TheWashCycle

Thursday Morning Commute - reasonably successful

WABA has a recap of the Maryland General Assembly successes for cylists. 

• A bill to make bicycling on sidewalks legal unless the locality prohibits it did not get out of committee
• Delegate Maggie McIntosh (D-Baltimore) decided not to push the helmet law she proposed once she heard from advocates opposing it.
• As a result of the increase in the gas tax, the state will be able to proceed with its Capital Transportation Plan, which allocates about 7 percent of the funding to bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure.
• The Safe Passing Bill championed by Bike Maryland failed

In addition

The Maryland Court of Appeals is considering a case that could, if successful, repeal the doctrine of contributory negligence.

Gas Tax Passes Maryland House

House Bill 1515 passed the House of Delegates today 78-56.  The bill now goes to the Senate.

This bill is very important for bicycling because it will provide the funding needed to convert some of the unfriendly state higways into complete streets. But the current tax is not enough for capital improvements; available funds are only enough to repave the existing roads.  MDOT will also have money for some key trails.  And the bill will enable continued planning and design for the Purple Line (and therefore the Capital Crescent Trail in Silver Spring).

If enacted, the bill will add a 1% sales tax to gasoline starting this July 1, another 1% on December 1, 2014, and a final 1% on June 1, 2015. The bill also specifies that the existing per-gallon portion of the fuel tax will rise with the Consumer Price Index (the current tax is 23.5 and 24.25 cents per gallon for gasoline and diesel, respectively).

In addition, the sales tax could eventually go up another 2% unless Maryland starts collecting sales and use tax on sales by out of state sellers (e.g. internet sales).  If internet sellers continue to get a free ride, the sales tax on gasoline will go up to 4% on December 1, 2015 and 5% on June 1, 2016.  But the extra 1-2% will be automatically repealed whenever Maryland starts collecting taxes on the out-of-state sellers.

Passage has been expected since Wednesday night, when several amendments were defeated:

• By a vote of 81-50, the House rejected an amendment by Delegate Haddaway-Riccio that would limit the annual increase in the tax to 1 penny per gallon.  That would have been a real killer because it would not have prevented the tax from ratcheting down during years when the price of gasoline falls.  (The bill was amended to limit the inflation adjustment to 8% per year, but that does not apply to the sales tax portion.)
• The house also rejected by 82-46 an amendment by Delegate Schuh to ratchet-down the fraction of the proceeds available for transit from around 46% down to 35%.
• Delegate Krebs proposed making the entire tax hike contingent on the General Assembly passing a constitutional amendment preventing transportation trust revenues being transferred to the general fund.  That amendment lost 78-56.
• Delegate Bates proposed requiring gas stations to prominently post the amount of tax revenue for each gallon sold.  Some do voluntarily, but the proposal to make that mandatory failed 85-43.

The bill also will ensure that fares for transit provided by the Maryland Transit Administration rise with inflation.

If you get a chance, I recommend watching the hearing for the bill in the House Ways and Means Committee.  Aside from the need to fund transportation, the most common theme was that highway users are getting a terrible deal because the gas tax subsidizes transit, and the transportation trust fund sometimes lends money to the general fund.  None of us showed up to point out that actually, the general fund is subsidizing the transportation trust fund because gasoline and auto sales are exempt from the sales tax which funds the general fund.

The Legislators seemed to accept the claim that drivers are subsidizing transit, but they view that as a necessary subsidy, at least for now.  The reality is that the general fund is subsidizng transt and (to a lesser extent) highways a well.  The bill provides for some studies that will be quite useful, on alternative ways to fund transit, such as a taxing authority.  While those ideas undoubtedly are worth pursuing, transit and bicycle advocates probably should be encouraging MDOT to adopt a more honest accounting of who is subsidizing whom.

(Jim Titus is a cycling advocate from Prince Georges County.  The opinions expressed here do notnecessarily represent the opinion of any organization with which he is affiliated.)

 

Tuesday Morning Commute - Logo

Good morning

• Many DC bridges need repairs. Could these represent opportunities for better bike connections?
• BAC testifies before the DC Council at the annual oversight hearing. 
• The Washington state representative who claimed that heavy breathing by cyclists contributes to climate change backpedals.
• The League gets a new logo. 

Monday Afternoon Commute - Increased heart rate and respiration

Good afternoon.

