It was never really a thing for me growing up. Sure, my parents wanted all of us to wear helmets when we rode our bikes in the summer. We usually took them off after peddling around the corner. Overall, myself, my cousins—none of us wore helmets when we most certainly should have while playing ‘cops and robbers,’ a game that would be shunned as politically incorrect today. Oh, trust me—you know there would be some kale-eating parent who would find this…triggering. Anyway, we were just kids; a bad fall could’ve been it. The risk of brain injury from a bike fall doesn’t go away with age. So, the adage of wearing your helmet to save your life was hardly seen as a controversial topic of discussion. There are laws enforcing it. In one county in Washington, that’s no longer the case. Helmet laws are racist. I wish I was kidding (via Oregon Live):
In the face of data showing enforcement has been both minimal and has disproportionately affected people of color and those experiencing homelessness, the King County Board of Health voted to repeal its decades-old mandatory helmet law for bicycle riders. The repeal goes into effect in 30 days.
The board, made up of elected officials and medical experts from cities across the county, voiced its support for the voluntary use of helmets, passing a resolution Thursday encouraging riders to don the protective gear. But board member and King County Councilmember Joe McDermott said there are other ways of encouraging helmet use that do not rely on law enforcement, including educational campaigns and free helmet distribution. The Metropolitan King County Council recently budgeted more than $200,000 to buy helmets and expand education.
“Helmets save lives, full stop. But the disproportional enforcement of the requirement gives us concern” about how it affects people who are homeless and communities of color, McDermott said before the vote.
The repeal affects most of King County, including Seattle…
Oh great, so you can have a fall, suffer a massive brain injury, and become a drooling vegetable—but at least King County did their part in fighting racism by…repealing helmet laws. The Left coast is insane. Alas, we have another example of the Left trying to tear down something universally accepted, denigrating it as racist, and then hoping the void of its erasure from the public sphere generates a tad more chaos to justify more authoritarian actions. That’s the long game. In the immediate, you can see why the Democratic Party is failing miserably. You can see why the approval ratings are trash. You can see why three members of San Francisco’s School Board were recalled. They’re focusing on nonsense.