I have started biking again after years of not having an actual having a bike.
It was tough getting comfortable biking in the city since I grew up on the farm and did not have to deal with so much traffic.
I knew a helmet was essential to getting myself comfortable in the city because at least if I had a crash my head and brain would be okay.
Depending on the time of day, I do see other cyclists on the streets of Humboldt. What I do not see is a lot of helmet usage.
There are plenty of statistics on all helmet usage in Canada, with Saskatchewan having the second highest number of people who never wear a helmet while doing any helmet-worthy activity, including cycling, snowboarding, and skateboarding.
According to the 2013-2014 Statistics Canada survey, Saskatchewan at 57.2 per cent was also higher than the national average, 39.4 per cent of non-helmet wearers.
Deaths while cycling were around 74 per year from 1992-2012 with the majority of these deaths involving people under the age of 20. Helmet usage was not actually tracked.
Looking beyond these statistics, the reasoning behind wearing a helmet are quite obvious.
Heads meeting concrete, pavement, sidewalk, or anything harder than itself is a bad mix, no matter how hard headed you think you are.
Advanced Care Paramedic, Derek Dagenais, says seeing the statistics and the number of incidents does make it hard to promote people actually wearing a helmet, including in the Humboldt area.
However, that does not make it any less important to make sure people wear them.
Seven provinces have helmet laws according to a SUMA discussion in 2015. Saskatchewan does not and there seems to be a lot of push back from non-helmet wearers. Either you are for helmets or against helmets.
The City of Humboldt has discussed bylaws in the past but actually enforcing one would be difficult, says Jennifer Brooks with the City of Humboldt, since it “would take time, require resources to enforce and may create confusion for citizens as other Saskatchewan communities may have different bylaws governing bicycle helmet safety.”
Dagenais does see plenty of young kids actually wearing a helmet.
There is strong attendance to events like the Bike Rodeo and Safety Day, including the one held this past Sunday during Summer Sizzler, and positive ticketing has been a success in the four years it has been running.
Unfortunately, usage tapers off in the teen years, around that age where kids are more self-conscious of how they look, says Dagenais.
This attitude transfers into adults who are also not listening to the valuable lessons regarding saving the noggin.
It takes two seconds to put one on and unfortunately just because accidents do not happen often does not mean it will not happen at all.
Why is there so much of a sacrifice for pride or vanity?
If cyclists are not going to wear helmets for themselves they should at least be thinking of wearing the helmet for the kids.
It is a monkey see, monkey do situation where an adult wearing a helmet promotes helmet usage in kids, which should be reason enough to actually wear one.
If there is an adult in the family who wears a helmet consistently that may mean the kids becomes an adult who wears a helmet.
