Improved safety for Bicycle Riders!

No not improved bicycle infrastructure or reduced residential speed limits and just when you thought it was safe to go for a ride with your AS2063 1996 standard bicycle helmet ,a new Standard bicycle helmet, AS2063 2008, will be enforced from December 13th. The new helmets apparently increase safety ,because riding a bicycle is a dangerous activity! and Australian bicycle riders are so clumsy on bikes they need helmets to protect them from themselves.

                     

These new helmets use a softer polystyrene in the shell, providing more cushioning for the brain, and use straps that will stretch sufficiently in an accident to allow the helmet to come off a rider's head; and also ensure sun visors have enough give so they don't twist a cyclist's head excessively when it hits the road.

So what's going to happen to the many thousand of the old bicycle helmets that have not been sold ? We could sell them to some other country I'd expect, promoting fear and the dangerous nature of riding a bike.

                


Spare a thought to the struggling Melbourne bike share that has just recently brought in a world,s first Automatic Bicycle Helmet dispensing machine, that subsidizes each helmet to the tune of $13 dollars.

Out with the old in with the new

A study by the Royal Prince Alfred (RPAH) hospital found that among 287 patients for whom information about helmet use was available between 2008 and 2010, non-helmet wearers had five times higher odds of developing intracranial bleeding or sustaining a skull fracture due to falling from a bicycle compared with helmet wearers.
“It is the opinion of the trauma service at the RPAH . . . that mandatory bicycle helmet laws be maintained and enforced as part of overall road safety strategies."

Lets not add in factors like road speed limits and safe bicycle infrastructure as any factors to the bicycle crashes in this study, Hey!

So while we wait for real cycle safety lets Keep the Fear Alive!