I have been fined and pulled over several times as have friends and work mates because of the mandatory helmet laws and will continue to fight against them and for common sense.

My advise is vote for the LDP. Libertarian policy is that victim-less crimes should not be punished and the LDP website specifically lists removing bicycle helmet laws on their website at ldp.org.au. check the policy section under Victimless Crimes.

I have met with them at their open monthly meeting here in SA, they are interested to help, and they need more members so if anyone is interested in the libertarian ideals it’s free and is online at ldp.org.au
It’s an opportunity to get some political representation which no other party seems prepared to offer us.

If Cyclists vote for and Support the LDP even if just for this one reason eventually the majors will take notice and we will see a change to the helmet laws sooner rather then later.

Regards Steve.

I agree and those ‘few tourists’ will be put off by the helmets so nobody will use them… sadly.

Paul

Because to want to hire a bicycle for a few days in a city that you don’t know and is probably not cycle-friendly (because it’s in Australia…) you’d have to be:

1 – a tourist. It’s a good way to do some sightseeing
2 – bike crazy, like me. I can’t handle being a city without a bike so it’s convenient

Why would a long term user use bike share? They’d own a bike themselves. I reject that it’s actually more convenient to find your bike hire spot, get a bike, ride it somewhere else, leave it there etc than to just get around on your own bike.

So who is going to use these bikes? A few tourists I suppose.

Maurice

I doubt that helmets will be an issue.

Most people will ignore it, just like they ignore so many other useless laws.

However, House Bill 1147 -almost- resulted in children being required to wear helmets. Then the Senate removed that section, according to this article:

http://bicyclecolo.org/articles/safer-street-for-children-pg1091.htm

One last site which had a humorous slant on the bill (love the xray photo at the top)
http://www.coloradofreedom.net/wordpress/colorado-newsinfo/hb-1147-helmet-law-aims-to-fix-colorados-helmet-epidemic

-JR

Cheers,

Paul

I’m not quite sure of what to make of bike share schemes in Australia, particularly those sponsored by automobile associations!

At least our CityCycle in Brisbane isn’t sponsored by the RACQ!

The other concerns I have are:
Helmets
The response I have from Brisbane City Council is this:
“It is expected that the majority of users will be long-term subscribers as opposed to casual users or tourists.”

and

“Council supports the current helmet laws for the protection and safety of all cyclists and will not request the relaxation of these laws for CityCycle.”

and

“While long-term subscribers will be able to purchase a helmet… (council) is investigating opportunities to provide helmets for hire to casual users.”

So, there you have it. Helmets will stay and they don’t have a solution.

Initial Numbers
The initial Melbourne rollout is far too small to work. Brisbane will be rolling out (in the first phase) about six times the Melbourne amount and in the end will supposedly have 2000 bikes at 160 stations by next year. If the bike stations are not closely spaced then people will not use it. It is bad enough if a station is not near your destination; even worse if it is full and you can’t return the bike!

David Hembrow is sceptical of bike share schemes and I can see why, however there may be some effects of such schemes in Australia that will not be seen in Europe:
- increasing the exposure of the situp bike to the general public being the main one I can think of.

Most people associate cycling here with speed, bent-over postures and fancy gear, not transport. Situp bikes like these, by being more visible, might help by showing people there is another type of bicycle around – something more practical.

I still feel that in the face of mandatory helmet laws these schemes will fail. When they do, councils will throw up their arms and say ‘we built it and they didn’t come; perhaps the public doesn’t want to cycle after all’ and that will be that. Then they’ll have an excuse to not provide all the other things that will make cycling safe: slower cars, bicycle lanes and paths, etc.

I’m suspicious.

Great post, Mike.

Cheers,

Paul Martin
Brisbane, Australia

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/bicycle-hire-scheme-to-make-brisbane-a-dinkum-paris/story-e6frg6oo-1111116377434