HIGHWAY TRAFFIC AMENDMENT ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 MODIFIANT LE CODE DE LA ROUTE
CONTENTS
Wednesday 27 November 1991
Highway Traffic Amendment Act, 1991, Bill 124 / Loi de 1991 modifiant le Code de la route, projet de loi 124
Elaine Pevcevicius
William Coffman
Adjournment
STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT
Chair: Kormos, Peter (Welland-Thorold NDP)
Vice-Chair: Waters, Daniel (Muskoka-Georgian Bay NDP)
Arnott, Ted (Wellington PC)
Cleary, John C. (Cornwall L)
Dadamo, George (Windsor-Sandwich NDP)
Huget, Bob (Sarnia NDP)
Jordan, Leo (Lanark-Renfrew PC)
Klopp, Paul (Huron NDP)
McGuinty, Dalton (Ottawa South L)
Murdock, Sharon (Sudbury NDP)
Ramsay, David (Timiskaming L)
Wood, Len (Cochrane North NDP)
Substitution: Cunningham, Dianne E. (London North PC) for Mr Jordan
Clerk pro tem: Manikel, Tannis
Staff: Luski, Lorraine, Research Officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1606 in committee room 1.
HIGHWAY TRAFFIC AMENDMENT ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 MODIFIANT LE CODE DE LA ROUTE
Resuming consideration of Bill 124, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act / Projet de loi 124, Loi portant modification du Code de la route.
ELAINE PEVCEVICIUS
The Chair: I want to apologize to you for making you wait, but we cannot start until all caucuses are represented. They are now. Thank you for coming here. We have in point form and well stated some of the issues you want to raise, if you would please comment on those, giving yourself perhaps five or 10 minutes to speak to us and then an equal amount of time for us to talk to you and ask questions, please.
Mrs Pevcevicius: I did not realize I was first, and I have never been to the Legislature before. Thank you for allowing me to be here.
The subject of bicycle helmets becoming a law is close to home to me. I brought a picture of my son, Adam. He is blowing out the candles of his birthday cake. He turned seven in September. Three weeks before this, he was involved in a bicycle accident where he had a serious head injury. Luckily I am one of the mothers who can say that my son has survived and is likely to lead a normal life, but it is through the grace of God, and I believe through the fact that I lived in a centre such as London where the Thames Valley Children's Treatment Centre has very trained physicians and the emergency care there is so excellent, that my son suffered as little damage as he did.
I did not see his accident happen myself, but his friend said that he was unconscious for a few minutes before they came and got me. Upon taking him to the hospital, after a point he lost the use of his left side. He seizured. There were a few hours where we were not sure if he was going to live. It was 24 hours before we knew exactly that in all likelihood he was going to recover from this accident.
I am sure you are going to get many statistics in front of you. I know I have read them. I have got information from Dianne Cunningham's office on some of the statistics, and my son is now going to be one of the 5,000 seriously injured each year. I felt that as a mother it is my duty to show you that these are real children, that it is not just a number, and that this could have been averted by his wearing a helmet.
This just happened three months ago, so we still do not know exactly what the damage is. The doctors are concerned about some of his recall. In technical terms, the brain is not quite functioning yet. He is still going to be going through many tests. The amount of money that was spent on his being in the hospital for several tests and the rehabilitation that is going on now -- the expense is in no way going to compare with the cost of a $30 bicycle helmet.
Psychologically too it is hard for a child who has been through an accident like this. Even a month ago, I wanted to take him to his cousin's for the weekend, and all of a sudden he just got distraught and said: "What's the use? I'm going to be dying anyway." Children who are in a traumatic accident like that do not understand what is going on around them. Even if it is explained to them, they always think their parents are keeping something from them. It has just been very hard on him.
Even though in all likelihood he is going to recover, he has to spend the next year doing nothing that could hurt him again. The doctors have stated that a re-injury sometimes is worse than the first injury, so as a result of that, even though he feels fine now, he cannot go on the climbers and he cannot participate in gym or anything like the other kids are doing. Although we are thankful that he is alive and he can at least do those kinds of things, it is very hard for a child. A year is a long time for a child; 15 minutes is a long time for a child. He just does not understand why he cannot do things like the other children.
Besides the effect it has had on Adam, it has also had a serious effect on all those who love him. It has been very difficult. For me to actually talk about what happened at the time of his accident is very painful.
I have heard that in the helmet law they are talking about perhaps only making it mandatory for children to wear helmets and not adults. I just do not feel that would work. Children look up to adults for support, and I feel that if adults are not made to wear helmets, it would be a mixed message to the children.
After the accident happened, I really took a look around at people who were riding bicycles. I am from London, Ontario, and almost every adult I see in London riding a bike wears a helmet. I would say 90% of the adults I see in London are wearing a helmet and probably 2% of children. I do not know if the adults are wearing it because they are so aware of the safety value or whether it is trendy for adults to wear it now, but I would like it to be trendy for children to wear it as well.
I read in one article, I am not sure if it was California or where it was, but they had a really good public campaign to promote the wearing of helmets when you were riding a motorcycle and there was only 20% to 22% compliance through that campaign. I feel that the same thing would happen again with bicycle helmets, that no matter how aware parents are made of how well a bicycle helmet would protect their children and themselves, unless there is a law they will not wear it.
As a parent, I know my sons of course have helmets now, but I cannot guarantee they are going to wear them two years from now. I cannot guarantee when they are around the corner they are not going to take them off. I have had numerous nurses, even in intensive care, tell me they cannot make their child wear a helmet. They see numerous accidents like this, and if they cannot get their children to wear helmets, I really do not know who can. I think a law is very important.
