In the United States riding without a helmet is often viewed to be as dangerous and irresponsible as smoking. Needless to say, the stigma against it is significant. Helmets are seen as life-saving devices, the cycling version of seat belts. To ride without one is to take your life in to your own hands.

In many Euroepan cities, including Amsterdam and Paris where cycling is extremely prevalent, however, the percentage of people who wear helmets is negligable (and mostly limited to tourists). Yet, these cities are some of the safest for cyclists in the world. From experience, I can say that a person feels safer cycling without helmet in Amsterdam than cycling with a helment anywhere in the United States. What could account for this disparity?

Piet de Jong, a professor in the department of applied finance and actuarial studies at Macquarie University in Sydney, argues that the deterrence factor associated with helmet-wearing is so significant that it outweighs the safety benefits. This may seem like a strange or outlandish claim, but in many respects it makes sense. Wearing a helmet is a significant social faux-paz. Any child who grew up in California (and has experiece in cycling) can attest to the many embarrasing occasions when mom or dad forced them to put on a helmet before a bike ride. As we grow older this stigma, and the one which makes a person irresponsible (and sometimes a law-breaker) when they do not wear a helmet, can become so strong that it prevents a person from riding bikes altogether.

Professor de Jong argues that the fewer cyclists on the road, the more dangerous cycling is for those who do it. More cyclists= safer cycling. Look at the Amsterdam and the Paris examples. Both cities have a large number of daily cyclists and both cities have an entrenced cycling cuclture. This culutre, de Jong argues, is essential to biking safety, and if helmet laws are preventing this culture from floiurishing, then hemlet laws are in fact making cycling more dangerous.

In big cities that are trying to appeal to the toursit crowd, helmet laws can be especially contentious. Tourists want to take the easiest, most convenient route. Having to worry about safety equipment, like a helmet, could be a practical deterrent. In addition, helmets make a fairly safe activity seem inherently dangerous. “Recent experience suggests that if a city wants bike-sharing to really take off, it may have to allow and accept helmet-free riding. A two-year-old bike-sharing program in Melbourne, Australia — where helmet use in mandatory — has only about 150 rides a day, despite the fact that Melbourne is flat, with broad roads and a temperate climate. On the other hand, helmet-lax Dublin — cold, cobbled and hilly — has more than 5,000 daily rides in its young bike-sharing scheme. Mexico City recently repealed a mandatory helmet law to get a bike-sharing scheme off the ground.”

Instead of worrying avout enforicing helemt laws, European ccycliung advocates recommend that U.S. cities focus on making safer lanes, safer intersecxtions and ultimately safer streets for cyclists.

This is obviously a contentious issue. Helmets have saved people’s lives. On that issue there is no dispute. But, is making helmets mandatory (and thereby deterring some riders) the best answer? Maybe. Maybe not.

Source:

Photo Source:

http://blog.brothercycles.com/2011_10_01_archive.htm

Chicago is leading the way in pedestrian safety in the United States by pledging to eliminate all pedestrian fatalities by 2022.

Now, that’s not a phrase you would expect to hear. Chicago is a car-centric, midwest, urban center. Currently about 50 pedestrians are killed annually on Chicago streets. Not exactly the city that you would imagine to take the lead in a campaign for pedestrian safety. After an extensive sudy which included public input, City Officials announced a plan with 250 short-term and long-term projects and goals. As grist.org points out “a city that cares about walking is a city that cares about people”.  This plan has great potential not simply to protect pedestrians from vehicles, but to make Chicago a more desirable tourist destination (walking is always a plus with tourists), to improve safety, and to improve living conditions in general. An investment in pedestrians is an investment in the city.

The plan includes some features which are common throughout the Bay Area and some that it would be nice to see implemented here. Besides marked sidewalks, in-road stop signs at crosswalks (it’s a state law to stop at crosswalks), pedestrian refuge islands (as seen in Berkeley and elsewhere in the East Bay and pictured above) and better signals, the plan also proposes ‘Road Diets’. This blog reported on Road Dieting a while back, but for those of you who don’t know, putting a road on a diet means shifting emphasis from cars to pedestrians and cyclists by  reducing traffic lanes, widening sidewalks, adding bike paths and greening medians. These road diets are long-term investments for the neighborhoods which they service. Road diets can decrease the number of cars, increase the number of pedestrians, improve safety conditions, reduce collisions, increase demand for restaurants and store-front businesses and generally improve the conditions of the neighborhood. Not surprisingly, San Francisco city transportation officials say San Francisco has put more roads on a diet than anywhere else in North America.

Still, San Francisco could learn a lot from Chicago’s Plan. One idea which I don’t think is implemented consistenly throughout the Bay Area is the lagging left turn during which the left turn signal is delayed to give pedestrians time to cross with traffic moving parallel across the intersection. Another interesting proposal are chicanes (see picture below) which essentially act like speed bumps with out the speeding up and speeding down and subsequent noise pollution.

Credit for Picture

Perhaps most interesting is Chicago’s focus on taxis. Chicago’s taxis account for 30% of pedestrian fatalities. Chicago’s plan includes revoking more licenses, engaging in significant outreach to taxi companies not just drivers, implementing the use of bumper stickers on taxis encouraging people to report dangerous driving, and the long-term goal of developing a safety-based incentive system.  In addition, the Chicago Plan proposes integrating pedestrian safety into police training and improving the pedestrian connectivity to buses and trains.

The rest of the Country will be watching closely to see whether Chicago can meet the seemingly impossible goal of Zero Fatalities by 2022. While I am skeptical of their achieving this goal, I look forward to seeing the many (hopefully) positive changes Chicago undergoes from the effort.

Read the full Chicago Pedestrian Plan here.

Sources:

http://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/chicago-aims-eliminate-pedestrian-fatalities-within-10-years.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-pedestrian-plan-20120906-pdf,0,4192132.htmlpage

Chicago plans to eliminate pedestrian deaths

http://bettercities.net/article/chicago-pedestrians-safety-first-18833

http://dc.streetsblog.org/2012/09/06/chicago-unveils-its-ambitious-pedestrian-safety-plan/