Photo by Yazmin Cruz
It was a typical Wednesday evening on the corner of Reseda Boulevard and Nordhoff Street, where red and white lights filled the streets as traffic moved along. Motorists, pedestrians and bicyclist were trying to go places when all of the sudden time stood still for a bicyclist.
A distracted driver nearly ran the beach cruiser bicyclist over as he was trying to make a right turn on Nordhoff Street.
The bicyclist, who was wearing a CSUN hoodie and was not wearing a helmet, managed to swerve to avoid getting hit. After a few seconds of panic she was able to pedal away unharmed.
There seems to be an increase of bicyclists on campus and on the roads these days. It can be argued that it is due to the recession and people trying to spend less on gas or people just being green. But what I have failed to see is the use of helmets.
In California, by law, bicycle riders under 18 years of age must wear a helmet while riding on a public road. If the bicyclist would have gotten hit, she may have ended up with a head injury or worst.
I can understand students not wearing helmets on campus grounds when they are riding from class to class but once on the streets helmets must be worn. Consider this, what’s more important your “coolness factor” or your brain?
In reference to helmets? I ride a motorcycle and a bicycle. I get heat exhaustion easily and feel nauseated and disorriented far quicker and easier than when I didn’t wear a helmet. As a bicyclist, it would be far greater than that. The intention of non-riders may be good, but their impositions cause far greater har than good, especially when those impositions remove the right of each individual ADULT to choose when and if to wear a helmet. I am 45 and have ridden a bicycle regularly since age 5 and a motorcycle since age 6, and relearned to ride a bigger bike since age 22. I still ride the bicycle daily since their is no law imposing the loss of my right to choose, but I don’t ride my motorcycle much at all since the imposition of forced helmet wearing without regard to the fact that heat rises to the top of helmet and those tiny little holes on the front forehead area serve no purpose except for decoration, if even that. Riding requires being 100% alert and driving for others basicly and constantly aware of the worst case scenario. A helmet would NOT have necssarily saved that girl’s life, nor protect her from being thrown off of her bike. I do the opposite of what today’s “expert’s” who are non-riders say to do. I use the sidewalks to ride on when the situation is ify and traffic is heavy, and I ride against the ffow of traffic so I can see how far out I am into traffic, to get a feel for when I need to jump onto a sidewalk, to see what’s is coming towards me and to make sure I am seen and have some kind of eye contact with a driver who is passing me. I have been riding this way for over 39 years. When pedestrians are on the sidewalk, I ride like molasses going up a hill. I stay alert of them, make eye contact and always give them the right of way I pass them with extreme caution and I do NOT wear a helmet. I am not interested in heat exhaustion/stroke and fainting so someone else can do even far worse to me if I’m not in the nicest of areas. Furthermore, the public needs to be on the lookout for both pedestrians and riders of all types. We now live in a society of drivers and those who no longer walk or ride as much as they did when I was in high school. At ages 19-23, I didn’t drive a car. I rode in every type of weather and got from Sherman Oaks to Venice Beach, Santa Monica, various parts of L.A. and he valley on a bicycle with no problems. The public was more aware of riders. This needs to happen again. We also wore bright colored clothing. White was the most common. We also rode with headlights and reflectors on our bikes. Especially on over-cast or not so bright days, my head light is on. Something to think about.
I have to disagree with making an exception for short rides around campus. You can just as easily have a collision or be thrown from your bike around campus as you can while in traffic. I contest that it could be potentially more dangerous because there aren’t really a uniform set of traffic laws for pedestrians around campus. I speak from experience too. I took a header over my handlebars when I clipped my back tire coming up onto the sidewalk. I broke my wrist, had pavement embedded in my legs and arms, and ended up with a huge crack in my helmet. Who knows how much more brain damage I could have suffered. :P