I feel that now is the time to enact this law. There is a lot of public support for the bill now. Yesterday when I was at the doctor's -- my son Adam had a checkup -- they were mentioning that someone from the public school board had contacted them. They were looking at starting a campaign throughout the schools in London. My children go to separate schools. I know I would be willing to do something like that as well. It would save a lot of time, anguish and taxpayers' dollars for you to have to meet like this again and again before it comes. I really feel that now is the time to do it. I am sorry; I was very nervous, but those are my feelings.
The Chair: You need not have told us you were nervous, because none of us could tell. Thank you very much. It has been remarkable how just after a couple of days people have been coming on their own initiative, such as you from London, to speak obviously very sincerely and with great interest about Mrs Cunningham's bill. We have some time now for questions and dialogue. Mr Dadamo first and then Mr Waters and perhaps others.
Mr Dadamo: Thank you very much. I was on that side this morning looking at my peers doing something. I know how unnerving it can get, so I congratulate you for doing this.
I guess we have determined in the last few days in discussions we have had with people who have come, such as yourself, that children have a tendency to think it is not cool to wear these helmets. I understand the sentiments you share with us that we have to start from the parents and work our way down, so to speak, because I think we have to sell this to the parents first, that wearing a helmet will protect you to a certain extent, but how are we going to sell the idea to the children? As you said, if they go around the corner, they may take the helmet off. How are we going to sell them on the idea that you should wear it all the time if you are going to be on a bicycle?
Mrs Pevcevicius: I know how I can sell it, and I know how it can be sold to my friends and my friends' children and things like that -- through a law. I think if they are made to wear it, I think if they saw some of the statistics I saw after getting the information from Mrs Cunningham's office, they would be amazed. I really felt kind of angry that I never saw these statistics before. I hate to say that I definitely would have had my children wearing helmets if I had seen this, because, as I say, even the best campaigns, for one reason or another -- I have friends who say, "Oh, I keep forgetting to go to the store," or something like that. That is why I really feel that if there was the law there, you would not get negative reaction from anyone.
Mr Dadamo: If this had not happened to Adam, do you think you would have reacted in the same way? I guess what I am trying to say is that apathy prevails in many different areas, and unless it hits home, then you really do not think about it or you say, "It'll never happen to me."
Mrs Pevcevicius: No.
Mr Dadamo: This opened your eyes?
Mrs Pevcevicius: This opened my eyes to it, yes, but I think it is the Ontario Head Injury Association prevention thing that says, "If I could have foreseen what was going to happen, I could have prevented it." I am no different from anyone else, you know. Bad things happen to other families and other people.
I do not know. If I had been more aware -- I know when my second child came along we did not get a walker any more because we found out walkers were unsafe for young children. I have followed all those rules, but I think once your children get a little older -- mine are seven and nine now -- as a new parent you are concerned that you are doing things right for your child and things that are safe for your child, and then after a while you realize a lot of this is common sense. I am not consulting Penelope Leach every moment. But this is exactly the age when parents are starting to get more lax and more comfortable with being a parent where this child is actually going out on a bicycle, which is a first vehicle. You are giving them more freedom, and maybe at that stage of a child's life there need to be more rules. I feel this bicycle helmet law is a protection for the parents, possibly a parent like me, who might say -- fleetingly my husband and I said: "We never wore a helmet as a child. What's this big deal?"
Mr Dadamo: Why has it changed?
1620
Mrs Pevcevicius: Why has it changed?
Mr Dadamo: Because we did not when we were kids. All we were forced to do was have a licence on the bicycle and, as I think Mrs Cunningham said this morning, a reflector on the back and a light on the front.
Mrs Pevcevicius: I think it has changed. London, in the five years I have been there, has grown by 50,000 people. Look at the size of Toronto, the way it has grown. There is more traffic. I think there is less consideration. There are going to be a lot of people in a hurry now. They are not slowing down for kids on bikes. People are angry. They are not letting a child have a right of way and saying, "Isn't he cute?" Things like that. The speed of life right now does not allow for a lot of the social graces. When I was a child riding a bike, adults looked out.
Mr Dadamo: Elaine, I want to ask you one other question about Adam's accident. I do not know if you mentioned at the beginning whether he was wearing a helmet. Could you tell us what kind of accident he had so we can better understand that the helmet would have helped?
Mrs Pevcevicius: We live halfway down a hill, not a really steep hill, but a hill, and he was on his bike and his chain came off. He lost control. It is a dead end at the bottom of our street and it is a roundabout with a curb, and he hit his head on the curb.
Mr Dadamo: Did he fly over the handlebars? You were not there?
Mrs Pevcevicius: Yes. His two friends that were with him were seven. We did not know if the chain came off afterwards or beforehand, but Adam remembered later on that it had come off beforehand, so he hit the curb and was thrown. I do not actually know for sure if he hit his head on the curb or the cement abutment; there is a little grass patch and a second abutment.
The Chair: These have been excellent questions from the parliamentary assistant for the Minister of Transportation, but it is time now to go to Mr Waters.
Mr Dadamo: I am willing to share the time.
Mr Waters: I am going to make something of an assumption. You look like a very average person. What I want to ask about is the cost of the helmet. I have heard from different people that, at $30, half the children will not be able to ride a bicycle. I would like your opinion on whether you feel the cost of the helmet of $30 would be prohibitive.
