Thoglette wrote:Comedian wrote:I actually do think the AGF are right on this - it is a distraction.
Pardon?
It's top three (with bad road/regulation design and bad driver behaviour) for cutting cyclist numbers.
And the one thing we do know is there's safety in numbers.
The AGF is a MAMIL (or MAFIL, if you like) based organisation. As such they are,
by definition, incapable of understanding the importance of MHLs.
So - what I meant by that. I am speaking for QLD.
Our current labor transport minister got doored once and he loves helmets. He thinks they are the best thing ever. You'll get him to repeal them only with his cold dead hand. Not happening now. Not happening while ever he has the say.
The previous LNP government commissioned an enquiry into cycling issues which recommended a trial partial repeal (much like darwin). The LNP government said no. Both sides of politics are 100% behind MHL in QLD.
A local university has a road safety research faculty called carrs-Q. Like all universities these days - they have to get funding from the government. They have received substantial funding from the QLD government and produced a significant amount of "research" showing that helmets are awesome and are no disincentive to cycling.
https://www.qut.edu.au/news?id=137754
So, IMHO given that both sides of politics support MHL, and they have a "research" organisation who will happily produce whatever is needed to justify the law, what is the point of campaigning to change it? I'm an advocate. We have lots of advocates. We all work full time jobs and have limited amounts of time to allocate to advocating. What if we spend 50% of our time advocating for MHL reform and we get nowhere? In that sense AGF is right. It's a distraction and a waste of time for advocates to spend time on it. Not because it isn't a good or worthy cause - but because it's just futile. We're better off spending our efforts on advocating for infrastructure which is pretty close to futile - but not as futile as advocating for MHL reform which is
completely 100% futile.
I've said it before - the only way I can see MHL being reformed in QLD for the foreseeable future is if it's repealed elsewhere. Again Carrs-Q have stated that according to them it's no disincentive and it doesn't stop people cycling. If you take that out of the equation then there really is no reason to repeal it. Unfortunately the NT is different enough that they always manage to discredit it.
So the only chance will be is if somewhere else in Australia repeals MHL and there is a cycling explosion which proves how big a disincentive it is. Sorry.