by Danita McGinnis

I was chatting the other day with Jenn Guitart of the California Bicycle Coalition when she was in the shop picking out, of all things, new helmets for herself and her youngest son. The subject of SB192, the proposed helmet mandate law by State Senator Carol Liu inevitably came up. Jenn agreed to sit down with me to answer some more in-depth questions about the proposed law and Cal Bike's position on it.

DM: Can you tell me a little bit about what [this law] will actually require?

JG: As I understand it, the law will require adults (children are already required to wear a helmet) to wear a properly fitting helmet whenever they ride, and it will also require wearing reflective clothing at night.

DM: Ok, and so Cal Bike's official position is that they're opposed to any mandatory helmet requirement for adults? Or just this law, in particular?

JG: We're not opposed to helmets, we're not "anti-helmet." Our staff members' personal views on helmets vary widely. But as an organization we are opposed to this helmet mandate because we feel that it will have a negative impact on safety, by discouraging people from riding bikes.

DM: And do we have any evidence for that? How do we know that participation [in bicycling] will go down?

JG: Well, there haven't been any statewide helmet mandates in the US to date. There have been some helmet mandates in municipalities in the US, and there have been broader adult helmet mandates in other countries, such as New Zealand and Australia, and parts of Canada.

And studies of the existing helmet mandate laws have found that when the helmet mandate is enforced, bicycling rates drop. There have been some situations where the helmet mandate hasn't been enforced, and that doesn't appear to have a strong effect on bicycling rates. But when you have a helmet mandate it seems, from the data, that people ride their bicycles less.

We just actually published a really great fact sheet yesterday on our website that has links to a lot of the peer-reviewed studies that have looked at helmet mandates. There was a big meta-study that looked at the available literature on helmet mandates, That was in the British Medical Journal. And that study found that enforced helmet laws discourage bicycling, and don't seem to have a positive impact on head injuries.

DM: Ok.

JG: And there haven't been any studies that have found evidence of an injury-reducing effect.

DM: You mentioned about when they're enforced or not enforced, and we have research in this country, and in Oakland and San Francisco in particular - we have research that does show that traffic stops and tickets are not distributed evenly, that certain communities and people of color are disproportionately targeted in existing systems for traffic stops and ticketing. Are you concerned that this law would have differential impacts on riders of color?

JG: Yeah, we are definitely concerned about that. I don't have any data at my fingertips about helmet patterns among different populations, or patterns of helmet wearing. So I don't actually know what the stats are about that, but I do think that, like any traffic law, if this is actually enforced, we may find that it's being enforced unfairly on communities on color.

DM: Right. And along with that, are you guys concerned about the impact low-income riders, people who are riding because they can't afford to drive or take public transit? I think the public hears the word "cyclist" and they think of, you know, the enthusiast or somebody like that, but that's not necessarily who might be most impacted.

JG: Yeah, I think the people & the communities that actually really need bicycling for transportation are going to be disproportionately impacted by this law. Actually, I heard someone on the radio saying, well, [helmets are] only $40. You know, to a lot of people that's actually a lot of money. And a $25 fine, if it were a repeated $25 fine, that can have a huge negative impact on a lot of people's income, so I do think that that's a concern.

Our primary argument against the helmet mandate is that it would be bad for safety. I think that a lot of people who are for the helmet mandate, they see themselves as being for safety and for helmets. And we're not taking a stand against helmets, we're taking a stand against a policy that would make our streets less safe. Because studies have shown that there's safety in numbers, that when you have more people riding bikes, the streets get safer for people on bikes, they get safer for people walking, they get safer for people driving their cars, because there are fewer collisions.

DM: Right.

JG: Preventing collisions in the first place is a much more effective way to protect bicyclists and everybody, than requiring people to wear a helmet. We believe that this proposed law would make the streets less safe and would increase the number of collisions and would actually increase the number of head injuries. And the evidence supports that view.

We have a lot of good data on not just the evidence that helmet mandates do discourage bicycling and don't decrease injuries, but also on weighing the benefits against the risks of cycling. It's true that there's some risk to bicycling, as there is to many everyday activities, but when you weigh the risks against the benefits of bicycling- for health and for saving lives - bicycling comes out very, very solidly on the side of being a life-saving activity. There have been so many studies on this, and not a single one has found that the risk is greater than the benefit when you ride a bike - even in studies that look at non-helmeted riders.

