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ANN ARBOR, Mich., – Studies have shown wearing a helmet while riding a bicycle reduces one’s risk of death by more than 50 percent, yet every three days, a child in the United States is killed while riding a bicycle, and every day at least 100 children are treated in emergency rooms due to bicycle-related head injuries.

A report released today by the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health reveals that in areas where no bicycle helmet laws exist, nearly one-half of children, ages 4-17, never wear a helmet.

“These statistics underscore the importance of helmet laws to help prevent death and injury from children not wearing helmets while riding their bikes,” says Matthew Davis, M.D., director of the National Poll on Children’s Health. “Yet only twenty one states have helmet use laws for children.”

Data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration indicate universal bicycle helmet use by children, ages 4-15, would prevent about 40,000 head injuries and about 50,000 scalp and face injuries every year.

While the poll shows helmet use is better in areas where helmet laws exist (54 percent of parents report their children always wear a helmet while riding a bike), the poll also measured adults’ awareness of helmet laws in their communities and whether or not they would support new laws if none existed.

Forty-one percent of parents said they were unsure about helmet use laws in their communities. Overall, 86 percent of respondents would support helmet laws for children in their communities.

The poll also shows that other barriers to helmet use exist for some parents whether or not laws exist in their areas. Among parents who report their child never wears a helmet, 32 percent believe they are too expensive. One in two children in the lowest income families making less than $30,000 per year never wear a helmet.

As children age, self concept and image may play a role in their decisions about whether or not they will wear a helmet. Among children who never use helmets, 59 percent of parents report that their children do not like wearing helmets.

“Wearing a bicycle helmet is essentially a health behavior,” Davis says. “It is not yet a fashion statement. For many kids — especially older kids — there is a tension between this healthy behavior and being seen as cool or acceptable by their peers. There is a challenge here for health care providers and public health officials to communicate that wearing a helmet is actually the cool thing to do besides being the healthy thing to do.”

The poll also finds:

• 78 percent of parents report children ages 4-17 ride bicycles.
• 27 percent never wear their helmets while riding their bikes.
• Among children ages 4-11, 53 percent always wear helmet while riding bikes, while only 29 percent of children ages 12-17 always wear helmets while riding bikes.
• In states and communities that have bicycle laws, 54 percent of children 14-17 always wear a helmet, while only 24 percent of children always wear a helmet in places without a bicycle helmet law for children.

“To try to increase helmet use across the country, there are at least three ways we can proceed. One way is to pass more helmet laws,” Davis says. “There is also a group of parents out there who really want their children to wear helmets but can’t afford them. We should be better at sharing information about the very successful state and local programs that provide free or cheap helmets for kids. The third opportunity here is to change how families view helmets in terms of how important it is to use them regularly. That is going to be perhaps the toughest because it involves communicating the benefits of the health behavior and really trying to make a longstanding difference in the attitudes of parents and in the communities that may not yet be on board with the use of bicycle helmets.”

Source: C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health

As reported in the May 30 CDT, Ferguson township has received a $3 million state grant to connect Old Gatesburg Road with Blue Course Drive. The grant was offered via the Pennsylvania Community Transportation Initiative and Safe Rides to Schools programs.

The initial report states that extension will feature an off lane bike path (likely similar to the existing Science Park Road path). Also noted was that Benner/Spring rail-trail and Millbrook Marsh bikeway projects were also in consideration.

FERGUSON TOWNSHIP — The township has captured a $3 million state grant to extend Old Gatesburg Road from Science Park Road to Blue Course Drive.

The money, the full amount applied for by the township, is the 80 percent state match of the estimated $3.7 million it will take to extend the two-lane road for the additional three-fourths of a mile. The township pays the rest.

The new township road will go through land owned by John Imbt that is in the planning stages for development into a mixed-use commercial and residential neighborhood. A traffic study is now in the works, and the township expects a master plan next month.

The undeveloped land north of the Imbt tract between Science Park Road and Blue Course Drive is Circleville Farm, for which development plans are less advanced.

Township public works director David Modricker said the Old Gatesburg Road extension is scheduled to be bid early next year and completed by year’s end.

The $3 million award to Ferguson was one of 80 transportation projects valued in all at $76 million announced across the state by Gov. Ed Rendell in the Pennsylvania Community Transportation Initiative and Safe Rides to Schools programs.

The award was one of four projects awarded in a 12-county central region of the state. The other three awards were valued in all at $1 million. The Ferguson project is

one of 12 projects in Centre County that were candidates for PCTI money, according to a Centre County Metropolitan Planning Organization list of candidate projects.

The other Centre County projects, according to the MPO list, included a $3.4 million application from State College for downtown streetlights and expansion, a $2 million application from Philipsburg for a downtown streetscape project, $2 million for a rail-trail project in Benner and Spring townships, and Penn State applications for a Millbrook Marsh bikeway and a University Park Airport control tower valued together at $3.8 million.

Modricker, asked to explain the township’s success, said the township, in applying five months ago, got letters of support from state Sen. Jake Corman, RBenner Township, and state Reps. Scott Conklin, D-Rush Township, and Mike Hanna, D-Lock Haven.

