To the editor:
Asked to respond to last month’s crash involving a young cyclist on West Shore Drive, Marblehead Police Chief Dennis King announced a forthcoming bike-safety education event. That’s dangerous.
Educational and skills-training bicycling programs do not “translate into a decrease in injury rate, or improved bicycle handling ability and attitudes.” That’s the conclusion of numerous public-health studies, including a “study of studies” by Dr. Sarah Richmond and her colleagues at the University of Toronto.
Young kids love doing these bike rodeos — showing off their skills, pretending to stop at a railroad crossing — as evidenced by last spring’s event at Glover Elementary. They give kids confidence to embrace the joy of cycling and help develop a healthful, lifelong habit. That is why it’s perfectly appropriate for the Marblehead Health Department to co-host such an event.
But the MPD should be protecting children on bicycles from traffic violence. A good start would be downloading the data from the speed sign located just yards from the crash site on West Shore. The chief should also lobby his fellow department heads to finally install the planned raised crosswalk at West Shore in front of the Tower School (this can be done with the $1.43 million in ARPA funding already allocated to that segment of the Rail Trail).
Sincerely,
Dan Albert
Marblehead