A BRISBANE filmmaker has embarked on a one man campaign to have Queensland’s mandatory bicycle helmet laws repealed.
Geoff McLeod has produced a one-minute advertisement which he hopes to broadcast on television, highlighting what he says is the “insanity” of compulsory bicycle helmets.
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A CAMPAIGN seeking to abolish compulsory bicycle helmet laws has incensed the State Government which has responsibility for road safety.
More on the campaign here.
From the YouTube description: “In fact, riding for everyday needs has totally disappeared and public shared bike schemes have failed. We need helmet laws brought into line with the rest of the developed world. We could solve so many issues if we did more to make riding more popular. Sadly, bike riding in Australia is now only for lycra-clad racers out for a fast ride on Sunday mornings. Normal utility riding has ceased because short-sighted mandatory helmet laws.”
Could not the EXACT same thing be said of cycling here in Vancouver?!
I think they should make helmet-wearing mandatory for pedestrians in areas that have a lot of cyclists.
Closer to home Portland’s Bicycle Transportation Alliance polled its members on helmet use. The results, even though 80% of wear a helmet every time they ride, 66% oppose a mandatory helmet law, and 83.5% think helmet use should be encouraged through education, but not laws. I agree with the majority.
Full story: http://blog.oregonlive.com/commuting/2011/10/portlands_bicycle_transportati.html
Portland has a mandatory helmet law for children but not adults, and I’d like to see the same in BC.
It is also worth noting that even without a mandatory helmet law, Portland has seen helmet use steadily increase around 50% in the early 90’s to 80% today.
+1 from the Church of course. I’d love some skilled hipster to make a video of happy hatless Vancouverites not dying horrific gory deaths on the seawall or Jack Layton Ave. some summer.
Before the healthcare costs crowd arrive, I’ll just leave these two links here showing who puts pressure on the head injury departments at hospitals.
1. Seniors’ falls http://www.health.gov.bc.ca/library/publications/year/2006/falls_report.pdf
2. ICBC head injuries http://www.icbc.com/road-safety/safety-research/traffic-coll-stats-2007.pdf
(About 1000 seniors a year are hospitalised with head injuries after falling at home, and 1500 drivers, 300 pedestrians and only 50 cyclists are hospitalised each year with head injuries. Yet it’s cyclists are fined $100 for wearing the wrong hat, not over-65s drivers or walkers. What is the Honourable Shirley Bond thinking?)
It sounds like I’m preaching to the choir here (literally, in James’ case), but I think A LOT of Vancouverites see cycling as a recreational/sporting activity, which requires special clothing and equipment to do. Helmets (and high-visibility vests) only reinforce that idea. As a result, we’ve lost an entire class of “citizen cyclists”, who ride in their regular attire, helmet-free, solely as a means of transportation. This becomes increasingly obvious when visiting cities such as Montreal, where everyone seems to use a bike to get around: old, young, rich, poor, etc.
Vancouver Cycle Chic (http://www.vancouvercyclechic.blogspot.com) attempts to show Vancouver’s many reluctant citizens that cycling is, in fact, easy-peezy. I have started contributing to the site, in an attempt to reclaim the idea of utilitarian cycling in our fair city. Perhaps the video idea that James mentions is a project we can take on next summer?
”
• They discourage cycling by portraying it as abnormally dangerous-you are less likely to be killed in a mile of cycling than a mile of walking. (Wardlaw 2002)
• Injured cyclists are less likely to have head injuries than injured pedestrians or car occupants (ONISR 2005).
• They portray bicycle helmets as offering far more protection than they do-bicycle helmets are only designed to withstand minor knocks and bumps, not being hit by motor vehicles.
• Countries that have penalised people for normal cycling (without helmets), have failed to reduce head injury rates despite increased helmet wearing rates.
• The health benefits of cycling far outweigh the injury risks.
• Reduced cycling reduces health and environmental benefits.
• Reduced cycling reduces Safety in Numbers, thus increasing the risk of injury to remaining cyclists
”
and much more at http://www.ecf.com/3500_1
The real problem is helmet law debates. Proponents of helmet laws tend to exaggerate the danger of cycling scaring people off their bicycles while people in favour of helmet choice tend to downplay the benefits of wearing helmets which might discourage the use of helmets.
It is time to abandon divisive and counterproductive helmet laws and focus on making cycling safer through improved infrastructure, education and enforcement. These ways of improving safety should be something that everyone can agree on.
Hi Folks,
I find the argument that helmet laws portray cycling as more dangerous than it actually is interesting. Are there studies backing up this public perception?
If there is data to back this up, Is it possible that cities which are not well-suited for cycling due to existing infrastructure issues are more likely to enact helmet laws (as a reflection of the increased danger due to lack of bike lanes, etc), and this is a correlation with low cycling rates because the city isn’t cycling friendly to begin with?
Lots of good info at http://helmetfreedom.org, including the following:
Helmet laws decrease cycling participation. This decrease was only modest for the 5-15yo age group but significant for the 16-30 age group.
Would love to view the entire paper referenced here, but it costs money to download.
That’s really fascinating, thanks! I wonder what the change is like for those over 30.
I’m not sure if fatalities are the proper measure for analysis in this debate (as was done in this article). Head injuries are not an all-or-nothing thing to the best of my knowledge, as fatalities are. They vary in severity, which is a trickier thing to measure. It seems like at a certain threshold an accident becomes fatal, whereas the severity of the injury potentially becomes mitigated by helmets in certain circumstances up to this threshold.
I appreciate the data. As a daily cycle commuter, I’m intrigued by this debate and am trying to be more informed on both sides. Thanks for taking the time to fill me in.
Hi again,
Very interested in this debate!
