The most anticipated (for me anyway) event of the Ontario summer has occurred – the office of the chief coroner has released the cycling deaths report.

The report had a particular privilege of being misinterpreted by the press – please give a hand to the Ottawa Citizen for giving the Ottawa Sun a run for their money in poor journalism. In fact, the report does not recommend mandatory helmets for adults, it recommends mandatory helmets given that further study can prove such law will not be detrimental to cycling participation levels. Since no such study could prove this, the report merely states that it is a good idea to wear a helmet – a reasonable and well documented assertion. I sincerely hope that some silly-billy does not pass general mandatory helmet law in Ontario based on this report.

But enough about helmets and bad journalism, the report is quite interesting otherwise. The most significant recommendation is to develop provincial cycling plan that includes “complete streets” approach. Ottawa has had a cycling plan for years but it does not do enough to make cycling more palatable in my neighbourhood. This is an important recommendation and I hope it will be implemented soon.

Things that were interesting about the report itself include the fact that overwhelming number of accident deaths were of men and particularly of men aged 45 and above. There was no suggestion as to why this is the case.

The report also divides cycling into recreational, sport and commuting. I would have liked to get a better breakdown on where the accidents happened, the speed of the bike as well as the type of bicycle used. Apart from confirming that there is an increase in the number of commuting cyclists, I am not sure what the commission learned from type of cycling data.

In any case, this report was very reasonable and I hope there will be positive change as a result of it. Less frothing about the helmets and more infrastructure and education. I can only hope.