State and federal governments should be allocating funding as per the current mode share %, and then add additional funding to each mode depending on the benefits and value of that mode of transport, in addition to ‘big picture’ strategic goals and policies to reduce pollution and oil dependence, increase mental and physical health etc. E.g. cycling gets 1.5% base slice of the total budget for transport infrastructure each year (this will go up as the mode share does too), plus another 10% as a bonus due to the multiple social, environmental and economical benefits cycling provides. In comparison funding for automobiles would be 80% less 15% due to the negative impacts.

Of course this can get tricky as there are bodies such as PTA and Main Roads who spend a small (but still fairly significant) portion of their budgets on cycling infrastructure, so efforts would need to be made to ensure that these organisations are spending the required amount on cycle infrastructure and not cutting it out to focus their budget on their primary interest (public transport or roads) only.

If the BTA doesn’t campaign on the bike helmet law issue, what is this page all about?

“Removing helmet legislation may lead to increased cycle numbers but it is not something we will be pushing. There are more important things we are worried about.”

There are more important things than the safety of cyclists and an end to State discouragement of healthy cycling exercise?

This is as pathetic as Bicycle WA’s ignorant closing comment that a trial Fremantle exemption would not lead to an increase in cycling.

There is clear evidence that per capita, close to a million less Australians are nowadays cycling compared to road numbers 25 years ago.

The City of Sydney is also campaigning for a helmet exemption before it’ll agree to a bike share project and in August last year, Israel repealed its adult helmet law on cycle paths. Since August, more than a million bikes have been hired from the Tel Aviv bike share scheme.

All but the blind know much of WA’s increased cycling participation since the year 2000 is because about half of all cyclists, particularly in Perth’s middle to outer suburbs, defy the law and cycle without a helmet.

The West Australian has an opinion poll associated with last week’s story re Fremantle’s push for an exemption, with about 1,300 respondents in three days – 57% are against the helmet law and 43% support it. Similar results have been recorded in eastern states polls for the past few years.

The BTA, Bicycle WA, the State Government and the media should pull their helmeted heads out of the sand and recognise that the WA public and almost every other country in the world don’t agree that it’s wise to discourage cycling and worsen the injury rate for remaining cyclists (and motorists).