Forcing Helmets on Cyclists Would Crush Bicycle Use, Says UK Transport Minister

As a Dutch person hearing people talk about mandatory helmet laws for bikes sounds very strange.<p>Nobody in the Netherlands bikes with a helmet, and it is incredibly safe to bike here (around 10X fewer fatalities per KM ridden than in the US). If you want evidence that biking without a helmet is perfectly safe - there you go. A case study done by an entire country with 18 million inhabitants for a period of 100+ years.<p>Bike safety is an infrastructure problem. Nothing else.<p>Wearing a helmet will not make up for bad infrastructure - biking with bad infrastructure and a helmet is still incredibly dangerous. After you have good infrastructure, biking is already safe, especially when you use a Dutch bike that forces you to sit upright [1] making it far less likely you will fall on your head.<p>Wearing a helmet might improve safety by a marginal amount beyond that - but so would wearing a helmet while walking, or wearing a helmet while in a car.<p>Comparing helmets to seat belts is nonsensical. A seat belt is attached to your car. A helmet has to be carried with you after you leave your bike. Once you use a bike for everything that means you must carry a large helmet with you everywhere you go. It is very inconvenient for people that actually use bikes as their daily mode of transportation, from going to work to going grocery shopping to going to the gym.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=aESqrP3hfi8" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=aESqrP3hfi8</a>

Crush? Maybe temporarily until people realize that under most circumstances, helmet use is no more troubling than seat belt use in a car. Adequate helmets can be had very inexpensively. Helmets can easily be locked up with the same cable lock as the parked bike is locked up with (I personally never do - nobody steals a helmet around here).<p>Circumstances where helmet use is an issue: Very cold weather where you may have enough warm stuff on your head that the helmet rides too high (I wear it anyway) and fancy hairdos that would be crushed by a helmet - not an issue in my country since the sporty set that rides has little overlap with the fancy hairdo set - may be different in which bike commuting is more encultured.

Mandatory helmet laws for cyclists are a red herring intended to shift blame and attention onto cyclists&#x27; behaviour rather than address the real problems, namely: bad infrastructure, cars, and drivers. As long as policymakers do nothing to counteract the current trend of cars that are increasingly dangerous to other road users and that at the same time encourage &#x2F; tolerate inattentive drivers, it would simply be in bad faith to adopt a policy that would impose legal penalties on the victims of this trend.

Has forcing helmets on motorcyclists crushed motorcycle use? Has forcing seatbelts and airbags on motorists crushed automobile use? Has forcing life vests on boaters crushed motorboat use?<p>I don&#x27;t necessarily agree with a helmet mandate (I think adults have the right to exercise their own judgment on whether or not a given piece of equipment is necessary for one&#x27;s own safety, so long as it doesn&#x27;t put others at greater risk of harm), but this particular objection doesn&#x27;t seem like it&#x27;s rooted in reality.

Maybe it would. There&#x27;s something else, though.<p>I find it strange that someone in the UK can argue that requiring bicycle helmets is the best way forward, or even one of the ten best things to do, when two neighbouring countries have had massively more success than the UK, and and those two don&#x27;t require helmets, or even use helmets very much.<p>I wear helmet. It&#x27;s not that. I just find it strange that it&#x27;s politically possible to say things that are so <i>weird</i> when you look at them from the viewpoint of a neighbouring country.<p>A written parliamentary question sounds like a fairly serious thing? Not exactly shitposting.

Cycling is becoming politicized in the UK and some politicians are trying to score points. The other day an ex-transport minister suggested forcing registration plates on bicycles. Any cycle lane that pops up will trigger all the right-winger NIMBYs making them go full ape mode. Some cars are becoming super aggressive (most are actually cautious or unaware). Its a sad state of affairs.

Did helmet laws crush the number of motorcyclists?<p>Helmets became mandatory for motorbikes on 7 February 1973.

Let&#x27;s talk about helmets once the roads are fixed, and people educated.

Are e-bikes still illegal there?

Car drivers should just learn to watch out for cyclists (not happening in London for sure), and cyclists shouldn&#x27;t skip red lights or listen to music while cycling. And a small group should stop acting like Regent Park&#x27;s is a race track