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A Tyee Series

Going Head-to-Head on Helmet Laws

Looking at both sides of the never-ending debate on cycling headgear.

By Elly Blue, 5 Aug 2011, TheTyee.ca

Child wearing a bike helmet

A young proponent of mandatory helmet laws. Photo by DJHuber from Your BC: The Tyee's Photo Pool.

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Also in this series:
Self-Propelled Summer: Best of 'Momentum'

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[Editor's Note: Since the launch of "Self-Propelled Summer," a weekly series of cycle-centric articles from Momentum Magazine, no single issue has drawn more heated feedback from our readers than the suggestion, offered in each preliminary editor's note, to wear a helmet. With that in mind, please enjoy this article from last May and always remember to wear a helmet while riding your bike -- or don't.]

In the cycling arena, nothing has been more hotly debated or more polarizing than the debate about the merits of mandatory helmet laws.

Carla Danley is a former emergency room nurse who has seen her fair share of head injuries. She has also been a daily bicycle rider since 2009 when, at age 50, she moved to Portland, OR, and launched headlong into the city's vibrant bike scene. In Portland, bicycling verges on the mainstream.

Danley is one of many who choose to wear a helmet every time they ride. "It's in my marriage contract," she said. Her husband lost his teenage sister after she was struck by a car while on a cross-Canada bike trip. "One of the things I give him credit for is: when we moved to Oregon, I was like, 'I'm going to get rid of my car and ride a bike,' and he has always been behind me 100 per cent," she said. "But he is really clear that he wants me to use bike lights at night and have a helmet on all the time. And I'm good with that."

Across the globe, in Western Australia, Sue Abbott, a 50-year-old mother of four who has cycled for transportation for 46 years, has never worn a bike helmet. Even after 1991 when Australia became the first country to pass a law requiring them for adults and children, she rode helmet-free, an act that soon earned her a stiff ticket.

Abbott emerged victorious last August from a string of court battles over her right to cycle bare-headed in her town of Scone, New South Wales. Aiding her suit was the embattled and contradictory state of scientific research on helmet use.

Since the helmet question is one of the most fiercely debated and polarized issues in transportation bicycling, the question is, which is more important: personal freedom or a precautionary approach that mandates defensive cycling? Should the government step in to enforce head protection or should the onus be on the individual? The science is murky, but the political philosophies in question are sharply delineated.

A brief history of helmet laws

For much of the history of the bicycle there were no helmets, only protective leather caps occasionally worn by bike racers, motorists, aeronauts, rugby players and mountaineers.

Helmets, as we know them today, did not exist until 1975, when Bell Sports introduced the first polystyrene model to the United States market. First constructed to protect the skull by crushing on impact, there has been little aesthetic or material innovation in their design until recent years.

Now, in North America, fanciful or sleek helmet shells with minimal venting, such as those made by Nutcase and Bern, are becoming popular among utility cyclists. In Europe, the Ribcap -- a knit hat with soft inserts that harden on impact -- is all the rage for bicycling and skiing.

The first mandatory bicycle helmet laws that went into effect in California in 1987 and New York in 1989 applied only to young children who were passengers on a bike. Since then, laws passed across North America and the world mostly govern children under 16 years of age.

These laws are increasingly contentious. In Tel Aviv, an attempt to repeal existing helmet laws is being fought as fiercely as successful attempts to impose them in Vancouver, WA, which passed an all-ages helmet law last year. Northern Ireland, Chicago, IL, and Minneapolis, MN, are all considering instituting mandatory helmet laws for children under the age of 16. Mexico City may have had the shortest-lived helmet law -- it was passed in 2009 and repealed a year later in the face of intense opposition.

A heady debate

Pro-helmet advocates compare helmets to seat belts -- a commonsense response to a known safety problem. They have at their service a wealth of data. In the U.S., head trauma is the cause of over half of bicycle-related fatalities, with survival of serious crashes strongly linked to helmet use.

Also to the point, helmet laws have been shown to be more effective than education campaigns at getting helmets on heads.

