Editor, The News:
Re: What does bike helmet bylaw really do? (Cycling, Feb. 10).
I read Jackie Chow’s article with a great deal of amusement at her lack of knowledge.
My mother is Dutch, and I have spent a lot of time in Holland.
It is a country that covers only 2.5 times the land area of Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, with a population more than six times what we have here, or half of Canada’s population.
Furthermore, the change in altitude from Maple Ridge municipal hall to Port Hammond is more than the greatest elevation change in all of Holland.
They have a bicycle culture that pre-dates the first white man’s house in this region, and have had mass transit (horse drawn) before the first house was built in Quebec City.
With all this, you are still less likely to be hit by a car, while riding your bicycle on an Amsterdam street than you are while walking across Lougheed Highway at a green light.
We drive bigger cars, faster and with less attention than anybody over there. I would not dare to ride a bicycle here without a significant sense of imminent danger, and the knowledge that my helmet may not save my body from harm, but at least I am more likely to live to recover from my injuries than Ms. Chow will.
I forgot to mention: my nine-year old cycles to Laity View along 216th Street every day that it is not actually raining when he leaves. It’s a distance that would cross most Dutch towns.
In September, his was one of about six bicycles locked in the rack. In January, it’s the only one there.
Ben Fishman
Maple Ridge