SMIDSYs

SMIDSY is an all too oft used term in cycling circles.

SMIDSY is an acronym for Sorry Mate I Didn't See You, and it's used by cyclists to describe many motorists. Sorry Mate I Didn't See You is all to often the reaction of motorists having hit or had a near miss with a cyclist. A SMIDSY caused a rather ugly crash between a truck and one of my Dulwich Hill club mates recently, and it damn near killed her. She got off "lightly" with a broken nose, collarbone and pelvis.

My club mate is no red light running madman on a bike (if you're wondering). Quite the contrary. She's 56, incredibly sane and is about as far from a cycling daredevil as one gets. She rides a bike that is lit up like a Christmas tree. How anyone missed seeing her is stunning.

I can only guess lycropia was at play. I did another post on lycropia recently - basically that's my logic as to why people don't see cyclists. In short, they don't see them because they are not looking for them. Hit the link and watch the video.

It's simply not good enough. The SMIDSY involved in my mate's crash has been charged. Not that it helps my friend's pelvis, but it last it shows police will no longer accept SMIDSY as an excuse for hitting a cyclist (about time!). Hopefully this proves a turning point for the matter moving forward.  

So let's quadruple car rego

So we are constantly bombarded with the bicycle registration thing.
"We pay for car rego? Why aren't those cyclists paying their share. User
pays" and so on.

The fact the roads are not paid for in full by rego, not even close ($3.4 billion rego revenue, $15.7 billion in road expenses, source: Dept of Infrastructure) all taxpayers including cyclists foot the bill, doesn't seem to cut through. So I suggest in the spirit of user pays that car rego is quadrupled, so it goes at least close to recouping the outlay on roads. It's only at that point drivers will truly be able to say the rego pays for the roads, and they have a leg to stand on claiming their rego paid for the roads and asking cyclists to pay up.


So what say you drivers? Wanna quadruple your rego?

Pedal Choice when you decide to go down the Cleat Path

This last week in Townsville I borrowed a bike off a mate along with cleats and pedals. I usually ride Shimano SPDs on an A530 pedal. The SPDs are sometimes (wrongly) called a mountain bike cleat. I chose this combo as I like the idea of being able to ride in street shoes, something the A530s enable (see the pic below - they are reversible)

This week I rode SPD-SLs on R540 pedals. Clipping out was identical. Clipping in was clumsy, but was improving as the week went on. I still though reckon the SPD/A530 was a vastly superior option, especially for someone learning to clip in. With the SL/R540s you really battled to turn a pedal or get any traction without being clipped in. With the SPD/A530 combo you can easily get up to speed without being clipped in, as you have a shoes sole that is flat and a flat surface on which to pedal.. That's great for riding bunch or uphill starts, when wresting to clip in and get up to speed can create headaches and cause crashes.

R540 pedals:

I think labelling SPDs as Mountain Bike pedals is both a misnomer - many shoe styles are entirely road -and real shame for beginners. When combined with A530 pedals they offer a big edge over SPD-SL/R540s. And don't worry. There are a heap of other pedals in the SPD range if you want to go down the weight weenie path or get a more "pro" looking pedal.

The Registration Chestnut Reheated

So off the back of the QLD decision to enshrine into law that motorists need to give cyclists at least 1 m of space when passing, there have been more than the average number of people nashing their teeth that cyclists don't pay rego. This article is fairly representative of said nashing, but is far from the only example.

I dealt with the registration chestnut a few months ago - here's the link. In short, the article makes the point that rego doesn't come close to covering the costs of roads and road costs are in fact heavily subsidised by _all_ taxpayers (including cyclists) so they have already paid their fare share, most cyclists already own a car & pay rego, and rego won't stop *some* cyclists breaking laws just like car registration doesn't stop *some* drivers breaking laws.

Given the issue was again floating around I again though it was worth linking my original article. I figured I'd specifically address the points raised in this article:

Bikes got in Front of me at the lights! Err, yes, that's called Lane Filtering and it's entirely legal. I think cyclists should be selective about when and where they use it (as I make the point here), but it is indeed legal.

