Now that the Cool Sporting Event That Takes Place in British Columbia Between 2009 & 2011 is finished, everyone seems to be talking about the legacy of the games. Money, of course, is at the heart of it. The chatter isn’t all about debt and future funding for sports in Canada. There’s an interesting discourse happening about what the Olympics did for transit in the city.

To many people’s surprise, transit during the past few weeks ran fairly smoothly.

The result of restrictions to roads meant far more people taking public transit. Not only did people leave their cars at home to jump on the bus or trains, they got on bikes and walked a lot more.

The games were such an eye opener for alternatives to the car that city hall is talking about closing the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts.

So if we are heading to a future where more people are commuting on foot, bike, and other non-car-based transit, what does this mean for safety in our fair province?

Do more bicycles on the road mean that cyclists and drivers will be forced to share the road, and will this potentially mean more collisions?

And with more pedestrians possibly jamming up our sidewalks and streets, will this mean more or less pedestrian injury and fatalities?
 

What do you think we need to welcome and what to be wary of transit wise when it comes to safety post Olympics?

Michael Buble ran with the Olympic torch yesterday. That Canadian crooner with the fun last name (to be honest, I’m more a fan of his name than his music) and many international celebrities have had their famous hands on that space-age light over the past few months. The hand-picked celebrities chosen for the Olympics have sleekly clean reputations, a trait that’s hard to come by these days for the famous and adored.

Over Christmas all the talk on current affairs, talk shows, and late name stand-up routines was about the indiscretions of Tiger Woods. Actually, he’s still being talked about in the media, and it’s not about his golf game. If you recall, the Tiger Woods scandal started off as a car accident that, if the reports are correct, was caused by an argument about his marital indiscretions.
 

It used to be that celebrities caught drinking and driving was not a common story. Now, news of someone Hollywood-related getting cuffed for swerving dangerously in traffic seems almost expected.
 

One study shows that the portrayal of these criminal acts in the media pays little to no attention to the public health realities of committing these crimes. In fact, drinking is even a joking matter if you watched the Golden Globe Awards this year. And we can’t talk about celebrities and DUI without mentioning Paris Hilton.

So how do these seemingly cavalier attitudes of celebrities towards driving under the influence of alcohol factor into the general public’s attitude towards getting behind the wheel drunk?

 

 

How do you as a cyclist avoid getting hit by cars turning right?

It seems like I just blogged about pedestrian safety. Hold up, I did! I don’t normally double up on my topics, but pedestrian safety issues have eclipsed the media attention on the use of electronic devices while driving and wearing helmets on the slopes.

There have been at least four pedestrian deaths in Metro Vancouver this year.

The latest was a senior, a victim of a hit and run in Burnaby. But we’re not the only ones with this rash of pedestrian-related tragedies. The Toronto area is having similar problems. There have been 14 pedestrian deaths in Toronto and its metropolitan area in 2010.

In the wake of these Toronto area tragedies, there’s been no lack of ideas on how to curb what some are calling a trend. The police solution is to ticket j-walkers. Others think drivers and cars should be scrutinized.

In the City of Vaughn, Ontario (just outside of Toronto), some think it’s the rules themselves that are contributing to pedestrian deaths. A city councilor in Vaughn has set up a task force to try to deal with the problem.

Bringing the discussion back to the left coast, I’m wondering:

Who or what is to blame for the pedestrian deaths in Metro Vancouver?
 

I recently befriended a nice fella named Jan. He’s into graphic design and has been known to collect the odd plastic novelty toy. Hailing from the Czech Republic, the 30-year-old came to Vancouver at age 11 and is one of those annoying Europeans whose English is better than many native speakers.

He gave me a questioning look when I asked him about any formal safety education he may have been taught in the Czech Republic. He does remember a once-a-year bomb drill where everyone went to the school basement and tried on gas masks.

Like Natasha who I interviewed for a previous blog, Jan doesn’t remember having to wear a seatbelt when he was in a car with his parents. In fact, he doesn’t remember seatbelts even being in cars.

As for his parents’s direction in the safety department, “They weren’t overhanded (with safety prevention), Jan told me.

“I think they let us explore quite a bit, so the minor stuff like using a knife meant letting us get nicked a few times. This was part of the learning process for us.”

In Canada, he says he learned more about safety from experience than through school, friends, or television.

While riding a bike quickly down a street without a helmet, he was once pulled over by the police and asked why he wasn’t wearing one. Despite the incident, Jan hasn’t invested in a helmet of any kind yet.

