Posts about Waba

How effective are bicycle helmets?

In theory, helmets should absorb the shock from a crash. If your head strikes the ground or a vehicle, your brain could be seriously shaken by the sudden deceleration. With a helmet, the foam around your head forms a cushion.

They can also prevent head fractures by spreading the force of the impact. It's like the difference between being hit on the head by a rock or a beach ball with the same weight.

It's hard to tell how often helmets actually prevent head injuries, however. Experiments on people are unethical, so instead researchers collect hospital data on people involved in bicycle crashes.

In 1989, a team of researchers led by Dr. Robert S. Thompson, a preventative care specialist at the Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound, collected data about cyclists in Seattle who went to area hospitals after a crash. Only 7% of the cyclists with head injuries wore helmets, but 24% of those without head injuries did wear helmets. Their statistical analysis, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, estimated that helmets had reduced the risk of a head injury by 85%.

Dr. Thompson's study was a "case-control study" like those that first found a link between smoking and cancer. There is no true "control" group, but epidemiologists say these studies are good for showing whether something has a good or bad effect on health, though not for quantifying it.

Dozens of researchers sought to replicate the Thompson findings in their own communities. They also found that helmets reduce the risk of head injuries, but less frequently than Thompson's team found. Some studies even found that helmets increase the risk of neck injuries. If you consider the entire body of research rather than just one study, and look at both head and neck injuries, helmets only reduce the risk of injury by about 15% to 45% .

Nonetheless, public health advocates seized on the 85% estimate as a good way to communicate risk: failing to wear a helmet makes you more than 6 times as likely to experience a head injury. Government websites and newspapers have repeated it to the point where it has become ubiquitous in discussions about bicycle helmets.

Misinformation encourages helmet laws, discourages better helmets

Bicycle safety is one of WABA's central missions. It requires helmets on all rides that it organizes, and it sponsors the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute, an independently-funded organization that reviews bicycle helmets and encourages improvements in their design. In the 1990's, WABA supported proposals to require children under the age of 16 to wear bicycle helmets, which eventually became law.

But WABA draws the line at laws requiring adults to wear helmets. Such laws do little to promote safety, but they discourage bike sharing and other uses of bicycles for short trips.

This year, WABA fought hard against a bill in the Maryland General Assembly that would have required all adults to wear bicycle helmets on any trip, no matter how short. The Maryland Department of Transportation supported the mandatory helmet bill, citing the 85% estimate, while an article about it in the Washington Post cited a figure from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that helmets prevent 80% of head injuries. Fortunately, objections from cyclists persuaded the bill's sponsor not to move forward with it.

Recently, most helmet research has focused on making helmets cool, rather than more protective. Better ventilation and more fashionable designs might encourage more people to buy and wear helmets, but it does not make them safer. Could that be because everyone is assuming that helmets are already 85% effective? Would that change if people thought helmets were less than 50% effective?

WABA pushed agencies to correct the misinformation

Last February, I sent emails to both CDC and NHTSA, pointing out that the 85% estimate is incorrect and providing citations to newer research. Laurie Beck, an epidemiologist from CDC promised to remove the error.

Meanwhile, NHTSA staff told me that they were too busy to discuss the matter, so we made a formal "request for correction" under the Data Quality Act, which requires information on federal web sites to be accurate and supported by appropriate research.

Two months later, NHTSA agreed to remove the 85% estimate from its website. We expect other agencies to follow the lead of NHTSA and CDC, though some may need some encouragement.

This probably won't be the last we hear this factoid. Some nongovernmental public health advocates have ignored the results of the last 20 years of research and won't correct their stump speeches simply because the federal government removes an outdated estimate from its websites.

Will NHTSA step forward? The agency funds a lot of data collection efforts, and it clearly seems to think that the public needs to know how effective helmets are. Now that it concedes that it has been propagating the wrong answer for all these years, will it fund the research needed to provide the correct answer?

A version of this post is cross-posted at WABA Quick Release.

Mayor Gray's sustainability plan sets goals for "safe, secure infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians" with a target to "increase biking and walking to 25% of all commuter trips."

Part of this needs to be a concerted effort to focus on making it easier for children and families to commute to school and get around in general, by bike.

The city has programs aimed at stimulating families to bike. For families with school age children, the District Department of Transportation's (DDOT) offers the Safe Routes to school program, run by Jennifer Hefferan. She works with schools to support various types of active transportation models, including biking.