I saw some cyclists break the law! Yawn. Go to your local school at pickup time or a busy intersection near the CBD at peakhour and tell me how many drivers you saw breaking the law.

A cyclist came within 1 meter of me! Well that's how the law works. They are the at risk party, not you.

Cyclists should have to get a licence. Most already do. In the order of 85-90%.

Bikes like cars should be subject to annual checks. Most cyclists I know treat their bikes immaculately and the bikes would fly through any such check. I certainly haven't seen any suggestion that bike maintenance is a cause of any recent incidents. Surely this is simply an attempt to add red tape to the process to make it inconvenient for cyclists. 

Cyclists should be fined for road breaches. They already are.

You must wear rego that a driver can easily see. Why exactly? What's the benefit? Try report a driver for speeding or an illegal U-turn down the local police station, and see how you go.

They should pay rego the equivalent of a small car.  I'd love to see some sort of logic behind this, but I reckon there's none and they've just pulled a big number out of the air that they feel would deter cyclists. A small car causes far more road wear and tear than a bike. Puts our far more pollution. Takes up a parking space. Even the fee a motorbike pays feels like a big stretch, let alone a small car.

Why don't cyclists use the footpath? Err, unless you are a child, it's illegal to do so.

Funny thing is I'd happily pay a couple of hundred a year to ride on the roads if there was genuinely going to be some respect from drivers and good infrastructure built as a result. Issue being our right to use the roads is already there under law, so I can't see rego working.

The Sydney Cycling Corridor: Is this a simple, cheap way to help address cycling safety?

OK, so there's been plenty of finger pointing, hand wringing and angst over the 48 hours since the Mascot bike crash but a distinct lack of solutions to address the key issue of cyclist safety. We've had god know how many drivers complaining that cyclists don't pay rego (I've no idea how that would have helped), and plenty of cyclists ranting about poor driving.

So here's the idea. And I do think it quite novel. I can't lay claim to it (I'm not certain of the origin - it came up in an office discussion) but it needs some air to get going.

So the idea is the Sydney Cycling Corridor. Every Saturday and Sunday 10s of hundreds of Sydney Cyclists make the run south from Metro Sydney to Waterfall. Here's the basic route. The precise run varies club to club and group to group, but the journey is largely the same regardless if you set off from Kings Cross, Randwick, Newtown or Ashfield.  It's a solid 80 to 90 km hitout with about 500m of vertical ascent (a decent hitout by most standards). And the ride doubles as a launch point and one can easily bolt on the Royal National Park if you are craving more hills or kilometres.

The ride is popular because the roads are wide and well surfaced, the journey largely uninterrupted and traffic is also light on weekend mornings. Although the speed limits top 80 for cars, being multi lane roads and traffic being light getting around the cyclists is normally no issue. Until Sunday that is.

So why then don't we make the left lane both ways a cyclists only lane from 4am to 10am (the Sydney Cycling corridor) on Saturdays and Sundays? Given the roads are quiet it'll make zero difference to driving times (the cyclists are there already), and drivers are already used to time dependant road conditions (look at bus lanes, clearways, T2 and T3 lanes, school zones, etc). And it requires zero new infrastructure (so will be cheap) - just a few signs and some paint.

That's got to help - it separates the drivers and cyclists, which is universally agreed to make cycling a safer affair. The Sydney Cycling Corridor - not my own idea, but a rather good one I reckon.

Today's Crash in Mascot

There was a fairly hefty cycling crash in Southern Cross Drive in Mascot today, a small pack of Eastern Suburbs Cycling Club riders all hit by a small 4WD.  The only good news is the cyclists all survived. The dust hasn't really settled yet on the incident and the police investigation still has to run its course, but the reaction on social media and in comments sections on assorted  articles has been quite striking. There doesn't seem though to be much debate about the party at fault (the driver appears to the at fault party: cyclists are allowed to ride there; he clearly hit them from the back; the road is straight, flat and the light was good and the roads dry, and there's no traffic lights or intersections nearby for the cyclists to pop out from. You've also got the weight of numbers. Were 6 people all in the wrong or the single motorist?). Indeed the ESCC rides appear to join Southern Cross Drive miles north (near Centennial Park) and rides the route routinely.

