MAKE THEM STOP! SOMEBODY MAKE THE SAFETY FREAKS STOP!
from the Montreal Gazette, January 9, 2009
I'm sometimes told to use my head more. Like when The Gazette assigned me to wear a safety tuque - basically a warm bicycle helmet - and see whether passersby downtown would wear one to protect against brain injuries, at first I really missed the point.
"Will I get hat-head?" I asked about the hair-flattening effects of helmets.
"What's important is that your head will be protected in case you fall," replied Jack Kowalski, 58, a zealous advocate of safety helmets who wants to test-market safety tuques.
"What about falling down and breaking other parts?" I asked. "Should I also wear knee and elbow pads?" His answer was another no-brainer: "You can if you want to, but those parts are more easily replaced."
And this from someone who had hip replacement surgery four years ago. Kowalski's point became as plain as the icy sidewalks in winter: while falling is part of life in snowy Montreal, wearing a hard hat can save your life if you hit your head.
"I just think that anytime someone wears a tuque outside, because it's cold or to play sports, it should be a safety tuque," he said.
So off we went, wearing bicycle helmets covered with tuques, with others in hand to offer passersby for tryouts, free of charge, of course.
"Don't call it a helmet. It's a safety tuque," Kowalski told me, displaying the warm wool flaps he'd sewn onto the tuques to cover the strap stretching under the helmet from ear to ear to bolt the chin in place. "I'm disguising safety," he explained.
"I always look odd in hats," demurred Jim Van Haren, 54, one of several people we approached on Ste. Catherine St. It was after a recent snowstorm, when the beige-grey mush on the sidewalks belied a slippery undercoating. "But it would be great for seniors."
"I'm not really afraid of falling," said Elsa Fourez, 34, a mother of three children, age 10, 12 and 14. "But it would be great for my kids when they play outside."
Francine Manuela, 23 , a business student at Université de Montréal, admitted that the sizeable hood on her coat would easily conceal a safety tuque, but she would not wear one.
"This product could work, though," she said. "You should target men."
Over and over, we met people who put aesthetics ahead of safety. Would they buy a safety tuque if its armour was discreetly concealed?
"I suppose so," admitted Stéphane Perron, 41. "But I've never fallen on my head."
Kowalski wasn't put off by what he called a minor marketing challenge. After all, he nearly single-handedly turned rafting on the Lachine Rapids into a moneymaking venture when he founded the Saute Moutons jet-boating company 26 years ago.
For children, seniors and anyone else concerned about falling, he plans to test-market about 30 safety tuques this winter in a yet-to-be-determined boutique in Old Montreal.
Predator Helmets, a company that furnishes Saute Moutons with kayak helmets, will manufacture the first run of tuques, he said. As for summer headgear, he has in mind a kind of stealthy baseball cap with a hard shell.
The head injuries children sustain playing hockey and tobogganing would be greatly reduced simply by supplying headgear that is deemed "cool," he said.
Kowalski advises anyone worried about konking their heads to slip a large tuque over a helmet. As for me, I'll get a short haircut and definitely think about it.
On the Web: Get more information about safety tuques by visiting Kowalski's website, http://drivingwithoutdying.com