Opponents of helmet laws see them as a barometer of a society's regard for personal freedom. They point to research finding that helmets do not in fact protect wearers in the most common types of bicycle crashes, which result in scrapes and other injuries to the arms and legs. In some cases, research shows that helmets might even cause brain injuries as a result of the mechanical twisting effect that occurs upon impact.

Others insist that helmet laws lead to more dangerous bicycling conditions. A British traffic psychologist used sensors to discover that when he biked to work without a helmet, passing drivers gave him more room on the road -- though not as much room as when he wore a flowing wig!

Australia experienced a drop in bicycle use after its helmet law came into effect. Commonsense might lead one to believe that this is a good thing, that fewer bicyclists would mean fewer injuries. But studies worldwide have repeatedly shown the opposite to be true: the more people ride bikes, the safer bicycling becomes.

This phenomenon is called "Safety in Numbers." Its core principle is that people on bikes rely largely on the kindness of strangers for their safety -- the ones whizzing past them in their cars. As more people ride, drivers become more skilled, tolerant and aware of the presence of cyclists, making roads safer for people on bikes -- and for everyone else, too, for that matter.

The popularity of public bike sharing systems raises another issue around mandatory bicycle helmet laws: how to have both at the same time?

City leaders worldwide are discovering the appeal of self-service kiosks where bicycles can be rented cheaply for short trips. Bike share systems are an affordable way to boost bicycle mode share and safety nearly overnight. But no feasible means has yet been found to incorporate helmets into such schemes, leaving all-ages helmet law cities, such as Vancouver, B.C., struggling to find a way to reap the rewards of a public bike system.

The anti-helmet league

It isn't just helmet laws that face growing opposition. Increasingly, helmets themselves have come under fire.

Mikael Colville-Andersen, a cycling advocate and marketing consultant in Denmark, took the cultural battle to the next level in a highly publicized speech called "Why we shouldn't wear bike helmets."

In his TEDx talk, viewable on YouTube, Colville-Andersen associates helmets with what he calls a "culture of fear." Helmet use, he said, sends the message that bicycling is dangerous. We'd laugh at wearing helmets for other daily activities that carry a significant risk of head injury, such as walking, driving, bathing and using stairs. Why, he asked, is bicycling singled out as dangerous?

Debra Rolfe, an American-British urban planning master's student in Vancouver, B.C., agreed. North America's helmet culture is the worst, she said. "It's like complete strangers walking up to you and lecturing you about how what you're eating for lunch is going to kill you."

"Most societies in the developed world spend far more money on inactivity-related illnesses than they do on trauma care," she added. "We should be doing everything we possibly can to save lives by getting people to exercise."

Ultimately, Rolfe calls helmets "an unfortunate distraction from the real major safety issue affecting cyclists: cars. Whether or not individuals choose to wear bike helmets is irrelevant, but the cycling community in North America spends a huge amount of time debating it, when it could be doing so much more to improve conditions."

To helmet or not to helmet?

When it comes down to it, the decision about whether or not to don a helmet is often less about scientific studies, political philosophies or even laws, and more about one's beliefs and sense of safety, or lack thereof, on the road.

Elena Findley-de Regt, 29, a Dutch-American citizen who has lived and cycled in the Netherlands, the U.S., Spain and, now, the U.K., has observed a wide range of helmet customs.

"When in the Netherlands," she said, "I don't wear a helmet, never have and wouldn't dream of it."

There, she feels that riding is safe, thanks to "very minimal interaction with motor vehicles due to separated bike paths" and a "critical mass of cyclists with generally low overall riding speeds." And there's a cultural element. "The Dutch tend to have a pragmatic approach to most things in life -- the simplest answer is most likely the best. Fussing with a helmet is an extra, unnecessary step."

"Philosophically," she said, "I believe that cycling should be such a normal, integrated part of transportation infrastructure that no special equipment is required."

But when riding in any other country, she wears a helmet. "This has a lot to do with my confidence in the riding conditions, and especially my trust in other road users to behave appropriately."

