Universal Bicycle Helmet Law Proposed in Ontario
Abstracted from the Ottawa Citizen (November 5, 2004)
Members of Ontario’s Provincial Parliament have approved in principle a bill requiring adults to wear helmets on roads when they are on bicycles, skates, or scooters. The bill, which has already passed two readings, must undergo a third reading before it can be passed into law.
At present, only children under age 18 are required to wear bicycle helmets in Ontario. Legislators have cited research showing a 26 percent drop in head injuries among Ontario children since the helmet rule came into effect in 1995.
“There are those who say that this bill will interfere with basic human rights and freedoms, and I guess there are a number of arguments to address that.” According to John Milloy, sponsor of the bill, “The most obvious one is that [in Canada] we have a public health care system. The cost of treating someone in that system who has had a preventable accident is something that we should not bear. It’s something we should ask people to pevent.”
[Editor's Note: Presently universal bicycle helmet laws are in effect in three Canadian provinces – Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and British Columbia. Nova Scotia’s law, besides requiring helmet use for all ages, provides for the 30-day confiscation of bicycles and skateboards in case of non-compliance.]
back
to Headlines
|
