The Ministerial Law Committee on Sunday took one giant step backwards, permitting a bill that calls to leave the decision for bicyclists to decide for themselves if they must wear a helmet, eliminating the mandatory helmet law.
The law was voted in during the previous Knesset but MK (Labor) Shelly Yacimovitz is pushing for the bill to amend the law, explaining bike riders contribute to alleviating urban congestion, parking problems, and reducing air pollution and the mandatory helmet law has prompted many bicyclists to leave their bikes at home, opting to used motorized vehicles. She insists the law is contrary to the public’s interest, adding she too uses a bicycle to navigate the streets of Tel Aviv, and is constantly reminded of the lack of logic behind the law.
She spoke of the wonderful bicycle projects in France and other European countries, stating “no one dare bring up the helmet issue there”. She adds that a new project involving 2,000 bicycles in Tel Aviv is being held up over the helmet issue. She adds it is more absurd since police officials have stated they lack the manpower to enforce the law.
She is working in concert with Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, as well as environmental, safety and transportation experts.
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
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One Response
I thought the law was about motorcycles / mopeds. That is what was written about it earlier – not sure whether here or elsewhere.
For bicycles, it’s crazy indeed – I’m from Holland; nobody wears a helmet there. On the other hand, however, I would tend to ban bicycles from Israel completely, pending the development of a serious bicycle lane infrastructure such as we have in Holland. Any major road (meaning, any road bigger than a small street) should have a separated bicycle track (this is NOT PART OF THE SIDEWALK as they do it in Tel Aviv).
In Israel, bicyclists are forced to either drive on 4-lane roads full of buses, trucks and crazy car drivers, or on the sidewalks, where they are a serious danger for pedestrians.
Also, motorized traffic by default treats cyclists as an annoyance, a toy, rather than as serious, equal participants in traffic. In Holland, ‘right goes first’ applies to bicyclists as well – in Israel, (especially bus) drivers almost kill bicyclists daily, simply because they consider them to be like ants who should run away and who don’t belong on the roads.
All traffic problems in both the Tel Aviv (Gush Dan) area as well as the Jerusalem area could be solved, if basic cycling infrastructure would exist.