The Australian Randomised Control Trial

4 hours transiting in an airport bar in LA and I just can't help revisiting the notion that notwithstanding the lack of ethical and informed consent, Australian governments actually played a part in a global randomised control trial on mandatory bicycle helmet laws.

Needless to mention this experiment would never have passed an academic ethics committee at any respected institution but even so we were willingly and very obligingly offered up to be the helmeted guinea pigs - the far more dangerous role by a country mile!

And yes, very unsurprisingly the world concluded that they'd be mad to go down the Australian pathway no matter what their resident commercially driven helmet proponents say.

You can be sure the latter will not give up and will continue to pester relentlessly in the hopes that other governments will crack like ours did - because basically that is how Big Oil works. Hopefully those governments will hold out and not capitulate like Australian ones, big suckers that they were (are still) for Big Oil and the car culture...

...one big proverbial sigh from me as always!

VANCOUVER VELO-CITY GLOBAL 2012 HERE I COME!!!!!

It’s the eve of my impending trip to Vancouver!!!

Yes I leave tomorrow!!! Turns out the convenors and organisers were keen on the notion of a ‘wild card’ to add to the mix of academics, experts and Uncle Tom Cobbley & all!!!!

So tum-ti-tum...what to say?!!!

A touch of history, context, consequences perhaps - some revisiting of that tired old fable that Australia was sold a ‘pup’ with mandatory bicycle helmet laws; and that clearly the hoped-for community benefits have been considerably outweighed by the actual community losses incurred in terms of the decimation of the bicycle as a mode of transport. Perhaps I also ought to mention that notwithstanding this crippling Australian dilemma, our politicians stubbornly cling to anecdotal notions that helmets save lives and protect cyclists, and that there is an ominous parallel to our previous reticence to absorb the evidence demonstrating the perils of nicotine for users & ‘front & side’ sleeping positions for babies.

Basically I will have to report that in typical Australian fashion we here in Australia just don’t want to face the compelling evidence of facts yet because our leaders are recklessly devoted to our current ‘business-asusual-on-Australian-roads’ position.

I’ll probably chuck in that I’m a lawyer-trained bicycle advocate and a long time campaigner for the revocation of Australian mandatory bicycle helmet law, and that I’ve represented myself in court on this matter many times, and now as a result of 'bicycle helmet crime' and subsequent curial penalties I’ve had my driver's licence suspended indefinitely, and that the sheriff will be waiting for me upon my return to remove some of my property; I’ll also make the point that I think that it says a lot about Australia's delivery of justice that the first tactic used to force the hand of people objecting to clunky bureaucratic protocols is always to threaten the removal of car privileges, even when dealing with known bicycle users.

At this stage I’m intending that my presentation will introduce to the roundtable discussion an actual glimpse of cycling in Australia for the ‘common-man-woman-&-child’ as opposed to the ‘lycra-lot-who-drive-their-bikes-somewhere-for-battle;’ so in effect I'll be expanding on the conference theme of ‘Cities in Motion’. Naturally it will be of interest to mention that traffic in Sydney is brought to a stand-still most days, and that it has reached pathological proportions that demand immediate political leadership to fix it; and that unquestionably we all know that the bicycle ought to be playing a principal role in the Australian urban-congestion equation but to date the challenge to cast the bicycle in that part has become politically unpalateable despite valiant attempts by an array of alternative civic protagonists

Enter stage left: and our concerted community campaign designed to underwrite the expansion of the ‘cerebral cycling landscape,’ so crucial in overturning exclusive cycling paradigms in Australia today!!! – yep there’ll be something on that!!!! – and I’ll feel compelled to mention all our various blogs, and websites, and registers that are gradually attracting considerable global, media and political interest which in turn have ensured a solid platform to encourage bicycle freedom through our many instances of ‘conscientious objection’.

I’m hoping that by spotlighting Australian politicians’ fatuous support for bicycle helmet laws, my presentation will be an illustration to Vancouver et al of how a whole generation of Australians has been denied the experience of bicycle usage, and how our elected representatives wilfully compromised the issue of basic mobility for many, & inexplicably continue to do so stubbornly today...

...big deep breath – that’s sort of it...oh boy!...funtimes!

Bicycle helmet law: a commercially-driven political measure

When we're enacting rules and regulations that adversely affect us, there must be a distinct separation between fact and fiction...

And...

...when we're not safe in our findings as we're not with evidence supporting mandatory bicycle helmet laws, we must resist the temptation of jumping to facile conclusions at the behest of Team Nanny.

