Bike Helmets necessary for safety

In her Feb. 2, 2007 article, "Bicycle helmets: More harm than good," Celeste Flint wrongly devalues bike helmets and misleads readers about the most serious bicycle injuries.

Helmets reduce the risk of head and brain injury for all cyclists by 63-88 percent, provide equal levels of protection for crashes involving motor vehicles (69 percent) and crashes from other causes such as poor roads or bike-to-bike crashes (68 percent), and reduce bicycle-related head and facial injuries for bicyclists involved in all types of crashes including those involving motor vehicles.

Ms. Flint incorrectly asserts that most "bicycle accidents" are the result of "car collisions." From 2000–2004, 13 King County residents died in bicycle crashes and an additional 894 were hospitalized for bicycling-related injuries. Forty percent of these deaths and 79 percent of these injuries did not involve a motor vehicle.

King County Child Fatality Review data shows that four children died while riding bicycles without helmets in 1998-1999. The King County Medical Examiner stated that three would have lived had they been wearing a helmet.

Ms. Flint also mistakenly comments that "... allowing the local government to nanny its citizens into helmets ... is hurting the biking community." In truth, everyone had an opportunity to provide input. Only after a lengthy, public discussion in 2003, which included representation from the biking community in support of the regulation, did the King County Board of Health and Seattle City Council vote to extend the bicycle helmet regulation to Seattle.

In conclusion, bicycle helmets are the best way to protect your brain in all types of bike crashes; and locally, you are more likely to hurt yourself in a bike crash that does not involve a car.

For more information, please visit the Public Health Seattle-King County traffic safety Web page: http://www.metrokc.gov/health/injury/traffic.htm#helmets.

Tony Gomez, RS

Public Health-Seattle & King County

Working out doesn't have to be uncomfortable

I'd like to share a quick thought on Eric Uthus' Feb. 12 column "At the man's gym." Basically, he implied that even the slightest observation of a nude male body in the locker room is considered a horrific act (or maybe just unthinkable — the consequence for doing so is unimaginable). Simply put, the implication is that there is a homophobic atmosphere. Just because Kramer snuck a peek at Jerry and George in the locker room doesn't make Kramer gay. He is simply comfortable with his sexuality. And so what? There is no need to feel threatened or paranoid about it. They are just human bodies. The nature of your article is an observation. A bit more insight would have been even more valuable to the UW community, and particularly to men at UW.

Lewis

Graduate, Nutritional Science

Gay marriage column off base

Amy Korst took it upon herself in her last column ("Marriage farce taken too far", Feb. 15) to represent all married people and remind the rest of us what marriage is really about. Drawing on her almost-eight-months experience as a member of the most treasured of American institutions, she reminds us that if you can't take marriage seriously, you can't be allowed to have one. As a gay man, I get told who I can and can't marry all the time by homophobic Republican men, and I hate it. But when she says it, it's totally different: I could always stand to be told by such an upstanding lady whether or not I am "mature enough" to be allowed to marry my partner.

Korst has utterly failed to see the satire in the actions of the Defense of Marriage Alliance. Her reaction has been, instead, to question whether "gay couples" deserve legal unions if they can't take marriage seriously. In doing so, she has given us a window into patriarchal homophobia by presuming to have the authority to decide who should be "allowed" to marry. I am sorry that Korst's 8-month marriage has been so wounded by DoMA's actions - but my sympathy runs dry in light of countless stories of 30-year same-sex partners unable to be with each other in their dying moments.

Alex Kim

Senior, anthropology

Amy Korst is going to drop her support for equal marriage rights for all gays and lesbians because of an initiative that parodies the logic behind the Washington Supreme Court ruling that upheld the Defense of Marriage Act? If so, I have to question how committed she really was to the cause of marriage equality in the first place.

Doesn't she know that in this state a single person can file an initiative and that, in fact, it is one person, Gregory Gadow, who is filing I-957? I doubt that the Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance has support from more than Mr. Gadow and a few of his friends, yet Korst is going to punish all queers for his action. Sure, thousands — including many wonderful married straight allies who don't have children — may sign the initiative, but it probably won't get the 224,880 valid signatures necessary to make it on the ballot. So, Korst, fear not: your childless marriage is perfectly safe, but your sense of justice will be lost if you punish all gays and lesbians over this gimmick.

Kam Lee

UW Libraries

Wishing politics was less religious

I really appreciated Hanady Kader's article ("Faith, politics and mudslingers", Feb. 15). I'm so sick of people thinking that flinging around their religious affiliation should automatically get them ahead in life. I'm still waiting for that time to come where someone's actions speak louder than their words, that time when labels are put aside and people are recognized for what they do, not how they are categorized.

Alicia Godersky

Sophomore, biology