One critical precondition for successful urban cycling systems: get rid of the helmet laws.

“Pushing helmets really kills cycling and bike-sharing in particular because it promotes a sense of danger that just isn’t justified — in fact, cycling has many health benefits,” says Piet de Jong, a professor in the department of applied finance and actuarial studies at Macquarie University in Sydney. He studied the issue with mathematical modeling, and concludes that the benefits may outweigh the risks by 20 to 1.

He adds: “Statistically, if we wear helmets for cycling, maybe we should wear helmets when we climb ladders or get into a bath, because there are lots more injuries during those activities.”

I maintain that helmets are for extreme sports, activities where you are likely to injure yourself. If bicycling around a city is really that dangerous, there’s something deeply wrong with the city’s infrastructure – and if it’s not that dangerous, why require people to wear helmets?

I’ve never worn a bicycle helmet. I haven’t really ridden a bicycle since the helmet-law craze kicked in, either. Repealing the local helmet laws would go a long way to making me think of a bicycle as a normal mode of transportation, a machine I could use to run errands and visit my friends, instead of just a piece of equipment for an extreme sport I don’t happen to enjoy.

Of course I’m not talking about high speed cycling for sport, here – if you’re flying along at two-lane country roads at 30 mph a helmet might well be worthwhile. I’m just talking about the sort of “maybe I’ll take a bike to the store instead of driving” trips that would make us all healthier and less oil-dependent. We should be promoting that kind of thing instead of scaring people off by telling them it’s so dangerous they need a helmet so they won’t die.