Habitual use and cultural norms, as well as compelling personal stories, influence helmet beliefs. Ellen Jacobson said that her husband, also a fervent helmet advocate, began wearing one only when they became mainstream in the 1980s. She doesn't recall exactly when he made the transition, but does remember that he began wearing a ski helmet after the highly publicized skiing death of Sunny Bono in 1998.

One perspective that seems capable of bringing about agreement across the fiery lines of the helmet debate is equity.

Ellen Jacobson, who coordinates the Kiwanis Club's bicycle program in Sparks, NV, is a true helmet believer, having devoted much of the past decade to bicycle safety programs for kids. But she wants to make one thing clear: "I am against having a helmet law in Nevada. Most of the kids who don't wear helmets are extremely low income. If you fine them, what you're really doing is taking food off the table. And the fine doesn't put a helmet on their heads."

Carla Danley, the former ER nurse, leans instinctively towards supporting an all-ages helmet law. "I think it almost has to be something that's legislated so that people are fined," she mused, quickly adding the caveat, "but I'd be concerned about certain populations being targeted more than others."

It seems we have reached a decisive moment in the history of urban cycling. If the pro helmet faction wins, it's likely that we will see mandatory helmet laws sweeping across Canada and the U.S. If, on the other hand, the pro choice group wins, existing helmet laws will soon be abolished, potentially changing the face of cycling in those cities that currently require helmet use by law.

There is a lot riding on this debate, and it's unlikely to fade into the distance anytime soon. [Tyee]

Elly Blue is a writer, entrepreneur, and bike enthusiast who in Portland, Oregon. To find out more about Elly, visit her website here. This article first appeared in Issue 51, May 2011 edition of Momentum. Headquartered in Vancouver, Momentum is an independent media company that promotes, encourages and inspires smart living by bike. Published six times a year, Momentum Magazine focuses on transportation cycling and bike culture in North America.

28 Comments:

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  • corona

    42 weeks ago

    People that (almost) died

    I just know too many people, experienced cyclists all, who have landed on their heads. In all but one case, it was through no fault of their own.

    True, cars are the real danger, but there's no way I can do anything about that when setting out for a ride, is there.

    Anyway, of these friends one would most definitely be dead now, and another one probably in similar condition, had they not been wearing helmets. The others would have been very seriously injured.

    So I just got in the habit. I feel weird now if I'm on the bike without a helmet. Simple.

  • Patricio

    42 weeks ago

    Two words

    Black. Ice.

    I hit some going around a corner when I used to live in Vancouver and I am confident my helmet saved me from a concussion and a fractured skull -- it made solid contact right on the edge of the curb. This had nothing to do with cars, it was just a chilly morning and the corner was shaded by the Georgia viaduct so it had iced up unlike the rest of my bike route.

    I also had a friend ride her bike out to her research farm one summer and, as she turned off the paved road and onto the gravel driveway, he front tire caught funny on the gravel, she wiped out, hit her head on a rock and ended up unconscious with a skull fracture. This was the one day of the summer she forgot to wear her helmet.

    So arguments about helmets and drivers aside, people need to remember that sometimes drivers have nothing to do with you taking a spill.

    And as for singling out cyclists... rubbish, bikes more far faster than pedestrians, and when you're driving you head is more or less protected by virtue of airbags and your (hopefully) being seat-belted into the car.

  • zalm

    42 weeks ago

    Statistics

    It's charming that this article does not refer once to actual statistics. It was not meant to, likely - rather simply to open up the discussion.

    Were it to have discussed statistics, several interesting things might have emerged. One is that the Tyee reported some time ago that total medical costs from cycling injuries in BC (not just head injuries) were $85 million last year. BCMA reported in 2009 that total medical costs from auto injuries are $2.5 billion a year. Yes, billion

    So the cost of allowing some cyclists to express their personal freedom at society's expense does not cost society very much, especially when compared with society allowing many motorists to express their personal freedom to drive as they please, as much as they please, with minimal training and maximal distraction.

    It cost the 9 cyclists who died last year a great amount personally, but societally, very little. Something worth thinking about.

