Helmets
Since 1994 it has been mandatory by law to wear a bicycle helmet while riding a bicycle in New Zealand. The law was enacted after intense lobbying by Rebecca Oaten after her son was injured in a cycle accident.
A study on bicycle helmets using cost-benefit analysis found that the law was only cost-effective for the 5-12 year old age group. A Massey University study in 2006 found that compulsory bicycle helmet laws led to a lower uptake of cycling, especially among women.
Advocacy groups like Cycle Action Auckland have argued that helmets are useful safety devices, but noted out that some cyclists consider them a symbol portraying cycling as dangerous, especially when most severe cycling crashes had been shown to be caused by inattentive motorists.
Read more about this topic: Cycling In New Zealand
Famous quotes containing the word helmets:
“The bugle-call to arms again sounded in my war-trained ear, the bayonets gleamed, the sabres clashed, and the Prussian helmets and the eagles of France stood face to face on the borders of the Rhine.... I remembered our own armies, my own war-stricken country and its dead, its widows and orphans, and it nerved me to action for which the physical strength had long ceased to exist, and on the borrowed force of love and memory, I strove with might and main.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)