Spokane considers citywide helmet law

Teenage skateboarders Corey Rohrman and David Pachman can’t see the harm in doing their skateboard jumps and turns with the wind blowing through their hair.

They do not wear safety helmets.

“If we fall, we are the ones who have to deal with it,” Rohrman, 16, said Wednesday morning at Hillyard skateboard park. “I don’t see the point in it.”

Members of the Spokane City Council apparently do.

The council is considering an ordinance that would require helmets for anyone riding bikes, skateboards, skates or scooters in the city. The proposed ordinance would make it a class-4 civil infraction to be caught without one. The fine would be $25. Parents and guardians would be responsible for their kids and could be fined if their children under age 16 are not wearing safety helmets.

Helmets protect against serious brain injuries, said Dr. Kim Thorburn, chief health officer for the Spokane Regional Health District, which is behind the helmet proposal.

The state of Washington currently requires helmets only for motorcycle riders, but the state lets local jurisdictions decide on an expanded helmet law. A number of cities and counties have extended the helmet requirement to include bikes, skates, skateboards and scooters.

Idaho requires helmets for juveniles on motorcycles or scooters. Currently, there is no plan for expanding the law in Idaho to adults or nonmotorized riders, said Officer Eric Paull of the Coeur d’Alene Police Department.

The health district in Spokane is pushing the expanded helmet law along with the local chapter of the Safe Kids Coalition and the East Region EMS and Trauma Care Council, Thorburn said.

The goal is not to issue fines, but to create an enforcement tool for getting people to wear helmets, she said. The health district board is expected to vote on expanded helmet regulations next Thursday, but the district is also seeking local ordinances as a means of enforcement through civil fines, she said.

Helmets can reduce the likelihood of brain injuries in serious accidents by 85 percent, Thorburn said. Despite that fact, use of helmets by skaters and bike and scooter riders has fallen steadily in recent years in Spokane County.

Health district surveys show only four in 10 skaters or riders wear helmets, compared with a statewide rate of 62 percent. As recently as 1997, the usage rate in Spokane was 64 percent. The higher rates in the 1990s resulted from an education effort, she said

In the five-year period from 1997 through 2001, Spokane County had 259 hospitalizations from bicycle accidents along with six fatalities, Thorburn said.

The increased popularity of small scooters and motorcycles figures into the current effort to enact an expanded helmet law.

“Those new scooters are really dangerous,” Thorburn said.

Police Chief Roger Bragdon and Fire Chief Bobby Williams have endorsed the expanded law. The council is scheduled to hold a public hearing on the ordinance on June 28 at its 6 p.m. legislative session at City Hall, and could vote on it that night.

Shogan said he expects a debate over provisions that place responsibility for children with parents or guardians.

Seattle, Tacoma, King County, Pierce County, Bellevue and Bremerton are among larger jurisdictions that have enacted expanded helmet laws. Port Angeles in 1993 was the first city in the state to require helmets for bikes, skates, skateboards and scooters, said Lynn Drake of the Washington Traffic Safety Council.

Kim Alumbaugh of Burlington, Wash., who was visiting the Hillyard park on Wednesday, said the helmet law makes sense for riding on public streets because of the danger posed by automobiles. But skaters and skateboarders shouldn’t be required to wear helmets in skate parks, she said.

She said most skateboard injuries involve ankles and wrists.

Her 8-year-old son, Shawn, said he doesn’t want to be forced to wear one.

“You’ve just got to know how to ride,” skateboarder Pachman said at the Hillyard skateboard park.

Kramer Veloski, 14, who lives in Spokane Valley, said he always wears a helmet. “I don’t want to die,” he said.

The health district gave away helmets at the skateboard park’s grand opening earlier this year.

Hillyard community leader Paul Hamilton said he is concerned about helping low-income families buy helmets for their kids if helmets are required.

Shelley Franklin, who was watching her son Dillon use in-line skates at the Hillyard park Wednesday, said she supports the expanded helmet law. “That’s how I taught him, and he knows that’s what you do,” she said.

Dillon, 11, said, “I think it’s safe.”