    Who knows whether helmets would have helped....

    The other thing that statistics might have revealed is the utter bogusness of the "safety in numbers" argument in North America. There is no safety in numbers in North America, and all the statistics that I'm aware of that could be made to serve all come from Europe where the road culture, culture of personal responsibility and liability, and cycling culture are all quite radically different - so different in fact that no comparison is possible.

    Unless you're travelling between cities (not villages) in Holland, most places in the Netherlands can be gotten to more quickly by bike than by car. There is no place in North America where you can say that.

    Anyway.... statistics. It's going to be interesting watching the wild-eyed hairy-assed fanatics come out to justify their points of view without them, and car owners too...

    Must go - got to get up early to put my helmet on and cycle to work. I'll save my driving for the weekend.

  • zalm

    42 weeks ago

    patricio

    "I hit some going around a corner when I used to live in Vancouver and I am confident my helmet saved me from a concussion and a fractured skull -- it made solid contact right on the edge of the curb."

    Well said. I had exactly the same incident occur to me in frost one winter morning at 14th and Ontario a decade ago - it cracked my helmet, which is why I know I would have sustained some injury.

    And I strongly suspect some of the people who disagree with you may well be the recreational riders who wouldn't dream of riding in inclement weather. I'm glad the world is always sunny when they're on their bikes.

    The rest.... well, I see the rest going by my house every day, living as I do on a cycle route. Let me be polite and just say that we live in a world with considerable diversity....

  • Lawrence

    42 weeks ago

    Use your head

    If you're going fast enough to get a bad head injury in a bike accident then you should wear a helmet.

    Same thing with a seatbelt.

    But you know, I don't go fast enough on my bike that I can't stop myself with my arms should I have a problem.

    If I was on a racing bike that's capable of going faster than my one speed, then I would wear my helmet; the point is, it should be my choice.

    Kids should wear them 'cause many of them haven't any sense.

    Otherwise, helmets look dumb and mess your hair...

  • glacier_fed

    42 weeks ago

    I wouldn't necessarily wear

    I wouldn't necessarily wear helmets in small towns, but in cities, I do. Whether or not it's the cars fault, that's small comfort if you're dead. the argument that riding slower takes away the necessity of wearing a helmet does make sense, but I find that people not wearing helmets are also not obeying traffic laws either. I understand the personal freedom argument, but again, that's cold comfort.

  • on ways to pleasure

    42 weeks ago

    from a tax payer point of care

    1. helmet must be ON - is a law? If I do not wear a seat belt - I pay a ticket, so let's pay tickets for not wearing a helmet.
    why? how much it'd cost to keep you in a hospital if you're injured: 3k/day, 5k if you end up in ICU.
    Your kid rides with no helmet? Get a ticket and a call from social worker.
    Want to enforce the law? Hit the pocket!!!!!

  • Road Lice

    42 weeks ago

    Helmet discussions are a stupid diversion

    This article is a waste of space. How about an article about why motorists should wear helmets? Motorists are getting most of the head injuries.

    Instead of yet another tiresome and irrelevant discussion about bike helmets it would be nice to have a serious discussion about an important topic like transportation planning. Vancouver needs real bike lanes to protect cyclists from motorists who are injuring cyclists. Problem solved. People can wear bike helmets if they want to, especially if they are accident-prone, like people who respond positively to helmet discussions on the internet.

    By the way, here is the link to the Mikael Colville-Anderson helmet video which seems to be missing in the above article:

    http://video.tedxcopenhagen.dk/video/911034/mikael-colville-andersen

  • gsarahs

    42 weeks ago

    Are your heads indestructable?

    I survived my childhood years riding my bike due to good luck. I am all for helmets. I wouldn't want my children or future grandchildren to be severely injured while on their bikes. My friend used to ride her motorbike in the Interior, but sold it shortly after arriving in the Lower Mainland, since she didn't feel safe with all of the congestion. You will always have bikers and cyclists arguing about helmets, but we the taxpayer don't need to have even higher health care costs due to those who have this weird idea that their heads are somehow indestructable and that this somehow infringes on their right to act stupidly. Silly argument!

