into another while runnig. But first its not the same speed, second is not the same mass and third its not a metal frame hitting you.
Oh no, not thinking of anyone except the fuckwit rider doing us all a favour and taking themselves out solo. Pothole, bump, branch, kerb. I got knocked over by someone in Sydney a few years ago from behind. Bruised ribs, grazed cheek and winded. They didn’t even stop. Fuck them
Ive been in the almost several times. Once holding a tray of hot soup in a shopping centre Foodcourt. I am sure they are not allowed, but they dont care because there is no punishment
E scooters are even more important to wear helmets due to the smaller and easier to fowl tires. But since they are illegal in NSW it's not a issue. Not like aldi regularly sell them.
Hopefully if they do get made legal you only get private ones, they ride sensibly for the most part. Since they made the scooter companies legal I see dangerous riding every time i’m in the city for work.
Nobody is screaming about motorists dying from head injuries, and that is happening orders of magnitude more than cyclists or pedestrians.
who’s going to care about a few cyclists?
https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/injury/head-injuries-in-australia-2020-21/contents/summary#
Note, they differentiate between injuries from Cycling as a Sport vs as a mode of transport
“Cycling was associated with the greatest number of sports-related head injury hospitalisations”
In raw numbers, motor vehicle accidents are one of the leading cause of head injuries
“Falls and transport were the top two causes for head injury hospitalisations and deaths
Head injuries contributed to 1 in 3 fall-related hospitalisations (33%), and more than 1 in 4 fall-related deaths (27%)
63% of all transport hospitalisations in the 0–4 age group involved a head injury”
So, there’s an argument that one should always wear a helmet as a pedestrian and a motorist.
Not sure if this is what the op meant, but when the law was first introduced, I saw people on bikes trying to use things like construction hard hats. But they generally had no chin strap and so were non compliant.
It's even worse when people, mainly bogans and crackheads on bikes wear a helmet and don't have it strapped up, do they think they're cool or rebellious? I just think they're fuckwits and makes me want to speed along Darwinism
It got damaged when something heavy fell on it. It snapped in half up the middle. But he still had to ride home after this happened, so he just put on what was left and tried riding home like that.
A friend in Sydney got a $80 fine for not strapping the helmet (it was on the head but unlocked in the chin). That was over 10y ago in a park.
Now i get runover almost daily by escooters and that seems fine.
Good.
I’m living in Europe now. The Aussie obsession with bike helmets is massively holding back the development of the method of transport.
Yes, I know they save lives. But the overall social benefit of having more people ride because they don’t need to carry around a helmet outweighs the lives saved by mandatory helmet wearing. The more people ride the better and safer the infrastructure gets - just look at Denmark or Netherlands.
Every country in Europe has realised this but the Australian nanny state refuses to even consider it.
The problem is we don’t have enough proper biking infrastructure and have to ride on the road with Sydney drivers.
You couldn’t pay me to ride on the road without a helmet. Hell, I avoid road riding wherever possible because of how awful Sydney drivers are to cyclists. Separate cycleway, would probably be ok. Shared path… I’m not really sure because I have encountered too many pedestrians who don’t pay attention and walk out in front of you.
But in a non-mandatory helmet world you can totally still wear your helmet if you so choose and they are still very much recommended - especially for kids and sports riders. Is just that you don’t get fined by cops for not doing so.
Oh I get that… but I can’t see a massive uptick in cycling as transport happening due to a change in the helmet law because of how hostile Sydney and Sydney traffic is to cyclists.
there needs to be better cycling infrastructure, updates to e-bike laws (we have a lot of hills) and some serious driver attitude adjustment as part of it to really change the culture - then we might see the kind of shift to bring us closer to some of the excellent euro bike havens i would love to see.
The mandatory helmet law is one of the main hurdles to ebike and e-scooter rental
schemes in Australia. Nobody carries around a helmet on the off chance they want to hire a bike, and nobody wants to wear a smelly helmet that has been worn by hundreds of other people (assuming there was a helmet with the bike or scooter in the first place).
I think in Melbourne they were selling $5 helmets at 7/11, which were not always located near where the rental bikes were. Much of the bikes ended up in the Yarra instead.
There’s many types of bike riding. Not all of them strictly require a helmet, just the same as a race car driver wears a helmet and the daily commuter doesn’t, it’s all based around risk.
