Perhaps 20 years would be even wiser. Measures like these would save many more lives than mandatory bicycle helmets ever will. So too would a helmet law for motorists, but of course I'm being facetious. At the turn of the century, an Irish MP named TM Healy argued persuasively that if cyclists must bear lights then so must carriages and cars. Henry David Thoreau wrote that if there are a hundred who would hack at the branches of evil for each one who attacks its root.
Bicycle accidents are branches.
Personal motor transport is the root. Rather than demanding helmets for cyclists, the medical profession's energies in the bicycle safety debate would be much more effective if directed at promoting bicycling itself. Increased participation in this activity would not only benefit the national health and environment, but also would contribute significantly to road safety. We should not be discouraging it by advocating laws that will drive cyclists from our roads. Let us not risk killing the goose that lays the golden egg.