Mrs Pevcevicius: You really cannot buy a bicycle for less than $100 now. It is not an expense that someone who does not have money -- I agree; $30 is an added expense. But you have the expense of having a roof on your car. For what reasons? I really think that if your child wants to ride a bike, he has got to have a helmet on. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it.
When my son had his accident, my husband took my other son out and I said, "I don't care what it costs, just get him a helmet; make sure it's one he likes so he is going to wear it." So he went out and bought a $65 helmet. After the fact, Adam and I ordered $30 helmets through a flyer that we got at the hospital. So my reins were pulled in. I said, "Oh, $60 again."
But I do not know. You are not going to have people throwing up their arms if this law comes in saying, "My God, I have to pay $30 for the helmet." If it is introduced in a way that says "This is why we are introducing this law," and people can actually get the statistics -- because people may be like me; they may not have seen a statistic like this. It seems foolish to put me and so many other people out into the field to tell people more about how important it is that their children wear helmets, because that feeling is already there. Any parent I have ever talked to -- I am heavily involved in the PTA at my school. We have discussed helmets there. We have some real rabble-rousers in our PTA, the ones that complain about everything, and the compliance is there. No one has said, "I'm not spending $30 for my kid's helmet."
Mr Waters: The other thing we have heard about is the enforcement aspect. People have come and said, "How do you enforce it with children?"
I would put out a scenario. How would you feel if a child under age 12 did not have his helmet on so an officer pulled him over and said: "Here is a slip. You have to return this within such and such a period of time with your parent's signature on it." Do you think that system would do anything? Would it be adequate?
Mrs Pevcevicius: I do not know enough about policing. This is something that is close to my heart so of course I feel they should take their bikes away on the spot. That is the way I feel about it. Maybe all police cruisers would have to have bigger trunks.
Mr Waters: Just keep a bicycle locked there. They can pick it up later.
Mrs Pevcevicius: I do not know. I know it is an expense to police, something like this. I am sure it is parallel to seatbelts coming into effect. It is something that is for common safety. I guess you would have to hold the parent liable for the money or whatever. If there was going to be money involved, a ticket or a fine --
Mr Waters: That is what I was getting at. If the law should come into effect, rather than have a fine for children, basically a means of having to have the parent's signature on something and then return it to the police department. That way the parents are aware the child was caught without the helmet.
Mrs Pevcevicius: No. That maybe could work as a public gesture to start the program off, but a lot of parents would not care if their son got a slip or whatever. They do not care. I know from things that go on in the school that we hear at the PTA, if their child has been bad, the principal can give the parents a list of everything their son has done, but they do not care. You are going to get people like that. But those kids deserve to live, even if the parents do not care if they wear a helmet.
Mr Lessard: I know we are running out of time and I will try to be very brief. My friend may have said that you look like an average person. I know he did not mean any offence by that. However, I think you are a very special person because you have taken the time and the effort to come here and testify when a great many other people probably would not take that time.
You also mentioned getting involved in a school campaign and attempting to sell this idea. I think that is important and I encourage you to continue with that. You mentioned as well the experience with respect to helmet compliance for motorcycles in California, and I think some of the objections we would get from people during these hearings would be similar to California. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to know if you are riding a motorcycle without a helmet and you get into trouble, you could cause some real damage to yourself. Some of the resistance we might get from people is, notwithstanding the fact that I know I could do that to myself, I should be given the opportunity to make that choice. Some of the resistance we get is from adults. It is not from children who may not know, but it is from parents who say, "I should be able to make that choice."
What would you say to those people?
1630
Mrs Pevcevicius: I would say to those people that laws are made for public safety. I would hate to hit a child with my car and be responsible for a serious head injury to him when he could have had a bicycle helmet on that could have prevented it.
Laws are passed all the time. It was not that long ago that people did not have to wear hardhats on a construction site. You cannot even be a guest on a construction site without wearing a hardhat. On many different jobs you have safety boots and these kinds of things. Whether it takes unions to band together to get these laws enacted for public safety, I do not know. To me it is the same kind of thing.
As human beings, we grow and we learn. We learn how to protect ourselves. I think it is a way of protecting ourselves. If I had to wear something that weighed 15 pounds and obstructed my vision or things like that, I would say yes, you could get a lot of resistance, but I know the bicycle helmets we have are not much different than wearing gloves in the winter.
I would like to think, as human beings, each decade we make things better, and different laws are passed for different reasons. It is going to become law whether it is now or three years from now, so I hope we are smart enough to speed it up, as far as I am concerned.
Mr Lessard: I appreciate your confidence in that fact.
Mrs Cunningham: Elaine, thank you very much for coming. I have a special reason for saying that. I admire you so much because this accident happened just three months ago. It must be very difficult some days even to talk about, so for you to be responsible and feel so strongly that you can help us as we try to formulate regulations to go with the amendment to the Highway Traffic Act, we really appreciate it. I think you have made a really strong case in support.
I have to tell you it is not going to be easy to get this through. A couple of things have happened in the last couple of days. The reason most people will not support it, in my view, is the same reason probably that you did not buy a helmet for your son, and that is you just did not know the importance of wearing a bicycle helmet. In spite of campaigns from as early as 1975 -- so it is not new in Ontario -- we now know, the statistics are there as you said, and I am happy that we were helpful in support of this piece of legislation.
As my colleague said, I am glad you are so confident. You are representing the public here today. For everybody here, Elaine is from London but we have not met before and I did not know whether she was coming to support or not support it. I was curious. Under the circumstances, I want to thank you.