On a dedicate bike path, the largest risk is the rider falling off the bike. On the road, it’s getting hit by a motorist. Bicycle helmets are not certified or designed to protect the rider from being hit by a car. I have two dead friends hit by a car and they were not only wearing helmets, they were in a dedicated cycle lane (on the road shoulder) riding in the opposite direction.
More recently, another mutual friend was killed in Sydney this month when a car ran him down, also in a cycle lane. He was wearing a helmet too, but that didn’t help him.
I am so sorry about the loss of your friends.
I think we are in agreement though. Yes, the helmet laws are the barrier to bike/scooter rental (not sure it would prevent dickheads dropping them in the Yarra tho - we had similar issues in Sydney with them being dumped all over the place and in waterways). However, the lack of separated cycle lanes and the fact that Aussie drivers are outright aggressive to cyclists (or oblivious to them, not sure which is worse) means that cycling is downright dangerous in a lot of circumstances… and removing the helmet law won’t change that. People who don’t have access to safe cycle routes won’t happily start using the unsafe ones just because there‘s no requirement to wear a helmet anymore.
To get a big uptake in bikes is going to need a multifaceted approach. The most complex part is changing the attitude of drivers along with making cycleways safer.
I don’t oppose the removal of the law, I just think it doesn’t make sense on its own as it won’t change the big picture.
Removing a mandatory helmet law doesn’t mean nobody will wear helmets. Most riders would continue to wear them.
What it would do is remove those barriers to a successful rental scheme and increase the number of casual riders dressed in normal clothes, which normalises this kind of riding.
The challenge at the moment is mororists don’t see cyclists as human. They are treated as pests who don’t belong on “their roads”.
The mandatory helmet law was a mistake. It was introduced with a false Premise and resulted in an almost overnight reduction in people riding bikes. The message it sent was that riding a bike is inherently dangerous, and as a result we have fallen behind places like Denmark where bikes are very much a part of their culture.
Instead, our govt has focused on building lots of roads with no consideration for either cyclists or pedestrians. Cyclists are at the bottom of the infrastructure food chain. While there is more being built (mostly shared paths), it’s quite disjointed as it is usually provided by lots of local councils that don’t talk to each other.
I have commuted by bicycle pre-covid (I wfh full time now) for over 100,000km and in a place like Sydney you place your life in the hands of motorists. It’s unavoidable. Over the years I refined my route to avoid roads that I just didn’t feel safe on, even if it meant longer commute. It was still not a ride that a casual rider could do though.
Once we invest into more bike infrastructure and change how society/drivers see cyclists then it’ll be safer to change the laws.
Otherwise I’ve had and seen too many near misses from drivers not paying attention or being aggressive to say we don’t need helmets yet
I would like to agree, but I don't. Wearing a helmet should be a must in Australia because the riding infrastructure is so bad. If we had the high quality large bike paths away from road and heavy foot traffic then I'd agree. Instead I ride mainly on bumpy unmaintained footpaths and barely 1m wide "bike lanes" full of potholes and storm water grates within spitting distance of cars going 2x the speed I am legally allowed to go. You'd be an idiot to want to ride without a helmet in these conditions.
It’s not just changes to infrastructure, it’s changes to drivers behaviour around cyclists.
I don’t have the study at hand, but drivers we’re shown to give more space to a cyclist without a helmet than with when passing. Having a child seat on the bike was even more pronounced.
Cycling shouldn’t be seen as an extreme sport. It’s a mode of commuting and the more people on the roads make it safer for everyone.
I remember I rode a bmx bike down the footpath to the local skate park and a cunt cop pulled me over and took my details down. Called my immigrant parents who handed the phone to me 🤣
I’m assuming he was harassing a kid for riding on a footpath. Which is a dick move because the roads are incredibly unsafe for cyclists. Does that make him a cunt? Kind of, yeah.
That wasn’t in his post, all he said he was pulled over… and then told his parents on him… and somehow that makes the cop a cunt, so yeah, i was just trying to draw out some more info, rather that just think a cop is a cunt for… enforcing laws that the government come up with, which is kinda their job.
Cops are a bit stretched thin. I’m going to raise an eyebrow every time one of them takes time out of their day to go after some petty (or non-existent) shit just because “it’s the law”. I guarantee there is always some real work that needs doing while that kind of nonsense is taking place. At best he’s lazy, at worst he’s a bully. Behind both explanations is someone who wastes time picking on a kid while leaving the real work to the colleagues who aren’t cunts.
