Clothing. Sensible footwear. Enough LED power to irradiate a small village. Outside the safe confines of the World Naked Bike Ride, these are the items that should probably be required by law to ride a bicycle. But wearing a helmet shouldn’t be one of them, say doctors in the unexpected results of a British Medical Journal survey.
A poll of 1,427 of the journal’s readers revealed more than two thirds would prefer helmets remain a personal choice and not required by law. Reasons for the opposition to helmet mandates varied. Some respondents argued that the research on helmets reducing the risk of head injury is too inconclusive to support a new law. And there have been studies, such as one conducted by a Bath University professor in 2006, which found passing drivers give less room to helmeted cyclists than they do to those not wearing helmets.
But other British Medial Journal respondents simply thought compulsory helmets would reduce interest in an otherwise healthy activity or paint cycling as some kind of dangerous extreme sport. They cited statistics following the 1991 passing of helmet laws in Western Australia, which suggested that the laws produced a 30 percent drop in bicycle activity. Sure, head injuries went down as well, but Sydney University researchers argue that road safety improvements played a greater role in that drop than the compulsory use of helmets. They also argue that Australian helmet laws be repealed on a trial basis before further policy decisions are made.
Whether you believe the evidence that bike helmets reduce head injury, or you think they just give cyclists false confidence and bad hair, mandating new safety measures will always be controversial. Will fewer people ride bikes if forced to encase their brains in crushed foam?