Hacker News Reader

Comment by diarmuidc | Hacker News Reader

That experiment has been tried and failed already in Australia.

Stop spreading misinformation. It's literally the law to wear a helmet in every state and territory. It's been the law for almost 30 years. 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmets_in_Australia. 2) https://roadsafety.transport.nsw.gov.au/stayingsafe/motorcyc...

NSW police were chasing people down and fining them for not wearing a helmet. My college room mate got done twice in a month.

it's law but a lot of us don't bother with wearing one, esp to the local shops. i don't want to bother.

The "failed" part of the experiment is that far fewer people ride bicycles in Australia today than did before helmet laws (edit, incorrect, it's per capita reduction, not absolute) in absolute numbers, not even per capita, adjusted for population growth.

The laws are successful in that they get people to wear helmets, but they are an abject failure in terms of participation in cycling.

Gonna need some evidence for that causal link you're suggesting here. Counterpoint: Plenty of bike paths get plenty of use. We didn't even have these bike paths when the helmet laws came in.

I misread the thing I was looking at, it is per-capita, not absolute. Here is a graph of the number of people cycling to work, the peak is the late 80s/early 90s before the helmet laws:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Percent-cycling-to-work-...

If people who weren't going to do something in a safe matter stop doing something altogether, that's not a failure of a safety law.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com