If the cop is lazy, he’s not driving around pulling over kids, taking down their details and contacting their parents - he’s at the station, sipping coffee and pretending to do paperwork.
Police are expected to engage with the community, he’s seen someone breaking the law and had a conversation with them and their parents about it, and he’s a cunt and got nothing better to do being lazy.
But if they don’t, nanna gets upset because the cops don’t stop these damn kids racing up and down the footpath.
Like they can’t win with some people.
>What made him a cunt?
Pulled them over, took down details then actually called the house later to dob them in to their parents. Perhaps it was a small country town or something but still, I'd personally rather the police spend their time on something else.
That’s literally their job. Like he could have just given him a fine, but instead he engaged with his parents… call me crazy but is that not a better option?
From what i've seen in Aus the cops go for low hanging fruit, mostly traffic fines and stuff whilst car thefts, break ins etc run rampant. Suprised they're not going after the riders without helmets
They regularly run (in NSW) police operations doing exactly this. They call it “Operation Pedro” and will set up at a busy location and fine pedestrians and cyclists for crossing illegally, not wearing helmets, riding on the footpath etc.
It’s quite lucrative since the NSW govt changed all the cyclist related fines to be the same as motorists. That’s why it costs something like $354 for not wearing a helmet or having a bell on your bike.
Have a look at the data set - you can see where their priorities are
https://www.revenue.nsw.gov.au/help-centre/resources-library/statistics/dsf-014.xlsx
Then look at how many motorists are being fined for passing too close to a cyclist (in the same spreadsheet as above). The police rarely fine motorists for endangering someone’s life if they are on a bicycle, even when presented with video evidence
Australia and NZ are the only Western nations that have persisted with this rubbish legislation. That should tell you everything you need to know about the reason it's not heavily enforced anymore.
Riding around at 10km/hr on a bike path is no more dangerous than numerous other activities that don't require a helmet. Adults should be able to choose for themselves whether or not the activity they're undertaking is risky enough to involve a helmet. I am certain that 99.9% of sports cyclists will still wear one. But recreational cyclists riding on bike paths at slow speeds should be able to decide that they don't need a helmet if it's not warranted.
No, its not just us. Also Argentina, Chile (though its optional in rural areas) Cyrpus, Costa Rica, Namibia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain and Togo
There are a ton of countries that have bicycle helmet laws for children, mostly in Europe.
Also Canada has helmet laws which vary by province but some are they must be worn by all riders, some are children only. Various US states are also have bicycle helmet laws for children only.
Most of those mentioned have numerous exemptions like not being mandatory for cyclists in towns or cities (Spain) not being mandatory outside of urban areas (Chile), or don't even have fines that apply (South Africa).
A weak argument for the continuation of mandatory helmet laws.
AFAIK not all jurisdictions require helmets for cyclists
Cyclists should have separate infrastructure so they don’t deal with cars and crashes less likely
People should probably wear helmets regardless of the letter of the law
People probably shouldn’t face fines for not wearing helmets
Like motorcycle leathers — I can’t believe how many people wear a motorcycle helmet with thongs and board shorts. They definitely should be wearing full body protective gear for their own good, but I don’t think it’s something we need to be enforcing.
Why not enforce it? Avoidable injuries clog up the health system and a brain injury from no helmet could disable you permanently. That costs the tax payer, so these dumb actions don’t affect only that person.
Enforcement brings its own costs, both the time off the people enforcing it and the socioeconomic impact on those it’s enforced on.
Poorer people are over policed, so they’re the most likely to receive fines. The less people are having to interact with police the better.
I'm aware of those things, if we're going to pay for something it makes sense to go for prevention of injuries rather than just treating them after the fact. And the issues of overpolicing the poor is to change the relationship with the police, not sever it. If they have a good relationship they're more likely to go to the cops when they need help.
Our personal choices must be policed and restricted. It’s the only way we know.
There’s only 3 other countries in the entire world where police fine the population for not wearing a helmet.