  • rac

    42 weeks ago

    Helmets are a good idea, helmet laws aren't

    Helmet law debates are the real problem. Proponents of helmet laws tend to exaggerate the risk of cycling are just as likely to scare people off cycling all together as they are to get people to wear helmets while people against helmet laws tend to go too far the other way and downplay the benefits of helmets in reducing injuries.

    Lets stop the debate and just get rid of the helmet law that is causing the problems. If there is not overwhelming evidence that it is a good idea by now, there never will be.

    Instead, lets focus on reducing collisions. There is no debate that it is far better to decrease collisions than making collisions a bit safer through forcing cyclists to wear helmets. It is a good thing that anti-smoking advocates didn't take this approach or we would all be required to wear face masks to filter out cigarette smoke.

    The Province of BC is providing only a very small amount of money for cycling facilities. The $1 million a year will only produce a few kilometres of safe, separated bicycle routes a year. In a province the size of BC, this is totally inadequate. They are also not funding cycling education nor educating motorists enough on how to safely drive around cyclists.

  • Fii

    42 weeks ago

    I've always worn a helmet

    I've always worn a helmet riding in the city, it's not a big deal. Messes up my hair? Seriously? Generally women who care that much about their hairdos aren't on bikes, anyway!

    It seems a natural progression of common sense. When I see little tykes snowboarding now I shake my head at the thought of my little brother skiing at the age of 4 with no helmet (me neither, I was 10), flying down the hill and landing with a crash at the bottom... and our mother was very protective. In some ways society gets smarter... as in this case :)

  • Ramona777

    42 weeks ago

    Canada Isn't Holland

    Bad comparison. Holland's cycling infrastructure is supremely superior.
    I had a serious fall on a rural road in BC. Going downhill, doing up a zipper, hit the break and went straight over my handlebars landing on my head, hip and elbow. it was my own stupid fault. I thank God every day that I was wearing a helmet.
    It could have just as easily been a deer or dog pop out of the woods or an errant pedestrian or vehicle.
    To all of the stubborn people looking for philosophical or political or even selfishly personal reasons why they shouldn't wear a helmet, please give your "head" a shake. Then go buy a helmet.

  • Road Rash

    42 weeks ago

    Same old same old

    These are the same old tired arguments that were trotted out when motorcycle helmets were made mandatory. I think there has been more than enough studies to prove that riders are safer wearing helmets than going without. Combined with education and common sense, they can reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries. It is easy to blame cars, or anything else larger than a bicycle as being the "problem", but learning defensive driving/riding techniques and wearing protective gear can make you a safer rider. I don't buy the "personal freedom" argument. Why should someone expect the rest of society to clean up the mess caused by an accident and/or care for them for the rest of their life when they are brain damaged. In this instance, the benefit to society outweighs the loss of individual "freedom". Oh, and to those cyclists who ride around with their helmets looped over their handlebars, "What are you thinking???"

  • Lawrence

    42 weeks ago

    It's the speed..

    So when I'm doing the sea wall in the sunshine, which is my great pleasure,I'm passing joggers and roller bladers are passing me, and I look over to my left and here's an open tourist bus and nobody is belted in, well, I guess by ''on ways to pleasure''and road rash's criteria all of the above should wear a helmet.

  • pianosaurus rex

    42 weeks ago

    can we grow beyond this one?

    Previous to 1968 players and fans of the NHL used to laugh and mock players who wore helmets.

    Then on January 13 1968 Bill Masterson was checked and his head hit the ice. 30 hours of surgery was unsuccessful. Eleven years later the NHL mandated helmets. 70 % were already wearing them.

    And so society grows a little...

    Golfers used to laugh at other golfers who were afraid of being hit by lightning. After the Lee Trevino incident any golfer can call the game because of the same thing.

    And society grows once again.

    We all used to scoff at seatbelts. While in some very serious MVA’s seatbelts cut people in half, in the majority of MVA’s people receive less injury because of them along with the newer equipment airbags etc etc.

