Patrick Morgan: Cycling Advocates Network spokesperson says it's worth rethinking helmet laws

A cyclist group says it's worth looking into changing helmet laws, following the release of a new report.

Newstalk ZB has revealed the Regulation Ministry has advised its Minister the risks of not requiring the protective measures would outweigh any benefits.

David Seymour asked it to look into dumping the rule.

Cycling Advocates Network spokesperson Patrick Morgan says Seymour made the wrong call to drop this, as helmets put people off.

"If we're trying to solve the problem of inactivity, which we know is killing more than 2,000 people a year in New Zealand, you'd want more people to be active. Anything that's a barrier to cycling - we should look at removing that."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now on another matter altogether, Regulation Minister David Seymour has
decided he's not going to change the laws around wearing
helmets on bikes and the fact that it's mandatory at
the moment you have to wear them, and the Ministry
has advised Seymour that it should stay that way because
if we start removing the mandate a lot more people
are going to die. Patrick Morgan from the Cycle Action
Network is with us. He Patrick, hello, how are you well?

(00:21):
Thank you? Has he made the right call?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well, he made the right call to ask for advice
on this, but he made the wrong call to drop it.
We've never had a review of New Zealand's compulsory bicycle
helmet law and after thirty years a lot of evidence
has come in which shows that maybe we made the
wrong call.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Here okay, well why do you think we made the
wrong call? What is this evidence?

Speaker 2 (00:45):
It depends on the problem you're trying to solve. If
we're trying to reduce head injuries, which is a good
thing to do, then the evidence would show you would
require helmets for many things that we do every day,
such as driving our fast cars, chairs, walking such as DIY.
But if we're trying to solve the problem of inactivity,
which we know is killing more than two thousand people

(01:08):
a year in New Zealand. You'd want more people to
be active than anything that's a barrier to cycling. Should
we should look at removing that. So let's think about
every other country in the world that's looked at helmet compulsion.
They look at New Zealand and say, what happened? There
was a really bad thing. We need to think that
through very carefully.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Can we actually, Patrick cee a drop off where we
force the helmets and people stop cycling?

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Absolutely? And we know that because in Australia, when helmet
laws introduced state by state, you can track the falloff
in cycling and which is to fall off. So in
New Zealand, after helmet compulsion was introduced more than thirty
years ago, we know the number of children riding to
school dropped off to dropped off by about eighty percent.

(01:54):
Now there's other reasons for that, but we know that
forcing people to wear a bike helmet is disproportionate to
the massive health benefits and fun people get from writing again.
But I mean it's complicated at Patrick.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Here's the thing, Okay, I really want people to be
riding on their bikes. But man, I'm a mum and
I'm not a helicopter parent at all, but I'm still
strapping a helmet on that kid, because if you fall
off your bike, that is I mean, that can do
some damage that you live with for the rest of
your life. That is a massive impact. It's not worth
the risk without a helmet.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Look, I absolutely understand that, and I respect people who
make that call. You could say exactly the same thing
about driving in your fast car like your song said
at you know, eighty or one hundred and ten kilometers
an hour. A helmet could do a lot more use
if we made the compulsory for people in cars.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
I mean, I'd love to know the incidence of people
having crashes versus the incidents of people having really like
and the range of crashes, like serious crashes versus serious
crashes on your bike, because I know a lot of
people have had serious crashes on their bike and it
feels to me like it's more frequent than in a car.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, So that's a good reason to do a proper
review of the helmet law, Yeah, and make sure that
it's achieved what it's set out. To achieve thirty years ago.
With all the new evidence that's come in, I should say,
get on your here that riding a bike is amazing.
If you're riding at twenty kilometers an hour on a
rail trail where there's no motorized traffic, does it really

(03:31):
make sense for the government to tell you to put
a plastic hat on? No.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
I agree with you on that, although, yeah, I mean
if you're if you're driving down Ponsonby Road where you've
got no separation, you should probably be wearing a helmet.
I would have thought, is it possible that the reason
that we had the drop off and would see the
drop off when the helmet's are introduced, is because when
you introduce the mandate, people suddenly realize how dangerous this
activity actually is around cars.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, I think you're onto something that it certainly dangified
cycling in the nineties. You probably remember the campaign, as
you know, telling you about the terrible things can happen
when you hit your head, and you know that's a
valid concern. But before we pass the rule, it needs
to be proportionate to the risks and the benefits. And
I suspect that that assessment was never really done in

(04:19):
New Zealand, so it's time to take a fresh look
at it. But speaking on behalf of Cycling Action Network,
we think there's higher priorities at the moment. Protected bike lane,
safe speeds. These are all things that the Minister for
Regulation could more profitably be spending his time on.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Yeah, listen, Patrick, I really appreciate your time, mate. You
look after yourself. Patrick Morgan's Cycle Action Network. Hither the
overweight people who don't exercise are not suddenly going to
jump on a bike and ride it because you don't
have to wear a helmet. This is a fair point
as well. Oh lord, can you know and you know
how strapped for cash ACC is. So can you imagine
everybody starts coming off their bikes and there goes there.
Now we've got can't think straight anymore because of that,

(04:58):
and AC like, never mind, will they're paying now beforehand?
And start paying that now?

Speaker 2 (05:03):
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