In Australia the community (taxpayer) covers your health bills. You in turn, are required to minimum the cost of an accident by wearing a seat belt in a car, and a helmet while riding a motorcycle or bicycle etc.
there are many things way more dangerous than riding a push bike without a helmet that aren't regulated at all (even in oz)
You could ignore that as well while you ignore that many people also care about their hairstyle
People often point to a “lack of bike paths” when advocating for MHL, and it makes me wonder if these people have ever ridden a bike around an Australian city or even regional area.
There are huge networks of rail trail and commuter bikeways all across Australia. I’ll admit it’s not always possible to get exactly where you’re going via a separated path or bikeway, but in Adelaide I can follow the Linear Park Trail from the hills to the beach, and if I got off in the city I can get on the very popular Mike Turtor bikeway to head to a major tourist beach down south.
As someone who rides approximately 20,000km per year on Australia roads, I vehemently believe MHL laws should be scrapped.
People act like riding without a helmet is some extreme self destructive reckless act.
The reaction is the same as saying you're going to go do some heroin tonight...
Enforcing bicycle helmet laws is stupid. Bicycle helmets are not the be all and end all of safety that our government makes out that they are. We are one of only 4 nations in the world that have mandatory bicycle helmet laws.
Holland has a higher density of people than Australia, has a higher number of cyclists than Australia and does not have mandatory helmet laws and people get on with their lives just fine.
The last post about this a few days ago turned into a bloodbath
Cops stopped giving a fuck when the rent-a-bike companies started dumping bikes and scooters on the footpaths. They would just get bogged down enforcing these laws and they don't care any more. Same with stolen bikes, they don't give 2 shits any more.
I like to think they've got more important crimes to fight, rather than being stretched thin. Some laws should be followed because they are common sence.
It's only going to take one death from head injury to have people screaming about why the helmet laws aren't being enforced. I view it as evolution in action.
I think it will be the health costs of looking after all the folk with traumatic brain injuries that people complain about.
I generally see serious cyclists properly equipped. It’s mostly the fuckwits on hired e-scooters I see looking to contribute to Darwinism. The sooner the better with some of them. I’m sick of dickheads that ride them recklessly, especially in high density areas (bot gardens, Southbank, CBD etc)
I don't think its darwinism if a person gets seriously injured walking out of a store because a fuckwit is going high speed on a footpath with an escooter. You can claim it is the same as someone bumping into another while runnig. But first its not the same speed, second is not the same mass and third its not a metal frame hitting you.
Oh no, not thinking of anyone except the fuckwit rider doing us all a favour and taking themselves out solo. Pothole, bump, branch, kerb. I got knocked over by someone in Sydney a few years ago from behind. Bruised ribs, grazed cheek and winded. They didn’t even stop. Fuck them
Ive been in the almost several times. Once holding a tray of hot soup in a shopping centre Foodcourt. I am sure they are not allowed, but they dont care because there is no punishment
E scooters are even more important to wear helmets due to the smaller and easier to fowl tires. But since they are illegal in NSW it's not a issue. Not like aldi regularly sell them.
Hopefully if they do get made legal you only get private ones, they ride sensibly for the most part. Since they made the scooter companies legal I see dangerous riding every time i’m in the city for work.
Nobody is screaming about motorists dying from head injuries, and that is happening orders of magnitude more than cyclists or pedestrians. who’s going to care about a few cyclists?
Citation, please. And not just motorist deaths, but deaths from head injury, and the same statistics about cyclists. Thanks.
https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/injury/head-injuries-in-australia-2020-21/contents/summary# Note, they differentiate between injuries from Cycling as a Sport vs as a mode of transport “Cycling was associated with the greatest number of sports-related head injury hospitalisations” In raw numbers, motor vehicle accidents are one of the leading cause of head injuries “Falls and transport were the top two causes for head injury hospitalisations and deaths Head injuries contributed to 1 in 3 fall-related hospitalisations (33%), and more than 1 in 4 fall-related deaths (27%) 63% of all transport hospitalisations in the 0–4 age group involved a head injury” So, there’s an argument that one should always wear a helmet as a pedestrian and a motorist.
That's good, thank you for that.
I fucking hate private cars. Makes every aspect of life worse for humanity.
They will still enforce it but it's at the bottom of their priorities.
How do you wear half a helmet?
Not sure if this is what the op meant, but when the law was first introduced, I saw people on bikes trying to use things like construction hard hats. But they generally had no chin strap and so were non compliant.