To believe the current spin, bicycle helmets with the requisite Australian/New Zealand standards ensure instant safety thanks to Standards Australia and SAI Global; and all protected by mandatory bicycle helmet laws. This is part of a deliberate attempt to misinform the public, to denigrate actual scientific research and to undermine patently obvious evidence (facts) emanating from globally recognised cycling nations.

Prima facie we would do well to remember that we are the world’s class one evidence for the imperative of avoiding mandatory bicycle helmet laws; their very own randomised controlled trial that actually prevents them from following this particular Australian initiative.

...no kidding!

The laws on bicycle helmets need to be rewritten accurately to reflect their relative harms and to implement a cessation on the current ludicrous compulsion that requires people who use bicycles to wear questionable head devices.

But a sense of glummness prevails namely because quality leadership is lacking, and the massive industrial scale violence that bicycle helmet laws have wreaked upon the Australian economy and environment are about to be added to with yet another another commercially-driven political measure...

... "Recreational Hunting coming to a NSW National Park near you - family-fun from 12 year-old junior+"

Barry O'Farrell shouldn't be in charge of a BBQ let alone New South Wales

My knight in shining jogging gear!

...it happened to me yesterday!!!! - and I can't tell you happy it made me!!!!

I was making a real meal of getting up the hill towards the sandstone bit of Sydney uni, hating the rain and wishing there was another way home that didn't require this incline ( I know, I know it's hardly a hill but it always creates personal doom & gloom!). Anyway the next thing right out of the blue I was zipping along like some flighty little swift because there at the back of my bike was some gorgeous jogging guy who had decided I clearly needed a significant hefty push if I was to make it to the summit!!!!

Full of thanks yet concentrating on this new found speed, I didn't really get a good chance to actually see who my knight in steaming jogging gear was...(sigh!)...

...so whoever you were/are:

A MILLION THANKS FOR THE SHOVE xxxx

jazz+melbourne+bicycles = paradise

Melbourne - I ♥ so very much

Brunch at Jerry's Milk Bar, Ellwood - note the bicycle down the back of the wall...

...mine for the weekend

Melbourne International Jazz Festival - Chris Potter & the Jazzgroove Mothership Orchestra in Federation Square

Rare sighting of bike share users with distinctive 'anywhere-else-but-here' style

Lygon Street bicycle parking prior to oodles of pasta

Late night Bennetts Lane

Eli Degibri Quartet

Dashing through Hosier Lane après 'Freestyle Cyclists' meeting (more on this to come!!!!)

Point of merging with Flinders Street melee

Kingsford Smith Airport revelation - other people use bicycles to get there too!!!!!

Sigh, I want to be swept away on a whirl of riffs, wheels & ideas again soon - such funtimes!!!

The Australian Bicycle Catastrophe

(Royal Automobile Club of Victoria's white elephant)

Without a doubt mandatory bicycle helmet laws have been a failed state project enthusiastically cheered on by gullible journos.

Both government and the media have coccooned this foolhardy escapade by deliberately concealing evidence that illustrated right from the start the flaws and contradictions in promoters' claims of helmet safety and necessity

Notwithstanding the immediate questions raised by bicycle helmet law, voices of dissent over the past 2 decades have been ignored and silenced, and a sinister culture of continuous grants and sinecures has only added to the rot.

In effect the Australian bicycle helmet law is a catastrophe that has morphed into a symptom of democratic failure concluding in curtailment of people's right to petition government for a redress of a grievance. Relentlessly governments have overseen the suspension of our democratic function by their stubborn refusal to actually address the dynamics of accurate scientific evidence and accountability opposed to current fatuous spin.

Aquiescence is not an option.

Silence is not an option.

It is imperative that we oversee the cessation of state sanctioned commodification of risk as well as the cessation of state-sanctioned stupidity & bullying.

...and to do this, we must stand against the consensus and reject the hubris attached to the claimed virtues of bicycle helmet law - TODAY

Now is the hour that we must say goodbye to our National Parks

Given that our national parks are going to be littered with amateur hunters, notwithstanding the lack of evidence to suport the notion that amateur recreational hunting reduces feral animal populations, perhaps a Mandatory Helmet Picnic Law in addition to a Mandatory Flak-Vest Picnic Law ought to be introduced in the following National Parks...

$$$ The Watagans

$$$ Barrington Tops

$$$ Myall Lakes

$$$ Koszciusko

$$$ Warrumbungles

...and many other iconic locations in New South Wales which from here on in will be effectively quasi commando shooting reserves.

"Barry O'Farrell, history will not judge kindly your manifold effort to destroy our national treasures - god only knows the next 3 years cannot pass by quickly enough!"