    We all used to drive cars with very little in the way of safety equipment, insurance or mandatory safety inspections for transport.

    Cars and bicycles are not meant to be in collision with each other; neither of them fare well….

    When using any device for transportation on a roadway one is subject to the Motor Vehicle Act. If the act requires certain conditions about use of road space then COMPLIANCE WITH THE ACT will keep most of the problems subdued.

    It is the complete lack of cooperation with the rules of the road that results in the attitudes of conflict; one side blaming the other or coming up with lame excuses as to why one should be allowed to skirt the law.

    To drive an automobile one has to be licensed, tested, the vehicle insured, with properly functioning safety equipment, and a fairly clean abstract.

    If one refuses to comply then this is where the problems begin. It is the same for any vehicle that uses road space.

    And so we grow….there are no legitimate reasons to refuse to obey the helmet law…only lame excuses.

    Oh and kill the bleating about “personal freedoms” and this shit about “messing my hair” and on and on….nobody likes whiners…..use the helmet or walk….

  • Ramona777

    42 weeks ago

    It's About Time

    Those who aren't wearing a helmet should be on the hook for some of their healthcare costs if they are injured.
    Come to think of it, maybe it's about time people have to pay for their stupid choices, i.e. going out of bounds, not wearing a seatbelt or life jacket, playing with guns or fireworks.
    Hey, we could have a whole new government department -- the Ministry of Broken Rules.

  • rac

    42 weeks ago

    @Ramona777 And anyone who

    @Ramona777

    And anyone who eats a hamburger and shake and has a heart attack should pay for some of their medical costs?

    How about anyone who steps out of the house? That is dangerous. Or stays in and slips in the bathtub. Or types in ridiculous comments on line and gets repetitive stress injuries.

    Your suggestion is absurd. This is not the type of society we are. People have the right to make choices. We all make some bad ones at some point. I, for one, am glad to live in a society where we take care of each other even when some one makes a mistake.

  • Professional Re...

    42 weeks ago

    Helmets for all, or all for none. Why just cyclists?

    Helmets are not stupid to wear, but if safety is the real issue, helmet supporters would not dream of entering a car, bus, or plane without wearing one, and they surely wouldn't let their elderly parents out of a chair without one; for all those mentioned are more likely to receive a head injury than a cyclist.

    The stats prove it; cyclists RARELY receive serious self-inflicted head trauma; that takes a car; perhaps cars need to slow down.

  • Lawrence

    41 weeks ago

    ....

    I don't think you should waste police time fining slow moving bikers for not having a helmet.

    What they do is hide behind bushes on bike routes; a waste of resources.

    It's being over protective.

    I tried to look up statics on how many bikers died of a head injury in BC and couldn't find anything.

    I did find out 35 people have drown so far this year, perhaps every swimmer should be forced to wear a life jacket.

    How 'bout a little injury prevention for the elderly.

    They fall over and get head, shoulder, and hip injury.

    Wouldn't it be better to have these guys tottering around in full football gear, it would save the taxpayer a lot of money.

  • beeshive

    41 weeks ago

    Helmets.

    It's funny. The University of Adelaide study which led Australia to institute the first helmet law also made an even more compelling case for mandating helmets for occupants of vehicles. It was calculated that by wearing something as simple as a padded head band, BRAIN INJURIES could be reduced by 80%.
    But funny thing happened when the legislation was tabled. Mandatory helmets for vehicle occupants was left off the bill.
    Hrrrrmmmmmm.
    Even in 2004 when the university re-evaluated it's data from the '80s to take into account the use of air-bags in cars, it was still discovered that wearing head protection in an automobile would lead to significant reduction in brain injuries.
    That's another thing that the 'pro-helmet' squad love to do, and that's use the all encompassing 'Head Injury' to infer Traumatic Brain Injury. The two terms are NOT the same
    Head Injury means any trauma to ANY part of the head.
    Trauma, as horrific as it sounds, mean ANY injury to the body. If you nick yourself while shaving, you've experienced trauma.
    You could lock your front wheel and do a face plant into the pavement, and that would be called a head injury. Even if you were wearing a helmet, your face would get smacked up pretty good as the law doesn't mandate full faced helmets.
    Actually, if you're riding along and a crow digs it's talons into your head cause you rode to close to it's nest, guess what, that's still a head injury.
    Brain Injury is something that you can still easily sustain while wearing a helmet.
    Why?
    Because your brain is still slamming up against the inside of your skull.
    That's why most bicycle helmets are only rated up to 25km/h impact velocity or 2 metre vertical drop to the ground. Both values which are easily exceeded when you get t-boned by a car running a stop sign doing 50 km/h.

