California (and many other states) have singled out children for mandatory bike legislation. The “logic” is that if kids need car seats in automobiles, then they also need helmets when riding on bikes.
But when looking at the actual data, this makes no sense. Young children have much lower fatality risk compared to other age groups. According to the NHTSA, the 14-and-under age group makes up 9% of bicycle fatalities. It is adult males who account for most bike fatalities.
(In France, incidentally, senior citizens are the ones most at risk from cycling fatalities. The French Cycling Federation argues that if any age group were to be singled out for mandatory helmet laws, it should be the elderly.)
Which brings us to today’s ridiculous story:
A man filed a lawsuit Tuesday accusing San Francisco police officers of wrongfully arresting him and forcibly taking his infant son from him after stopping him for riding his bike with his child strapped to his chest in a Baby Bjorn carrier. Takuro Hashitaka said he and his then-10-month-old son, Moku, were riding in a bike lane on Eighth Street headed to a Trader Joe’s two blocks from his South of Market home on Dec. 13.
The infant was strapped to Hashitaka in a Baby Bjorn and “further secured by a sweatshirt that had been modified into a traditional baby carrier garment with a hole for Moku’s head,” said the federal civil rights suit filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Officers Anthony Bautista and Brendan Caraway came up behind them in the bike lane and “came close” to hitting them, the suit says.
Caraway asked over the patrol cruiser’s loudspeaker why the baby wasn’t wearing a helmet, and Hashitaka, “unaware of a requirement for a baby to wear a bike helmet,” asked the officer “what the authority was for this,” the suit says. The officers activated their lights and stopped Hashitaka at a gas station at Eighth and Harrison streets, the suit says.
The officers grabbed Hashitaka’s wrists, telling him he was being arrested and that Child Protective Services would take his son, according to the suit. Other officers arrived and took Hashitaka to the ground and choked him until he lost consciousness.
If officer Caraway were to ever visit Europe or Japan, the jails would fill up:
The ridiculous example mentioned looks to me as a case of racism.
Hmmm… maybe? Hashitaka’s lawyer is claiming racism, but American cops usually target black people, or Hispanics.
I bring this up because in New York at least, there’s a stereotype that Europeans are tourists and gentrifiers and generally the opposite of Real New Yorkers. The SFPD tends to be assholish to cyclists and people it perceives as gentrifiers (link). Could just be that they heard a Japanese accent and immediately decided “tourist,” which is of course racism, but not quite the same as the one involved in most cases of US police brutality.
Let’s be clear here. Mr. Hashitaka’s error was not failing to put a helmet on his infant. His error was having the temerity to ask a cop “what is the authority for this.” I’m surprised they didn’t beat him.
Besides choking him into unconsciousness twice, the cops cut the baby out of the Baby Bjorn WITH A KNIFE and handed the kid off to CPS even though the dad was begging them to call the mom who was less than 2 blocks away. The strange thing is that this is the SFPD which rarely enforces any crimes.
>Young children have much lower fatality risk compared to other age groups. According to the NHTSA, the 14-and-under age group makes up 9% of bicycle fatalities.
That seems like the wrong measure, without knowing what proportion of the bicycle riding population 14-and-unders make up.Have you data on that? I looked at the NHTSA fact sheet, and it only gives a rate per 1 million people not per riders or miles ridden.
yeah, kids don’t ride bikes
great pictures
Theyt don’t even manufacture bike helmets for 10-month olds.
The thug cops, Carraway and Bautista, need to be arrested with extreme prejudice and sent to prison for aggravated assault, battery, and kidnapping.
At this point, probably citizens’ posses should go to the houses of Carraway and Bautista and arrest them: that seems to be the only way to bring criminals in blue to justice. They should be considered armed and dangerous, of course, because they are known to be carrying guns *and* they have assaulted people on the street.
Of course, it would be best to get a grand jury or sherriff to swear in the posse before going after the criminals; but *someone* has to go after the violent criminals before they assault more innocent people.
It’s not even safe for a baby to wear a helmet. Their neck cannot support the extra weight when they are little, leading to a risk of injury. Helmet use is not recommended for infants under 12 months.
It is adult males who account for most bike fatalities. … bacarrier.wordpress.com