Why Bike Helmet Laws Don't Work - CityLab

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In 1993, New South Wales, Australia, commissioned a study to see if a new helmet law for children was increasing helmet uptake. It did—but the researchers also found 30 percent fewer children were riding to school. In New Zealand, where helmet compulsion was introduced in 1994, the number of overall bike trips fell 51 percent between 1989–90 and 2003–6, according to one research paper. The reasons are mixed: Some people simply don’t want to bother with a helmet. For others, helmet laws reinforce the notion that cycling isn’t an everyday way to get about, but rather a specialist pursuit requiring special safety equipment. And if a law does mean fewer cyclists, it could also have a reverse “safety in numbers” effect: Fewer riders on the road could place those remaining at more individual risk.

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Why Bike Helmet Laws Don't Work - CityLab