The Law Offices of James M. Freeman, P.C.

We want to make bicycles easy to use. We want to encourage people to use them. The way to do this is not by adding restrictions to the use of bicycles.

I have heard arguments made that suggest that helmets are ineffective or actually cause some types of injuries, however, my personal experience leads me to believe that helmets have saved my life more than once. I will not argue that helmets are ineffective. Personally, I strongly believe they are very effective.

I like the idea that anyone can afford to use a bicycle. I know a guy who pulled a bike out of this Chicago River and rode it for six months before finding another better bike in the garbage. Bikes are cheap and easy to use, which is why they are such ideal transportation in the city. By adding restrictions to their use we will only make cycling harder to do for the average person, thus discouraging their use.

Helmet laws will hurt cyclists.
I don't know that many cyclists will comply with helmet laws in the absence of rigid enforcement. There is currently a law that requires messengers to wear helmets, but many do not. I suspect this is due to lax enforcement, and I expect that enforcement of an all-around helmet law will be as lax.

When a car hits a cyclist, the driver will be able to use a helmet violation against the cyclist possibly precluding recovery. Take the current headlight law example. In Illinois cyclists are required by law to use a white headlight and red rear reflector when riding at night. This law is seldom enforced, and many cyclists do not use a headlight. When they get into an accident with a driver at night the driver points out the lack of headlight, claims they didn't see the cyclist and the cyclist is unable to recover their medical bills or property damage. I expect the result would be similar with a helmet law.

Education not legislation.
Everyone knows that a helmet law will not be enforced. If it isn't enforced people will continue to use or not use helmets as they please. I'm not faulting the Chicago Police Department for lax enforcement, rather I am recognizing that they must make hard decisions about where to allocate their time and efforts. The CPD has limited resources and an infinite number of calls to duty, and my experience is that the CPD is more interested in fighting violent crime than rigid traffic enforcement.

I'm trying to educate people about how to safely and legally use their bicycles because I think that is the most effective way to reach cyclists. If we educate people about the advantages of helmets and the dangers of failure to use helmets we will probably convert just as many cyclists to helmet use as if we imposed a helmet law which, unenforced, will do much more harm to cyclists than good.