Newtown to Bondi; naturally on a bicycle

Perfect Sydney Autumn day; only one thing to do - grab our bikes & head to Bondi!

...zip through Newtown, Darlington, Redfern, Surrey Hills, Centennial Park, Waverley Park

...then the ultimate in magic!!!...

'Bondi-breeze' in hair as we coasted down 'Bondi Road' to 'Bondi Beach'!!!! (no doubt about it; Sydney wins hands down - best city ever!!!)

Lunch at 'La Piadina' (bliss!),
Ice creams at 'Speedos' (naughty!)
Music at 'Flying Squirrel' (wicked!)

...totally wrecked & happy - home to Newtown!!

"The Greatest Moral Challenge of Our Time"

(Cartoon: Alan Moir, Sydney Morning Herald 6/5/2010)As long as the oil companies hold the purse strings to our economies, our fragile world will continue to be systematically destroyed...

...and as long as governments continue to grovel for more contracts with these oil companies, intergenerational equity will remain as implausible as unicorns.

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Important "POSTSCRIPT" to yesterday's post:
Clinical Associate Professor Chris Rissel from Sydney University has weighed into the mandatory helmet law debate on Croakey - it is so heartening and so encouraging to read what he has to say!

"Croakey", the Crikey Health Blog

The article I wrote for "Croakey", concerning Australia's vexed issue of mandatory helmet laws, was published today. Predictably, a small flurry of comments has raised implausible claims of protection afforded by helmets - the following is a classic!:

"...I could take you to ED and you could see the cyclists brought in by ambulance after a truck or a car has run over someone’s head."

...a bicycle helmet would protect me from a truck running over my head? No kidding!!!!

Unquestioning loyalty to bicycle helmets has spawned a general acceptance of fatuous helmet-protecting dogma. Notwithstanding this craven desire to believe all the helmet-hype, scientific evidence shows that contrary to popular opinion, bicycle helmets do not provide this mantle of protection.

The belief in helmets has been held together by a belief in their superior protective capabilities, coupled with the 'danger-mongering' of cycling. Inexplicably we have completely lost any critical powers to be able disseminate helmet information for what it actually is - helmet promotion.

But cycling is not dangerous:

- our 'fattest-nation' status is
- our catastrophic committment to the oil industry is
- our inertia in the face of climate change is

So what can we do?

Well for starters...lets' get physical (onto our bikes) & let's get critical (decide for ourselves whether to helmet or not)!!

...also visit "Croakey" and volunteer your thoughts...!!

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POSTSCRIPT:
Quick update with Roads & Traffic Authority (RTA) and my exemption application:

* application received by the Centre for Road Safety yesterday (despatched March 10 2010)
* application currently being processed
* application process cannot be discussed whilst being processed
* application will be processed within a month (June 5 2010, 3 months after intitial despatch)

...and just as a little afterthought, how does one distinguish between a "Department", a "Unit" and a "Centre"? I'm curious - it seems to be an important distinction, and I have been the recipient of much 'authoritative disapproval' asking for the incorrect "whatever"!

Rules glorious rules

Facts on the Rules

1. Helmet laws discourage cycling - cycling rates dropped 40% when mandatory helmet laws were introduced in the early 1990s.
2. Fewer cyclists on the road made (& continue to make) cycling more dangerous, radically departing from the 'safety in numbers' factor
3. Helmet efficacy is greatly exaggerated, and largely unproven (full marks for brilliant marketing though!)
4. Helmet laws cultivate the notion that helmets are the first & last words in bike safety. Governments & parents feel immensely reassured once they've popped a helmet on a child's head - 'well done, us, we've done our bit!'
5. Helmet laws distract from measures that can actually keep cyclists safe such as comprehensive and extensive cycling infrastructure
6. The health benefits from cycling without a helmet outweigh the risk of 'imagined' risk of cycling.

The enactment of the Australian helmet laws was just a 'smoke & mirrors' routine to provide an illusion that something significant had been done for cycling.

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Instead of mandatory helmet laws, the following intiatives should have been implemented:

(i) A 'metre' passing rule for motor vehicles passing cyclists

(ii) Banning cars from parking in bike lanes (see photo above of Newcastle's attempts to 'provide' for cyclists - one open car door & hey presto you hit the deck!)

