Goodbye Toronto's Bike Culture

Nice graphs Tynan.

Here are 5 points that would -IMO- have a larger effect on # cyclists than a helmet law:
1) weather
2) price of petrol
3) availability of public transport
4) subsidisation of bicycling (e.g. cycle to work scheme)
5) cultural attitudes towards bikes

to control for these in a time-series experiment -in the real world- and be able to tease out the effect of a mandatory helmet law would be very difficult: lots of assumptions, and a lot of variability in the result.

If you want to be really safe, don't ride a bike.

I wouldn't take Australian stats seriously. They didn't introduced double-digits until the late 90's.

You mean we didn't introduce double digits to aus till the 90's.
;)

If you want to be safe, buy a motorcycle helmet, they're designed for high speed impact,

Jesus wept...

and died on the cross and was resurrected.
just so we could post crap on the internet.
thank the lord.
amen.

I was in Perth West Australia way back in the 90's when the helmet law came in. People did really stop cycling overnight.

Helmet laws are an easy win for legislators wanting to look competent without addressing the underlying dangers stemming from allowing people to drive inconsiderately/dangerously with light punishments.

So the granny tootling down to the shops now has to wear a helmet but you still have teenagers driving V8's like it was fucking Bathurst and chucking stubbies out the window.*

*left in '98

"Come down from that cross, we could use the wood."

Who orignally wrote that then?

Ten rep points for the first correct answer.

Oh...

So the granny tootling down to the shops now has to wear a helmet but you still have teenagers driving V8's like it was fucking Bathurst and chucking stubbies out the window.*

So littering and speeding are legal?

^^ Tom Waits

Would have seemed so when I was there, near regular occurrence getting stuff thrown at you when out on the bike or skateboard.

Car cultures externalise the damage they do and make it someone else's problem or responsibility to mitigate.

Can't see Britain and Europe introducing laws like this.

I was in Perth West Australia way back in the 90's when the helmet law came in. People did really stop cycling overnight.

Forgive me, anyone from Perth, but this is Western Australia, the place where in the 1980s had a worse human rights record against blacks than apartheid South Africa..? So, could we suggest that it might not be perhaps not the most "forward-thinking" of places in the world?

So should we base our fears of a mass exodus from cycling on the assumption that the UK may react the same way as certain sections of the Australian populace did?

However, that said, I'm all for smashing the couch-potato car-culture in this country and adding more of a bias towards bikes, rather than just making cyclists protect themselves better.

Forgive me, anyone from Perth, but this is Western Australia, the place where in the 1980s had a worse human rights record against blacks than apartheid South Africa..? So, could we suggest that it might not be perhaps not the most "forward-thinking" of places in the world?

Edited.

Everytime I see you post on the subject of religion or race, I think of this song:

YouTube - Public Enemy - Fight The Power

:)

Public Enemy rule.

You fucking idiot.

If we have done anything it is to divorce skin colour from charge of thought.

You are the father of the cuntish thought.

Grow up quickly.

bows head in shame

I and little baby Cuntish Thought will collectively get our coats.

I may return one day. But if not, think only this of me... He may have been a bit cuntish, but he stood his round at the bar.

Goodbye dear friends, (and a few of the cheaper ones too) it was... sniff It was nice knowing you.

I was in Perth West Australia way back in the 90's when the helmet law came in. People did really stop cycling overnight.

Helmet laws are an easy win for legislators wanting to look competent without addressing the underlying dangers stemming from allowing people to drive inconsiderately/dangerously with light punishments.

Car cultures externalise the damage they do and make it someone else's problem or responsibility to mitigate.

Can't see Britain and Europe introducing laws like this.

.

So tell me you fucking dick how my observations are invalidated?

As a child-immigrant to Australia living in mainly new suburbs filled with immigrants from all around the world how was my generation responsible for the racially bias policies of the previous 200 years?

And how is that related to legislators scoring cheap points on 'public safety' whilst doing nothing to change the habits of drivers?

So tell me you fucking dick how my observations are invalidated?

As a child-immigrant to Australia living in mainly new suburbs filled with immigrants from all around the world how was my generation responsible for the racially bias policies of the previous 200 years?

And how is that related to legislators scoring cheap points on 'public safety' whilst doing nothing to change the habits of drivers?

Is that aimed at me?

I didn't say it invalidated your comments and I didn't imply that.

It was a fact that an Aboriginal in a jail in Western Australia "in the 1980s" (did you miss that part?) had slightly more chance of leaving police cells dead than black South Africans in the same situation. I don't really give a fuck whether it was 200 years of policies or a recent change, that's irrelevant and I made no mention of such.

My suggestion - correct me if I'm wrong - was that the culture in Western Australia (where I admit I didn't go to) from the people I know who've lived there and told me how they viewed life, was that it was far more "1940s" than Britain at the time. Would you disagree with that and in fact it was a forward thinking haven of inclusivity and tolerance where people could, for example have been openly gay?

That was backed up by the further comments you made about idiot teens throwing things at cyclists etc. and the fact that you sounded glad to leave the place.

So I then suggested that you might - if that was the case - not get QUITE the same reaction to an automatic helmet law in this country as somewhere like Western Australia. Mainly because there would appear to be some very obvious cultural differences. Does my post make more sense to you now?

After distancing yourself so far from the people you described, I'm sorry you then took my post so personally, when it wasn't aimed at you in any way.

@ Tea_bee

Sorry for calling you an idiot earlier, I completely misread your post.

Genuine apology, I went completely over the top, especially the 'high-horse' tone !

:(

Whoops !

No worries. I actually have swine flu at the moment, so I'm sleeping few hours, then awake for a bit and moping around cos I don't know what else to do. I end up posting in the middle of the night a tiny bit groggy/slightly delerious, so if I didn't make sense or came across the wrong way, it going to be my fault cos I'm really not quite all there at the moment. Sorry if I ended up stirred up shit with what was meant to be a throwaway comment cos I was posting at 3am with only half my brain in tact. I really didn't mean to offend anyone.

so anyway, what the somewhat limited australian example shows is that introducing compulsory helmets does drop cycling participation, but only for a short time. aussie cycle culture bounced back stronger than ever. so don't panic, introducing compulsory helmets will not ruin toronto's bike culture, and definitely not if the bike culture is already strong.

not so keen on the registration bit though. sounds like shameless revenue-raising to me.

carry on.

Fortunately nobody ever listens to Michael Walker. Not only that, but his proposal contains factual errors regarding a cyclist's obligations to identify under the HTA. His proposal is certain to be rejected by the MTO as;

a) idiotic
b) unfeasible

carry on.

cycling Toronto.

So should we base our fears of a mass exodus from cycling on the assumption that the UK may react the same way as certain sections of the Australian populace did?

That is where you tried to invalidate my observations on cycling in Australia in the 90's by bringing in a totally irrelevant rant about Australian racial policies in the previous decade.

Again from personal observation, a segment of the progressive populace in Australia were turned away from cycling overnight by laws that were designed to score quick easy political points at the expense of a vulnerable road-using minority without addressing the underlying causes of the danger to cyclists. Making road-traffic criminals from the victims of the inattentiveness and downright hostility of motorised road-users.

It would be the same if the laws where introduced here, which I don't believe will ever happen.