With regard to the cost of the helmets -- and I do not know what the committee is going to suggest, but we are trying to work in a very non-partisan way here and as individuals. My hope was to give the public some warning of the date this bill would become law. For instance, if we gave a year and a half of lead time perhaps the government, with support from the private sector, could have some kind of very extensive public education campaign throughout the schools so that children, hopefully, would have helmets on before we even had the law. That would be my great dream.
I know there are home and school associations that are already working very hard to get their children to wear helmets. Andrea Strathdee from my office made a couple of calls today to people who had already advised us of this just to see if we could offer some support to members and some good information.
One of the home and school associations in Hamilton, the Dalewood Home and School Association, got together with two other home and school associations -- it was Dalewood middle school, Earl Kitchener Junior School, junior kindergarten to grade 5, and George R. Allen -- and they ran their own campaign. They believed the only way they could get the children to wear helmets was through peer pressure.
They delivered one flyer to the parents and set up a display in the school during the school's open house, which included a lot of information. I was pleased to hear that you got the little brochure and followed through by getting an inexpensive helmet -- I do not mean "inexpensive," but a $30 helmet -- because of the campaigns, whereas your husband went into the store, as mine did the first time we had to buy one, and he did pay $65. Since then we have been able to buy less expensive helmets.
They arranged some kind of agreement through Sears, which was very co-operative, and sold the helmets in those schools for $25, so it was not only public education; it was public participation. They were quite successful. It was not a fund-raiser; it was a public safety measure.
The other one I wanted to tell you about was that the money left over from the Dalewood was donated to the Council on Road Trauma, and that is headed by Dr Peter Knight. I should say also that one of the ladies who did this works in a doctor's office but used to work in the hospital emergency department, so she is very familiar with bicycle injuries.
By reading this into the record, what I am saying is that I think it is the responsibility of those of us who understand the statistics and know the dangers to get out there and do something about it. In spite of public education, enough people do not know about it. Yesterday we had a wonderful presentation by Dr Lane from Victoria Hospital, who I think made a very articulate plea for immediate legislation.
I know I am not asking any questions, Mr Chairman, but I wanted everybody to hear that. In getting this bill through, it is going to be up to us to educate our own colleagues in this House because everybody gets a vote, and more important, I think, to educate the bureaucrats who like to say no before they get the public information. Let's hope we can make some tremendous gains by people like yourself.
I just have one question with regard to your school. Is your boy with the other children in the same classroom?
Mrs Pevcevicius: Yes. It is hard to say if there is any damage at this point. He is functioning fine. He is doing well in math; he is not doing so well in reading. Some of the things he is having trouble in, it is hard to determine whether he would have been like that before the accident or not.
Mrs Cunningham: It is hard to know.
Mrs Pevcevicius: Technically, from the brain scan that was done six weeks after the accident, part of the blood flow in the brain was not flowing properly. The doctors said that after an accident -- he has another brain scan in December -- sometimes it will return back to normal; sometimes it does not -- the blood flow does not return back to normal. But there does not seem to be any apparent damage. I guess there is a lot about the brain they do not know.
Adam is short on a few visual-motor things, but they are minor. He is seven, and a couple of the tests show that he is at the level of a five-and-a-half-year-old. It is hard to say. He could very well still be capable of going to university or whatever. He may have a delinquency. Some people have colour blindness, but it does not affect them in a lot of different things. What damage there is should be minor. He is functioning in a normal school at a fairly normal level.
Mrs Cunningham: As you are a parent of a head-injured young man, I can just say it is great to have support from and for other families. I want you to know that if you need it, we are available. The other part is that it sounds like everything is pretty good.
Mrs Pevcevicius: Yes.
Mrs Cunningham: I guess all of us here just hope he keeps improving and gets back to normal and does very well.
Mrs Pevcevicius: Thank you.
The Chair: Mrs Pevcevicius, I want to thank you very much on behalf of everybody here for an intelligent, thoughtful and very articulate presentation. Thank you for coming in from London. Have a good and safe trip back home, and good luck to you and Adam and the rest of your family.
Mrs Pevcevicius: Thank you very much.
The Chair: I want to recognize that we have Dave Edgar here, who is assistant to the Minister of Transportation, Mr Pouliot. We have Mike Weir here, who is a staff person involved with safety policy with the Ministry of Transportation. There are other people here. I do not want to miss anybody. Perhaps some of them are from the Ministry of Health, because I know the Ministry of Health might have an interest. No; there is nobody here from the Ministry of Health. That is interesting. Perhaps the Solicitor General? No; there is nobody here from the Solicitor General. Perhaps then the Attorney General? Nobody here from the Attorney General. Perhaps Consumer and Commercial Relations? No staff people from Consumer and Commercial Relations. I know the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation has its parliamentary assistant as part of the committee.
I am sorry, people. I merely assumed that those other ministries would be sufficiently interested to have some of their staff people present. Perhaps in the course of time we will draw them out of the woodwork.
1640
WILLIAM COFFMAN
The Chair: We have personnel from the Bicycle Helmet Standards Committee. If you would please come forward, sir, and tell us who you are -- it is Mr William Coffman -- and what your title is and spend some time telling us what you would like us to know and then leave us some time to ask you questions and engage in some dialogue.
Mr Coffman: My name is Bill Coffman. I am fighting off a cold, so I hope you will bear with me. I am the chairman of the Canadian Standards Association committee on bicycle helmets. Our committee is the one that put together the Canadian national standard for cycling helmets that you may or may not have seen. As such, I am not an employee of the CSA; I am a volunteer acting as a chairman of this committee; perhaps a bit of my credentials and then a little explanation about the helmet standard, and then I will be open to your questions.