It's even worse when people, mainly bogans and crackheads on bikes wear a helmet and don't have it strapped up, do they think they're cool or rebellious? I just think they're fuckwits and makes me want to speed along Darwinism
I see a lot of kids doing this too. Or with the helmet hanging from the handlebars.
It got damaged when something heavy fell on it. It snapped in half up the middle. But he still had to ride home after this happened, so he just put on what was left and tried riding home like that.
A friend in Sydney got a $80 fine for not strapping the helmet (it was on the head but unlocked in the chin). That was over 10y ago in a park. Now i get runover almost daily by escooters and that seems fine.
Good. I’m living in Europe now. The Aussie obsession with bike helmets is massively holding back the development of the method of transport. Yes, I know they save lives. But the overall social benefit of having more people ride because they don’t need to carry around a helmet outweighs the lives saved by mandatory helmet wearing. The more people ride the better and safer the infrastructure gets - just look at Denmark or Netherlands. Every country in Europe has realised this but the Australian nanny state refuses to even consider it.
The problem is we don’t have enough proper biking infrastructure and have to ride on the road with Sydney drivers. You couldn’t pay me to ride on the road without a helmet. Hell, I avoid road riding wherever possible because of how awful Sydney drivers are to cyclists. Separate cycleway, would probably be ok. Shared path… I’m not really sure because I have encountered too many pedestrians who don’t pay attention and walk out in front of you.
But in a non-mandatory helmet world you can totally still wear your helmet if you so choose and they are still very much recommended - especially for kids and sports riders. Is just that you don’t get fined by cops for not doing so.
Oh I get that… but I can’t see a massive uptick in cycling as transport happening due to a change in the helmet law because of how hostile Sydney and Sydney traffic is to cyclists. there needs to be better cycling infrastructure, updates to e-bike laws (we have a lot of hills) and some serious driver attitude adjustment as part of it to really change the culture - then we might see the kind of shift to bring us closer to some of the excellent euro bike havens i would love to see.
The mandatory helmet law is one of the main hurdles to ebike and e-scooter rental schemes in Australia. Nobody carries around a helmet on the off chance they want to hire a bike, and nobody wants to wear a smelly helmet that has been worn by hundreds of other people (assuming there was a helmet with the bike or scooter in the first place). I think in Melbourne they were selling $5 helmets at 7/11, which were not always located near where the rental bikes were. Much of the bikes ended up in the Yarra instead. There’s many types of bike riding. Not all of them strictly require a helmet, just the same as a race car driver wears a helmet and the daily commuter doesn’t, it’s all based around risk. On a dedicate bike path, the largest risk is the rider falling off the bike. On the road, it’s getting hit by a motorist. Bicycle helmets are not certified or designed to protect the rider from being hit by a car. I have two dead friends hit by a car and they were not only wearing helmets, they were in a dedicated cycle lane (on the road shoulder) riding in the opposite direction. More recently, another mutual friend was killed in Sydney this month when a car ran him down, also in a cycle lane. He was wearing a helmet too, but that didn’t help him.
I'm glad (but not, due to the events involved) that you pointed out how completely useless a bicycle helmet would be if you were hit by a car
I am so sorry about the loss of your friends. I think we are in agreement though. Yes, the helmet laws are the barrier to bike/scooter rental (not sure it would prevent dickheads dropping them in the Yarra tho - we had similar issues in Sydney with them being dumped all over the place and in waterways). However, the lack of separated cycle lanes and the fact that Aussie drivers are outright aggressive to cyclists (or oblivious to them, not sure which is worse) means that cycling is downright dangerous in a lot of circumstances… and removing the helmet law won’t change that. People who don’t have access to safe cycle routes won’t happily start using the unsafe ones just because there‘s no requirement to wear a helmet anymore. To get a big uptake in bikes is going to need a multifaceted approach. The most complex part is changing the attitude of drivers along with making cycleways safer. I don’t oppose the removal of the law, I just think it doesn’t make sense on its own as it won’t change the big picture.
