Bike helmets and hospitalizations for head injuries in Manitoba

For more than a decade now, backwards-thinking NDP and Tory governments in Manitoba have refused to join the rest of Canada in bringing in legislation for the mandatory use of bike helmets in Manitoba. This despite the ever growing evidence that such helmets reduce head injuries when bicycling.

Take for instance the recent data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information which clearly shows Manitoba lagging the rest of Canada when it comes to reducing hospitalizations of cyclicsts for head injuries.

Since 1994, there has only been a very small reduction in the number of such hospitalizations in Manitoba (11%). Meanwhile the reduction of hospitalizations of cyclicsts due to head injuries has gone down significantly in Quebec (33%), British Columbia (41%), Saskatchewan (48%), Alberta (49%), Ontario (54%), and in the Atlantic Provinces (56%). The difference? Almost all other provinces require mandatory use of helmets when bicycling.

Not only have the many years of NDP-Tory dinosaur government made us a have-not province with the worst health care in the country, now we are bringing up the rear in reducing head injuries.

It is time to bring Manitoba into the 21st century and start making good policy based on sound evidence. The evidence clearly shows that mandatory use of bike helmets reduces head injuries, hospitalizations and health care costs.

The question is: what in the world are the policy dinosaurs in the NDP waiting for? An ice age?