Here's an image of the car post-crash. Clearly they hit the riders rather hard:

So the social media stuff threw up the standard array of topics. The cyclists don't pay rego chestnut, as is that was some sort of justification or defence. Given bike rego doesn't exist, it seems rather daft to jump up and down when the cyclists involved didn't purchase it, and nor do the people give any indication how that would have helped them at all today.

Most other comments were similarly silly. They did though a rather striking insight into the depth of angst that exists about cyclists being on the roads. I think this is such a logical place to start addressing the cyclist-driver rift  - a campaign personalising the people in the lycra, and making it clear that they are 100% entitled to be there. That would be a great start to improving cycling safety.

Probably the only question I saw raised that was vaguely worthwile answering was why do cyclists ride there? Given Southern Cross Drive is a 3 lane road (each way) that forms the CBD - Sydney Airport corridor and the speed limit reaches 80 km/h, to non cyclists it probably seems like the sort of place to avoid on a bike. Thing is the same qualities that make it a good transport corridor also make it a good place for cyclists: A well surfaced, quite straight road. No traffic lights, and very few entry and exit points for traffic. That means less stop start, and ducking & weaving (both of which cyclists deal with daily, but don't really enjoy). And in the early hours on a Sunday, there's a lack of traffic, so getting around a slower moving cycling group should be quite easy. It's also 100% legal. There are motorways/expressways where cyclists aren't welcome, but this bit of Southern Cross Drive isn't one of them.

I hope the injuries aren't too serious, and justice is served.

Cyclists: lose the angry pills

I can't help but feel the way cyclists conduct themselves on and off the bike doesn't contribute much to their safety on the road. Cyclists often seem to have a hair trigger and totally lose the plot at even quite mild, sensible discussion or the most trivial of driving issues.

Now Remember, I'm a roadie and commuter myself. I'm well aware that studies have shown motorists are typically the wrongdoers in accidents involving cars and bikes and that cyclists aren't nearly as well protected as drivers and thus suffer ramifications of accidents far more severely.

I just though feel that launching straight into a bitter rant (be it on Facebook, or the road) and leading out with a statement like "all drivers are dickheads", totally puts the motorists offside, so they'll shut down and stop listening, thus stopping you make any decent points and perhaps changing their behaviour. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

It also adds to the idea that cyclists are illogical psychos that don't listen to reason. That's not helping. Showing we are entirely sensible and reasonable people does far more for the cause.

So keep this in mind next time you're involved in a fracas, be it on the road, on the internet or a chat at the office. No dramas taking a nice firm, clear, pro cycling position, but make sure it's not a bitter rant. That might be the popular route with mates in the cycling club, but you'll probably do some damage to how cyclists are perceived and treated.

Lycropia: the reason the cyclist road toll is up?

This is bloody interesting (and an exceptional ad):

It's funny - I knew what was coming (I'd seen a similar test in Mythbusters, with a zombie rather than break dancing bear) and I still missed it.

The ad sums it up well - if you don't consciously look for something even while concentrating, you probably won't see it. This article in the NZ Herald reaches an identical conclusion. It's also perhaps THE reason there are so many cyclist - car crashes of late (and the stats show drivers are by and large the at fault party).

I'm coining the term Lycropia - the cycling version of myopia (near sightedness). Drivers have a blind spot for cyclists. And people are dying as a result.

And fluro lycra doesn't address the issue either - if a bear suit & moonwalking won't fix it, a bright shirt won't either.

