Roamin’ Round Darwin on a Pushie.

That’s what they call a bike in Darwin, a Pushie, way up at the Top End of Australia.

Most people go to Darwin as a jumping off place for Kakadu.

Me, I went to ride bikes.

I’d heard a very curious thing, that in the Northern Territory, you could ride a bike, under certain conditions, without a helmet.

Why get excited about that? My European and Asian readers will be thinking. “We do it all the time where WE live, and perfectly legally.”

Well, in this protective cocoon we Aussies call home, it’s against the law to be helmet-less, for our own good, of course.

The cops could be anywhere, waiting to nab you and slap on a $154 fine, and demerit points as well!

It’s been that way since the early nineties, since the Hawke Govt, in many ways so good, bullied the States into imposing this new restraint on cyclists.

I wonder what Bob Hawke thinks about his law today?

Now, we are so conditioned to think that a helmet is part and parcel of safe cycling, that many people regard it as virtual suicide to ride anywhere without one, even on a protected cycleway.

Believe it or not, this photo of a woman on a Darwin Cycle path, will upset many Australians so much that they can become very angry at the absurd risk this woman is running.

My Darwin visit made it to the local paper, The NT News, recently voted the best paper in the whole region.

Here’s some reactions, comments, left on the online article re my proposal that perhaps the rest of the country had something to learn from Darwin, bikewise.

You’d think they’d be pleased. Not at all!

“Helmets are also needed on the cycle paths! …….
seeing him ( a rider on a cycle path who’d collided with a walker) frothing at the mouth and bleeding all over the path, is something that will stay with me forever, and I will ALWAYS wear a helmet when riding my bike.”

…. should be forced to visit any hospital where there will always be kids and adults who have suffered horrendous brain injury from being clobbered by a hard surface.

Given this intense feeling, it comes as a great surprise to find that it’s actually legal to ride without a stack hat here, as long as you stick to the great cycleways they’ve built….. (70 Kms. of them so far!)

…….and, this is the strange part, to the footpaths.

Yes, you are allowed to ride on the footpaths, sharing right of way with pedestrians. How’s that possible I wondered? You just work it out.

It’s a recipe for bloodshed, you’d think and yet, ( and Harold Scrooby will disagree) it seems to work surprisingly well.

True, the footpaths are not that crowded. Darwin is like a country town in some ways.

These two old friends meet every morning for their walk. I swung round them carefully.

Here’s me on a footpath , downtown Darwin

Of course I was bound to like it, wasn’t I? But I did interview pedestrians, usually just after a bike had swooshed past, and found that few were upset.

One woman, she was a obviously a motorist, said. “Better they be on the footpath than on the roads where we have to dodge around them and worry about hitting them.”

This fellow from Melbourne was surprised that it was not a problem

Most walkers agreed that cyclists did ring their bells and usually rode slowly. My borrowed bike, had no bell but squeaky brakes did the job.

So, how come there’s this bit of freedom at the Top End when the rest of us have to wear our lids, like it or not?

I heard various explanations. One bike shop owner claimed that a woman in Alice Springs, also in the NT, had gone to court to win the right of riding without a helmet because of the heat.

She’d won the case and that had set the precedent.

Whilst no one would confirm this story, when I asked bare headed cyclists why they preferred to ride that way, many said, yes, it was partly because of the heat. So, an exemption stemming from that, makes sense

But, having got used to it, many said they loved the freedom of the wind in their hair, of all their senses being more open to the elements.

Some folks urged me to come back and ride in the rainy season. They claimed there’s nothing like riding bare headed in tropic rain.

My next question to Darwin pushie riders had to be this….

“Since helmets are sold to the rest of the country on the basis of danger, the fear of brain injury, “Arn’t you afraid?”

No one I spoke to was particularly afraid. Not on the cycle paths and footpaths, that is. But many said they wouldn’t ride on the roads, helmeted or not.

Indeed, I saw riders coming to a road to cross, and then pushing their bike across the intersection to the next footpath.

Darwin riders have got used to their freedom , though some were a bit hazy as to exactly what the law was.

I was able to explain that, legally, You can only ride, helmet free, on the cycle paths and the footpaths.

On the roads, you must wear a helmet, though the consensus is that the cops have better things to do than hassle bare headed cyclists.

I did see some riders who seemed to be in the wrong place legally, or were about to be.

But my impression is that most people obeyed the law.

The upshot, I discovered is that there are two distinct bike cultures in Darwin. No, not law breakers and law abiders, but…….

(1) road cyclists and (2) footpath cyclists.

The road cyclists look very much like they do all over the country, hunched over their drops and, not only helmeted, but often in Lycra.

