Please wait. Contacting image service... loading

Article text

Bike helmets
will not be
enforced yet
I
The Alliance Government has no im
mediate plans to legislate for the compul
sory wearing of bicycle helmets.
A spokesman for the Minister for Ur
ban Services, Craig Duby, said yesterday
that the Government would prefer to
encourage voluntary wearing of safety
helmets.
"The Alliance Government is not
about forcing people to do things unless
it's necessary," the spokesman said.
He said the ACT had a different cy
cling environment to NSW where cy
clists were forced to use roads
extensively. (The NSW Government
passed legislation this week which will
make the wearing of bicycle helmets
compulsory from January; 1991, for rid
ers aged 16 years and over, and for riders
under 16 years from January, 1992.
"We don't see it as urgent as in NSW," he
said.
The network of cycle paths in the ACT
made cycling safer, although falling off
and hitting your head was just as danger
ous on a cycle path as it was on a road.
The Alliance Government was keen to
promote the voluntary wearing of hel
mets and it would aim to do that through
advertising and education programs
rather than through legislation.
The spokesman said that in the light of
an accident on a cycle path at Lake Gin
ninderra in February when a man died
from head injuries received after falling
off his bicycle and the incidence of death
arid injury to cyclists in NSW, the Gov
ernment would monitor the situation in
the ACT.
$