• A cyclist in the Ashburn area was hit Sunday morning and badly injured. The driver left the scene, but was arrested later. He has been charged with reckless driving and hit-and-run.
• Anyone can be a State Legislator...and anyone is. 
• A Nevada lawmaker wants to make texting while crossing the street illegal.

Improvement to Maryland Three-Foot Law Defeated in Committee

The Environmental Matters Committee gave an unfavorable report yesterday to House Bill 445, which would have removed the "narrow highway" exception to Maryland's three-foot safe passing statute.  The Committee also rejected HB 160, which would have legalized riding bikes on sidewalks in localities with no local laws on the subject (Baltimore, Montgomery, Prince Georges, and Howard have local laws.)

As we've discussed before on the Washcycle, Maryland's three-foot law has four confusing exceptions.  One of those exceptions allows drivers to pass with less than three feet of clearance if the highway is too narrow for a driver to pass with three feet of clearance.  No one knows precisely what that exception means:  Bike Maryland thinks that this exception refers to virtually every two-lane road with a double yellow line, while I think that, regardless of what was in the mind of Delegate Malone when he inserted the provision, the rules of statutory construction mean that the exception only applies to narrow highways (e.g. country roads or one-lane bridges).  But if the cycling advocates can't agree on what it means, clearly the statute needs clarification.  The best way to clarify the statute would have been to eliminate this exception, which this bill would have done.

Why did the bill fail?  We don't know yet, though some of the contributing factors are obvious. Cycling advocates have focused more on HB 339, the mandatory helmet bill.  Two weeks ago, ten advocates showed up to a hearing at the Environmental Matters Committee, and passionately offered a wide array of arguments against the helmet bill. About 20 minutes later, Delegate Cardin presented the safe-passing bill to the same commitee, and only three of those advocates testified, along with Bike Maryland (which has taken no position on the helmet bill).  None of the advocates were as passionate about the three-foot bill as they were in opposing the helmet bill.

The truck drivers opposed the safe-passing bill, and interpret the existing law the same way Bike Maryland construes it.  They want to be able to pass cyclists more closely than three feet if the alternatives are to cross the double yellow line or wait.  Trucks are wider than cars:  It will often be possible for a car and a bike to share a lane with a three-foot clearance (if the cyclist hugs the edge).  But a 9-foot truck can only pass with 1-foot of clearance, and the truckers want to be able to continue doing so.  One representative added that they can't really tell whether they are passing with 3' feet or 2'6" anyway.  None of the cycling advocates made a strong case for why a safety buffer is more important than giving truckers what they want.

Another contributing factor was that Delegate Cardin also seemed to be preoccupied with other matters.  His presentation starts at 1:25:00 in the video of the hearing.  There was a subsequent colloquy with Delegate Vitale in which it became clear that the committee and Delegate Cardin had different versions of the bill (1:35:00).  A few minutes later, (1:38:00) Delegate Cardin closed that colloquy by providing an explanation that seemed to more closely resemble last year's bill than this year's bill.

If these are the reasons the bill failed this year, I hope that Delegate Cardin and Bike Maryland will stick with this version of the bill and try again next year.  It was a step in the right direction, and the fact that we did not convince the Committee this year had more to do with the fact that our minds were elsewhere than the merits of the bill.

With a little more preparation, we can make the case for removing the narrow-highway exception.  The idea that trucks should be able to pass bikes with less clearance than cars, simply because trucks are wider, is absurd.

(Jim Titus is a cycling advocate from Prince George's County.  The opinions expressed here do not represent the views of any organization with which he is affiliated.)

 

Cyclists testify against mandatory helmet bill

Bicyclists opposing the mandatory helmet bill showed up and highlighted a wide array of problems with the bill. Here is a quick guide to the video of yesterday's hearing of House Bill 339 

First the bill was introduced by Delegate McIntosh.  At about the 5-minute mark, she says that 97% of the cyclists killed in New York were not wearing a helmet.  There may be some other statistics in her testimony that we need to investigate.  She also says that helmets protect against 75-97% of head injurise about a minute later.

9:28  Director of Center for Injury Prevention and Policy and the Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland endorses the bill, without really getting into the specifics.

12:00  Councilwoman Nancy Floreen talks about a bicycle crash she had 15 years ago.

