"Life punishes those who delay"

Finally a well written and supportive article, for those of us who choose to cycle without helmets, has been published in the Sydney Morning Herald ! In fact a truly excellent article writen by Elizabeth Farrelly that succinctly exposes the nonsense that our helmet laws are as well as eloquently alluding to the unnecessary drain on our 'oh so' limited public resources.

To date the Sydney Morning Herald has been completely silent on the issue from the side of the non-helmet wearers, and instead has fatuously allowed the commercial reality of "Big Helma" to dictate the spin of cycling safety as though it was reliable evidence. We only have to recall the numerous comments and articles over the last few months from the police minister, the president of Bicycle NSW, and Miranda Devine just for starters. But now we have Elizabeth going into bat for us, and we must capitalise on this surprising and delightful turn of the tide...

...and just as Gorbachev so saliently pointed out to Erich Honecker all those years ago, we cannot afford to delay! The zeitgeist has undoubtedly changed and we are no longer prepared be held hostage by the 'regulators' and the 'regulated'. It is essential that we continue to object to the infringement of our civil liberties so blatantly apparent in enforcement of our mandatory helmet laws.

Notwithstanding our helmet laws, as the mother of 4 young adults, I am proud to say that all our family cycles for utility purposes, and only my partner wears a helmet. But an interesting development has occurred in our family. As a result of my involvement in this campaign, the volumes of literature strewn over every surface in our house, the people that we have met who have devoted hours of stringent and rigorous academic research to this issue, as well as being a man of 'medicine & science', my partner has acknowledged that the evidence used to bolster the case for mandatory helmet laws was questionable at best! In fact he even conceded over skype this morning, as our two hemispheres connected, that he is seriously reconsidering his helmet behaviour - pure magic!

No kidding this is heartening news, and I repeat yet again that I am committed to this cycling advocacy campaign, that I am committed to assisting in whatever way I can to repeal our riduculous mandatory helmet laws, and that I am equally determined to see it through to the end.

Well done to Elizabeth Farrelly (and the SMH! - I mustn't be stingy in my praise!) for opening up mainstream print to discuss our obsolete helmet regulations.