Editor,
The Burlingame City Council will be deciding this Monday, Dec. 3, whether to extend the city’s contract with Lime (formerly Limebike) for another six months, after discussing a staff report which includes the results of a recent community survey.
One significant complaint among respondents was safety-related — specifically, citizens riding Lime bikes without helmets. Indeed, a staggering 75.4 percent of respondents (218 out of 289) admitted that they do not wear a helmet when riding a Lime bike.
And the way in which another finding is stated in the report can be misleading, as it reads that “most Lime riders (69.7 percent) are adults.” Instead, what this really means is that 69.7 percent of the respondents to that particular question (258 out of 370) were adults. I’ve seen a lot of teenagers riding Lime bikes around town, and I doubt many are signed up for the city’s email list-serve and participated in the survey. Most importantly, I cannot recall seeing any kid — or really anyone, for that matter — wearing a helmet when riding a Lime bike. And presumably its impossible for Lime, itself, to know whether a teen is riding one of their bikes, as the teen is most likely using his/her parents’ — not their own — credit card to activate the ride.
I like the concept of bike sharing in theory, but I don’t know how a city or bike sharing company can realistically address this safety concern, particularly with teenagers. I don’t believe our own city should be facilitating the ability of its citizens to ride bicycles without wearing helmets. Public safety takes top priority.
Lorne Abramson
Burlingame
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(1) comment
Every person biking is one less car on the road. This has enormous public health benefits (less asthma, less obesity, fewer auto deaths) and makes our community more pleasant (more smiles, less noise, lower road maintenance costs). Just because a few individuals don't want to protect their noggins, doesn't mean that we should scrap this incredible program.
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