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Bike helmet law crusade wins doctor's support
A cyclist uses the Dunsmuir Street separated bike lane in Vancouver.
Stephen Hui
A cycling physician says he “absolutely” supports a Vancouver resident’s charter challenge of the provincial law requiring cyclists to wear helmets.
“I think that the helmet law is bad, not only in terms of cycling but also from a public-health perspective. From a safety perspective, it’s very misguided legislation,” Tom Demarco told the Georgia Straight by phone from his Whistler office. “It’s doing far more harm than good.”
In August 2009, Vancouver police issued Ron van der Eerden a $29 ticket, under Section 184 of the provincial Motor Vehicle Act, for not wearing a helmet. Van der Eerden decided he would fight the ticket. “And it turns out that the only avenue to fight it—if you admit that you weren’t wearing one [a helmet]—is to fight it as a charter challenge,” van der Eerden told the Straight by phone. “Because, basically, that is my reasoning: that the law is unjust and ineffective and actually has quite the opposite effect of what it is intending to do. You know, the intention is to make things safer for cyclists, and I think it actually does the opposite.”
Van der Eerden said he has a binder full of material just dealing with head injuries. He cited a 2006 analysis put out by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, called Head Injuries in Canada: A Decade of Change (1994–1995 to 2003–2004).
According to this report, in the 2003-04 fiscal year, cycling incidents led to 4,605 hospitalizations in the country. Of these hospitalizations, 815, or 18 percent, involved head injuries. The average age of cyclists sustaining head injuries requiring hospitalization was 25 years. By comparison, head injuries sustained in motor-vehicle incidents accounted for 5,970 hospital admissions that same year.
In his notice of application filed with B.C.’s provincial traffic court on March 15, van der Eerden is seeking such relief from the enforcement powers of the provincial law “as the court considers appropriate and just in the circumstances” and that is guaranteed under Section 24 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Elsewhere in his legal application, van der Eerden claims that sections 1, 7, and 15 of the charter are being violated. On August 12, the court will hear his arguments. Van der Eerden is representing himself in the case.
“Bicycle helmet legislation is discriminatory as it applies, with demonstrable justification, only to individuals who ride bicycles without being equally applied to individuals who drive automobiles or walk,” van der Eerden wrote in the court documents.
Arno Schortinghuis, a director and past president of the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition, told the Straight by phone that he, like Demarco, wears a helmet but disagrees with the law. He argues it suppresses the numbers of riders and could hinder the success of the city bike-sharing program slated to arrive in Vancouver next year.
According to David Hay, a downtown Vancouver lawyer who is consulted by cycling groups, there is an “extremely limited” chance of the charter challenge succeeding. “I just don’t think there’s any judicial appetite for the abolition of the helmet law,” Hay told the Straight by phone.
It would have been nice if you had put in something substantive that this fellow said. The helmet law is a good stop-gap until bicycle riders and their vehicles can be licensed. Cyclists must be subject to the civil authority.
The disputant's applicant is frivolous and borders on mental retardation---he might as well argue that it is unfair for a driver to carry a driver license because a pedestrian isn't compelled to carry a pedestrian license. He might as well argue that it is unjust to require passengers in cars to wear seat-belts because cyclists are not compelled to wear seat-belts, &c &c.
“Bicycle helmet legislation is discriminatory as it applies, with demonstrable justification, only to individuals who ride bicycles without being equally applied to individuals who drive automobiles or walk,”
Is this a Straight transcription error, or is this cyclist pumping out the lulz by arguing in his filing that it is "with demonstrable justification"? I guess this is par for the course for a cyclist, if he wrote that...
"He argues it suppresses the numbers of riders and could hinder the success of the city bike-sharing program slated to arrive in Vancouver next year."
Good. Bikes are no better than cars. They sustain metalworkers whose general skills also make weapons and munitions, and they are disrespectful of the rules of the road. Just the other day, I was walking across the Burrard Bridge, and some knownothing cyclist (no helmet!) was going through opposing pedestrian traffic _right beside the reserved lane for cyclists_. I told him to get into the correct lane, and he just waved at me, smiling, nothing going on upstairs, enjoying his abuse of the sidewalk. Disgusting animal.
David Hay himself has said a challenge to this law has legal basis
(http://momentumplanet.com/articles/keep-a-lid-on-it-mandatory-helmet-leg...)
but what is preventing such a challenge is the emotional impressions most people have about how dangerous cycling is, and how protective a helmet can be.
It seems to me, a challenge in the courts would be a good venue to place these impressions to rest by examining verifiable evidence of our laws effects.
Good for Ron for forcing the question, shame on the legal community for not representing the best interests of the community at large.
http://cyclehelmets.org/1103.html
that head injuries to cyclists did not decrease after cyclists were mandated to wear helmets.
You can also see that the number of collisions between cars and bicycles took a dramatic drop after legislation was implemented, so unless you think that simply wearing a helmets prevents collisions, you'd have to conclude that fewer people cycled after the law was enforced.
One must also not forget the purpose of our legislation which was repeatedly stated by legislators. It was to reduce the amount of deaths and serious injuries to cyclists in BC. One just has to look at the post law rise in cycling deaths to see, the law has had no effect on reducing deaths to cyclists in BC. In fact helmeted cyclists die at the same rate as non-helmeted cyclists because even when the cause of death is listed as a result of a head injury, there are other injuries present that lead to death as well. When the cause is solely due to head injury, it is almost always from an impact with a severity that is far beyond a helmets ability to provide protection.
Helmet do provide protection, but they only provide it in simple falls. The type of falls that pedestrians have and it has never been shown that cyclists suffer more these injuries than pedestrians do. This is part of the argument of discrimination. Motorists, and pedestrians suffer far more head injuries than cyclists do, yet it's cyclists that are subject to the law even if pedestrians and motorists can benefit from helmet use as well.
