Lynn Mall incident: Armed police swarm shops, hunting person of interest
Christopher Luxon has slated the Green Party's alternative Budget , saying the whole thing is madness. Video / Mark Mitchell
A group of workers claimed they paid between $10,000-$50,000 in cash to Indian agents for visas to work in NZ. Video / Ben Dickens
The ACT minister was responding to a question from Labour when she used the word. Video / Mark Mitchell
Watch a heated back and forth around the topic of pay equity. Video / Parliament TV
Greens promise $88b taxes including 33% inheritance tax for massive social safety net expansion. Video / Mark Mitchell
"I think it was, you know, a heroic effort on her part," says Kardashian's lawyer, after the reality TV star appeared in Paris court.
An ambulance was stolen and taken for a joyride in Timaru while medical staff were preparing a patient for transfer. Video / Supplied
NZ Herald Live: David Seymour speaks to media on budget 2025
David Seymour speaks with Mike Hosking about the new $140 million Getting kids in School programme. Video / NZ Herald
NZ drug markets shift online, Covid-born kids face school challenges, and Trump meets Saudi leaders on visit to Middle East.
Reporter Marii is at the World Dance Crew Championships, where hip hop duos from all around the world, including Auckland's En-Locked, are battling for medals and cash.
Reporter Marii is at the World Dance Crew Championships, where hip hop duos from all around the world, including Auckland's En-Locked, are battling for medals and cash.
Released by second-tier English club Hull City, Mason Johnson has now made Napier City Rovers his home. Video / Neil Reid
Police forensics team and detectives continue to comb Onekawa properties in the hunt for Kaea Karauria's killer. Video / Neil Reid
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NZ Herald
8 minutes ago
- NZ Herald
Gareth Morgan deep fake: How to spot it's not real
Lawyer: Kiwi Sarah Shaw and son should never have been detained Lawyer Minda Thorward on Sarah Shaw's release from a Texas detention centre after being held with her young son. Video / Herald NOW
NZ Herald
8 minutes ago
- NZ Herald
20,000 Secondary School teachers striking over latest pay offer
Lawyer: Kiwi Sarah Shaw and son should never have been detained Lawyer Minda Thorward on Sarah Shaw's release from a Texas detention centre after being held with her young son. Video / Herald NOW
The Spinoff
4 hours ago
- The Spinoff
David Seymour was right to question our compulsory helmet laws
There's little evidence our mandatory cycle laws improve overall safety, and quite a lot of evidence suggesting they're doing more harm than good. A jeering crowd quickly gathered in its usual meeting place, the internet, after news broke that David Seymour had asked his pet ministry to look at reversing mandatory cycle helmet laws. 'David might be brain damaged, but others shouldn't be!' said one taunter. 'How many taxpayer dollars were wasted using his overpaid pet staff to investigate this rubbish?' said another. The response could be statistically distilled into the sentence 'ha ha, you dip shit'. But Seymour's suggestion was neither dip nor shit. The Act leader's mistake wasn't in asking the Ministry of Regulation whether we should make helmets optional, as was once proposed by his fellow right-wing firebrand, Green leader Chlöe Swarbrick. Instead it was in abandoning his tentative efforts at the first sign of resistance from its anti-bureaucracy bureaucrats, who responded with advice noting serious injuries and fatalities have declined since a regulatory helmet mandate was introduced in New Zealand, and added 'removing the helmet mandate would likely lead to an increase in serious injuries and fatalities as a result of cycling accidents'. It's true, since we made wearing a bike helmet compulsory in 1994, cycling injuries have steadily trended downward. Research indicates that wearing a helmet significantly reduces your risk of getting a traumatic brain injury or otherwise bunging your body in a crash. On the face of it, the figures are compelling. Case closed, motion to appeal denied, say helmet law defenders. Squint at the data though, and troubling trends swim into focus. Cycling deaths and serious injuries may have reduced since mandatory helmet laws were passed, but only roughly in line with similar improvements for drivers and pedestrians. A 2023 meta-analysis of studies found no clear evidence that making helmet wearing compulsory for everyone improved safety overall. That's not ideal on its own. It's worse when you consider the laws corresponded with a precipitous dropoff in cycling numbers. Put the two figures together, and the number of injuries sustained per 100,000 cyclists has risen steeply since we started legally mandating headwear. The swan dive in our cycling numbers likely has a host of causes. We've catered our transport infrastructure exclusively to the needs of an enraged white collar worker speeding past a school in a Ford Ranger. Our streets are busier than ever, and the bike lanes hallucinated by talkback hosts remain stubbornly non-existent in many areas. But plenty of research has shown mandatory helmet laws kill bike share schemes and generally make people less willing to cycle. That impacts safety. Studies show a strong correlation between higher cycle numbers and reduced risk. The more cyclists on the road, the more likely motorists are to look out for them. Reducing the number of cycle trips also has a wider effect on population health. Helmets may alleviate the damage for the unlucky few riders who manage to crash their e-bike into a street sign, but more sedentary lives put all of us at risk of heart attacks, strokes, and worse, gout. The research persists. One troubling study found many motorists see cyclists as less than human, and that mindset is reinforced when those cyclists are wearing helmets and protective gear. Though we tend to think our mandatory helmet laws are a no-brainer, they're an international outlier. New Zealand is one of only three countries worldwide that makes helmets compulsory for riders of all ages. One of the others is Australia, a place we notoriously hate. But the laws make sense to us intuitively, partly because we've made our roads so unsafe. They individualise risk management, plonking the burden of keeping cyclists out of the ER on their flimsy fiberglass hats, and in the process absolving our politicians of making more impactful policy interventions. Greater Auckland's Matt Lowrie says shrugging off unnecessary and potentially counterproductive helmet regulation would be a good first step toward improving our cycling numbers. But to meaningfully improve safety and give people choice in the transport free market, he says Seymour needs to do the unthinkable and back the most effective, well-researched intervention on offer: protected cycle lanes. 'Helmet laws are a distraction from the more important question for a self-avowed libertarian like Seymour: why isn't he doing everything in his power to give people a meaningful choice to have the freedom to ride a bike for transport, and unshackle ourselves from relying on cars for every trip?'