This actually makes perfect sense to me, and explains a few incidents. (yes, it's anecdotal, but indulge me this once). I was crossing the road at Bronte beach the other day, and for those who don't know Bronte there's two steep road decents feeding into the beachfront. A family was crossing the road at the base of one of the decents (not at the pedestrian crossing BTW before you ask), and I saw the father and two kids look up the hill right at the cyclist. It was a bright day, the sun was behind us, the rider was maybe 15 meters away - literally impossible to get a better view of the cyclist. Yet having looked squarely at him, they stepped straight out and damn near got skittled (I reckon the cyclist was probably doing 50 odd, so it would have been ugly). I can only guess they were looking for cars and Lycropia kicked in.

Of course rather than apologise, and clearly being in the wrong, the pedestrian parents proceeded to give the cyclist an earful.

So cyclists: be aware of lycropia, and never assume anyone has seen you.

And drivers & pedestrians: Appreciate cyclists are in fact road users , and make sure you are looking for them.

And authorities: get this ad on the Telly post-haste

Pedestrians: Sometimes Victims, Sometimes Perpetrators

If I'm writing a blog about cycling safety, at some point I need to address pedestrian issues......try googling cyclist and pedestrian.

Pedestrians and cyclists are uncomfortable bed fellows. Incidents are disturbingly commonplace. Yes, cyclists are banned from riding on sidewalks, but there are increasingly large numbers of "shared zones". The laws for shared zones place the responsibility for avoiding crashes squarely on cyclists, with signs stating Give way to Pedestrians such as these:

The problem being cyclists also need to adhere to the laws of physics. So if a pedestrian decides they want to run across the path to get a picture of the cute schnauzer, things can end badly for both the cyclist and pedestrian.

So my tips for cyclists riding in shared zones:

• Drop your pace. If you want to put the hammer down, do it in a more appropriate spot.
• Announce your presence. Ring your bell, or call out (something like "cyclist on your right") when you are approaching. 
• Give the pedestrians a wide berth. The more the better. They may have been wearing an MP3 player or be tuned out and not heard your call/bell.

And my tips for pedestrians:

• Be aware you are in a shared zone and make sure your behaviour reflects that. Take a look before changing directions, keep to the left side and don't walk five abreast down the path.
• Don't tune out just because you're off the road
• Cyclists move at varying speeds (anything from 10-35 km/h on flat terrain, depending on the rider and situation). Make sure you look long enough to assess their speed before crossing their path.
• Don't push to the front at traffic light crossings. It's quite amazing how often pedestrians will push past waiting cyclists at a don't walk sign, in spite of the fact the cyclist was there first, and the cyclist will have to pass them within 5 meters

Join a cycling club (and yes, you will be slower)

Joining a cycling club is something every beginner cyclist should do. Club rides make cycling safer (safety in numbers) but also massively help your own learning curve as a cyclist (they'll show you the ropes in terms of group etiquette, basic bike maintenance & repairs, how to ride safely on the road and you'll also have someone to ask those questions you have as a newbie, like do I wear undies under my lycra). Most decent clubs run a beginners ride once a week or month. Go. You'll also probably meet some nice people who live & ride in your area, so you'll also get the tips on good places to ride (and avoid), best routes to commute, best local coffee, etc, as well as make some new friends. And if something bad does happen on a ride, you'll be riding with people equipped and prepared for such situations.

Too many beginners fall into the thinking "I might slow them down", which is a shame as they will benefit the most from the experience around them on a club ride. And yes, you probably will be slow to start. Guess what though? People don't care. The people from the club leading the ride (who are quite probably very experienced and fit) don't lead a beginner's ride with the expectation they can blast along at their normal speed. Quite the contrary. Beginners rides are riddled with mechanical issues and have a slow average speed. Why? Because the cyclists are beginners. And that's true of everyone on a beginner's ride - they know what to expect.

And clubs have members of all standards. Ranging from uber-fit, shaved leg 20 somethings through to more gentler paced octogenarians.

So will you be slow? Probably. But that's expected.

If the people leading the ride want a good physical workout they'll do other rides. If they are anything like the people why typically lead rides in my club (the Dulwich Hill Bicycle Club) they are very strong riders who rack up 10000km+ per year. Even with 12 months hardcore practice, you'll still be "slowing them down". But they don't mind leading some beginners, as it will see their club grow and they love sharing their sport with others.