The chairman also introduced the written testimony from the Maryland Department of Transportation, which was neutral on the bill but echoed some of the higher-end estimates of helmet effectiveness from the Naitonal Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (85-88%).  MDOT also refers to an un-named synthesis of 18 studies as having found that helmets reduce head and brain injury 70-88%; but since the Atwell et al. (2001) study's estimate was 33-74%, the basis of that characterization is unclear.  MDOT also cited the opinions of a pro-helmet law NGO without citing the views of the anti-helmet law NGO, before pointing out at the end that the number of deaths nationwide is small.

Here are the approxmiate times on the video for witnesses against the bill, with links to the written version if I have it.  In several cases, the written and oral testimony are very different. I have only listed affiliations for people who represented an organization.  The lawmakers asked a number of questions after the 4th and 8tth presentations, with Delegate McMillan picking up on the idea that pedestrians need helmets as much as cyclists.

22:40   A representative of a motorcyclists association

25:45   Shane Farthing  (WABA).  The proposed law could make cyclists less safe.

29:56   Jim Titus.  Proponents misrepresent research about how much protection helmets provide..

33:12   Jim Hudnall.  Big difference between saying people should wear helmets and making everybody wear them all the time. 

40:28   Jon Morrison (MoBike)   Where does it all end?

44:20   Chris Meriam.  This law will undermine what Baltimore has done to promote cycling.

46:20   Jeff Weeks (Bikemore)   This law might compromise cyclist's ability to recover damages,.

47:55   Penny Troutner (Light Street Cycles).  Bike laws often a pretext for singling out minorities.

62:24   Nate Evans.  I'll take my chances if this law is passed.

65:30   Joshua Rohrer.  Bike helmets are incompatible with my religious practices.

(Jim Titus is a cycling advocate from Prince Georges County.  The opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of any organization with which he is affiliated.)

 

 

Helmets could reduce injuries by about 10-20%

The proposed bike helmet law in Maryland came as a bit of a surprise, so we have less time to learn the facts than we would have preferred.  Your comments were very helpful.  Thanks.

Here I am going to drill down into one aspect of the issue, not because it is the only important argument, but because it's potentially the most confusing.  Please let me know what I got wrong within the narrow confines of this part of the story.

In Maryland, there are 500-600 bicycle injuries per year, with head injuries about 40% of the time and about 10 fatalities. There are also about 100 pedestrian fatalities per year. Because the proposed law applies to cyclists but not pedestrians, by design it is already omitting 90% of the potential fatality reduction in bike-ped fatalities.  What's the most that we might expect the law to accomplish?

There are three ways people assess helmet effectiveness: By considering the design, case-control studies, and population studies.

The Design.

Bike helmets do two things: Like all helmets, they spread the shock around the skull, so if a rock hits your helmet, it will feel like I slapped the top of your head. And like a motorcycle helmet, they spread the shock out over time when the foam compresses. So if your helmet hits a brick wall at 20 mph, it will feel as if your head hit some very rigid Styrofoam at 20 mph.

Bike helmets are a compromise between a motorcycle helmet and nothing. They are designed to work best for the force from simply falling without colliding from a stationary position. So they are most effective for children, pedestrians, and low speeds. But if you want to be protected at high speeds or collisions, you probably need something else.

Motorcycle helmets cover your whole head and face, while bike helmets only go down to the middle of the forehead. So if the force strikes lower in the head or face, motorcycle helmets protect you while bike helmets do not. More importantly, motor cycle helmets stay on your head, while bike helmets often fall or move during an accident, both because they rely more on their chin straps, and because many adults and most children mount them incorrectly. Bike helmets often break, which may limit their effectiveness in an accident involving two hits to the head.

Finally, bike helmets increase the risk of neck injuries by increasing the radius of your head by 25-50%. That increases the probability that your head will be twisted by something that would have missed an unhelmeted head, and it also provides greater torque to whatever force is applied.

Case-Control studies

The best way to know the effectiveness of a drug or helmet is to get a representative sample of the population, and then randomly assign them to the test group or the control group. Such an experiment allows one to reliably estimate effectiveness subject to a statistical margin of error. But we don’t know who will be involved in a crash, and if we did, it would be unethical to tell them whether to wear a helmet. Instead, researchers collect data after the fact.