If you consider a group of people who ride bikes now without a helmet, and who will quit cycling because of the helmet law, or who will reduce the amount that they bicycle, that is going to have a negative impact on their health. Because bicycling is so good for you! And it helps you to live longer. There was a another big meta-study of the risk/benefit ratio for bicycling, and the lowest risk/benefit ratio that it found was one to nine - one life lost for every nine deaths avoided. The highest was one to ninety-one, so ninety-one deaths avoided for every death.

DM: Wow.

JG: That's pretty good evidence that people should ride bikes, whether they want to wear helmets or not. Not that we're saying do not wear helmets! That's not the message at all. Most bicyclists understand the message; they're not against the law because they don't want to wear a helmet. They're against the law because they understand that the law will make our streets less safe. But then there is a vocal minority that doesn't want to think about it from a public health perspective and just thinks, well I wear a helmet and you should wear a helmet, therefore, there should be a law. But even if you accept the premise that I should wear a helmet and you should wear a helmet, that is not an argument for a helmet mandate.

DM: Right. I'm sure there's been a lot of misinterpretation of the arguments that you are making. Most cyclists understand that, but people who ride bikes regularly are a minority in terms of transportation alternatives, so it's something that a lot of people misunderstand and don't have the facts about.

Another thing I wanted to ask you about, in many cases we know that it's really difficult for a cyclist to get a fair investigation when a collision does occur, and it can be difficult for them to get compensation from insurance companies, even when the driver was at fault or was found to be at fault. We saw a really bad example in our area with Amelie Le Moullac in 2013, where the SFPD initially, and very publicly, blamed her for her death.

JG: That's right.

DM: And didn't do a thorough investigation. It took the SF Bike Coalition, I'm sure you know, doing their own investigation and finding the surveillance footage to prove that the driver of the truck was at fault. So, do you foresee more cyclists being considered responsible, or held responsible, for their own injuries or damage to their bike, even when they didn't do anything to cause a collision and the fact that they weren't wearing a helmet didn't cause a collision to occur?

JG: Yes, and that already happens with the child helmet mandate. I don't know the specifics of how this works with the insurance laws, but it does affect things like compensation. If you wanted to find out more about it, you could talk to a bicycle injury attorney.

DM: Ok. So, what do you think would make the biggest difference to the safety of people biking in our cities and to the numbers of people biking, and how does that fit in with the other stuff that Cal Bike is working on right now?

JG: That's a great question. Well, we firmly believe - and studies have shown - that the way to get more people riding bicycles is to invest in better bicycle infrastructure. And that's our big goal right now, to get more people riding, and our big initiative this year is to try to get more funding for infrastructure. And specifically for bike networks, which are networks of protected bike lanes - which are now legal thanks to the Protected Bike Lanes Act which passed in 2014 - bike boulevards, quiet back streets, and bike paths.

The idea is that with a complete bicycle network you should be able to get everywhere you need to go in a community, connect the whole community. Everybody who rides a bikes has experienced the phenomenon where, you have a great bike ride and then there's just one intersection or two blocks, where it's really hairy and really unpleasant, and it's those two blocks that discourage people who are hesitant, who are interested in riding but are concerned about safety. It's those two blocks and those hairy intersections that prevent them from getting on a bike and riding.

So what we've got to figure out is, how can we connect all these great bike lanes, great bike routes that already exist [but have] for example, 4 or 5 blocks where you're bicycling on a busy street, so that people can ride all the way to work and not just halfway. We talk about the idea of a “low-stress bike network,” where people are comfortable riding and where you would let a 12 year old ride alone. Not just comfortable and nice for people who wear spandex and ride on 40 mile rides or who ride to work every single day, but for people who are just starting out biking, or who have the kids on the back of their bike, or who are 12.

DM: It must be frustrating to be taking time away from your priorities to be fighting against [the helmet mandate].

JG: Well, it's definitely getting in the way of some of the other work that I need to get done, but at the same time, it's getting a lot of people engaged who weren't otherwise going to be engaged. We have 1500 new list members and we've gotten a lot of people signing this petition. And we're working with Senator Liu's office and they seem open to the idea of amending the bill. Senator Liu has actually been an advocate for biking and walking and has been really involved in the Safe Routes to School movement.

DM: That's great! So I guess there's a silver lining maybe.

JG: Yeah, the silver lining is that we're getting a lot more people involved. It's been discussed on three or four major public radio stations like KQED Forum, and in newspapers. So that's been kind of good.

DM: Ok, well thanks for talking with me, and thanks for all Cal Bike's work! If people want to get more involved, they can visit Cal Bike's website to find more information, sign the petition, become a member, or join their email list.