He said the program requirements included a con-text- sensitive design, quality-of- life improvements, town center development and an enhanced road network.

“As soon as I heard what the criteria were for the grant, I immediately thought of Old Gatesburg Road,” he said. “It just fit with everything they were looking for.”

PennDOT spokesman Rich Kirkpatrick said the projects were picked on merit. “Ferguson Township had a good Smart Transportation project and that was why they were picked,” he said.

Modricker said plans for the new road include at least one bus stop with a pulloff area and shelter. A sidewalk will parallel the road on one side and an off-lane bike path on the other. Curbing and a road spur for the extension were built into Blue Course Drive during construction six years ago.

Matthew Modine (yes, the actor and founder of Bicycle For A Day) has penned a condemnation of modern automobile society, urging everyone to get back to bicycling.

I am often asked, “Why do you love bicycles?” For a few reasons, but mostly because I am in love with self-propulsion and self-motivation. I love finding solutions to problems and I want to leave the world in better condition than when I arrived. For too long we’ve behaved as if the resources of our world are infinite. They are not. They are finite. The disappearing species around the globe should be a canary in the coal mine for all of us.

Have you ever been witness to a baby’s first steps? The open mouth smile and the parents, with arms outstretched, as the child wobbles into their waiting arms. With each step the child builds confidence and ventures further out into the world. I don’t remember my first steps, but I remember the first time I found my balance and pedaled away from my father as he let go of the seat of my first bike. I remember. My heart seemed to stop and I gasped for breath. Balance. More than just a word, a metaphor.

The bicycle provides a greater sense of self-propulsion because it can carry us further and faster than our feet. At some point during the mid 19th century, during the height of the industrial revolution, the love of two-wheeled transportation began to catch hold in different corners of the world. Since that time there have been countless shapes and forms. But each design provides the rider with the same freedom that the first model gave its operator, the ability to get from one place to another quickly and in style.

Sometimes I feel like I am flying when I ride my bike. It’s exciting to turn a corner and suddenly find myself in a sea of other bicyclists. They seem to share this feeling of self-empowerment. In love with the knowledge that, as they pass through the air that surrounds them, they are not polluting what we all share and breathe. Bicyclists are free from the petroleum products that have compromised our global environment. They don’t have to worry about paying for parking, tipping valets, car insurance, car inspections or car maintenance. And this makes them smile. And, as an added bonus, bicyclists are less tense than the people belted into their metal, four-wheeled boxes.

The statistical truth is that 90% of trips made in cars are less than five miles from our homes. A very comfortable journey made on a bicycle. In addition to saving the aforementioned automobile expenses, riding a bike–just a couple hours a week–will reduce a person’s risk of heart attack and stroke by 50%, not to mention reduce the risks of obesity and diabetes, two of the biggest killers in the United States. The more people that ride bikes, the safer it gets to share the road with pedestrians and cars.

Perhaps the best part of choosing a bike instead of a car is what you are saying by pedaling. You are saying to yourself, your friends, your family, and the cars that clog our roads and highways, that you care about the air we breathe and that you care about the environment. You’re saying you want to do something to reduce carbon emissions and that you want to improve your health. This personal and environmental awareness is the legacy that you want to share with your friends and family. You are a person that wants to pose beside your new bicycle instead of a new car. Not to mention how much fun it is to ride. The Zen of bicycling is way cooler than the art of motorcycle maintenance.

Our country has had a long love affair with the automobile. Since its invention, the automobile has provided us with the freedom and liberty we yearned for since we took those first baby steps. The automobile took us further and faster than we could have ever done by self-propulsion. But that speed and distance has brought the world to the edge of extinction. We must now look at the automobile with an understanding of what it really is. We must look at the movies and songs that celebrated the automobile with a new consciousness and awareness. We must look at the automobile as a cigarette–a cancer stick–a nail in our collective coffin. The sexy lifestyle that the tobacco industry sold to us contains the same advertising lies and poison which the automobile industry sold and continues to sell to the world. Look at the ads for automobiles and you’ll begin to recognize the lies. You’ll see open roads with happy smiling drivers. Ask yourself, When was the last time I was NOT stuck in traffic? When was the last time I was not pissed off and stressed out after just a few hours spent driving behind the wheel of a car? The automobile ads always present cars in a setting that is free of traffic and the drivers appear powerful, happy and liberated behind the wheel. Yeah, like that ever happens in the modern world.

Just as tobacco has killed millions with different forms of cancer, the automobile industry and the pollution that has spewed from exhaust pipes ever since Henry Ford’s Model ‘A’ rolled off the assembly line, must be looked upon as a carton of cigarettes and a cancer to civilization. The automobile industry should not be bailed out so it can continue to manufacture the same product. The automobile industry should be transformed into an industry that builds non-combustion engines. They should be given contracts to build new light rail trains that can carry passengers comfortably and safely. And the light rail cars should have bike racks so passengers can get home from commutes too long to be made by bicycle. Imagine how many jobs could be created if the US supported light and heavy rail systems. The car is a mode of transportation that cannot propel itself or our country into the future. The burning of fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine is dead. Raise your glass to self-propulsion! Long live the bicycle.