At my own children's school, Jennifer has designed more efficient drop-off and pick up processes, helped us to get appropriate signage, and worked with us to develop a comprehensive longer-term safe routes plan for our school. On biking, DC's Safe Routes program coordinated with the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) to triple the number of bike racks for the school, as well as advise and support us on efforts like Bike to School Day and Fuel Free Fridays.

There are also advocacy organizations like WABA, who offer safety and skills education opportunities, including Bike Rodeos for children. KidicalMassDC promotes "safe, fun family biking in the Greater Washington area" by holding regular mass family rides and teaming up with DDOT, WABA and bicycle shops like BicycleSpace and the Daily Rider to host the ABC's of Family Biking.

Personally, I find programs like ABCs of Family Biking particularly compelling, because they bring together a comprehensive community of stakeholders invested in promoting family biking. There are opportunities to learn from each other, practice skills, and discover gear that makes sense for individual needs and lifestyles.

What seems to be lacking, however, is education (and skill-building) directed at drivers. Those who bike spend time learning how to co-exist with drivers, but until drivers learn to co-exist with cyclists, families will continue to face safety-related obstacles when considering whether or not to bike.

What obstacles do you see to getting your family or other families to bike?

There's a lot to remember to do at a traumatic time, and unfortunately many aspects of our laws punish cyclists if they make a small mistake. Without corroboration from witnesses or cameras, it's very difficult to prove what happened, and police officers often make unwarranted assumptions about a crash or don't bother to interview witnesses.

Plus, DC, Maryland, and Virginia's "contributory negligence" doctrine means that for one party to collect from the other's insurance, they have to be 0% at fault, not even 1%, and generally also have to be able to prove that.

The app lets you enter all of the relevant facts from a crash into a form, take photos to store with the report, record audio or make a drawing of the area. You can email the crash data to WABA, which can often help advise cyclists on the process. There are buttons to call 911, get a taxi, or reach police or a hospital.

A medical expense tracker helps injured cyclists keep a log of all of the costs for medical bills, medicine, and even lost wages, which they might need to claim on insurance.

Other features of the app include a guide to bicycle laws, a flashlight (which didn't work on my new Nexus 4 running Android 4.2.1), and a link to become a member of WABA.

Hopefully you will never need most of the app's features, and can just use it as a handy pocket reference to the bicycle laws. But if you do get into a crash, it'll be useful to have the app handy. Search for "WABA" on your Google Play Store or iPhone App Store to download it for free.

The Coalition for Smarter Growth, the most influential smart growth group in the Washington region, organized a panel with Chris Leinberger of Brookings, David Bowers from Enterprise Community Partners, and the DC Fiscal Policy Institute's Ed Lazere. It's Tuesday, January 22, 6:30-8:30 (with some refreshments beginning at 6) at NCPC, 401 9th St NW, suite 500 North. RSVP here.

Talk pedestrians in upcounty: After a spate of pedestrian injuries and deaths in upcounty Montgomery, the Action Committee for Transit put together a forum on pedestrian safety at the Germantown Public Library, 2-4 pm on Saturday, January 26. Barbara McCann from the National Complete Streets Coalition will talk about the area's pedestrian safety problems and possible solutions.

Support biking in DC, Maryland: WABA is inviting folks to its offices on Wednesday, January 23 to talk about bicycle planning in DC and Maryland. The MoveDC initiative and a transportation planning process in Maryland will be collecting a lot of public input.

Stop by WABA's offices in Adams Morgan, 2599 Ontario Road NW, between 5:30 and 9:30 to talk with WABA staff and fellow cycling advocates about how to best weigh in during these processes and what to say when you do.

Support biking in Virginia: In the Commonwealth, the biggest bicycling issues are in the state legislature, where advocates are pushing for 6 specific bills that will make roads safer for cyclists. They are organizing a Bicycling Action Day in Richmond on Tuesday, January 29, starting at 10:30 at the "compass" plaza at Virginia Commonwealth University, followed by a bicycle ride to the state capitol for a rally.

Zoning update! And don't forget the Ward 4 zoning update information session, 6:30 tonight (again, Wednesday—sorry daily email readers) at Takoma Education Campus.

In this report, the two groups suggest a network of bike lanes in Silver Spring, Takoma Park, Bethesda and Friendship Heights. They proposed having dedicated bike lanes on major roads like Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring and business district streets like Arlington Road in Bethesda.

Streets that were too narrow or too congested for bike lanes, like Elm Street in Bethesda, would get sharrows, which help drivers and cyclists share the road.

They also asked the county to complete major regional trails, like the Metropolitan Branch Trail, which currently stops half a mile short of its proposed terminus at the Silver Spring Metro station.

