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Protect your head; you need it

According to the BC Brain Injury Association there are approximately 38 new brain injury cases per day.

Talking on a cell phone while eating a bowl of cereal? When in the comfort of your kitchen it’s rude, at worst.  But what if you’re driving down a busy downtown street at the same time?

Two-person crews collected road safety data last summer in seven communities to compile the 2013 Northern Brain Injury Association (NBIA) road safety survey. Crews spent three days in each of Burns Lake, Terrace, Smithers, Mackenzie, McBride, Quesnel and Prince George.

“Somebody was sighted in downtown Quesnel, not only talking on their cell phone while driving, but eating a bowl of cereal at the same time,” said Will Lewis, NBIA Prince George manager. “The driver’s shoulder was scrunched up trying to hold the phone while holding a bowl of cereal at the same time… while driving. It was funny in a sad way.”

According to the BC Brain Injury Association, there are approximately 38 new brain injury cases per day, or almost 14,000 cases of brain injury every year, in B.C. alone.

“More work needs to be done around brain injury,” Lewis said. “It’s one of the leading causes of death and disability in the entire world, eclipsing HIV and breast cancer.”

Of those 14,000 B.C. brain injuries every year, on average 600 will die of their injuries.

Lewis compared this rate of fatality to rates associated with pandemic level health issues.

“In 2009, the H1N1 virus infected over 8500 people. Of those, 432 across the nation died. Hundreds of millions of dollars were poured into vaccination programs.”

“Nova Scotia spent more on flu vaccine this year than was spent on post-recovery for brain injury across Canada,” Lewis added.

Part of the problem from NBIA’s point of view is that brain injury isn’t treated as a health issue, but as a kind of social issue.

The association gets no funding through ministry of health channels. Most of their funding comes through the United Way and a B.C. Gaming grant.

“We have to apply as a non-profit group,” Lewis said. “Rather than treating this as a health issue they [the province] treat it as a social issue.”

Whatever kind of issue it is, it is one that hits close to home in Northern B.C.

“As northerners we’re five times more susceptible to brain injury than people in the lower mainland because we live in a geographically rugged region… We play hard and we live hard, that’s who we are,” Lewis said.

The NBIA estimates that 90 per cent of all brain injuries are preventable. The 2013 survey focused on drivers, cyclists and pedestrians to see how safely they conducted themselves from a brain injury prevention point of view.

In total, 43,383 vehicles, 433 cyclists, 54 small-wheel users (skateboarders and roller bladers), and 1782 pedestrians were observed over the three days in the seven central and northern B.C. communities mentioned already.

The data showed that 2.7 per cent of drivers drove distracted and 4.2 per cent violated provincial road rules. Almost 41 per cent of cyclists rode without helmets, 28.6 per cent of cyclists rode on sidewalks, 8.8 per cent rode against traffic, and 12.5 per cent failed to stop at stop signs. Forty-five per cent of skateboarders and roller bladers were spotted without helmets, and more than 18 per cent of pedestrians crossed streets illegally.

“We were blown away by the numbers of pedestrians who jay-walk,” Lewis said. “Very few of them even looked one way or the other [before crossing], they just went.”

In Burns Lake, half of observed cyclists rode without helmets. Twenty four per cent of pedestrians crossed streets illegally in Burns Lake, but of those who used the multiple crosswalks available (the survey was conducted in Burns Lake after the completion of phase one downtown revitalization), 100 per cent used them properly.

No one was sighted multi-tasking behind the wheel as strenuously as in Quesnel, and Burns Lake had one of the lowest numbers of distracted drivers observed, at only 0.46 per cent of drivers counted.

Only Smithers had a lower distracted driving rate, with only one driver counted (0.01 per cent of observed drivers), while Prince George has the lead in distracted driving with 3.9 per cent of observed drivers being distracted while driving. That’s 928 vehicles in Prince George sighted in one location over three one-hour periods observed violating provincial rules on distracted driving.

The NBIA hopes the road safety survey will help raise awareness around the preventability of brain injuries. Simply things like wearing a bike helmet, putting down the cell phone while driving, or keeping sidewalks clear can mean the difference between catastrophic injury and a healthy life.

“The two major sources of brain injury in North America right now are falling and motor vehicle accidents,” Lewis said.

“I applaud the efforts of the RCMP. They go out of their way to prevent accidents of all kinds,” Lewis added. “But there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done to increase awareness about brain injury and prevention.”

The NBIA website is www.nbia.ca.