The data sets of two years is no where close to providing substantive patterns. I would be interested in seeing similar studies on seat belt use, which at the time of law implementation was expected to take a generation to see real results-you are expecting everything to magically change overnight?
This discussion is a red herring that will only serve to keep cyclists arguing-we should be fighting together for better road safety for everyone.
Though I confess I'm very much pro-helmet myself and make no apologies for it!
Until then, I keep wearing my helmet (just as I will keep wearing my seatbelt, and look both ways before I cross the road).
At what point do we stop telling people what to do with their lives??
The question raised is, does BCs helmet law violate the Canadian Charter of Rights? Your question seems to be the red herring.
Our law was passed on the basis of saving lives. Has this happened? Is the law valid if it has not?
The public is not trusted to make their own decisions that we need the government to tell us what to do.. Extreemly SADD!!
Cycling has proven to be a very safe mode of transport and with the beneficial effects derived from the exercise required to ride bicycles, cycling is a valuable asset to any community that cares about it's health.
Our helmet law has not only not reduced deaths to cyclists, it has reduced the publics health by decreasing the amount of people cycling
I mean, I want to be able to do whatever I want without "the man" telling me what to do.
Gotta get some Ayn Rand up in this hizzle!
If your concern is truly about cycling safety then you will be interested in knowing that helmet laws are a barrier to increased cycling mode share. What this means is that the law places an artificial cap on the amount people who choose to cycle keeping the mode share low in comparison to regions that don't have a helmet law. When you also take into consideration that in regions that have high cycling mode share and no helmet laws the number of injuries per capita goes way down. This is called safety in numbers.
If the law was really about preventing head injuries then we would force drivers and pedestrians to wear a helmet as they are more likely then a cyclist to suffer a head injury.
So a helmet may in very specific conditions prevent a individual cyclist from suffering a head injury overall it makes all cyclists less safe.
Keep your laws off my head.
So do you support laws requiring motorists to wear helmets?
After all studies have found that they are more likely to suffer head injuries in an accident then cyclists.
They are, much int he same way that pedestrians are. Do you want licensing for pedestrians too?
"The disputant's applicant is frivolous and borders on mental retardation---he might as well argue that it is unfair for a driver to carry a driver license because a pedestrian isn't compelled to carry a pedestrian license. He might as well argue that it is unjust to require passengers in cars to wear seat-belts because cyclists are not compelled to wear seat-belts, &c &c."
No, it's about the danger you can pose as a person by having a certain activity. We have determined as society that in order to move several thousand pounds of machinery around you require a license. With this license come other obligations (e.g. seat belts). So your comparison does not even past a basic sniff test.
Oh, now you would like to change it to motorcycles? Well, there is one major difference between motorcycles and bicycles: You don't have an engine on a bicycle and if you stop pedalling it stops moving forward, you can't have a "stuck accelerator" etc. and the mass a cyclist has is much much closer to a pedestrian than a motorcyclist.
"Good. Bikes are no better than cars. They sustain metalworkers whose general skills also make weapons and munitions, and they are disrespectful of the rules of the road."
How about we put rules out that are actually working to make cyclists safer instead of pretending that every bicycle is a car?
"Just the other day, I was walking across the Burrard Bridge, and some knownothing cyclist (no helmet!) was going through opposing pedestrian traffic _right beside the reserved lane for cyclists_. I told him to get into the correct lane, and he just waved at me, smiling, nothing going on upstairs, enjoying his abuse of the sidewalk."
Oh no, no helmet? Well that settles it. Clearly he was a lowlife know-nothing. If there ever was a good reason to get rid of this stupid law you just gave it.
"Disgusting animal."
That statement says more about you than you would like to admit.
"Why would we compare anything other than bike related head injuries with and without helmets?"
Because we don't have the data. The problem is simple getting it, we can't really.
1. We only know of injuries that either involve a car / other person and thus police involvement.
2. We only know of injuries that require hospitalization.
And there lies the rub. If you fall off your bike today, get up, dust yourself off and ride on nobody will know that you had a wipeout. The only time they know about this is if you end up in hospital.
This is also why the argument: "I have seen many cyclists with head injuries and I work in the ER" is a completely stupid argument. It's like a car mechanic saying: "Man, all cars are crap, they all break down and need to get fixed."
The helmet law comes from a simple idea: "Hey, helmets work, so putting a helmet on a cyclist works too!" There is no data behind it that supports that assertion, the study done in the early 90s that claimed a 80% reduction in serious head injuries has pretty much been withdrawn. Australia, who has mandatory helmet laws AND made a serious attempt at enforcing it, has not seen a significant drop in serious head injuries among cyclists either (though they did notice a drop in ridership).
Oh, and then there's this: The EU just recently finished a study on motorcycle accidents / injuries. They specifically looked at head injuries and concluded that the majority of the heading juries happen to the front of the face (which actually makes sense if you have basic understanding of newtonian physics) and concluded that only a full face helmet is really useful.
Now, how many full face helmets have you seen on bicycles?
Arno you should be ashamed of yourself. I hope that all funding is cut to the VACC for your statement.
As for the statistics quoted before and after helmet laws. No more people wore helmets after the law as it was never really enforced. A better comparison would be of helmet wearers vs. non-helmet.
Argh I am so pissed as a tax payer who will be paying to defend against this challenge to the helmet law.
If those gay little head-things cyclists wear these days are not working, then the helmet is the problem, not the law or statistics available.
Off the top of my head (sorry, bad pun) the only full-face helmet wearer in Vancouver is former two-term COPE city councillor Fred Bass.
http://www.straight.com/article-134753/urban-cyclists-still-face-unfrien...
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