(iii) Creating more bike lanes

(iv) Creating bike-only thoroughfares

(v) Incorporating bike safety training into public school curriculum

(vi) Providing free bike safety classes to the general public

(vii) Enforcing traffic laws, for both motorists and cyclists

(viii) Holding at-fault motorists fully accountable when they injure or kill cyclists

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It is sobering to note that many more motorists die from head injuries than cyclists do. Oh! and the seat belt argument just isn't comparable. Seat belt efficacy has been overwhelmingly demonstrated; bike helmet efficacy has not.

"Rules, Rules"...as Simon Cutting of Manly put it in the Sydney Morning Herald on Monday, "I can't wait till I'm old enough to move out and get my own country so I can do what I want."

Needless to mention, all the pious goodie-goodies slaughtered his sentiments yesterday!

"You're not in Paris now!"

Classic moment today!

Cycling into town, I passed one of those massive mining trucks that all too often descend upon our Australian roads. It was decked out with about a million B-double engines on the front, and about half a million B-double engines on the back - & every vehicle imaginable was accompanying this 'thing' on my country road.

After the 'lead highway patrol car' mentioned I might need to hop off at some stage and we had negotiated that I could go a little further up the hill before I did actually hop off, the 'second highway patrol car' quipped "you're not in Paris now!"

"...I can dream, Officer, I can dream!"

Human Rights v Mandatory Helmet Laws

(Cartoon: Michael Golding, The Age, April 2010)We are in dire need of an application of a human rights doctrine to the vexed issue of mandatory helmet laws. Such a doctrine could not fail to present a persuasive argument against the continued criminalisation of un-helmeted cycling.

Unreasonably these limiting helmet laws force us to surrender our 'own person' responsibilities and our natural inclination to keep ourselves safe...and all for the commercial reality of an 'anatomy modifying' device (questionably fit for purpose); and the oil industry.

Our devotion to oil continues a relentless drive to plunder the globe. Not for us the message in Jared Diamond's "Collapse"! Who needs to take heed of the history examples in that prophetic tome? No - it's 'business as normal' for our blinkered economies, perversely blind to the 'global canary'.

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But in the meantime, thank heavens Malcolm is planning on using the Pollie Pedal bike rack again!! (Michael Golding's brilliant cartoon appeared in The Age, April 2010 whilst 'M' was in the Wilderness)

Currently, Malcolm Turnbull is the only politician with any environmental 'street cred' in our Australian Parliament. Remember prior to Copenhagen? - he didn't sell out!! - in fact, he was prepared to give all his political ambitions away; he crossed the floor for the environment; impressive!...

...and I can't believe I'm about to say this, but welcome back, Mal!

Hello "Ecobici" - Goodbye "Mandatory Helmet Laws"

(Photos: Chilango, Flickr)
"Ecobici" is Mexico City's new Bike Share scheme, and part of the city's 15-year Plan Verde, a $1 billion-per-year program supported by Mexico's federal government, the World Bank and the United Nations.

"The plan includes a new, energy efficient bus system, once-a-week no-drive days for all cars, and subway system improvements. Every Sunday, 16 miles of downtown streets are closed to car traffic, allowing cyclists and pedestrians to safely cruise their city."

But in order to ensure their 'clean-air' bike share programme works, Mexico has repealed their mandatory bicycle helmet laws! Admittedly their helmet laws had been largely unenforced, but their urban planners & municipal leaders decided to leave nothing to chance, and appreciating that MHLs could pose an unnecessary hurdle, dispensed with them poste-haste!

Bravo! Mexico!

So here's what's on offer for users:

* they can check out a bike for 30 minutes at a time
* they return it to any of the bike stations, and 10 minutes have to pass before they check out another one
* if a bike is kept out longer than a half hour, small fees start to accrue
* the bikes have adjustable seats, and they come with lights that go on automatically when ridden and have small racks to hold purses or groceries.

Why do we have to make it so hard for ourselves here in Australia? The solution is so simple, and other countries are paving the way for us...

...and we know what we have to do...

...repeal mandatory helmet laws!!!