7 December, 1994
Our campaign against the compulsory helmets law has now been going on for 3 years. From a sound basis of democratic principles and research findings, we have tried to persuade legislators to repeal it. We have put our case to governments, ACT, Federal and some states, and to MLAs, and have requested governments to hold public inquiries. But to no avail so far.
Enforcement of the helmets law continues: 129 fines in 1992/93 and 152 in 1993/94, but only a tenth as many, 12 and 16 respectively, for other bicycle offences. And 67 who did not pay their fines have lost their licence or right to drive a motor vehicle. We are pleased to see that the Ombudsman is concerned that this penalty may be oppressive, harsh and discriminatory, and that DUS has agreed to review it.
Not only is the law unjust, its enforcement is discriminatory - against the weak. Police recently booked seven students at Lyneham High School, but nothing happened when our members publicly flouted the law on four occasions.
Discriminatory enforcement is a scandal. It is time for a test of the law against determined and continued resistance. But first, we outline its origins and why we resist it.
Believing that cyclists, especially children, need more protection and that helmets could provide it, in 1978 the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Road Safety, following the precedent of motorcyclists' helmets, recommended that "cyclists be advised of the safety benefits of protective helmets and the possibility of requiring cyclists to wear helmets be kept under review". But the Committee had received no evidence of the efficacy of helmets as protection.
Interest groups pressed for compulsory helmets, careless of whether their their efficacy had been proved. Thus, Gordon Trinca, Chairman of the Road Trauma Advisory Committee of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons said in evidence:
"If we could perhaps worry a little less about and take a little less time in proving what is precisely right according to all standards and get something that protects and get it agreed to, at least we would be getting somewhere. I have a feeling that it is in much of our research work that a lot of delay happens. As doctors we are impatient. We cannot wait for 2 or 3 years evaluation."
A succeeding H of R committee in 1985 assumed from the start, as its chairman stated, "that all cyclists should wear a helmet to increase cycling safety both on and off the roads." By contrast, the Victorian Government's submission to it said:
"The incidence of bicycle helmet use has not yet reached a sufficiently high level anywhere in the world for a scientific examination of helmet effectiveness in injury reduction to be undertaken."
The Australian Manufacturers of Safety and Protective Helmets of course claimed it was essential that "acceptable safety helmets be used by bicycle riders." As we have said before, compulsory helmets is about money, not safety.
Despite the flimsy evidence of efficacy, the committee recommended that the states and territories should review the benefits of helmet wearing and "introduce compulsory wearing of helmets by cyclists on roads and other public places". In December 1989, Prime Minister Hawke made this a condition of funds for roads. The Head Injury Council of Australia, which lists his wife as its patron is a prominent supporter of it.
In advising the Minister on the PM's offer, the only issue the ACT Department raised was important only to itself - the difficulty of policing the law off-road. It neglected six issues important to affected citizens. They are:
No social ill that might require a legislative remedy was identified. Was it implicitly assumed that head injury was the social ill? If so, why limit concern to cyclists, who account for only 6 per cent of admissions to hospital for head injury? No great increase in accidents to cyclists was demonstrated.
Efficacy was implicitly assumed, but the evidence is flimsy, some studies suggesting that helmet wearing is detrimental:
. A study of 8 million cases in the USA concluded "that the bicycle- related fatality rate is positively and significantly correlated with increased helmet use" - see Newsletter No. 4.
Since St Thomas Aquinas, the only moral authority for legal sanctions against an individual has been to protect others. Protection of one's own person is regarded as a private matter: the individual is free to choose.
Following the experience of laws lacking moral authority in Nazi Germany, the United Nations proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, summarised as "freedoms to be limited only as necessary to safeguard rights of others".
Governments argue that society suffers if cyclists do not wear helmets, because it bears the cost of their injuries. Then why not helmets for the 17 times as many motorists who die by head injury? A FORS report recommended they wear protective hats.
The Government is now proposing that riders of skateboards in the ACT "will be permitted to use minor roads", but, "unlike cyclists, they do not mix with heavy traffic on roads and do not ... require the compulsory wearing of safety gear." But research has found "pedal cyclist crashes in children to be similar in overall severity to skate board accidents" (FORS report CR 55) and 77 cyclists have been fined for not wearing a helmet "in a public place" - not even on a minor road.
There is unfair discrimination against cyclists, contrary to international standards for laws in a democracy.
Evidence that compulsory helmets might discourage cycling was given to the H of R committee in 1985. Experience Australia-wide now confirms it. In the ACT, DUS's 1992 survey showed that cycling declined by one- third on week-days, and by half at weekends. DUS tried to explain it away, but its 1994 survey report admits that "the most apparent reason may be the introduction of helmet legislation in 1992".
Less cycling means loss of beneficial exercise. The British Medical Association says "the benefits gained from regular cycling are likely to outweigh the loss of life through cycling accidents".
The Government's consultation with the public on the law was of no substance. Proper democratic processes were by-passed.
Our original concerns were that the helmets law violates democratic values - civil liberties, freedom from unfair discrimination and democratic processes of law-making. We thought it our legislators' role to appreciate these and act accordingly on our behalf. In the main, they have failed us.
Now we find that the government does not even have a sound basis in knowlege for the helmets law. The technical question of the efficacy of helmets has been judged by politicians, without proper advice. In fact, no-one knows whether helmet wearing results in more or less trauma. For government even to advise it is irresponsible. To compel it is to experiment recklessly with our safety. We will not tolerate it.
We now demand more than just the repeal of a bad law. Because the law never had a sound basis, justice requires that all fines be refunded with interest and compensation paid for other punishments inflicted.
To guard against any similar law being enacted in future, two actions should be taken:
Sound knowledge about helmets should be publicised to help the public to understand their limited value and to discourage the false sense of security that the wearing of them has been shown to confer on some cyclists.
We are determined to resist this unjust law to the limit. In doing so, we are acting on behalf of 300 cyclists in the ACT who have been fined or otherwise punished and the thousands who have lost the pleasures and benefits of cycling through their rejection of compulsory helmets.
On Thursday 8 December at 1 p.m., to test the law, our representatives will ride without a helmet on a public street and in a public place near the Assembly's building. This demonstration will be repeated as often as necessary.
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