From Peter Berkeley:
MELBOURNE’S $5.5 million bike share scheme isn’t attracting many users, and Mike Rubbo reckons he knows why: the helmets.
Fewer than 70 trips are being made a day on Melbourne’s 600-bike system, a tiny number of journeys compared with the take-up rate seen in bigger schemes introduced in 135 cities around the world.
Mr Rubbo, a Sydney filmmaker and bicycle blogger, will try to underscore his argument on Saturday morning by leading a protest ride from Melbourne University without a helmet, risking a fine of $146. He wants Roads Minister Tim Pallas to follow Mexico City’s lead and waive compulsory helmet laws for the bike-share scheme.
According page 14 (Sec2:14) this report, around 4000 BC seniors were hospitalized between 2001-2004 due to head injuries. http://www.health.gov.bc.ca/library/publications/year/2006/falls_report.pdf
That’s more than 3 per day on average. I look forward to the mandatory helmet law for the over 65s.
Perhaps that will follow similar laws for drivers of convertibles, rollerbladers and fast joggers.
Alternatively, perhaps we stop making a mockery of the legal system and allow individuals to choose their own risk tolerance.
Why anyone would think a bike share scheme would work somewhere where a helmet law is in place and enforced is beyond me. The ability to spontaneously make a trip is key to a bike share scheme, so are people going to carry helmets around with them just in case they decide to ride a bike? Or are they going to supply helmets and turn it into a lice share scheme?
Chrisroper, I like your phrase, Lice share scheme. may i borrow it?
Yes, Vancouver should learn from our mistake. The way to start progress is perhaps as I’m suggesting here , an exemption for bike share schemes. When this is seen to work and not have the sky fall in, then it can go wider.
For what happened at the demo, see my blog. Cheers, Mike Rubbo
From what I understood, Melbourne hoped to have nearby convenience stores sell cheap helmets. I guess that wasn’t nearly convenient or cheap enough for users.
Good lesson for Vancouver. Melbourne was the first city with a mandatory helmet law to try a bike-share system, and it seems to have failed miserably.
Vancouver will have to hope for a law change if it ever wants to introduce a bike share.
Hi Canadian Veggie, you are right , if you saw the film I made last Sept. which predicted the problem, in that, clip Alison Cohen working for the bike share scheme, said people would source cheap helmets nearby.
Interestingly, in the new film I’m now cutting which is the story of staking out the Melb. Univ. bike share docking stations, I discovered there was a bike shop on campus just nea by. Had they been approached to supply cheap helmets, or even inspected rental ones to bike share users? No!
This scheme does not even believe its own spin.
Helmets are needed for legitimate safety reasons when riding either a bicycle or motorcycle, just as seat-belts and infant and child car-seats are needed in cars. Society bears many of the uninsured costs of serious head injuries through lost productivity and output. Individuals and families bear enormous costs in lost lives and permanent disabilities.
It’s completely irresponsible to trivialize this need, and utterly perverse or to say that the tail must wag the dog, that to get the bike share scheme going full blast we must repeal the requirement for safety helmets.
Rod, if you are right, then explain how people cycle safely all over Europe, Asia, and North America without helmets.
Montreal would not now have its very successful Bixi scheme if the city Govt. had succumbed to your argument which was forcefully presented by one local neurosurgeon in particular.
The public health cost in terms of accidents./ 5 Bixis were involved in accidents in the first season (2.5 millions kms. ridden) None serious.
Put those against the huge public health and quality of life benefits, and surely I can rest my case.
Rod, see my link above. I presume you’re in favour of home-helmets for the over 65s? Or indeed for pedestrians who suffer annual head injuries in far larger absolute numbers.
Do the healthcare costs and lost potential of so many diabetic auto-commuters not concern you?
I made an error. Bixis covered 3.5 million kms in Montreal in their first season, and as I said with five accidents resulting. Mike
Uninsured? We all pay our MSP premiums, and out-of-province visitors are covered by whatever they’re covered by, but that’s usually not us. You’re right that there are other costs, but hopefully individuals can make a considered choice all on their own, as they do with many activities.
In terms of individual consequences, perhaps helmets are a good idea, but they’re much harder to argue in terms of collective costs. Mandatory helmet laws do cast cycling in a very dangerous light (what other activities require helmets? motorcycling? ice-climbing? construction?) and from what I have read, are almost universally associated with to decreases in participation.
There is also a big difference (in terms of collective costs, not individual consequences) when comparing with seat belts. If I am discouraged from driving because of a mandatory seat belt requirement, my not driving is a good thing, collectively; I’ll get more exercise walking/ busing/ cycling, I won’t contribute to congestion or poorer air quality, etc… If I am discouraged from riding my bike, it’s hard to see how, other than the possibility of a head injury, there’s any upside.
It’s very interesting to see how this is playing out in Melbourne, though unless helmet enforcement is fantastically intense, I’d imagine that low uptake has more to do with the relatively low number of stations and bikes (compared with Montréal).
Peter, I don’t know how intense the the police enforcement is re helmets. I do know our demo was staked out by two cops on bikes well before it began and then the coverage increased.
The point is that most people are law abiding, tourists are often confused, and so the situation is, and will remain, a mess.
I found that some bikes had prominent helmet stickers between the handlebars, some did not.
A nearby bike shop, a logical source of helmets, knew nothing of the scheme from that POV.
I feel we have an excellent chance here to thoroughly review our out-of-step helmet laws in under the impetus of helping this great asset.
We’ll never have a better chance. Mike
As they used to say where I used to work “You have to look at the bigger picture”.
Those helmets will be gathering dust the day after we all day from a overheated overpoluted atmosphere.
Let’s encourage the use of the bicycle, at ALL COSTS. Please. Now. The only disadvantage it has against cars, is well, when there are cars around, cyclists tend to have accidents.
Let’s mature as a society, and hold ourselves responsible for the use (or not) of a helmet. We need to stop blaming (or suing) the government for our own decisions. The helmets should definitely be encouraged but not compulsory.
I meant to say “the day we all DIE from” (not day)