Helmet Hut Saturday

The FAB Helmet Hut public service activity was Saturday, September 6^th. Even though the weather was autumnal, bicycle traffic was heavy on the bike trail…until it rained. Then, amazingly the traffic subsided?! Nothing promotes comfort like a wet chamois...

You’ll be seeing the results of the FAB Helmet Usage Survey at the FAB Web Site soon…but we still need more data (he said in his most maniacal inner voice). Preliminary results suggest that the number of cyclists wearing helmets, on the Sioux Falls Bike Trail System, is around fifty percent. That’s the good news! The Consumer Product Safety Commission reported a similar proportion in 1998…the bad news. A significant increase in bike helmet usage was seen between 1991 (eighteen percent) and 1998 (fifty percent)…but we have not seen any increase since. Perhaps, we have already convinced all of those bicyclists that we can—to wear the most essential piece of bicycling protective equipment.

I know we touched some of the bicyclists on the trail this last Saturday. A couple stopped to get a discount coupon to purchase a new helmet (replacing a decade old model), a helmet-less rider stopped by to pick up a discount coupon because he had been "meaning to buy one" (the time seemed right) and we talked with a family (all were wearing helmets) that needed a new one for the youngest of their riding group. These we will mark as successes…but we will also count those abundant helmet-less passersby that cast us their “guilty glances” knowing that our presence served as a reminder that helmet usage is prudent.

The arguments on using bike helmets bore me…and frankly, those debaters that are most vehement are disturbing. As pragmatically as I can state this—ANY skin I can save on my face and scalp, ANY impact energy I can dissipate to the helmet instead of my brain and braincase, ANY grief and distress I can save my family in caring for my vegetative self and ANYONE I can convince to do the same by example, makes wearing my helmet worth it. Besides, I think I look dapper in my commuter helmet.

Consider that most reported bicycle accidents do not involve motor vehicles (approximately ninety-five percent); over 600,000 bicyclists visit emergency rooms and physicians about injuries sustained in bicycling accidents, annually; and, approximately 900 people die as a result of bicycle accidents, annually. Don’t be a statistic…unless you are one that we are counting on the bike trail—wearing a helmet!

Thanks to all that helped with sponsoring the Helmet Hut (Harlan’s Bike & Tour, Prairie Cycles, Spoke-n-Sport, and Two Wheeler Dealer), the committee (Harold, Minus Car, and Hellimat), and the many FABulous members that stopped (Kari, the Mayor, Dirk (the Prez), Rocket, Shirley, Ed, and others).