🚀 go-pugleaf

again, in Austin Texas.
Why can't BC be this reasonable?

Bicyclists Collide in Helmet Law Debate
BY DANIEL MOTTOLA

Helmets were needed as much for combat as for transportation safety
Tuesday night, when supporters and opponents renewed their fight over a
mandatory bicycle helmet law in a debate at the Alamo Drafthouse on
South Lamar.
The resumption of the helmet wars began June 16, when former Mayor
Bruce Todd - who originally got such a law passed in 1996, only to
see it repealed in 1997 after he left office - announced he would
again push for headgear on adult riders. (City code still mandates
helmets for minors.) "Riding a bike is a privilege, not a right, and
- just as is required when riding in a car - we must pay for that
privilege by being safe," Todd announced in a press release.

At Tuesday's debate, Todd verbally sparred with Patrick Goetz, a UT
mathematician and founding member of the just-reunited League of
Bicycling Voters, which spearheaded the fight against the original law.
Todd used both the rational and emotional to make his case - arguing
that "the economic impact of even one head injury is enormous, and it's
a cost we can help curtail as a community if all cyclists wear
helmets," and reflecting on his own near-death cycling accident last
year, which would have been fatal had he not been wearing a helmet,
according to his doctors.

Todd said bike-related head injuries cause extraordinarily expensive,
long-term impact to taxpayers, citing estimates that the direct cost of
cyclists' injuries due to not using helmets is $81 million each year
nationwide. Prompted by an audience member who suggested that Todd's
remarks aptly endorsed helmet use but didn't explain why a law was
needed, Todd said, "Our best experience in changing normative behavior
is with a law."

Conversely, Goetz reasoned that a helmet law will distract the city
from real safety measures such as defensive bicycling training, safe
routes and bike lanes, and motorist bicycle awareness. He also said
such laws decrease transportation bicycling trips, pointing to studies
showing drops of 35% in Australia and 14% in California. As a
statistician, Goetz challenged Todd's argument that helmet use will
automatically equal reduced head injuries, citing local, national, and
international studies that show actual increases in bicycle head
injuries as helmet use rose. In his final statements, after
establishing that he has been a transportation cyclist for 25 years,
logging 5,000 miles per year on Austin roads, Goetz asked Todd, "Where
on earth do you get the idea that you're qualified to tell me how to
ride a bicycle safely?"

When asked privately about the cost of no-helmet cycling head injuries
in Austin, Todd was unable to produce a precise figure, instead citing
his own injury's cost of nearly $300,000. As for support from the
cycling community, the Texas Bicycle Coalition has chosen not to weigh
in on the measure and the 1,500-member Austin Cycling Association -
which, as Todd noted in his arguments, requires helmets on all its
group rides and has distributed thousands of free helmets to kids -
opposes the measure. Instead, the ACA favors a "community awareness and
education outreach campaign" to minimize bike crashes, including strong
encouragement of bicycling and voluntary helmet use, roadway designs
that accommodate bicyclists, provision of low-cost and no-cost helmets
to low-income adults and children, and enforcement of existing traffic
safety laws, according to President Scott Korcz. "I've used my bike for
transportation over thousands of miles in Austin, and my helmet has
never once prevented a bike crash," he said.

Polled at the end of the evening, the capacity crowd favored Goetz's
opposing arguments 59 to 38. The event was sponsored by the Dionysium,
a debate program organized by Salvage Vanguard Theatre.

The proposed helmet ordinance, sponsored by Mayor Will Wynn and council
members Betty Dunkerley and Brewster McCracken, is set for what will no
doubt be an action-packed council public hearing Aug. 24. For more
info, see www.nohelmetlaw.org and
www.echristianpr.com/news/index.html#helmet.

from:
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A392318