I have been the manager of engineering at both CCM and Raleigh. At CCM, I was involved with the hockey helmet standards as well. I am a graduate industrial designer; I am not an engineer. I have been working as a design consultant for the last 10 years. I am also an instructor in industrial design at Humber College. I had been on the Toronto City Cycling Committee for six or seven years. I have been the past chairman of the advocacy and safety committee of the Canadian Cycling Association. I am a facilities consultant to a certain extent, and quite often an expert witness in traffic cases. I am on the Hospital for Sick Children's bike helmet coalition as well.
I may have to resort to that Niagara Peninsula orange juice you have over there to keep going.
The Chair: Yes, that Niagara Peninsula orange juice recurs week after week after week, notwithstanding that this committee has called upon the whip's office so many times to please ensure that Ontario-grown fruit and Ontario-packaged fruit juices are provided for the people here. My apologies. It has been a long time since orange trees have been in the peninsula, notwithstanding that it is among the southernmost parts of the province.
Mr Coffman: The standard itself was set up by a group of mostly volunteers. We had representatives of the consumer groups involved with cycling, members of university labs and private testing labs. We had representatives from the manufacturers, representatives from retailers, administrators in cycling and representatives from the ministries, both federal and provincial. We had a number of doctors and medical advisers, and of course we had members from the Canadian Standards Association helping to set up the standards.
The standard itself was based on our experience. In Canada we are uniquely qualified in having the original hockey standard and we used that as the basis of some of our information. We worked with the doctors' recommendations and the recommendations of people who had been involved with head injury. We tested and evaluated and we compared with other standards. At the time, there were three or four other standards: the American standards, the British standards and the original standard from Australia. We compared these standards and did tests as well.
The Canadian standard, after quite a bit of work -- I think there was about a year's work on it -- we evolved as a typical drop-test standard, where the helmet is mounted on a headform. It is an International Standards Organization headform. The headform is instrumented with an accelerometer inside the headform. The headform is dropped with the helmet on it and it is adjusted at different angles. I wish I could have brought the device here for you, but unfortunately it is a huge thing.
We drop it at six test sites on to a flat anvil and on to a circular anvil and then we read the acceleration from the accelerometer which is electronically displayed. From two tests we read off the acceleration in Gs and everything is carried out in metric form. We also have an advisory standard written into the test where we also check for acceleration over a period of time because some of the doctors felt this was an important part of the injury to the brain.
Mechanically, what we are trying to do with the helmet is to provide a shock-absorbing cushion for the head and for the brain inside the head. The material of the helmet itself absorbs the impact in the fall, and the foam construction of the shell collapses. That collapse absorbs the impact so that the movement of the brain is less because that impact has been absorbed in the material. So the material crushes; the head does not move and there is less impact inside the head. This is what we are trying to do with the helmet shell, to put it in a few words. It is a little more complicated than that because there are other things going on.
Basically, most bicycle accidents are caused by falls. A bicycle starts moving and it falls over. The majority of accidents are caused in this way, so you are dropped. Your fall height is known in most cases. It is a little over a metre and and a half, and that is what we went with.
We also determined the actual force of falls through accident statistics and studies. The doctors and technicians knew what these numbers were. From all this information, the standard was established. We have been testing now for almost two years, I think it is, at the CSA labs and a number of helmets have passed the standard.
The standard was sponsored originally by federal Consumer and Corporate Affairs. CSA is an independent organization. It is a non-profit organization. It is supported by industry and the government. We are not a government body, so Consumer and Corporate Affairs did pay for the development of the standard.
The CSA standard was intended to be implemented in the same manner as the hockey standards, where all helmets sold in Canada were to meet the CSA standard. I do not want to bring politics into the picture, but this unfortunately went by the board under the free trade agreement. My understanding is that the Canadian standard was a little bit more severe than the American standards that were currently in force, and therefore it was deemed to be restrictive to trade. Consumer and Corporate Affairs had to withdraw its plans to make it mandatory.
The standard covers age groups from five up. We would like to develop a standard for children under five. It is a completely different thing. The forces involved are different and the head shape is completely different; just height of fall is different, and the trauma in the child's head is different than in the adult head. We feel and have always felt that this should be a separate standard.
1650
We are and have been looking for the funding of this. The Americans would be happy to support it. In this case, we have their assurance that this would be unique and they would be willing to support this standard for helmets for children under five.
Of the other two American standards in force now, one is the ANSI, the American National Standards Institute, a standard which is the base standard in the US. It has not changed for about six years, I think. It is a passive standard inasmuch as it is set up by the ANSI and the manufacturer assures the customer with the stamp that the helmet meets that standard. My private concern is that I have seen helmets with the ANSI sticker in them that did not meet the ANSI standard, because no retesting or anything else goes on with ANSI.
The Snell standard, however, is an active standard. The Snell Foundation is a private helmet-testing institute set up in the US. It was funded by the estate of a racing car driver who was killed in a head injury accident. It is a more active standard inasmuch as the helmets are tested to the standards by the independent testing lab and they are retested over intervals.
The CSA is equipped to test for both the Canadian standard, the ANSI standard and the Snell standard and we have done so on several brands of helmets.
Personally, I wanted to express my support in principle for this proposed legislation, and I certainly welcome its introduction as a chance to highlight the concept of bicycle helmets, what helmets are all about and especially the use of cycling helmets. I think the more people we get to wear them, the safer place it will be. I will try to answer as many of your questions as possible.