    And, if you want to know why the Australian woman Susan was able to have her ticket thrown out of court and in the process put the Australian helmet law into question, just google for Diffuse axonal injury.
    You can put all the fancy bubble wrap on the china, but until you get the rampaging bull under control you'll never eliminate Brain injuries.

  • beeshive

    41 weeks ago

    helmets again

    Also, considering that skateboarders are at more of a risk for head injury, why aren't there helmet laws for skateboarders. I figure skate, but even helmet use for figure skating is not required, even for the children. At most city rinks, helmet use is not mandatory for public skating.
    Why was it only bicyclists that got punished.
    There has to be a reason why government would have made a decision to mandate helmets.
    Why take something as healthy as cycling and equate it with danger then bring in a law mandating helmet use which did reduce the number of cyclists.
    Here's some figures for the year 2008 from the Solicitor General of BC.

    There were 297 motor vehicle occupants killed. (174 car drivers, 76 passengers, 6 commercial drivers and 6 commercial passengers and 39 people killed on motorcycles/mopeds).
    There were 57 pedestrians killed.
    There was even a person killed in a motorized wheelchair.
    And yet, there were only 8 deaths attributed to bicyclists. The report doesn't say how they died, but suffice to say if you're hit by a car at over 40km/h you're not surviving, and if you do you'll wish you didn't.

    There were more child suicides in 2008 than there were deaths of cyclists. A total of 14.

    Actually in 2008 there were 3 Suicide deaths attributed to Skytrain.

    Why not put barriers on Skytrain platforms to prevent these deaths? Each jumper would have caused at least a two or three hour delay of the train which in turn would have cost the other riders lost wages and other such costs. There are actually more jumpers than just the three that died. Skytrain is actually the worst way to try and commit suicide. It's not always successful.

  • beeshive

    41 weeks ago

    Helmets yet again.

    I wish I knew the reason behind helmet laws for cyclists. See, as a motorcyclist, I can fully understand helmet laws. When I'm riding a machine that can go from 0 to 120km/h in under 6 seconds, you better believe that I'm wearing a helmet. When I'm at risk of coming off my machine at speeds of over 100km/h you better believe that I'm wearing a helmet. Do I expect a helmet to save my life in an impact collision with another vehicle. Not really. Again, it's our friend 'Diffuse Axonal Injury' that's going to either kill me or render me a vegetable. Helmets are just for when I come of the motorcycle and make contact with the ground. When your body is rolling down the highway a helmet will be of benefit as your head keeps hitting the pavement (oh, bicycle helmets are only single impact use) as you roll to a stop. In this rolling motion it would be rare for your head to have an impact velocity that's too high to survive.
    A typical bicycle/car accident is a different beast. When you get hit by a car the first impact is when the car hits your body. If the car is going fast enough (more that 40km/h) you can expect enough internal trauma (severed arteries and/or severed organs) that you will not survive. Under 40 km/h, if your body survives the impact you'll do okay so long as your helmeted head doesn't impact anything that either accelerates or decelerates it's velocity too rapidly. Cause if it does you're going to be dealing with a lot of internal damage helmet or no helmet.

