Former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson seen riding his bicycle in 2006 in London, England. (Photo … [+] Getty Images Transport minister Jesse Norman has—again!—batted away a call for mandatory cycle helmet wearing by British cyclists.
Tory MP Mark Pritchard asked in a written parliamentary question if the U.K. government would “hold discussions with road safety and cycle representative groups on making it a legal requirement for cyclists to wear helmets on public roads.”
The point is a contentious one and was first batted away by Norman in 2017 during his previous stint as a transport minister.
Posting the U.K. government’s response yesterday, Norman said:
“The safety benefits of mandating cycle helmets for cyclists are likely to be outweighed by the fact that this would put some people off cycling, thereby reducing the wider health and environmental benefits.”
Critics of mandatory cycle helmet laws argue that helmets give cyclists and motorists a false sense of security and act as a distraction from measures—such as separated cycleways—that provide greater safety benefits.
In 2014 , Chris Boardman, now England’s active travel commissioner , called cycle helmet compulsion a “massive red herring.”He said such compulsion was “not even in the top ten of things you need to do to keep cycling safe or more widely, save the most lives.” U.K. transport minister Jesse Norman. Carlton Reid In 2017, The Times reported that the U.K.’s Department for Transport (DfT) was planning to introduce a mandatory cycle helmet law as well as making it a legal requirement for cyclists […]
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