The Chair: Thank you, sir. The researcher has asked me to ask you a couple of questions in this general area: first, manufacturing of these helmets in terms of the status quo, in other words, where would these helmets be manufactured now; second, is there a potential, if it is not in Ontario, for Ontario manufacturing sites to be geared up, and third, what would this mean in terms of, let's say, employment for Ontarians were there to be universal helmet wear, and again, the ongoing manufacture, because these helmets get damaged and have to be replaced and there is new population growing into bike-riding age. What are we talking about from that point of view? How quickly could the industry respond; could it be an Ontario industry, and what would it mean in terms of employment?
Mr Coffman: In the industry right now, there are two main manufacturers in Canada, both of which are in Quebec -- and highly subsidized by the Quebec government, by the way -- one in the Montreal suburbs, the other one in Cowansville. The one in Cowansville is an American-based manufacturer. The technology and anything are portable, so it could be moved anywhere. There is no reason why an American or European manufacturer could not set up in Ontario very quickly and manufacture in large numbers. The technology and the manufacturing base are certainly here in Ontario to support bicycle helmet manufacture. I would not see any problem with that aspect of it.
In numbers, yes, the potential is there to produce any number of helmets you want over a period of time.
Costs come in here, and I will get into that, because I know the question will come up. In my estimate, a helmet costs anywhere from $15 to $30 to manufacture. That is the manufacturer's cost. You could purchase any number of helmets from a manufacturer in bulk quantities for about $17 a piece if you wanted to buy them today. So there is a fair markup in the stores. In retail, yesterday I saw some helmets in Ikea for $20, so the $20 helmet is still out there, and these were CSA-certified.
The Chair: Following through on that same area, in view of the fact that if this legislation were to exist in Ontario, Ontario would be in something of a leadership role, there only being a few jurisdictions in the United States that have similar legislation, in your view, in the nature of the production of this type of product, would Ontario manufacturers of this type of helmet have the capacity to export into the United States? As I say, could we produce this in a competitive way such that it could become an export, rather than merely a domestic-use item?
Mr Coffman: Yes, I think there is a potential for an Ontario industry that would be exportable, certainly to meet our own market first and then to export second. If they could meet the international competition, it is a wide-open market. On the market today we have helmets from Canada, the US, Italy. There are helmets coming into the market from Scandinavia, I believe, and I have seen French ones that are available. They are too expensive, but they are available.
The Chair: Thank you, and the researcher thanks you. Mr Dadamo, please.
Mr Dadamo: I guess we were waiting for you. I was in particular wanting to better understand how a helmet comes to be or how strong it is, where the design first came from, if you could sort of paint a short picture for us, if it is possible.
Mr Coffman: The helmet, and I may be repeating a little bit here, is a protective device, and like any other protective device, it is designed for the job it is intended to do. As compared to a hockey helmet, which you might be more familiar with, the hockey helmet was designed to absorb impacts from exterior objects, pucks and sticks especially. It was designed to accept falls on the back, in other words, hitting the ice falling over from the back. That is why you see the ribs, particularly down the back of the helmets. It was designed to prevent impact in the temple area. That is why the hockey helmet comes down a little. That was why it was designed to do the job and why it takes the shape it does.
The bicycle helmet, on the other hand, was designed almost strictly for falls from the height of approximately one and a half metres and the weight of the human body, and the majority of the protective area is on top of the helmet. In the Canadian standard we did move the protective area down a bit and over from the American standards to protect a little bit more over the temples, because falling to the side and hitting curbs and other objects, we wanted a little bit more protection in that area.
It is a question of coverage. Once the standard is established, you design the helmet to meet the standard. You use shock-absorbing material to the best advantage. In the case of the bicycle helmet, you try to get as much ventilation as possible without opening it up too much to decrease the protection and keep it as light as possible, which is why you see the ones with very thin shells or no shell at all.
Mr Dadamo: Why would they not be closed, as opposed to leaving the vents in this helmet? Is it completely enclosed, or are there vents?
Mr Coffman: There are vents. The vents are because with the bicycle helmet, unlike a motorcycle helmet or a racing car helmet, the wearer is exerting himself or herself and is putting energy out, and your energy is radiated through the top of your head in a lot of circumstances. It is more radiant energy than it is energy coming in.
1700
Mr Dadamo: You said you have been called as an expert witness from time to time in these kinds of bike accidents?
Mr Coffman: Yes. I have never been called in the case of a head injury accident, fortunately.
Mr Dadamo: How much would you think is right to spend on these kinds of helmets? How much money would you spend to protect a child?
Mr Coffman: I do not think the cost really enters the picture. I look at the helmet as being a part of the bicycle combination. It is as much a part of the equipment of a bicycle as a seatbelt is part of the equipment of your car. The seatbelt is an internal, attached thing, the helmet is not, but it becomes part of your everyday usage as much as, for example, safety shoes or a safety helmet. A motorcycle rider today would not go on the road without putting on his helmet.
Mr Dadamo: Yes, but I do not think we are at a point that people assimilate the bike with the helmet yet. That awareness factor is still not there.
Mr Coffman: Unfortunately it is not there yet, but I would think that is the approach we have to take, that it is a part of the equipment for the bicycle.
Mr Dadamo: But that may take time. The awareness factor may take time.
Mr Coffman: I think it is there and people are resisting it.
Mr Dadamo: For how long?
Mrs Cunningham: Until we pass this bill.
Mr Coffman: It may be a case of needing a stick.