“I still bike without a helmet, but its more recreational biking along the sea wall,” the relaxed Jan told me; however, he followed up with, “I know I should wear one.”

Jan has never broken a body part before. This speaks to his conscientious nature but also speaks to his reluctance to not wear a helmet. He told me that if he had ever injured himself riding his bike, skate boarding, or skiing, he might actually put a helmet on.

To get around the possible dangerous of riding a bike in traffic, Jan takes the bus instead. He says he’s seen too many near accidents between bikes and cars to want to ride in traffic. As a pedestrian, he’s vigilant about his safety, but he’s not so sure of others.

“If you’re a pedestrian in Amsterdam, you have to watch out for bikes and cars. There’s definitely a hierarchy in Europe, and pedestrians are at the bottom of it.”

Jan went on to tell me,

“I don’t know if it’s a Canadian or North American phenomenon, but I think overall people here assume that other people will look out for them. I think in Europe they’re more conscious of themselves (in traffic). The boundaries are more established. In Prague, even if you’re walking in a crosswalk, you know the car may not stop for you. Here I see people getting off the bus, and immediately they jump into the street.”

Jan comments made me think about my attitudes about how traffic is supposed to work. I have found myself more than once stepping into traffic relying on the car speeding towards me to stop.

As a pedestrian or cyclist what’s your attitude towards safety in traffic?

Here's a quick thing to look at and consider this Monday. It's something I blogged about before X-Mas, but it's prevalent in 2010. With the new ban on cell phones and other electronic device in place, there seems to be conflicting messages going on inside our vehicles. Do I drive safe, or do I play with my numerous new devices available to me? CBC's Marketplace program did some interesting investigative work on GPS systems in cars and how much of a distraction they are.

If you have a GPS device in your vehicle, how long do you take your eyes off the road to use it?

When you do something long enough, you tend to forget what it was like learning how to do it in the first place. Months ago, when I wrote my first blog for Preventableca, I had a rudimentary understanding of what preventable injuries were and how they could be avoided. After months of blogging about helmets, medications, Sudoku, and Christmas lights, I now feel like the poster boy for preventable injuries.

But a comment made about our most recent campaign on another Vancouver blog got me thinking about our approach to safety and its effect. In December a handful of my fellow Vancouver area bloggers came together to chat about this blog and our campaign about wearing helmets on ski hills. Arguably one of the most popular Vancouver bloggers Miss 604 blogged about our helmet campaign, and one of her followers questioned how effective the message, “You probably won’t need a helmet today” is in trying to raise awareness about head injuries on the slopes.

The Community Against Preventable Injuries responded that,

“We know that most people know how to prevent injuries. The problem is that most people continue to take risks believing that, ‘It won’t happen to me.’”

The Community’s response went on to explain how our approach is to encourage discussion, not tell people what to do. And that, “If we’ve made someone consider their possibly dangerous behaviours for the first time in their life, even if most people don’t immediately change their ways, we’ve made progress in preventing needless injuries in the future.”

This questioning of our methods is part of the dialogue we want to promote on the issue of preventable injuries. It seems to me that dangerous habits are often either not talked about or are simply given lip service.

This got me thinking about how people communicate about preventable injuries in their lives, if at all. Is it parents giving their children the morning mantra, “Look both ways before you cross the street”? Is it discussions around dinner tables about the new electronic device ban in vehicles? Or is it campaigns like our and others that hopefully make people think about what they do?

It’s time to join the discussion. How do you persuade those in your life to be safe? 

 

It can be argued that the term “multiculturalism” has become synonymous with the word “Canada.” When we pair the term with the word “Metro Vancouver,” multiculturalism almost seems redundant. There are people from all over the world living in Vancouver. With so many people bringing their unique histories and backgrounds to one place, there comes different ways of seeing the world, including different priories and opinions.

When it comes to safety, not only is there a difference of attitudes between cultures, there’s a difference in attitudes even between people within and between any given culture. Take Cary (not her real name) for example:

Cary is 27 and came to Canada from Beijing, China, at the age of five. For the most part, I’d say she is a very safety-conscious person. She’s a careful and responsible driver. She doesn’t bike much now, but when she was young, she always wore a helmet when she rode. When she does take medicine, she reads the labels and is careful not to mix pills without double -checking that they’re safe.

Her parents, Cary says, are also safety conscious. But she suggests that people who come here from China have different attitudes when it comes to safety.