Lane Filtering: Pick your Moments

So I'm working thru cycling behaviors. Last post was taking the lane, this time it's lane filtering (also called lane splitting). Lane Filtering is the practice of riding between slow or stationary lines of traffic to get to the front (typically at traffic lights). Now for the drivers out there this is an entirely legal practice.

Being legal doesn't though make it automatically responsible or safe - so pick your moments.

If the cars you are passing by filtering are just then forced to either (again) pass you soon after the lights or queue up behind you, I would suggest this is a incredibly bad point to filter. As a driver, it's bloody annoying.

The right times to filter are where you are accessing a bike lane just beyond the intersection or are about to turn off.

One could of course argue that filtering is entirely legal and a driver should pass you safely regardless, but I think as a cyclist one needs to realise that filtering can frustrate drivers, and frustrated drivers don't always drive as safely as one would like. How then safe a decision is the one to filter if the driver you pass are going to be passing you, frustrated, 100 metres down the road ? It also fails the test of being a considerate road user if you are filtering simply because you can, and are exhibiting that Must Get in Front mentality which causes many an accident.

Why cyclists ride in the middle of the goddam lane

It's a common complaint from motorists. "The bloody cyclist was riding in the middle of the goddam lane. Arrogant twat. Why doesn't he stick to the left?"

(International folk - keep in mind we drive on the left in Australia. Just replace left with right).

Indeed Jeremy Clarkson just made song and dance about such things on Twitter.

The practice is actually encouraged in cycling circles. It is known as taking the lane

Taking the lane is misunderstood by drivers. In that sense Clarskon is just like others. He is stuck in the thinking the best place for bikes is on the left. That may well be true for the drivers looking to pass, but often not for cyclists. We're not riding in the middle of the lane because we are arrogant. We know and understand it's not the most convenient spot for the following cars. The centre of the lane is often the safest place to ride.

Why exactly?

A few reasons:

1) It makes us clearly visible. Failure of a driver to see a cyclist lies at the heart of many car-bicycle accidents, so being in the middle of the lane is the best way to address that.

2) The side of the road is the collection point for all manner of litter, debris, gravel, glass and other crap on the roads (as well as catseye reflectors, which often mark the edge of a lane). All rather dangerous when you're on a bike. If parking is also permitted on the left of the road, it becomes a prime zone for dooring (which occurs hen a car passenger/driver opens the car door directly in your path).

3) Drivers often feel they can squeeze past if the cyclist is on the far left of the lane, regardless of variables like total lane width, oncoming traffic, corners, crests, etc. And the cyclist often (literally) wears the outcome of poor judgements. By sitting in the middle the cyclist makes a clear statement that the driver needs to overtake properly (i.e by moving into the opposite lane) and can't try "squeezing" past.

And, yes it does mean we will hold up the odd car. By a few seconds, which they'll probably regain at the next traffic lights. In our opinion an entirely reasonable trade off for someone's safety. Particularly our own.

And yes, we would be safer riding away from cars. Shame cycling infrastructure sucks and riders are forced onto the roads.

For mine, this is the ideal topic for an education campaign. It's a practice that's badly misunderstood by drivers, is entirely legal on roads without a bike lane, and could simply be addressed with a good ad. It's also a practice that drives a big wedge between cyclists and drivers.

Roadies - swap to 25mm tyres

The standard for tyre width on a road bike for several years has been a 23mm tyre.

Over the last few years there has been a trend toward 25mm. Not just by recreational cyclists either. Orica Greenedge, FDJ, BMC Racing, Omega Pharma & Sky are just a few of the teams running the wider rubber on the UCI tour.

Going to 25mm allows you run a lower tyre pressure (perhaps 15-20 psi less) without the issue of pinch flats. Which makes for a more comfortable, compliant and this safer ride. You have that bit more rubber on the road, so your traction is also improved. The bike will have more grip and is harder to unsettle, as well as being more comfortable.