Mr Waters: One of the things I would like to say is that I have never seen one word cause such a stir in the province. I have received calls from as far away as Red Lake on this, supporting the bill. Just before we went into hearings today I had my local ambulance operator phone and ask what she could do to help in my community, because the people who drive the ambulances do not like picking up children, in particular, from these falls.
One of the questions I would have about helmets is that I keep hearing most of the helmets can only suffer one blow, basically. Kids being kids, or even adults being adults, have a tendency to take -- you know, they are done with the helmet, or they beat it without it being on their head, abuse the helmet without wearing it, when it is off the head. Can that damage the helmet beyond use? I am a bit concerned about how stable these helmets are, what they will take and how you tell when the helmet needs to be replaced.
Mr Coffman: If it has been impacted, certainly it should be replaced, especially if it is a styrofoam shell. I saw the video of Curt Harnett, the Canadian racer from Thunder Bay, who had actually crashed and impacted his head on the road. The helmet exploded, literally blew up, into pieces, thank goodness. There was no damage at all. He did not hurt himself. He got up and walked away from it. There was no damage. I have seen other helmets that have split and cracked and things like this, and some that are just dented.
There is no real way of controlling that. There used to be a program where the helmet was actually returned to the manufacturer if it had been impacted and the manufacturer would return it, but I do not think that is in place any more.
Mr Waters: I am not concerned when somebody is wearing the helmet and has a fall. What I am talking about is a kid taking it by the strap and going bang, you know, just abuse of the helmet, throwing it in the corner and then throwing a hockey bag on it or something like that. Can that damage the helmet?
Mr Coffman: Yes, it can, no question about it.
Mr Waters: You know when you fall you have impacted the helmet and it has taken a blow; therefore, the helmet has to be replaced. But as a parent, when a child has gone out and played soccer with his helmet, how do you know when you have to replace it?
Mr Coffman: The majority of them, if you give them that type of treatment, are going to split, like a styrofoam cup will split if you impact it. This is the type of thing you are looking for. If it has been crushed, it is a little bit harder to see, but usually if it has been jumped on, stepped on or something like that, then it will split. If it is split, then it is no good.
Mr Waters: Do they make a helmet that will withstand more than one impact? Let's say a $30 helmet takes one impact, but if you want to spend $60, could you get a helmet that would withstand several impacts and therefore in the long run maybe work out cheaper?
Mr Coffman: There are developments going on that I have seen with polypropylene foam and other types of foam that are being promoted as being recoverable. As far as I know, the CSA has not tested one yet so I cannot say for certain it meets the standards requirements. Certainly there are materials coming up now from the transportation sector, aerospace, that would be able to absorb the type of impact we are looking at, but you are talking about fairly high-cost devices.
Mr Waters: I am a bit concerned about the CSA. I came out of the electrical industry and we were downgraded too, the electrical products.
Mr Coffman: It is a bit frightening when you know you will be.
Mr Waters: Yes. I was aware, but I was not aware it was happening to helmets. I am going to go a bit beyond the bicycle helmets out of curiosity. Because I am a snowmobiler and a motorcyclist, I am a bit concerned about the standards of all helmets. Are you saying those helmets that are going down to United States standards are not going to stay at our high standards?
Mr Coffman: The ministry did change the Highway Traffic Act for motorcycle helmets. It formerly required CSA-approved helmets; now it just requires approved helmets. The manufacturers are all switching to Department of Transporation-tested helmets, which is an American standard and of course cheaper.
Mrs Cunningham: Thank you very much for coming today. You are a most important witness before the committee, Mr Coffman. We appreciate your expertise. I think this last question is discouraging for all of us. In spite of that, you mentioned earlier you felt there could be enough helmets produced to meet the demands of this legislation over a period of time. I guess I would ask you two questions about that.
First, are you confident that the standards we are able to purchase now are good enough or sufficient enough or what you would want for your own children or your family members? Second, as we know we are looking at upwards of over a million cyclists in Ontario -- maybe as many as two million -- what kind of time line would we have to have in order to meet demand?
Mr Coffman: To answer your second question first, I think if the proposed legislation is passed you would find the American manufacturers moving into Ontario to manufacture fairly quickly through associated companies and things like that. I know several sporting goods companies are already looking at this option of bringing in existing tooling, for example, and others would be looking at it fairly quickly. The manufacture is not an expensive technology to set up and I think it could be done fairly quickly.
As for your first question, yes, I am concerned with the existing standards because I am not 100% confident about the ANSI standard. I am certainly not very confident about the level of testing that goes on to ensure it is a good standard, and yet that is one of the standards we are faced with.
Mrs Cunningham: I notice the transportation act for motorcycles actually names the standards they will go with.
Mr Coffman: I think they used to. I am not sure that is true any more, but I will have to see it.
Mrs Cunningham: I do not have the act with me today; I usually carry it around. We can check it out.
The Chair: Perhaps Mr Weir would come forward and help us.
Mr Weir: It is that regulation -- I am not sure of the number of the regulation -- that allows a motorcycle helmet that meets four standards, including the CSA standard. It does not prohibit a person purchasing a helmet that does not meet any one of those four standards.
Mr Waters: Can I just jump in on one thing here?
Mrs Cunningham: Absolutely.
1710
Mr Waters: Is CSA the bottom or the top of the four standards?
Mr Weir: I do not think the regulation ranks them according to how effective the standard is. It merely allows a purchaser to wear a helmet that meets one of the standards listed.