In 1989, Thompson et al. obtained data from Seattle hospitals for two groups of cyclists who went to the hospital after a crash. Only 7% of the first group wore a helmet, and they all had head injuries. But 24% of the second group wore helmets, and none of them had head injuries. Assuming that both groups were the same except for the type of injury they experienced, these results imply that helmets reduced head injuries by 75%. Thompson et al. realized that the two groups were different, ran regression analysis on the data to isolate the effects of helmets and found that helmets were even more effective: 85%.

That study led the researchers to start saying two things that have almost become mantras among many public safety advocates: “Helmets reduce head injuries by 85%” and “The most important thing you can do to be safe on a bike is wear a helmet.”

In the last 24 years, similar studies have found that helmets reduce head injuries, but to a less extent than in the Seattle Study. A comprehensive synthesis of all studies in 2001 estimated 53--63% effectiveness, but because helmets increase neck injuries, the net effectiveness is 41--50%. Studies in the last decade have estimated that helmets only prevent 20-40% of potential head injuries, so the most recent synthesis of all studies ever published finds the helmets reduce head injuries by 30--50% and total injuries by 10--20%, when you include the increased neck injuries. But we still hear the refrain “helmets reduce injuries up to 85%!”

Why have the estimates come down? Mainly because none of these studies are truly controlled experiments: On average, the people that go to the hospital without helmets were more likely than the people with helmets to be drunk, riding at night without lights, have lower income and education, to be riding on the streets rather than a trail, and to have collided with an automobile. The researchers have gotten increasingly sophisticated about trying to isolate some of those factors, but they usually don’t have data for all of them.  So the actual effectiveness is probably at the low end of the uncertainty range, especially for adults.

Population studies

Studies of entire populations are less precise than case-control studies, but they are also less likely to have a biased data set.  If we had data on miles biked and total injuries by state or city, an estimate of helmet usage, and decent injury data, we could compare injury rates in cities or states with high helmet use to those with low use---or areas with and without mandatory helmet laws.  Unfortunately, while there is some data on injuries, states generally do not keep annual data on miles biked, so valid population studies on helmet effectiveness are not possible. 

Such studies have been done in Australia and New Zealand, in response to mandatory helmet laws.  Those studies did not detect a significant reduction in injuries attributable to helmets.  In one case, there was a large reduction in injuries when the helmet law went into effect, but there was also a proportional reduction in cycling at the same time.

A rough comparison across nations is possible as shown in the figure. The United States has high rates of fatalities and helmet use, while the Netherlands has low rates of both. This does not mean that helmets increase the risk of injuries. But it does show the helmets are not the most important thing one can do to promote bicycle safety.

If the proposed law successfully increases the use of helmets by 20%, it is likely to prevent about 10-20 injuries per year, and possibly save someone’s life every year or two.  I leave it to others to assess whether that would outweigh the premature deaths the law would cause due to decreased cycling.

(Jim TItus is a bicycle advocate from Prince George County.  The opinions expressed here do not represent the official view of any organization with which he is affiliated.)

Time to explain why helmet laws don't work, again

Time to dust off all those compelling arguments for why mandatory helmet laws are counterproductive.  A bill in the Maryland House of Delegates would require all cyclists to wear helmets.  What's worse, the bill is cosponsored by a majority of the members of the Transportation Subcommittee of the Environmental Matters Committee, to which the bill has been referred.

I heard at an MDOT meeting a few months ago that a mandatory helmet law might be the price of fixing the 3-foot law, and almost every cyclist in the room said they would rather see both laws fail than both pass.  But some state officials (not from MDOT) were more sympathetic.  I was meaning to ask you for help in persuading some of those state officials, who advise departmental heads who, on occasion, have endorsed mandatory helmet legislation.

While I sometimes post articles on the Washcycle related to things I have been working on, in this case, I am soliciting input on a matter where most of what I know I have learned from you.

The obvious argument is that the requirement to wear a helmet will keep certain law-abiding citizens from riding a bike when they don't have their helmet.  That will kill bikeshare in Maryland--and it may prevent alot of other cycling.  The reduction in cycling will mean that some health and environmental benefits from cycling will be lost. 