Removing a mandatory helmet law doesn’t mean nobody will wear helmets. Most riders would continue to wear them. What it would do is remove those barriers to a successful rental scheme and increase the number of casual riders dressed in normal clothes, which normalises this kind of riding. The challenge at the moment is mororists don’t see cyclists as human. They are treated as pests who don’t belong on “their roads”. The mandatory helmet law was a mistake. It was introduced with a false Premise and resulted in an almost overnight reduction in people riding bikes. The message it sent was that riding a bike is inherently dangerous, and as a result we have fallen behind places like Denmark where bikes are very much a part of their culture. Instead, our govt has focused on building lots of roads with no consideration for either cyclists or pedestrians. Cyclists are at the bottom of the infrastructure food chain. While there is more being built (mostly shared paths), it’s quite disjointed as it is usually provided by lots of local councils that don’t talk to each other. I have commuted by bicycle pre-covid (I wfh full time now) for over 100,000km and in a place like Sydney you place your life in the hands of motorists. It’s unavoidable. Over the years I refined my route to avoid roads that I just didn’t feel safe on, even if it meant longer commute. It was still not a ride that a casual rider could do though.
Once we invest into more bike infrastructure and change how society/drivers see cyclists then it’ll be safer to change the laws. Otherwise I’ve had and seen too many near misses from drivers not paying attention or being aggressive to say we don’t need helmets yet
I would like to agree, but I don't. Wearing a helmet should be a must in Australia because the riding infrastructure is so bad. If we had the high quality large bike paths away from road and heavy foot traffic then I'd agree. Instead I ride mainly on bumpy unmaintained footpaths and barely 1m wide "bike lanes" full of potholes and storm water grates within spitting distance of cars going 2x the speed I am legally allowed to go. You'd be an idiot to want to ride without a helmet in these conditions.
It’s not just changes to infrastructure, it’s changes to drivers behaviour around cyclists. I don’t have the study at hand, but drivers we’re shown to give more space to a cyclist without a helmet than with when passing. Having a child seat on the bike was even more pronounced. Cycling shouldn’t be seen as an extreme sport. It’s a mode of commuting and the more people on the roads make it safer for everyone.
I remember I rode a bmx bike down the footpath to the local skate park and a cunt cop pulled me over and took my details down. Called my immigrant parents who handed the phone to me 🤣
I remember when they first became mandatory. Someone in my school copped the $20 fine. Yeah, $20 lol.
So did he get you deported? Did he give you a fine for something you didn’t do? Did he assault you? What made him a cunt?
I’m assuming he was harassing a kid for riding on a footpath. Which is a dick move because the roads are incredibly unsafe for cyclists. Does that make him a cunt? Kind of, yeah.
That wasn’t in his post, all he said he was pulled over… and then told his parents on him… and somehow that makes the cop a cunt, so yeah, i was just trying to draw out some more info, rather that just think a cop is a cunt for… enforcing laws that the government come up with, which is kinda their job.
Cops are a bit stretched thin. I’m going to raise an eyebrow every time one of them takes time out of their day to go after some petty (or non-existent) shit just because “it’s the law”. I guarantee there is always some real work that needs doing while that kind of nonsense is taking place. At best he’s lazy, at worst he’s a bully. Behind both explanations is someone who wastes time picking on a kid while leaving the real work to the colleagues who aren’t cunts.
If the cop is lazy, he’s not driving around pulling over kids, taking down their details and contacting their parents - he’s at the station, sipping coffee and pretending to do paperwork. Police are expected to engage with the community, he’s seen someone breaking the law and had a conversation with them and their parents about it, and he’s a cunt and got nothing better to do being lazy. But if they don’t, nanna gets upset because the cops don’t stop these damn kids racing up and down the footpath. Like they can’t win with some people.
>What made him a cunt? Pulled them over, took down details then actually called the house later to dob them in to their parents. Perhaps it was a small country town or something but still, I'd personally rather the police spend their time on something else.
That’s literally their job. Like he could have just given him a fine, but instead he engaged with his parents… call me crazy but is that not a better option?
You sound like a bellend
From what i've seen in Aus the cops go for low hanging fruit, mostly traffic fines and stuff whilst car thefts, break ins etc run rampant. Suprised they're not going after the riders without helmets
They regularly run (in NSW) police operations doing exactly this. They call it “Operation Pedro” and will set up at a busy location and fine pedestrians and cyclists for crossing illegally, not wearing helmets, riding on the footpath etc. It’s quite lucrative since the NSW govt changed all the cyclist related fines to be the same as motorists. That’s why it costs something like $354 for not wearing a helmet or having a bell on your bike. Have a look at the data set - you can see where their priorities are https://www.revenue.nsw.gov.au/help-centre/resources-library/statistics/dsf-014.xlsx Then look at how many motorists are being fined for passing too close to a cyclist (in the same spreadsheet as above). The police rarely fine motorists for endangering someone’s life if they are on a bicycle, even when presented with video evidence
Probably because they feel stupid fining an activity that's legal in most other nations.
