Senator Liu pulls helmet mandate

Today, Senator Carol Liu pulled the helmet mandate from her bill.

Helmet mandates don’t make streets safer. They discourage people from riding, and they are enforced inequitably. Your California Bicycle Coalition asked her to pull the bill, and thousands of people from across California chimed in on our petition. Senator Liu heard nearly unanimous opposition from organized bicycling advocates, and she listened.

Riding a bicycle is safe. Especially the kind of day-to-day, non-sporty bicycling that we’re seeing more and more of in California. In fact, bicycling has gotten 40{850a63fa8a72bae4d6bfa3f1eda9f619cddace10f9053ede128e2914f9ca5a15} safer in the last decade alone. We’re on the right track.

With this threat behind us, the California Bicycle Coalition turns its full attention to our most important campaign, and to overcoming a more formidable enemy: those who would deny more funding for better bikeways. If together we win the campaign for an increase in the Active Transportation Program, more California communities will have the funding to build networks of protected bike lanes and safe quiet streets and paths.