This article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/08/12/bc-vancouver-helmet-law.html was on the CBC today about a guy who is trying to mount a Charter of Rights case against helmet laws. I think this guy is an idiot, and is going about this argument in entirely the wrong way.
I oppose helmet laws not because some flimsy study says they might be bad, but because we shouldn’t make something as casual and everyday as riding a bicycle a safety issue. If governments and society seriously want more people to ride bicycles, for environmental reasons, for health reasons, to reduce traffic congestion or whatever, then we should be reducing the number of barriers for people to just get on a bicycle and ride to the store to pick up a few groceries. When you implement mandatory helmet laws what you’re saying is that bicycle riding is dangerous and scary, which doesn’t really make anyone want to get on a bicycle.
However, if society as a whole deems that personal safety and protection from the possibility of injury is paramount and should outweigh all other considerations, that’s fine. That’s a decision that we as a society are entitled to make. But we then have to be consistent in that belief, which would then mean no more personal automobiles (the statistics of injury and death from automobile crashes out number just about everything else), helmets and wrist guards for walking (and only people under the age of 65, because a fall for a senior is substantially more dangerous to their health), certainly no more marine pleasure craft and no more alcohol, smoking, fatty foods, salt and sugar.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t wear a helmet or have lights and reflectors, you should be free to make that decision for yourself and based your own comfort level (reflective vests however are never necessary). The same way that it should be your decision to eat a whole bag of potato chips and drink beer, or to eat healthy and exercise. If you think that helmet laws should be mandatory to protect people from themselves then that logic should be applied to everything, and the things listed above kill and injure a lot more people than bicycles do.
If we want people to ride bicycles the way to do it is to make it easy for them to choose to do it. Otherwise we should probably just ban them entirely.
