Can Australia's bicycle helmet law teach us something

Troy MI

Description

As a mountain biker and physicist, there's no question that helmets are a necessary and beneficial piece of equipment for my chosen activity. There is new research suggesting that rotational acceleration is more important than linear acceleration for most concussions and TBIs, which helmet manufacturers have started to address with "slip plane" technology as well as more rounded outer-shelled helmet designs. In the context of mountain biking, it's pretty apparent that having a "crumple zone for your head" is beneficial in the event of unplanned dismounts. However, in 2013, Australia made helmets mandatory for all cyclists, including casual bike path users. Opponents of the helmet law have cherry picked questionable science from out-of-context studies to claim that helmets actually increase concussions/TBI. There's a huge, political, anti-helmet movement that has poisoned the scientific discussion surrounding helmets. There's a case to be made that helmets need to improve their rotational acceleration attenuation, but you'd be hard pressed to convince me that not wearing a lid is safer than wearing one. Particularly for my chosen activity, where unplanned dismounts happen, and it's probably going to be on a rocky descent where I'm going to land on something hard. Within the US, the discussion is actually a lot more sane and level headed (no pun intended), as we don't mandate helmets here and it's a lot less political. Virginia tech has done some very good research on the effectiveness of helmets - not just whether they are effective but on which designs are best. They've shown that some designs appear to do an excellent job at reducing both rotational and linear acceleration. Now apply this to every other issue. The fight between the pro mandate and anti-mandate schools of thought has led to a world where objective thought and science based discussion is a rarity. I'm not placing blame on one side or the other, it's a complex issue that shouldn't have a black and/or white answer. One example of course is the debate around masks. We got so caught up on arguing about them in a black and white sense that the nuances were lost. "What type of masks?" "In what scenarios are the most and least helpful?" "What are the limitations of them?" I believe THOSE are the discussions we should have been having, but because it became so political, it became a black and white, yes and no debate rather than a rational discussion on the nuances and middle grounds.