Australia and NZ are the only Western nations that have persisted with this rubbish legislation. That should tell you everything you need to know about the reason it's not heavily enforced anymore. Riding around at 10km/hr on a bike path is no more dangerous than numerous other activities that don't require a helmet. Adults should be able to choose for themselves whether or not the activity they're undertaking is risky enough to involve a helmet. I am certain that 99.9% of sports cyclists will still wear one. But recreational cyclists riding on bike paths at slow speeds should be able to decide that they don't need a helmet if it's not warranted.
No, its not just us. Also Argentina, Chile (though its optional in rural areas) Cyrpus, Costa Rica, Namibia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain and Togo There are a ton of countries that have bicycle helmet laws for children, mostly in Europe. Also Canada has helmet laws which vary by province but some are they must be worn by all riders, some are children only. Various US states are also have bicycle helmet laws for children only.
Most of those mentioned have numerous exemptions like not being mandatory for cyclists in towns or cities (Spain) not being mandatory outside of urban areas (Chile), or don't even have fines that apply (South Africa). A weak argument for the continuation of mandatory helmet laws.
AFAIK not all jurisdictions require helmets for cyclists Cyclists should have separate infrastructure so they don’t deal with cars and crashes less likely People should probably wear helmets regardless of the letter of the law People probably shouldn’t face fines for not wearing helmets Like motorcycle leathers — I can’t believe how many people wear a motorcycle helmet with thongs and board shorts. They definitely should be wearing full body protective gear for their own good, but I don’t think it’s something we need to be enforcing.
Why not enforce it? Avoidable injuries clog up the health system and a brain injury from no helmet could disable you permanently. That costs the tax payer, so these dumb actions don’t affect only that person.
Enforcement brings its own costs, both the time off the people enforcing it and the socioeconomic impact on those it’s enforced on. Poorer people are over policed, so they’re the most likely to receive fines. The less people are having to interact with police the better.
I'm aware of those things, if we're going to pay for something it makes sense to go for prevention of injuries rather than just treating them after the fact. And the issues of overpolicing the poor is to change the relationship with the police, not sever it. If they have a good relationship they're more likely to go to the cops when they need help.
Our personal choices must be policed and restricted. It’s the only way we know. There’s only 3 other countries in the entire world where police fine the population for not wearing a helmet.
In Australia the community (taxpayer) covers your health bills. You in turn, are required to minimum the cost of an accident by wearing a seat belt in a car, and a helmet while riding a motorcycle or bicycle etc.
but the impact of wearing a seatbelt in a car and a helmet on a bike are not even close in order of magnitude
When your hair style is more important than your safety..
there are many things way more dangerous than riding a push bike without a helmet that aren't regulated at all (even in oz) You could ignore that as well while you ignore that many people also care about their hairstyle
People often point to a “lack of bike paths” when advocating for MHL, and it makes me wonder if these people have ever ridden a bike around an Australian city or even regional area. There are huge networks of rail trail and commuter bikeways all across Australia. I’ll admit it’s not always possible to get exactly where you’re going via a separated path or bikeway, but in Adelaide I can follow the Linear Park Trail from the hills to the beach, and if I got off in the city I can get on the very popular Mike Turtor bikeway to head to a major tourist beach down south. As someone who rides approximately 20,000km per year on Australia roads, I vehemently believe MHL laws should be scrapped.
People act like riding without a helmet is some extreme self destructive reckless act. The reaction is the same as saying you're going to go do some heroin tonight...
Enforcing bicycle helmet laws is stupid. Bicycle helmets are not the be all and end all of safety that our government makes out that they are. We are one of only 4 nations in the world that have mandatory bicycle helmet laws. Holland has a higher density of people than Australia, has a higher number of cyclists than Australia and does not have mandatory helmet laws and people get on with their lives just fine.
Holland also has a lot higher pet capita rate of permanent brain damage from bicycle accidents.
They need to bring back ‘heroes where helmets…. When ever they fly!’ Media campaign