injury

A new report released by the Toronto's chief medical officer shows how cycling and walking are both good for our health and save it's money. The report, “Road to Health: Improving Walking and Cycling in Toronto,” also demonstrates how reducing motor vehicle speeds reduces the number of people being killed annually, recommending that Toronto lower speed limits to 30 on residential streets and 40 on arterials. The latter will prove to have a hard time getting traction in Toronto, despite the fact that many Toronto residential neighbourhoods already have 30 zones with traffic calming measures (though many also do not). And despite the fact that other cities have proven how successful it can be on making other cities more liveable, literally.

Studies are quite clear that deaths and serious injuries increase dramatically with higher speeds. There is a “greatly increased probability of death or serious injury when hit by a vehicle travelling 50 km/h compared with 40 km/h.” One of the studies found that 85 per cent of people struck at 50 km/h are likely to die, versus only 25 per cent at 40 km/hour.

Toronto politicians aren't ready to push for this and a majority of drivers are bound to think the proposal goes too far, except when it comes to their own neighbourhood. Currently the City requires communities to individually apply for lower speed limits, asking traffic engineers who feel their job is to keep cars going fast for exemptions to the rule. The rule is that they first need to get speed humps and they can only get those if traffic engineers measure that the average speed on the street is above the posted limit. The City has made it exceptionally difficult for neighbourhoods to get safe streets. This proposal would flip out around by saying we should be going slower everywhere except for those roads where we make an exception. From the Star:

Dylan Reid, former co-chair of the city’s pedestrian committee, argued that residents have already demonstrated that they prefer slower speeds on local streets.

“Most of Toronto’s residential areas are designed to slow cars down, and people want them slow. . . . I think this is frankly just catching up to reality in a lot of ways,” Reid said.

“Where there is a wide road that is suited for a faster speed, it’s easy to simply post that speed where appropriate. But it doesn’t make any sense for the default speed to be 50 km/h.”

If I may make a bold claim, Torontonians want lower speed limits where they and their children live but not where the drive. They deserve safe streets, they feel, but elsewhere speed should trump safety. Cycling and walking advocates (and maybe a campaign like 20 is Plenty for Us can take advantage of this dichotomy and start helping local communities to fight city hall for the right to safety where they live. We now have an official report to back it up. Just don't rely on councillors to take the lead since our love for speed is ingrained.

The report has another proposal that has been overlooked but that could prove to be powerful. It recommends the City to set targets for reducing injuries and deaths. Imagine getting a yearly report that showed how we missed our goal to reduce deaths. It would bring media attention to the fact that city inaction has a direct result on more people dying. What politician would want to get behind that story? New York City is doing something similar with their Pedestrian Safety Study and Action Plan, where the city is now required to produce a report to show what, if anything, they've done to reduce pedestrian injuries and deaths. Building political traction can be difficult, but this would help keep politicians' feet to the fire.

Even if the City might not yet be ready to do something rational to save lives by lowering speed limits, the report has a number of strategic measures that it recommends to improve Torontonians' health by getting us walking and cycling more and doing it with less risk of injury or death. And already the press coverage of the controversial recommendation for lower speed limits will help jolt people out of their complacency. At least we now can't deny the trade-off: if you want to go faster you know you're risking greater injury and death.

If you're a CBC Radio nerd like me you might have heard a renewed mandatory helmet debate this morning with the news that a cyclist died from "life-threatening head injuries" in a crash a month ago at Caledonia and Davenport. The media and police have jumped on the fact that the cyclist was not wearing a helmet.

Police claim they discovered that "the severity of the head injury indicates that he was not wearing a helmet". (I wonder why they couldn't discover he wasn't wearing a helmet by just looking for an absence of a helmet in the area. I also wonder why the media is taking the police's take on the cause of head injuries when this is normally the role of health professionals.)

The man was riding southbound at Caledonia Park Road "at high speed" as he approached a green light on Davenport, according to police.

When the light changed, the man made a sharp left turn eastward onto Davenport's westbound lane, and then lost control and fell onto the roadway.