 “In China there just aren’t any safety regulations. Even now there just aren’t those kinds of rules. People have their own sense of what it takes to be safe.”

Cary went on to tell me that back home,

 “They’re not used to government control of smaller things like safety. When you’re coming into Canada, there’s no manual that tells you what to do. They learn from reading newspapers and speaking to people.”

When I asked her how people in China determine how they’ll be more safe in their lives, she told me that people determine what’s dangerous by reading and hearing about tragedies in the media or from people around them, not through any formal safety education or awareness campaigns.

From my interview with Cary I learned that she formed her attitudes on safety by combining her parents examples with safety leasons she learned at school. Speaking to Cary made me thing about how Canadian culture itself shapes how safe we are.

One possibly unsafe thing Cary does in her life is ski without a helmet. She learned to ski in Canada, but when I told her that Intrawest ski hills recommend that all skiers on their hills wear a helmet, she told me that she never really thought about it. “I’ve always thought of myself as a low-key recreational skier”, said Cary.

“It’s different when you ski, you usually fall sideways, which isn’t as dangerous.”

All this safety and culture talk has me wondering, are your attitudes on safety shaped by your cultural background, Canadian culture, both, or neither?

Now that we’re well into the new year, you may have noticed a change in your life. I’m not talking about the extra five pounds you added over the holidays. I’m talking about the new rules around using your cell phone while driving. As of New Year’s day, it’s illegal to use hand-held phones or electronic devices while driving in B.C.

If this is news to you, then you still have some time to adapt to the change. The police are allowing a one-month grace period before they administer the $167 fine for breaking the law. If you’re from out of province and you are caught breaking this law, you may not get a fine until April 1st. It's seems to be a kind tip of the hat to visitors to the Winter Olympics and those without a similar law in their province like in Alberta.

I don’t own a motorized vehicle myself, but I borrow or rent cars from time to time. I like to talk on my cell phone. Yes, at times I'm that annoying guy gabbing on his phone while at the cashier or in the elevator. So I’m thinking if I need to use my cell phone while driving, I could use my ear bud hands-free device. But is using an electronic device while driving, hands-free or not, a serious distraction in itself? Do I use a hands-free device, or turn off my phone?

How have you prepared to go hands-free in your vehicle?

It seemed like only a couple of weeks ago that I said, “I’m just gonna have a chill evening this New Year’s.” Now, with 2010 just hours away, I find myself frantically making a music playlist on my MP3 player and trying to find something striped to wear to the party I’m going to (while blogging at the same time).

I’m rolling out with a group in tow, so that always makes for a logistical headache. We’re all to meet up at my place and then leave for the night together. Some are accompanying me to the striped wingding; some are going to different parties and places to count down the decade.

The dressing up and spending time with friends and family make up the fine time of the night. Where the shine starts to rub off is when the night (let’s hope it’s still night) is finally finished, and it’s time to find your way home.

As many of us know first hand, trying to catch or call for a cab tonight will be like trying to figure out how many women have been involved with Tiger Woods over this the last ten years. So, what a New Year’s reveler to do? For me, it’s going to be busing or walking. Luckily, I don’t live too far from the party, and I’m going to bundle up for the inevitable slow walk home. But what if you’re at a party or event that’s too far to walk home from, and the busses have stopped running before you have?

Here’s the big question: do you drive home? If you’ve been drinking any significant amount of alcohol, it’s not a good idea. So, do you get a ride with someone else? What if everyone you know has been drinking?

Unfortunately the age group that is for sure out partying tonight are known to drink and drive. And according to those of you who did our monthly poll, sixty percent knew the following fact:

Sixteen to twenty-five year-olds have the highest incidence of impaired driving.
--The Community Against Preventable Injuries

Moreover according to MADD, at least eight percent of British Columbians admit to drinking and driving.

If you’re unsure about driving home, there are a lot of options:

• You can arrange for someone sober to pick you up.

• You can stay over wherever you’re partying.

• You can call services like Operation Red Nose, Key Please, or similar services that send someone to take you, your car, or both home at a minimal or no cost.

If these don’t work, here’s a website with some other good ideas for getting home safe tonight.

Whatever you do this evening, I suggest enjoying yourself—but not at the expense of your or anyone else’s health.

I’d like to know how you’re planning on getting home tonight. And if you’re reading this in 2010, I’d like to know if you feel you made the right decision when you left the party.

Happy New Year!