Home > Feature

Don’t tell me the cyclist wasn’t wearing a helmet

A seemingly objective fact used as slander

Police tape

Recently, I was reminded of an interview my friend did on CBC Radio two years ago. Kyle G. Brown spoke about getting hit by a truck as he rode his bike in downtown Toronto. He was dragged about 75 m. When he came to, he said he was “pasted to the ground.” In the interview, Brown couldn’t remember all of his injuries, but some standouts were a broken pelvis, the degloving of the left leg, broken vertebrae and a fractured orbital bone. The interviewer asked if Brown was wearing a helmet at the time. He wasn’t. She asked why not. His answer was the best response I could have hoped to hear.

“I wasn’t in the habit at the time of wearing a helmet,” Brown said. “Actually, I’ve often found this to be a distraction. As you’ve just announced, people have died wearing helmets. Of course, it will, in some cases, prevent head injuries. In practice, I’m in favour of wearing it – sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. In principle, I do find it’s a distraction. This was one of the arguments put to me by the lawyer representing the driver. They suggested I was negligent in not wearing a helmet, which, of course, I resented. When we do ride a bike, we should not be undertaking an activity as if we are engaging in some kind of a blood sport. This is cycling. It’s a mode of transportation.”

Now, before I continue, I have to do something I resent: declare that I always wear a helmet. But, like Brown, I believe that detail shouldn’t matter when journalists report on cyclists who’ve been hit by motor vehicles. “The cyclist wasn’t wearing a helmet,” I often read in news stories. You could argue it’s merely an objective fact. But as any writer or editor knows, the details you include and the details you leave out shape a reader’s perception. “Wasn’t wearing a helmet” is a seemingly innocuous phrase that’s meant to indicate negligence, a cavalier attitude or even the incompetence of the cyclist. It’s subtle slander.

Let’s say I’m reporting a scene about a vehicle stopped outside a coffee shop. It might be accurate to write, “After dropping his child off at hockey practice and before heading to the grocery store, the driver parked his vehicle outside the coffee shop for a moment.” It might also be accurate to write, “The driver stopped his BMW X7 with two wheels in the bike lane and two on the sidewalk before walking into a Starbucks to get a chestnut praline frappuccino.” The first sentence presents a rushed parent possibly committing a small traffic transgression. The second sentence presents an arrogant and entitled motorist. Both sentences could be accurate at the same time.

So, don’t tell me the cyclist wasn’t wearing a helmet. That detail doesn’t tell me anything about how he or she came to be injured. It gives no indication of fault or blame. Or, if you insist on including that detail, tell me more about the motorist, too. Tell me that the driver’s licence-plate sticker was out-of-date or that the SUV’s left signal light didn’t work or that there were 10 plush toys in the back window of the car or that CBC’s Vinyl Tap was playing on the radio.

Just the facts, please.