What we need, is an estimate of the actual effect of a helmet law:  Presumably, it has little effect on people riding with hemlets anyway.  For those rides where a cyclist lacks a helmet today, what portion of those rides

• are unchanged--the cyclist ignores the law
• are cancelled due to lack of a helmet
• take place with a helmet as the law induces the cyclist to wear the helmet

The less obvious arguments, for which maybe someone has a good citation, concerns the circumstances in which a helmet has no net safety advantage.  If you know you will ride under some branches 2 inches above your head, you will be better off without the helmet.  Are there circumstances where someone would reasonably decide that this particular ride is safer without the helmet?  Otherwise, what is the incidence of accidents when helmet make things worse, compared to making things better?

The state official sitting next to me chuckled when I told him:  You would save more lives by requiring small children  to wear helmets when riding cars on interstate highways.  I have no data to back that up, it just seems likely that small children benefit from helmets so much more than adults that there are circumstances where children would benefit from helmets more than an adult cyclist.   Should I have suggested that children wear helmets before crossing the street?  Is there any research to make such a point on relative risk?

Finally, if they really want to help cycling safety, I wonder whether there are other equipment options that would do more good.  For example, requiring tail lights at night and enforcing the law on headlights?  Would raising the age where helmets are required from 16 to 18 be reasonable?  How about prohibiting pedestrians walking with their back to traffic at night from being entirely dressed in dark clothing?

Like it or not, Maryland is a state where people agree with the mandatory seatbelt and airbag laws. At first glance, mandatory helmet seem to be similar--and cyclists arguing against those laws sound like the libertarians that opposed seatbelt laws.  We need to learn how to explain to legislators and other state officials that actually, the helmet laws are very different.

(Jim Titus is a bicycle advocate from Prince Georges County)

Thursday Afternoon Commute - If I hit a young skateboarder with my car door, well...she had it coming

Good afternoon

• Fairfax Senator discusses the dooring bill. But Sen. Frank "Get off my lawn" Wagner (R-Virginia Beach) adds "He said he owns a house in Richmond near Virginia Commonwealth University, where young cyclists and skateboarders "come out of nowhere" _ particularly at night _ and whiz past cars parallel-parked on the street. 'To say because I open the door and some idiot runs into it and I'm at fault and I could be sued _ I've got huge problems with this bill,' Wagner said."
• This article on how every method of getting the Mall for the inauguration has drawbacks doesn't mention what the drawbacks are to biking. Maybe they're self-evident
• The same Virginia panel that moved the dooring law out of committee rejected legislation to relax Virginia's reckless driving-speeding law.  You may recall that there was some controversy over this because drivers were loosing their license after going 10 mph over the speed limit. 
• Likely new White House Chief of Staff doesn't bike commute so much anymore because of scrapes with drivers, but he might have fewer if he got off the phone. 
• Halsey steals my story idea (I have a draft half finished). The inauguration will show off DC's new bike facilities "We are very proud that the nation will get to see why D.C. is now regarded as one of the most bicycle friendly cities in the nation,” said Terry Bellamy, director of the District Department of Transportation.

Thursday Morning Commute - in disregard of approaching traffic

For a while there I thought no one was reading the blog anymore. I had gotten no comments since Saturday, but it turns out gmail was just treating them as junkmail. For a while there I thought SJE was sick or something.

• Everything you might want to know about biking to the Inauguration (and more here). CaBi is setting up a bike corral until Thrusday, and if twitter is to be believed, they're in discussions to have a bike corral downtown every weekday starting in the spring. 
• On Wed., Jan. 23, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., WABA will be hosting an open house at their office in Adams Morgan. This will be a low-key opportunity for people interested in participating in Maryland and DC planning efforts and testifying or presenting at public meetings to meet their fellow bicyclists, review background materials, ask questions, and get a better understanding of what’s going on in D.C. and Maryland.
• Support a sidewalk on Wisconsin Avenue.
• A Virginia bill aims to make those little stop signs on the W&OD Trail (and other trails)enforceable and set a fine of $100. It made it out of committee. As did a bill to make it illegal to follow too closely. Here are some other bills of note. 
• More on the Trolley Trail-surrounding Cafritz project.
• Driver pleads guilty to vehicular homicide and driving while intoxicated in Rehobeth Beach Henman fatality. "His attorney, John Sandy, told the Cape Gazette he expects Meegan to serve at least 20 months in jail and that he faces a possible maximum sentence 16 and a half years." And an Arlington driver has been charged with involuntary manslaughter after running a red light and killing a pedestrian.