The proposed lanes make a lot of sense, focusing on compact downcounty neighborhoods where everything's already within biking distance. I've written before that more on-street bike routes can make bicycling more practical as a form of transportation by bringing riders to shops, jobs and other activities. And bikes take up a lot less space than cars, meaning we can fit more bicyclists on a congested street than we can drivers.

Some of the proposed routes, like Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road, may face resistance from the Montgomery County Department of Transportation and the State Highway Administration, which have been reluctant to take away space from cars. But WABA and MoBike weren't the first to propose bike lanes for them: earlier this year, County Councilmember Nancy Floreen asked that the state paint lanes on several major roads that they're scheduled to repave anyway next year.

Creating a countywide bicycling network will take a lot of time and planning, but there are things we can do to improve the biking experience sooner rather than later. As more people take up bicycling, they may find that they don't have safe places to ride. As a result, Capital Bikeshare could help build a constituency for bike lanes that doesn't exist now.

Capital Bikeshare is ready to expand into Montgomery County. The question is whether our streets will be ready for Capital Bikeshare.

Jaffe wrote:

As a cyclist, I am overjoyed. When the city creates a matching bike lane on M Street, perhaps in early 2013, I will be able to commute from home to work in dedicated bike lanes. But as a driver, I question whether it's fair to autos. I see it creating miles of traffic if cops allow double parking, and I fear accidents if cyclists and drivers don't respect one another. Bikers always lose.

He seems to be saying we shouldn't install any bike lanes because the city might not enforce the laws, or drivers might drive dangerously. Maybe bikers do always lose—if we can't try to make streets safer for them because other people might misbehave.

Brian attended a lunch briefing yesterday with Martha Roskowski of the Green Lane Project and officials from the District Department of Transportation (DDOT). Jim Sebastian and Mike Godono of DDOT said that bicycle use on 15th Street NW has increased 272% since they installed the cycle track there, and 200% on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Bike crashes have remained steady, in spite of the increased numbers of riders, and there have been no additional pedestrian or car crashes as a result of the protected lanes. According to DDOT's evaluation, the lanes' impact on car traffic on 15th Street and on Pennsylvania Avenue has been negligible.

The Green Lane Project supports cities building separated "cycle tracks," like the one on L. Unlike standard familiar bike lanes, separated cycle tracks place some kind of barrier between cyclists and other road users, such as plastic bollards, raised curbs, parked cars and more. The group believes that providing a protected space for bicyclists on the roadway will make streets safer and also entice the 60% of potential cyclists who are "interested but concerned."

Furthermore, by separating bicyclists from car traffic, these kinds of lanes will create a predictable place for drivers to expect to see cyclists. Separating bike traffic from car traffic will reduce conflicts between drivers and cyclists and allowing each kind of vehicle to travel at its appropriate speed. With more road users on bicycles, this should reduce congestion for drivers as well.

These reasons show why the bikes-vs-cars tradeoff Jaffe and Townsend set out is a false one. More people bicycling means that drivers have fewer other cars to compete with. Bikes take up far less space, even when they get a lane-wide cycletrack on a few roads. Bike lanes even get bikes out of drivers' way in many cases.

In a video report for NBC Washington that also plays up the conflict, Adam Tuss quotes a driver who complains about how he was driving down L Street "behind a bicyclist going 5 miles an hour dead in the middle of the lane, and traffic is backed up all behind him." Later, the same driver suggests ticketing bicyclists who don't use the bike lanes, and then, "I'm saying a lot of bicyclists don't follow the rules."

Actually, it's completely legal to drive in the middle of the lane, and in fact that's the recommended safest practice. Riding in a bike lane is also not required. Perhaps it's the driver who needs to learn the rules, but building this bike lane could move a lot of cyclists out of car lanes, just what this driver wants.

It's time to not just stop with the "war on cars" theme, but also its cousins, Townsend's "I'm not saying war on cars but ..." and "bikes are squeezing out cars" from Jaffe's headline.

WABA put out an action alert asking residents to email Mayor Gray, DDOT Director Terry Bellamy, and Sebastian to thank them for building the L Street bike lane. It can't hurt to also encourage them to quickly follow up with its planned twin on M Street. Please send them that message, and prevent the cars vs. bikes false choice from jeopardizing a very important project.

There is no question that Bike to Work Day is a hugely successful event, growing every year. The organizers, and WABA in particular, deserve serious thanks and congratulations for the enormous undertaking of BTWD. It's done a great deal to raise the visibility of cycling and to expand the reach of cycling to more women, younger and older age groups, and beyond the MAMIL stereotype.

