Andre Riopel wears a helmet - when he's in a car!

After issuing a challenge to City Council members to ditch their cars and bike to this week's council meeting in honour of Bike to Work Week, Andre Riopel cycled up to City Hall san helmet.

As an outspoken advocate for local cycling initiatives and safety, Riopel's actions appear to have surprised a lot of people.

When asked in a SooToday.com poll this week, an overwhelming 79.02 percent of readers indicated they believe Riopel should wear a helmet while cycling.

The following is Riopel's response.

************************* Hey David:

I was truly honored to be the subject of your recent poll.

Even more so, I never realized that so many people cared about my wellbeing!

Let me assure everyone that I do wear a helmet when engaging in dangerous cycling activities like racing and mountain biking.

Being a man of science, I have researched the issue extensively.

My decisions to adopt safety measures are based on facts rather than perception and as such, I wear a helmet according to actual risk.

Since 49 percent of head injuries are incurred in motor vehicle collisions and less than two percent from cycling accidents, I keep my helmet in the car. When cycling I avoid dangerous behaviours such as:

- Riding on the sidewalk.

- Riding against the flow of traffic. - Riding at night without lights. There is no doubt that when you slam your noggin against something hard, a little bit of Styrofoam will cushion the blow.

According to research, the risk of head injury cycling in an urban area by a trained cyclist is minimal.

Of course the media (other than Sootoday.com) do not always do their homework when presenting factual information and we end up with a misinformed public.

In this instance it is responding to an overzealous head injury lobby group who would not dare suggest that if we really wanted to reduce head injuries in our society we would have a mandatory helmet law for motorists.

Like photo radar, even though we know it works this would not be politically expedient.

In the meantime, get your bikes out, wear your helmet if you wish, and sign up at [email protected] to win a free bike!

Contest ends May 28! And keep the rubber side down.

- Andre

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