They’ll tell you the helmet is a safety issue for them. But some will also admit that without a helmet, they feel undressed.

The helmet is part of the look. It’s about performance too, about the air flowing smooth over your skull at speed. These riders, like sports cyclists everywhere else, want to go fast.

The other tribe, the bare headed ones, are always in their regular clothes, no Lycra for them, usually with a back pack.

They’re away from traffic, and are riding, most of the time I observed, much slower.

Some foot-path riders do wear helmets but they still belong to the second tribe in speed and general demeanor

True, the two groups are neither equal nor pure. There are many more helmet wearers than bare heads, about 70-30 I’d say, and there were lots of helmet wearers on the cycle paths, more than I expected.

Surprisingly, I did not see a single rider with a helmet dangling from the handle bars. Surprising, since you’d think that riding bare headed on the path, you might need one when you switched to the road.

I concluded that most bare headers are determined to make their whole journey that way, which is possible given the cycleway/footpath combination.

Darwinians are lucky in that their cycle paths, whilst often in a beautiful location, along the water for example, also go somewhere useful. They head in and out of town. David Hembrow would find this makes sense.

Southern cycle paths are often just leisure circuits, which is a huge planning mistake

So, I’m on Darwin’s streets and cycle paths for four days, Thursday to Sunday. I begin to see patterns.

Far more women are riding here than in my home state, NSW. This fits with the removal of fear idea, since women always cite fear as a major reason not to ride a bike.

I note, that many of these women are Asian, a group I’ve never noticed on bikes down South.

When I ask the locals, they explain that many of the Asian women who work in food service jobs and hotels round town, ride bikes to work.

I speak to several and find it’s true.

This may an important upside of the helmet exemption, enticing groups onto bikes who normally don’t ride.

We do know that when compulsory helmets came in, in the early nineties, they cut cycling by between 3o- 40%, so the reverse can be true.

But what about the down side? If the helmet advocates are right, there should be a higher head injury rate here, especially amongst the second group.

It turns out that the opposite is true. The accident rate for cyclists in the NT, accidents which would put you in hospital, is 23 per 100,000 population, exactly the national average. (2006-7 figures)

But when you also discover that NT roads are much more dangerous for vehicles generally, and that’s a statistical fact, bikes turn out to be safer to ride in Darwin than elsewhere.

They are also more frequently used to get to work. The bike commuting rate at 4.2%, in Darwin, is four times the national average. (Thanks to Chris Gilham for supplying these stats.)

Apropos of accidents, I spoke to Darren at Scooter World a place which rents mountain bikes to tourists. These are some of his rental bikes out front.

(I tell him that I wish he’d offer some sit-up bikes, a style on which everyone is comfortable.

Perhaps a new film, Eat Pray Love, featuring Julia Roberts on this stately bike, will open our eyes to what we are missing, bikewise )

But I digress. Darren tells me that in his nine years of rentals, he’s never had a customer with head injuries. Plenty of falls, scrapes, etc. but no head injuries. Seems like those most likely to be hurt are road using helmet wearers.

I followed this up at another bike shop downtown, The cycle Zone With some prompting, a guy working there recalled the last really nasty accident.

About a year ago, he told me, a rider was knocked off his bike by a car. Yes, he was a road rider and he was wearing a helmet.

In any case, you are safer on a bike than almost any other getting around activity, safer or as safe as being a pedestrian, for example.

In Holland, where the cycling conditions have been made close to ideal, your chances of a serious head/brain injury on a bike are once every 90 lifetimes.

And this is calculated on the average Dutch citizen exposing him/herself to this risk by cycling the impressive distance of 72,000 kms. in a lifetime. Ah, we must try harder!

I got this from David Hembrow’s very useful blog, A view from the Cycle Path

I said I found two bike cultures in Darwin. But wait, there is a third group which is very powerful in the debate, who are passionately pro helmet, and yet don’t ride fast.

Their support for helmets is very emotive and difficult to argue against. This photo should give you a clue as to who they are.

Yes, it’s the cycling parents of small children, determined to set a good example, determined their kids will grow up regarding helmets as essential as breathing.

They are amongst the law’s most fervent defenders.

I met a Doctor, Paul…. with a young family of three. He owns probably the only cargo bike in Darwin, a marvelous Dutch Gazelle Cubby.

When Paul’s family sets off for the market, littlest in the Cubby, they’ll be protected to the max.

Not only that, but it’s footpaths all the way.