While we can revel in these growing levels of success, it's important not to be complacent. It may be time to start thinking about how to reach the current and future "invisible cyclists" through this event.

We can gauge participation by the numbers of people who checked in at the 58 pit stops across the region, and estimate very roughly the socioeconomic status of participants by where the pit stops are located. Total check-ins ranged from nearly 1,000 at the 2 most central, in Rosslyn and downtown DC, all the way down to 5 people in Takoma at Langley Crossroads.

Pit stop location

One way to increase diversity could be to add more pit stops in different parts of the region. Despite significant work by WABA over the last year to reach out to Wards 7 & 8, there was only one pit stop in the whole of both wards. That stop, in downtown Anacostia, saw 14 people. Ward 7 had no pit stops at all.

In fact, with the exception of National Harbor and Indian Head, right on the Potomac, there were no pit stops in southern Prince George's county either, leaving the entire southeast quadrant of the region without a place to participate.

We shouldn't expect new cyclists to take on a major ride beyond a couple of miles. Even if some newcomers were feeling ambitious, many areas in the suburban counties don't offer safe biking routes in employment districts. Therefore, biking to transit has to be a key strategy to Bike to Work Day.

There were pit stops at many VRE and MARC stations to the south and north of the District, enabling commuters to potentially ride shorter distances to their local train station. Of course, MARC & VRE ridership is itself relatively homogenous.

Wards 7 and 8, as well as much of Prince George's, are not bike friendly. Anacostia River crossings are often downright dangerous on a bike. So promoting biking to work in these communities depends all the more on the first/last mile connection to transit. Yet no Metro stations on the southern Green Line or eastern Blue and Orange Lines had pit stops.

Many of these stations are located in relatively residential neighborhoods, meaning the comfort and safety barrier to biking is relatively low. Why not have pit stops at them?

Obviously it takes resources and volunteers to set up pit stops. Businesses often host stops in hopes of driving sales. Most volunteers want to host pit stops in their communities instead of traveling across the region to some other location they don't know well.

But perhaps in the future, some supporters could sponsor pit stops in neighborhoods where there may not be such natural hosts. We could also look beyond the WABA members and the cycling community for volunteers. Perhaps community action organizations could help address the challenge of volunteers?

These stops may have relatively low attendance, but I think the benefit of a few people participating in these areas would be much greater than the marginal benefit of a few more people checking in in upper Montgomery County.

Pit stop timing

Another way to increase diversity would be to schedule pit stops for more time periods. The vast majority of stops were set up for 2-3 hours between from 6 and 9 am. Only 4 pit stops were open later. 3 stuck it out until 10 am, and the Indian Head, Maryland stop on the east bank of the Potomac was open until 11.

In Columbia Heights and Falls Church, organizers set up an afternoon "Bike from Work Day" pit stop from 4-7 pm. Even with that one exception, Bike to Work Day clearly catered primarily to those people starting work by 9:30am and leaving by 6:30.

Many low-income workers work at other times, like a shift job from 5 am to 2 pm. Many may already be riding a bike to work out of necessity. And if they aren't, they may be spending significant portions of their income on more expensive modes of transportation. Being introduced to cycling could help keep more money in these workers' pockets.

Those that are riding, frequently ride any bike they can get a hold of, not the median-priced $1,000 bike you see mostly at Bike to Work Day pit stops. Of any cyclists on the road, they likely could most use a tune-up, a new light, pant leg strap, or other safety schwag typically being given away at BTWD. Lastly, they are a population group that could be much better represented in bike planning and advocacy.

Of course, the lack of pit stops in the poorest areas of the region is a challenge to getting these cyclists, whether seasoned or new, to participate. However, the map above shows that, despite the blank space east of the river and in southern Prince George's, many pit stops are already in higher-poverty areas. This is all the more reason to explore ways to diversify the pit stop hours.

Pit stops with different hours would also face challenges in recruiting volunteers. Again this is where we need to think creatively about making alliances beyond the existing cycling community.

BTWD organizers collected a lot of information about participants. It would be interesting to do some analysis on this data to see where the people who checked in at the biggest, most central pit stops were coming from. This could give us a better idea of how lopsided the participation truly is.

Bike to Work Day is a very valuable part of cycling advocacy. Reaching the invisible cyclist is no easy task. It won't be easy, but with some planning and effort, Bike to Work Day could be a major opportunity to better include these current and potential cyclists.