Mrs Cunningham: Would it be fair for me to make this statement: I suppose you could wait a very long time for the perfect bicycle or motorcycle helmet. There is always going to be someone who will have something to say, like with the hockey helmets. I was on a school board where we had to change something like 3,000 hockey helmets in one year because somebody came out with a recommendation that we ought to do that. Where do you start?
Mr Coffman: I think you start with the basis we have now, and as we gain experience with the testing of helmets we will look at updating it in six-year cycles. We are in the second or third year of that cycle. Perhaps that can be moved up as well. This is what happened with the hockey helmet standard. It was revised in that period of time. The international standards keep changing as well. The doctors and the medical people keep doing more and more research on head injury/head trauma as on ongoing area of change and they have recently tried to standardize on protection for head injury. There is research going on in that area now. As the results of that research come forward we will certainly want to keep up with it.
Mrs Cunningham: I guess my reason for asking you the blunt question is that I do not think it is an excuse. Someone with a helmet now that meets the standards is obviously protected, as others who do not wear one are not. I certainly do not want that as an excuse for waiting for the perfect helmet. I went through this with hockey helmets with my own kids in 1974. If we had waited, as there are new ones out, I think, in the last two years -- has it not been two years?
Mr Coffman: I have been out of the helmet industry for a while.
Mrs Cunningham: It is nice to change, is it not?
It goes on for ever. That is the advantage of being one of the more -- what is the word I should use -- senior members of the place some days: experience, listening to the same old story and people never doing anything about it. I get pretty tired of it some days.
You have already answered the question with regard to retail price. I am thinking it would be fair to say that if people order it in bulk, and even if they do not, you are probably looking at $20 helmets that would meet safe standards. That is the one I am taking back to my constituents and I feel confident about after speaking to a number of groups. The other part is about the public education. Have you seen the Howard county, Maryland, implementation of legislation?
Mr Coffman: Yes, I have seen it. I have scanned it; I have not really read it.
Mrs Cunningham: I think it is interesting to note in there that for the very first offence they are issued a warning. These are for children younger than 16. There are two groups there. They are issued a warning. "A first offence violation of any of the provisions of this subtitle shall constitute a class E offence" -- a class E offence is $25 to $50 -- "and upon a second offence violation of this subtitle within 12 months, shall constitute a class D offence." If you do it twice in once year you have a $50 to $100 fine.
It is the responsibility of the parents to know that these kids ought to have their helmets on. In our act right now, if you take a bicycle out on the streets at dusk, one half-hour before sunset, your fine is $20. We are finding most people do not know that.
Mr Coffman: I think they were recommending that be changed.
Mrs Cunningham: People are recommending a change?
Mr Coffman: Yes. I think that came through the cycling committee a little while back.
Mrs Cunningham: What kind of change are they looking for?
Mr Coffman: It should be the same as the automobile.
Mrs Cunningham: What is that?
Mr Coffman: I think it was $72.
Mr Weir: It was $78, $75.
Mrs Cunningham: Who would be making these recommendations for change?
Mr Coffman: The cycling community was all in favour of that one.
Mrs Cunningham: The cycling community thinks it is very important to have a light on your bicycle when your vision is not clear because of the time of day. I think we are going to hear from most cycling committees that if we are responsible in the implementation of this and reasonable in the fines, they will be supporting the legislation as well. That $72 one is pretty serious stuff, is it not? I wonder how strongly they will feel about a helmet, as we are talking about safety again. We will ask them that question when they come here.
The Chair: Mr Coffman, did you want to wrap up or conclude in any way?
Mr Coffman: Thank you again for the opportunity. If you have any other questions that come up later on, I would welcome the questions. If there is any assistance I can give you in working on this legislation, I would be very happy to work on it.
The Chair: Thank you from all of us for coming here today and for your contribution. You have answered a whole lot of questions that have been raised over the last few weeks. We appreciate your time and your interest. We know we can call on you in the weeks or months down the road if we have any further questions. We appreciate it. Take care, sir.
One matter, by way of information, is that we are meeting again on Monday and we are staring at 3:30. The Windsor Bicycling Committee is going to be here at 3:30. I mention that because I stress it is important, if at all possible, for people to be on time. These are people who travel a great distance, who make a significant contribution to the process, and out of courtesy to them, make sure we are on time.
We now have the subcommittee report, which is deemed to be approved by this committee, containing a reference under standing order 123 as raised by Mr Arnott, who is not here. However, I would ask the committee, especially Mrs Cunningham, to take note of standing order 123(c), which indicates:
"A report under this standing order from the subcommittee...shall be deemed to be adopted and shall take precedence over all other business before the standing committee except government public bills referred to the committee by the House."
I trust there is unanimous approval from the committee, subject to what people might say.
Mr Waters: In order to get some clarification here, does this mean Mr Arnott's bill will in effect bump Mrs Cunningham's bill? Is that what you are telling us?
The Chair: I bring that to your attention.
Mr Waters: When we talked about this in the subcommittee, I do not believe any of the parties were aware of that.
The Chair: Would a brief recess be appropriate?
Mr Waters: Yes, a brief recess may be in order.
The committee recessed at 1719.
1728
The Chair: There is unanimous consent that the matter of the report of the subcommittee be deferred to the next meeting of this committee next Monday.
There has been a request by Mrs Cunningham that the Deputy Solicitor General be invited to appear here for questions and dialogue.
Mrs Cunningham: He offered to come, so I think we should invite him.
The Chair: Is that with the consent of the committee? I am suggesting Monday at 5:30 pm when there is currently a slot open. Is there unanimous consent? Agreed.
The committee adjourned at 1730.