I don’t know if it’s my persuasive powers, or just the powerful logic of helmet choice, but in the time we are together, Paul, the rusted on helmet guy that he is, comes around…. slightly

He’s always been vehemently opposed, he told me, to any relaxation of the helmet laws, but now he’s saying, having heard me out, that he could support certain exemptions, like Melbourne, and the one here.

I’d explained that I’d come to Darwin to get ammunition for another much needed helmet exemption.

The Melbourne Bike share scheme, 500 bikes for easy rental on the streets of that city, is in danger of failing because of our rigid helmet law. Why that is, is explained in previous posts.

We have been arguing on this blog that the riders of these inherently slower and safer bikes, both in Melbourne and soon in Brisbane, where Dr. Paul Martin is pushing the idea, should be able to choose.

They should be able to use one of the share bikes without a helmet as they can all over Europe, and as Paul Martin and his wife, Veronica, are doing here. Right, Paul?

But our attempts to promote this with a peaceful demo, got us stopped by the Melbourne police, ticketed, or so we thought.

Worse, our suggestion is mocked as both irresponsible and politically undo-able.

So, I’ve come to Darwin for proof that this is not true.

In a way, Paul is my most important encounter here. That this intelligent cyclist and helmet advocate, can come to see that our suggestion makes sense, is a gift.

But Paul remains adamant that those, like himself, who like to go fast (not on the Cubby but on his expensive Titanium bike) should not have a choice.

And for him, personally, there’ll never be choice.

As they wave me off, Paul, Megan the kids, I remember his smile as he said.

” Mike, even in Amsterdam I’d wear my helmet. And if I’m the only one, that’s fine. ”

Wife Megan agrees.

I’ll be going home in good shape for Melbourne, I feel, and with some startling news for the rest of the country.

My conclusion; It’s strongly indicated, Bicycle Victoria and Bicycle NSW please take note, that the Northern Territory pays no health penalty for allowing a degree of helmet freedom.

What do you say to that, you cycling bodies?

Here’s the NT’s superb Parliament building. What’s come up in the Parliament on pushies, I wonder?

I tried very hard to get a word from the Darwin police. Many phone calls to their media guy in the end. led to nothing. They’ve had their hands full with the Annual Arts Festival. I’m sure.

I had one question, a sort of two parter, for the police PR man.

” The word I get from most cyclists is that you turn a blind eye to riders without helmets.

One can understand that you have your hands full with the very high car and motorcycle accident rate here, often fueled by alcohol.
Is it fair to say that, comparatively, pushbikes don’t present a problem?

Is it also correct to say that, when serious accidents do happen to bike riders, they tend to involve road riders wearing helmets, and so, cracking down on bare headed riders on footpaths, would not be productive?”

I never got to ask my leading question.

After, many kms. on my borrowed bike, loaded with movie equipment as well as my still camera, I’m ready for food and relaxation.

On the warf, in sight of our naval guardians….

…..I ate crumbed Barra, washed down with a drop of chilled Semillon. Delicious! and only 13 bucks for the fish

Then off, still on the bike of course, to the famous Mindil Beach Sunset Market

I meet the colorful, Swaggie Campbell. I take his address, Care of Wintermoon, Cameron’s Pocket, to send him the photo.

Campbells’s a bush poet who’s kind enough to recite Mulga Bill’s Bicycle ride for me. When the movie of my trip is done, you’ll see Campbell’s performance

Mindil beach, washed by the setting sun, is just over a low dune. An evening ritual has the locals watching the sun go down into the sea.

The temp’s gone down too, but it’s still very hot for me. Hmm, These fruit salads …..

…. at the stall of a girl who could perhaps be one of the cyclists I saw today, look very tempting .

I raised the idea with the Scooter Shop that Darwin should be promoting itself as a cycle tourism destination . “Is it being done?” I ask “No, manager said, but it’s a really good Idea.”

Even better, I found a third bike shop called, Deadly Treadlies, which plans to rent retro bikes soon, stately sit-ups. Now that’s the go!

I’ll be back to ride in the wet season, I vowed, to take a stately cycle for a sloshy spin. “Get in touch with your inner wet, and on wheels,” sounds like a slogan to intrigue.

You’d think, I’d be exhausted, and I am, but Darwin’s got me slightly intoxicated, the air, the smells, the people.

I can’t resist trying one last curiosity, The Deckchair Cinema, though I fall asleep in the movie.

Findings.
1. Enlightened helmet laws.
2. Impressive cycle path system.
3. No health penalty for helmet exemption.
4. Bike commuting rate, 3-4 times Nat. average. Due to exemption?
5. Leisure bike usage 1.7 times Nat. average

Mike Rubbo. Sept. 4th 2010