The interesting thing though this doesn't though come at the sacrifice of speed (hence the pro teams adopting it) - in fact the 25mm option is faster under most conditions. The physics behind this isn't simple. But in short, the rolling resistance (i.e. friction) created by tyres isn't so much caused by the contact area of the tyre, rather how much the tyre distorts from it's standard shape when in contact with the ground. And 25mm tyres are much better than 23mm. Aerodynamically 23mm tyres have an advantage, but the rolling resistance benefits outstrip the aerodynamic drawbacks.

The road surface also has an impact. If the surface is billiard table smooth, 23mm tyres might be the better bet, but on bumpy, coarse chip roads, 25mm tyres are the clear winner.

So throw tradition out the window, and strap on some 25mm rubber. Most bikes will take 25mm no dramas, and you're unlikely to need to change rims. You'll be safer, more comfortable, and quite possibly faster. And if it's good enough for Cadel Evans, Richie Porte, Chris Froome, Simon Gerrans, Matt Goss, Luke Durbridge, Mark Cavendish & Tony Martin, my guess is you'll cope fine.

Brilliant NZ road safety ad (where's the cycling version?)

If you haven't seen this already, take a minute. Powerful stuff:

Cycling safety needs an ad like this (especially in NSW, which is off to a bad 2014 after an ugly 2013). A clear statement of our right to be on the roads and some of the cycling specific laws would be good start (though I'm sure something more creative is easily doable).

The one bit of the Greenway we actually got.....

Someone in the state Government has obviously got an evil sense of humour or perhaps irony. The incoming O'Farrell Government saw fit to can the Greenway project, a 5km bike and pedestrian path to run along side the light rail extension between Dulwich Hill and Lilyfield:

In spite of the project being binned, they still found budget to manufacture and install the signs telling us where the Greenway was _going_ to be:

As I said, someone in the Government has an evil sense of humour or irony.

The real shame of the Greenway getting canned was it was a rather key bit of cycling infrastructure that would have made cycling to the city from the Inner West safer and gotten cyclists off the roads (which surely all motorists applaud. Believe it or not, cyclists don't actually like jockeying with cars in traffic). The Greenway would have hooked the Cooks River cycleway at the Dulwich Hill end with the Anzac Bridge cycle path, which would have given almost everyone in the Sydney's Inner West (think Tempe to Homebush) a car free ride to the CBD, not to mention something for people riding from the outer suburbs to connect into

5 Km doesn't sound like much, but that stretch is really awkward on a bike. There are no neat back street routes meaning cyclists have to mix it with cars on busy roads to go that way.

Keep in mind the light rail extension is still going ahead. With it's $176 million dollar price tag. It was just the cycling-pedestrian path which got binned. Which saved all of $37 million dollars (surely a drop in the ocean when one considers the cost of building any infrastructure in Sydney). And it was a project that would have helped both cyclists AND drivers (and probably also would have taken pressure off public transport as well)

The only good news is the O'Farrell government has come to realize the folly of it's anti-bicycle stance, and that encouraging bicycling makes sense economically.  I live in hope the Greenway project may be brought back to life. 

Good news is we already have the signs.

Helmets: Are they the only thing stopping you from cycling?

Off the back up my last post, I ended up in a long-winded debate (at least by twitter standards) with some card carrying members of the anti-mandatory helmet crew. Was a good insight into their perspective (so I thought I'd try summarise).

I'd probably describe them as being idealists rather than deluded (which was a long way from where I started today). Predictably they put more stock in the scientific studies that show helmets having negligible effects. No shock there. They though see mandatory helmet laws (MHLs) as a *massive* dampener on people's interest in cycling and willingness to take up riding, (not a view I share, but anyhow) which in turn slows the development of cycling infrastructure (which would certainly help cycling safely massively).

They also see as helmets as being a last line of defence, and that the focus should instead be on car drivers giving cyclists more respect and preventing accidents happening in the first place. And when reports such as this one emerge from the University of Adelaide, which showed drivers were the at fault party in 8 out of 10 accidents involving cyclists, one can see where they are coming from. It also raised their ire that a cyclist not having a helmet on was pretty much the end of accident investigation - rather premature, as having a helmet on wouldn't have prevented the accident nor perhaps limited the severity.

