Associate Professor Chris Rissel, from Sydney University’s School of Public Health, has called for laws making the wearing of bike helmets compulsory to be repealed, to encourage more people to ride bikes. Professor Rissel says that the greatest drop in head injuries was in the 80s – before the laws were introduced – because of road safety campaigns and speed controls. He says the number of head injuries has remained steady since then.

The call to repeal the mandatory helmet laws follows the slow response to the public bike sharing scheme introduced in Melbourne in June. The scheme copied a Montreal programme in which the bikes have been used more than a million times since its introduction in May 2009. The Melbourne scheme is attracting only about 250 users a week although Melbourne has more than double the population of Montreal. Many believe that the poor response is due to Australia’s mandatory bike helmet laws.

Australia, New Zealand and Finland are the only countries in which bike helmets are mandatory for adults but in Finland there no penalty for not wearing a helmet. Israel and Mexico have repealed their bike helmet laws following difficulties with their public bike sharing schemes.

Bicycle New South Wales vice-president Richard Birdsey commented that "At the moment it’s important that we retain the law, but certainly once we see improved riding conditions for people, where the roads become safer, the governments should look at perhaps seeing whether they can be wound back a bit."

Keeping mandatory helmet laws on open roads but abolishng them in parks and designated cycleways would seem like a sensible way forward.

Melbourne Bike Share Station (image by Elekhh via Wikimedia)

Melbourne now has a bike share scheme. Cyclists can pick up or drop off the bikes at one of ten docking stations around the CBD. Another 40 stations and 500 bikes will be added by the middle of next year.

Roads Minister, Tim Pallas, says that "We would expect that a docking station would be no further away than 300 – 500 metres within the CBD grid."

The scheme has cost $5.5 million to set up. Cyclists will pay a membership fee of $2.50 a day, or $8 a week, plus an hourly rate. They will have to provide their own helmet.

Cyclists travelling to one of Central Australia’s popular tourist spots will now be pedalling on a path made from recycled printer cartridges.

The Northern Territory Government has spent $130,000 upgrading the Simpsons Gap bike path.

(Photo of Northern Territory Environment Minister, Karl Hampton, on the new path via ABC)