Comment 95876

By seancb (registered) - website | Posted December 12, 2013 at 13:23:48 in reply to Comment 95856

My first thought when I read this article was "why do people compare bike helmets with seat belts?" - so thanks for bringing it up :-)

Overall seat belt use in Canada is 93 percent. But in fatalities, that figure falls to around 65 percent. Put differently, the 7 percent of drivers who don't wear seat belts make up 40 percent of traffic fatalities.

and

Seat belts save about 1,000 Canadian lives every year, while air bags save about 50 out of 2,200 total deaths each year in 2010.

Bicycle helmet statistics do not come anywhere near these numbers. The helmet reality is that they can be helpful in some situations but they are woefully inadequate to protect cyclists in altercations with vehicles. And yet helmet use is harped on in every report of bike/car collisions.

What we really need is to emphasize the huge risks that driving places on people in the cars as well as those around them, and design our transportation networks to reduce the risk of collision in the case that a human makes an error - and greatly improve road user education in order to make the chance of mistakes less likely.

Comment edited by seancb on 2013-12-12 13:24:18

I vote down for offensiveness and up for humour. I cast no votes based on my level of agreement.

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