Cooler heads needed to bridge bike helmet divide

It's hard to think of a more divisive issue among cyclists than helmets.To wear them or not to wear them? Ask anydedicated two-wheeler for their opinion, and you're likely to get a strong one.

For most people, wearing helmets probablyseemslike a no-brainer,and North Americans generally doa good job atreinforcingthis idea.

But a lot of smart folksgo without helmets, and for reasons that deserve some consideration.

CityCoun. Jeff Leiper's personal experience with the issue makes for an interesting case study.Hetook a months-long break from the world of helmeted cycling and got calls to his office,emailsand social media messages from constituents about it,pleading for him to wear a helmet again.

People even approached him in public.

"They stopped me in the street to say, 'I saw you riding last week without your helmet. What are you thinking?'" he said in an interview last month.

Leipercommutes daily by bike and has done so for many years.He had been in the habit of regularly wearing his helmet until this past winter, when he decided towearawarm tuque instead and found that he enjoyed it.

Once the winter passedLeiperkept the helmet offin part, he says,to see whether drivers would give him more consideration and better treatment on the road.

But the backlash Leiper's helmet-less head inspired was "so intense"it prompted him to start wearing a helmetagain.

He says if people weren't as adamant about itthere's a possibility he wouldn't be wearing one today, even though the city's message is "very clear" that people should do so.

"If I weren't a public official being recognized and getting this resident pushback, I might still not be wearing a helmet," he says.

Sending the wrong message

Cities around the world, including Ottawa,are updating infrastructureto encourage cycling because they recognize it eases traffic congestion and promotes fitness.

But helmets can give some the impression cycling is an inherentlydangerous activity.

The underlying tension is an anger on the part of those of us who would like to be able to ride around without having to put on helmets and protective gear that ultimately may be counterproductive to developing the kind of driver empathy that we want.- Coun. Jeff Leiper

"Cycling should be a normal, safe, everyday activity," Leiper says."We shouldn't be sending the message that you need to take special precautions in order to cycle ... because it reduces the chances that people are actually going to take up cycling."

There exists a studyshowing that drivers are more likely to give helmet-less cyclists more room while passing them than forcyclists with helmets on.

You'll hear this a lot among cyclists: when we're not "geared up" and looking sporty, maybe drivers are more conscious about what could happen if they hit us;maybe theygive us a wider berth.

"The underlying tension is an anger on the part of those of us who would like to be able to ride around without having to put on helmets and protective gear that ultimately may be counterproductive to developing the kind of driver empathy that we want," Leipersays.

What if, instead of spending so much time and energy promoting helmets, we focused on getting more cyclists on the road with bike-friendly infrastructure?

Do helmets make a difference?

After years of working in local newsI've covered more than a few cyclist fatalities. Sometimes the victims were not wearing helmets,sometimes they were.

But despite thefacthelmets don't always save lives,it was quite common for many yearsto see news releases from emergency departments that specifiedwhether cyclists involved in crashes fatal and non-fatal alikewere wearing helmets or not.

When this happened there were often indignant criesfrom their fellow pedal-pushers: It doesn't matter that they weren't wearing a helmet and there is no need to include that information.You're essentially blaming the cyclist for dying afterbeing run over, they would say.

And you know what? They're right.Even theemergency responders who advocate for helmet usewill tell you this.

If a crash is powerfulenough to kill someone, it's going to take liferegardless of whether thecyclist involved iswearing a well-fittedplastic hat with some compressed styrofoaminsideit. Cyclists die in crashes wearinghelmets all the time.

And so these days, police and paramedics and firefighters don't say whether cyclists in collisions were wearing helmets or not.

'Why is it important?'

"On Twitter wehad some comments some nice,some not so nice ... [people]challenged us on it,which is OK,"says Ottawa paramedic spokesmanJ.P.Trottier, who's also a cyclist.

"And true enough, why are we [reporting that]? Why isitimportant, when we're putting information out to the public abouta collision between a cyclist or a pedestrian andwhatever?That's why, I think for us, I don't know thepoint, the benefit of us mentioning whether theperson had a helmet on or not. I don't know thatthere's any benefit to that."

Trottier'sOttawa police counterpart,Const. Chuck Benoit, an avid cyclistwho'spart of the Ottawa police media relations team, admits that helmets don't often play a role in cyclist fatalities, but saysthe official police stance remains thateveryone should wear a helmet. And he personallynever goes without one, he says.

"Wearing a helmet is always going to protect yourhead, no matter how old or how young you are, andin all cases ... you should be wearing a helmet," Benoitsays.

"When you're talkingabout the cycling community, it's one of thosecommunities where they're very, very vocal abouttheir opinions. You see it on Twitter, you see iton Facebook, and you see it in person."

So, why do people tend to get so emotional about their opinions and choices?

Leiper says it's probably because Ottawa isn't yet a cycling-friendly city. We don't have enough connected cycling networks, drivers don't accommodate cyclists well or often enough, andthere isn't enough of a cycling critical mass.

If Ottawawere more like a city in the Netherlands, where cycling is far more common, we wouldn't be so uptight.

"If we had that kind of a city, then I don't think we would be having this helmet discussion," he said.

Find Kristy Nease on Twitter @kristyneaseand cycling onCentretownstreets, sometimes helmeted and sometimes not.