There was also a feeling that helmet law was a government cop out, a rather feeble substitute to developing proper infrastructure.

The anti-MHL types were also keen to point out they are practising a rather cruisy form of cycling - low speed, local rides avoiding major roads as much as possible. They feel this type of cycling is far lower risk. Some will actually happily don helmets for more "hardcore" cycling.

There were also numerous references to Amsterdam, and frequent civil libertarian ("I don't judge your decision to wear a helmet, don't judge my informed decision not to") comments throughout the discussion.

So that's the summary. If any anti-MHL folk feel I haven't captured their position fairly, leave a comment or ping me on Twitter

I'm still though very much pro-MHL, and would counter their key points as follows:

• Eliminating helmet laws won't magically turn our cities into Amsterdam, and flood the streets with cyclists. Most of the major cities in Europe have no bike helmet laws, but have similarly low cycling participation rates to our own. This BBC article looks at why participation is so high in Holland v other countries, and came up with infrastructure (again), the fact kids are taking up cycling early (it's on the school curriculum), and Amsterdam is flat and compact.
• For every publication that casts some shadow over the efficacy of helmets, there is another clear cut study like this publication in the Medical Journal of Australia (summarised by TheConversation) which showed you are 5 times better off (ie. safer) with a helmet (versus without) in an accident when you hit your head.
• Tying to argue everyone else needs to do more to ensure cycling safety whilst trying to remove laws that articles such as the one above (even if you don't buy into it's findings for whatever reason) show protect cyclists is an incredibly tough sell. As I said in the previous post, refusing to don a helmet because it's inconvenient, uncomfortable, strikes at your civil liberties or costs 50 bucks then asking others to spend millions or alter their behaviour is entirely unrealistic. Surely one would be better off accepting the helmets for now in the interests of getting other aspects of cycling safety have improved and revisiting it in a few years time.
• I agree cruisy cycling is lower risk than commuting or riding fast. Is it zero risk though? No. You're still subject to drivers not paying attention or giving you due care, imperfect riding surfaces, etc.  
• By focusing almost entirely on the behaviour of drivers, they fall into the unhelpful blame cycle I mentioned in an earlier post

It would though be interesting to know how many people are genuinely turned off cycling because of helmet laws in Australia (let me know in the comments). Studies have been conducted, but they've given widely varied results. And I keep coming back to other European cities without MHLs not having an Amsterdam like uptake of cycling.

Removing MHLs is likely to have a negative effect on motorist behavior

The debate about mandatory helmet laws (MHLs) continues to rage among cyclists. I'm pro-MHL, but the anti-MHL brigade point to the fact MHLs have a negative impact on cycling participation numbers, and thus limits the development of cycling infrastructure, which makes cycling safer. The benefits of a helmet in an accident aren't as clearcut as commonly thought. There are indeed studies which show helmets have a major positive effect on outcomes, others that show effect the effect is negligible.

My own personal take in this is that accidents vary. Wildly. Your speed, your point of impact, any secondary impacts, your weight, your body position, whether you were hit by a car or not, the surface you land on, your attire, speed of medical attention - all of these things (plus any more variables) vary accident to accident. And equally the value of a helmet will also fluctuate massively accident to accident.

I'm also concerned that by pushing hard for removal of MHLs, those cyclists are basically pushing cycling safety to the backburner as an issue. The most simple logic suggests helmets help in accidents (ie. if you fall on head, you are better to protect head) and there are also plenty of studies that have produced that same finding (not to mention plenty of cyclists who support MHLs). So being unwilling to don a helmet is tantamount to saying your safety isn't a concern. If we aren't going to take such a basic and simple step to contribute to our safety, why should we ask drivers make an effort? Or why should governments spend millions on improving infrastructure to address cyclist safety when cyclists can just spend $50?