I found a link on that Helmet Freedom website showing a decrease in cycling trips in Australia after the helmet law and was wondering if there was a similar effect in Vancouver.
The CoV has this web page with a graphic showing an increase in daily bicycle trips from ~30,000 in 1996 to about 55,000 in 2004. I am assuming based on data I found on the web* that the BC Motor Vehicle Act which requires cyclists to wear helmets was enacted in 1996. Does this refute the argument that a bicycle helmet law inevitably lowers usage?
Thanks,
Gavin
*http://www.bclaws.ca/EPLibraries/bclaws_new/document/LOC/freeside/–%20M%20–/Motor%20Vehicle%20Act%20RSBC%201996%20c.%20318/00_Act/96318_05.xml#section184
Eventually statcan offers a different perspective.
Since the helmet law has been enacted, the commuter cycling share has stay flat at best, at 1.7% in Vancouver in the 10 years following 1996.when everywhere else it was increasing
In the helmet free city like Toronto or Montreal, it has increased by 25 to 60% on the same period.
When you compare the province has a whole, cycling has regressed in BC.
yes, it could be more people biking the seawall than 10 years ago (there is also much less compliance to the helmet law in vancouver) and that is certainly good: …but all those lycra and helmet are just promoting the idea that cycling is not a normal transportation mode…
…and stats say that, and it is the reason why site like vancouver Cycle chic are good and necessary…normal cycling needs to be promoted…
Am I reading this right that you can only be charged of riding without a helmet if you are on a “highway”. Then riding on any other facility other than a “highway” does not require the use of a helmet.
Hey Tim,
If you go to http://www.bclaws.ca/EPLibraries/bclaws_new/document/ID/freeside/96318_01 , it defines what a highway means in the context of the document.
“”highway” includes
(a) every highway within the meaning of the Transportation Act,
(b) every road, street, lane or right of way designed or intended for or used by the general public for the passage of vehicles, and
(c) every private place or passageway to which the public, for the purpose of the parking or servicing of vehicles, has access or is invited,
but does not include an industrial road;”
Gavin
Also take note that the MVA allows municipalities to designate off-street paths as helmet-required. Vancouver (unlike, say, Burnaby) has a theoretically blanket provision that covers the seawall, etc, but hasn’t been updated in a few years. If you follow the Richard Campbell school of thought and want to test the law, ride without a helmet on Hornby and see if you can argue it’s not within the definition of a highway nor marked as an off-street path. I personally don’t think you’d get very far, but your mileage may vary.
Eventually statcan offers a different perspective.
Since the helmet law has been enacted, the commuter cycling share has stay flat at best, at 1.7% in Vancouver in the 10 years following 1996.when everywhere else it was increasing
In the helmet free city like Toronto or Montreal, it has increased by 25 to 60% on the same period.
When you compare the province has a whole, cycling has regressed in BC.
yes, it could be more people biking the seawall than 10 years ago (there is also much less compliance to the helmet law in vancouver) and that is certainly good: …but all those lycra and helmet are just promoting the idea that cycling is not a normal transportation mode…
…and stats say that, and it is the reason why site like vancouver Cycle chic are good and necessary…normal cycling needs to be promoted…
Hi Voony, thanks for the response.
If you look at the 2008/2009 cycling report posted on the CoV website (http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20090217/documents/tt1.pdf), it shows an increase of % of trips to work as being though bikes. Specifically, on page 5 it shows 3.3% in 1996 and 3.7% in 2006. This appears to be the same variable being assessed as in the Stats Canada study you cited, and it looks like the disparity can be accounted for based on the different metrics used. The Stats Can study uses census data, and the Vancouver study uses census data and bike count data. This probably means the CoV study is a more accurate reflection of reality (I’d say actual observation trumps self-report data for issues like this).
Also, the “increase” in cycling you cite doesn’t mean too much. You’ll note that even with the increase in Toronto and Montreal, they are still less of a share than Vancouver overall. This could be because of a “ceiling effect” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceiling_effect) where there is a maximum amount of people interested in any given population to bike to work. Basically, Toronto and Montreal were just trying to catch up to Vancouver, and they couldn’t even do that (even though we had helmet laws in 1996 and they didn’t.).
I agree wholeheartedly with Richard on this issue. It seems like on a debate such as this, both sides need to stop polarizing rhetoric and actually look at the facts critically. Using words like “regressed” is very charged, when in fact the statistics you showed seem to support that the province as a whole increased in % of bike commuters when you add up all the percentages.
Thanks!
Gavin
Gavin, you are certainly right to mention the “ceiling effect”, but d you really believe it is as low as 2%?
Let me oppose it another important concept which is the “ratchet effect” which in the field interesting us can be a consequence of “cultural mimetism”.
When the mode share of a transportation like bike is low: it is considered as a marginal mode, used basically only by activist (those Lycra lout are a burden, they arrive at work in dress making lot of noise, don’t present well at the 9am meeting , and need a ride for the lunch : you don’t want be seen like them, do you?). Eventually the mass doesn’t want to be portrayed on the fringe…and cycling is a matter for activist…the one 1 or 2%…
…Once we break this barrier, cycling get out of the niche market, and lot of people jump on the bandwagon, because suddenly it becomes “in” : that is the cultural mimetism (people behave in herd) which is the source for the ratchet effect.
It is typically what happens in Europe, and it is on those value that the cycle chic movement help.
the problem is to break this barrier allowing cycling to get out of its niche market, is to break the barrier between cyclist and non cyclist…that is starting by a “normal attire” for the cyclist…
All that to say that the 2% mode share is not is ceiling, but a threshold, which Vancouver is unable to go above, and the helmet law is one reason explaining it.