Until recently, about the only local voice against compulsory bike-helmet laws was Chris Bruntlett and the cyclechic movement. Brent Toderian has been adding his voice recently, arguing that the data is clear: bike-helmet requirements, by discouraging cycling, are overall a net loss to our health.
Today, we heard a shout – “Bike sharing: Forget helmets.”
.
.
Sun columnist Pete McMartin, by virtue of his mainstream-media megaphone, will be heard in places not otherwise listening – and with a heightened legitimacy:
The argument for helmet use rests on safety and injury prevention, but at least one study found that mandatory laws and increased mass use of helmets have had no discernible effect on reducing the number of cycling injuries and fatalities in Canada. Jessica Dennis, a researcher with the University of Toronto’s school of public health, could find no statistical link between mandatory helmet use and reduced hospital admissions for cycling injuries.
He also amplifies the voice of UBC Prof. Kay Teschke, who has done pioneering work on bike safety:
Teschke believes that when it comes to bike safety, we have it exactly backwards — that helmet laws are a distraction and don’t increase the sense of safety for cyclists. On the contrary, she believes, they may increase the sense of danger cyclists face in traffic. …
Teschke isn’t against helmet use — she is a cyclist herself — but she believes the answer to cycling safety and, just as importantly, increasing the sense of safety, isn’t mandatory helmet use, but rather in the construction of more bike lanes, preferably dedicated and separated bike lanes.
.
What can be done?
It’s doubtful the provincial government will move to change its law anytime soon. The momentum required to remove a law that already exists – particularly if there is a reputable constituency in favour of continuing it – is orders of magnitude greater than trying to create one. But provincial laws apply only to designated roadways.
The City of Vancouver could change its bylaw on helmet requirements with respect to routes like the seawall or other recreational paths. It could at least lower the fine – at the moment greater than the provincial penalty. Council could make clear that the police should priorize other aspects of illegal or inappropriate cycling, recognizing the legitimate complaints voiced in the accompanying article to McMartin’s: “Cyclists clash with walkers on eco trail in Stanley Park” – and not target the helmetless. Believe me, non-enforcement is a practical strategy often used when priorities or public opinion change.
And though the tremors may be erratic and minor at the moment, they may well be the harbingers of a seismic shift.
This piece is great news, especially the inches devoted to calm, credible Kay.
One significant framing grumble: McMartin writes that NYC, Paris, London etc. rescinded their adult helmet laws, as if such laws are ubiquitous and natural. In reality they – like the rest of the planet – never had such laws to begin with. BC is a bizarro global anomaly, with only the Maritime Provinces and Australasia following our lead.
With regards amending BC’s law, we hear whispered that BC has never received any request from any municipality to reconsider the law, and that such a request would be a significant first step.
In order to help with this, Sit Up Vancouver have drafted a motion for consideration by Vancouver City Council: http://goo.gl/2aDK0
With regards amending Vancouver’s law, Andrea Reimer has said different behavior on the seawall vs arterial streets would be too confusing for people. I don’t buy that. We do hear whispered that police have been gently asked (and promised) to set up ticketing traps only at locations where multiple sorts of infringement may be caught (cars rolling stop signs, jaywalkers etc.) yet we do still see police setting up on safe, physically separated cycle tracks.
Now that we know that the single study the law was in response to was fraudulent (and funded by a helmet manufacturer) we can now go from here and use evidence to rescind the unjust and unnecessary mandatory laws.
The city could rescind it’s own law and then recommend the province rescind it’s.
I disagree with Ms. Reimer that it would be confusing to have some areas be helmet optional. We have signs when you go to Wreck Beach stating “Clothing optional beach ahead” and when leaving there’s a sign that says “Clothes required after this point”. Why not the same kind of sign when approaching and leaving the Seawall?
I was chatting with a colleague over the weekend, who passed along a good friend’s recent conversation with Attorney General Suzanne Anton. She told him that, despite years of wrangling over the helmet law in public, the BC Liberals had formally been requested to repeal it a grand total of “zero” times.
*THIS* is what happens when you have a municipal government and cycling advocacy groups too timid push for substantive, “controversial” (but much-needed) change.
Of all the arguments not to cycle, having to wear a helmet is the weakest. Are people really so obsessed with their hair? It is as trivial an argument as drivers who argued against seatbelt laws because they were uncomfortable wearing them.
Great comment Bob! I can tell you’ve given this a lot of thought.
Here are five reasons adult bicycle helmet laws are not like seatbelt laws: http://situpvancouver.tumblr.com/post/55891404892/seatbelt-laws-and-adult-bicycle-helmet-laws
James Deroux, those points are largely untrue. Bicycles don’t go fast? Try telling that to those zipping down the Cambie slope to SW Marine. As to the protective cage comment, well, that really just highlights how a bicycle has no protective capacity whatsoever. A helmet may not be much, but it is something. As we saw with the fatality on the Lions Gate Bridge, just one brush from a fellow cyclist can kill another a helmet is the only protection any of your body parts is going to get on a bicycle.
Quite frankly the whole push to repeal the helmet laws is just another example of too many cyclists thinking that laws shouldn’t apply to them. How is it we sell a trransportation device easily capable of speeds of 70 km/h with nor protection and not even any required lighting?
Hey, well I think that what police should ticket cyclists for is night time cycling without lights. that seems a lot more dangerous to me than not wearing a helmet. Maybe they should have helmets with lights on them lol. Two birds…
Jen
Ticketing for lack of lights at night would certainly be more useful than ticketing for lack of helmets.
Helmet laws are another example of government overreach into a person’s liberty. Let me chose if I wear a helmet or not, depending on route taken, weather, speed etc. As Prof. Teschke points out in her studies it detracts more folks from riding bikes and as such is more costly to a society from a public health point of view than the odd death/serious accident.
More serious to me are the invisible bikers at night with no lights or bikers on busy throughroads like Broadway or 4th where 2-3 parallel routes exist. Biking ought to be illegal on some roads.
Bikers also often go to fast on mixed ped-bike paths like Pacific Spirit Park or along Spanish Banks or by Granville Island along False Creek.
Thomas
I shop and eat out on Broadway. Should it be illegal for me to ride my bike to do so? If so, those businesses will lose out. It also doesn’t fit with your position regarding government overreach into a person’s liberty. Parallel roads such as the Off Broadway route may be fine for leisure riders, or those who want a quieter route across town. But we will have a more fair world when there is space for all modes, from pedestrians to cyclists to motor vehicles. We have spent a lot of time over the past years shifting bicycles onto quieter streets, but that ignores the use of bicycles for transportation, as many of the destinations cyclists have are not on those side streets.
Yes, Jeff, it should be, as some roads are so busy and dangerous, such as 6 lane Broadway, with buses and trucks and heavy traffic. So, we regulate helmets but not road use for bikes except on highways. Weird. And no lights on many bikes at night. Proceed at your own risk I’d say.
At least Coquihalla has
a) a shoulder
b) no parked cars
c) no cars weaving in and out of parking spots
d) no intersections
e) no buses that start and stop every few hundred meters
f) no pedestrian crossings
So, yes, Coquihalla makes sense for bikes but not Broadway (or Oak or Granville or Commercial …)