THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 29, 1995 TAG: 9509280179
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
A compassionate, common-sense proposal by City Councilman W. Joe Newman to try to prevent kids who are in bicycle accidents from scrambling their brains on the pavement turned into a debate over political ideology. That's a pity.
Mr. Newman believes there ought to be a city ordinance requiring kids up to the age of 14 to wear helmets when they ride bicycles. It's not a radical idea. There's plenty of evidence that wearing helmets prevents a lot of needless suffering, and helmet laws have become increasingly common in other places.
But judging by the reaction from some of his colleagues on City Council, you would have thought Mr. Newman had advocated a police state.
The Council rejected the idea Tuesday by a vote of 5-4. Standing in the way were Councilmen John E. Allen, John W. Butt, John de Triquet, Peter P. Duda Jr. and Alan P. Krasnff.
Mr. Allen allowed that, as a parent, he didn't need anybody telling him how to raise his children, that government shouldn't intrude in that way into the lives of its citizens.
Other councilman raised questions about the enforcement of such a law, worried over adding another burden to already overworked police officers and even quibbled over the cost of protective helmets and whether 14 is an appropriate age limit for such an ordinance.
They missed the point entirely.
The Journal of the American Medical Association has reported that bicycle accidents resulted in nearly 3,000 deaths and 900,000 head injuries over a five-year period. Of those, 41 percent of the deaths and 76 percent of the head injuries occurred in children under 15.
A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicated that if all bicyclists wore helmets, one head injury could be prevented every four minutes.
Every year approximately 136,000 kids under the age of 15 suffer head injuries in cycling accidents. In fact, more children die in bike accidents each year than from accidental poisonings, falls and firearm injuries combined.
Surely, it is a proper role of government to respond to such senseless and terrible loss. If it is not, then let the Council repeal all laws applying to public safety. By the standards of the prevailing majority on the Council, should government be telling a free people that they must obey traffic laws or refrain from taking drugs or resist the impulse to block the fire exits of crowded buildings?
Mr. Newman gave his colleagues an opportunity to do something good for children. They chose instead to stand on inflexible ideological platitudes. by CNB