  • freddurst

    41 weeks ago

    Helmets

    I find most of these discussions laughable. How can you successfully argue the validity of helmet laws if you don't even understand how a helmet works? They are not designed to protect you from a vehicle impact, they are designed to protect you from falling off your bicycle. Yet most people wear them because of vehicular traffic!
    Many people on this board have stated "i/my friend would have died without the helmet"...you apparently did the appropriate vector analysis, and were able to compare this information to cranial impact injuries? Anecdotes do not equal data.

  • snert

    41 weeks ago

    pianosaurus rex

    It's pretty darned hard to play hockey and not expose one's head to injury but it is possible to live a long healthy life regularly riding a bike without wearing a helmet.

    As with defensive driving it is possible to do the same with bike riding. It can prevent all sorts of accidents which is far better than a helmet any day of the week.

    As an aside it would be interesting to see just how many of the homeless bike people are the ones getting killed or seriously injured mainly because they ride like maniacs in the middle of the night wearing dark clothing and have no high-vis safety equipment. I know that where I live it happens a lot.

  • OwlRol

    41 weeks ago

    Learned voluntary, not mandatory

    I perspire around the forehead and eyes and no airflow helmet helps to prevent from fogging up so that I really can't see. This law makes me a more dangerous cyclist.

    Would Sikhs be exempt?

    Shouldn't figure skaters, jumpers or pairs, have to wear helmets (might hurt the aesthetic value)?

    Helmet laws prevent the expansion of bike share programs, truly a negative effect.

    Anyone notice how many cyclists, skiers, boarders (skate or snow) tuck away their MP3 earbuds under their helmets, making them even more dangerous to everyone around them than if they didn't have helmets or earbuds?

    Helmets often produce the "indestructible superhero" behaviours. Both football and hockey became more intense and damaging with the introduction of plastic helmets. Ever see how many mountain bikers taking huge risky jumps, outfitted in full body armour, end up in the OR?

    I suggest that minors (often high risk takers) might be mandated to wear helmets to protect their developing brains, and may get into the habit even after the requirement no longer exists.

    Cycling for more than 50 years, I've had several accidents, but never my head. Maybe luck or maybe learning how to fall in marshall arts practice saved me.

    I don't cycle main roads or highways anymore and I'm very careful, which is far more important than the helmet.

    If my friends want to wear helmets I don't berate them (unless I see the ear buds), but not to wear a helmet ought to be my choice.

  • siamdave

    41 weeks ago

    - the hive mind being consolidated

    - as the worker bees go after their fellows still dreaming of freedom, the queen mothers rest. scary. color between the lines like good children, damn you!!!!
    The View from Green Island - http://www.rudemacedon.ca/view-gi-home.html

  • thespokesman

    41 weeks ago

    no helmet, no bike

    The sad fact s that a helmet law means no helmet no bike.

    That riding a bike without a helmet is not worth the risk, that there are no benefits to riding a bike without a helmet.

  • thespokesman

    41 weeks ago

    the reason

    The reason why BC has an all ages mandatory helmet law is quite simple and was stated many times in the legislature when the law was being passed.

    The purpose of the law is to reduce deaths and serious injuries but this hasn't happened because the single study used to justify the law didn't include a single case of a cyclist being hit by a motor vehicles and these are the impacts that cause virtually all serious injuries and deaths to cyclists.

    What also may be of note is very few of those impacts with motor vehicles result in those injuries we fear most. In fact records of deaths to pedestrians show that in impacts at 30 kph there is a 95% survival rate. Unfortunately, bicycle helmets are tested with a maximum impact of only 20 kph and impacts above this intensity are beyond a helmets protective limits.

    Perhaps if bike helmets were made to protect from forces at which cause serious injury and death, the law might be more effective, but they aren't and it isn't.

    The politically savy suburban mother who was the force behind the law was worried about children on bikes being hit by cars. She wrote a helmet manufacturer for a study that showed helmets were effective at reducing head injuries and they provided one. That the study didn't involve a single collision between a cyclist and a motorist was beside the point, simply saying helmets reduce head injuries and linking the prime cause of death of cyclists as head injuries was enough to create the impression that helmets would save lives but of course we now know this isn't what happens. What happens now is that cyclists wearing helmets die too.

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