Bicycle Helmets
| About this Item |
Subjects | Road Safety; Bicycles |
Speakers | Gibson Mr Paul |
Business | Private Members Statements |
Page: 15599
Mr PAUL GIBSON (Blacktown) [5.20 p.m.]: This afternoon I wish to speak about a problem that affects not only my electorate but most electorates across the State, or for that matter across this nation. It is fair to say that the big benefits in road safety have come from the seat belt legislation passed in this State in the 1970s, random breath testing legislation in the 1980s, and legislation providing for mandatory helmet wearing by bicycle riders and motorcyclists introduced in the 1990s. Bicycle helmets substantially reduce the risk of head injury in a crash. The scientific evidence on the benefits of bicycle helmet wearing is very clear, and is quite independent of matters related to the acceptability and effects of legislation.
At the very minimum, wearing a helmet halves the risk of head injury to a bicycle rider. Head injuries are a very serious problem for bicycle riders who are involved in crashes, and come at great cost in health care to not only their families but the State as well. Non-fatal injuries resulting from bicycle accidents are grossly underreported in official road accident statistics. As a matter of fact, the number of people taken to hospital following bicycle accidents is six times the number of people recorded in official road accident statistics as attending or being admitted to New South Wales hospitals. Hospital data shows that cyclists are numerically the road users third most likely to be admitted to hospital as the result of a road crash compared to other road users, after vehicle drivers and passengers. More bicycle riders are admitted to hospital than are motorcycle riders or pedestrians.
Injury rates for bicycle riders are especially high in children and in males. At least a quarter of bicycle riders admitted to hospital, and almost half of those killed, have head injury as the single most important injury. These figures do not include multiple injuries, many of which include unrecorded head injuries. If you just consider bicycle rider crashes involving an impact with a motor vehicle, up to 80 per cent of those collisions result in a head injury to the bicycle rider. Bicycle riders admitted to hospital with head injuries are 20 times more likely to die than those without head injuries.
Mandatory bicycle helmet wearing was introduced in New South Wales in 1991. It was introduced along with a subsidy that made helmets cheaper, encouraging parents in particular to encourage their children to wear helmets when riding their bicycles. Initially, the Roads and Traffic Authority conducted regular surveys on rates of helmet wearing. Those studies showed that helmet wearing rates for adult cyclists in New South Wales rose from 26 per cent of riders in 1990 to 83 per cent of riders in 1993. The wearing rates for child bicycle riders in New South Wales went from 12 per cent in 1990 to 74 per cent in 1993. However, from the mid-1990s there have been few surveys.
No survey data on helmet wearing rates has been released by the Roads and Traffic Authority for several years now. Work has been conducted, but the results have not been released because apparently they show that the number of people, adults and children, who are wearing helmets is now lower than it was when the compulsory bicycle helmet wearing legislation was introduced in 1991. Less than 26 per cent of adults and 12 per cent of children wear bicycle helmets today. I note that Lillian Saleh reported in the Daily Telegraph in July 2004 that over a period of two years more than 23,000 people had been issued with traffic infringement notices for not wearing helmets.
In January 2002 the Motor Accidents Authority announced a $96,000 research project into bicycle injury rates. In February 2004 the authority published the results of stage one of that project, which showed that the number of bicycle rider injuries had not fallen in line with injuries suffered by motor car drivers and motorcyclists over the past 10 to 15 years. The Motor Accidents Authority project has, for reasons not specified, been discontinued. Serious head injuries are sustained by more than 1,000 child cyclists each year in this nation. There are no current major programs in place to address cyclist safety issues, including child cyclists, helmet wearing and so on. We have some local council and community and road education schemes, but we must go back and look at the provision of subsidies, education and stressing to parents the importance of young people wearing a helmet because that will save their lives. [Time expired.]