Police also issued an advisory in the Monday release that said: "While helmets are not mandatory for those over [18], Traffic Services would remind everyone that helmets are your best defence against brain injuries that result from falls. Parents need to be vigilant in ensuring children wear their helmets at all times when riding their bicycles."

This news follows a study at the University of Manitoba that helmet legislation works to get more people to wear helmets (while also reducing the number of people willing to bike).

While it is often a good idea (in my opinion) for an individual to wear a helmet to reduce the chance of a head injury, the broad statistics are not clear if helmets help all that much. We should not arrive at a conclusion and decide policy based on these individual cases where people have head injuries. It is known that helmets are of very limited value in the event of a collision with a car; and many cyclists negate the protective effect of helmets by taking more risks. The promotion of helmets implicitly shifts responsibility of care to the cyclist and away from drivers, and away from the provision of safer streets by means of street calming or bicycle facilities.

The truth is, strong calls for mandatory helmet legislations happen mostly in countries - such as United States, Canada, Australia - where the cycling modal share is very low and where injuries and deaths per kilometre travelled are much higher. It's not hard to argue that a big reason for this is that it's easier to shift the blame onto cyclists rather than taking effective steps in configuring our urban spaces to accommodate cyclists and pedestrians.

Source: www.cyclehelmets.org/

What we can take away from this is that helmet wearing is only a tiny part of the overall picture. We must look to other elements of cycling policy in countries where injury/death rates are low; elements such as bike lanes/paths and early cycling education.

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The Toronto Police are reporting (PDF) that a cyclist was hit and injured last night while riding on Coxwell Ave., north of Gerrard St.

On Thursday, May 7, 2009, at 11:07 p.m., police responded to a call for a personal injury collision on Coxwell Avenue, north of Casci Avenue.
It is reported that:

• a 19−year−old man was riding his bicycle north on Coxwell Avenue, in the right lane,
• a Safari van was travelling north on Coxwell Avenue, in the left lane,
• the cyclist turned left into the path of the van and was hit.

The cyclist was taken to hospital with life−threatening injuries.

The cyclist was not wearing a helmet but was wearing headphones, which may have limited
his ability to sense his surroundings.

Although the cyclist is at the age where helmets are not mandatory for cycling, the use of one
has been shown to reduce head injuries when worn properly.

The story has been picked up by a few media outlets today too:

• Toronto Star - Cyclist in east-end crash was listening to iPod
• National Post - East-end cyclist hit by van was wearing headphones, police say
• CTV - Van strikes cyclist on Coxwell Avenue
• 680 News - City cyclist hit by moving van
• CP24 - Cyclist in serious condition after being struck by van
• Toronto Sun - Injured cyclist not wearing helmet: Cops
• Metro - Headphones may have had role in bike crash: police

The Toronto Star reports that, "His chest was crushed and he suffered a closed-head injury to his brain. He was taken to St. Michael's Hospital in life-threatening condition, but he is now expected to survive."

The Toronto Star is reporting that a cyclist was hit by a car and severely injured near Lake Shore and Parliament this morning.

The impact of the collision sent the man flying into the windshield of the car, which was cracked but did not shatter.

The man was taken to St. Michael's Hospital with serious head injuries, but he is expected to live, according to police.

There was a considerable amount of blood at the scene.

The woman driving the car was shaken, but not hurt.

Let's hope the cyclist comes out of this OK. If anyone witnessed this, or has any other details, please contact the police.

More details and a video on the Toronto Star website.

So my new job has me riding back into the financial district on a daily basis and I find myself once again duly impressed with the ironic stupidity of some of the well-dressed and gainfully-employed folks around here. Just prior to the 9:00AM whistle yesterday, I watched a couple of lovely young ladies hesitate for a second, while misjudging the flow of traffic, and then step out into King Street right in front of a guy cruising through on a single-speed.

The first gal dashed out of the way, narrowly missing oncoming cars, but the second gal panicked like a deer in headlights and stopped the cyclist with an unintentional oversized Versace knock-off, clothesline maneuver. Thankfully there was a break in traffic and the fallen cyclist, though obviously in major pain, had a moment to recover and clear out of the street.