Her Court Appearance

I took my daughter to court today — Superior Court of the State of California, County of Yolo, Department 10 – Juvenile Traffic Court. Violation: CVC 21212, “Bicyclists and passengers under age 18 must wear an ANSI or Snell approved helmet when a passenger or riding upon a bicycle.” Only in Davis, the bike capital of America, where police officers wait by the schools to make sure that juveniles are safe riding home on nicely paved bike paths…

Kristen swears that she wears her helmet all the time. Well, except for this one time when she was going to her friend’s home just a couple of blocks from school. When I got the news, I initially thought that she was not wearing her helmet because she was trying to protect her curls (rather than her brains). But then, since it was already after school, she didn’t need to protect her curls, and so I gathered she was telling me the truth. (Kristen, you got a good brain inside your skull; use it and keep it in there by wearing your helmet! And besides, I don’t think anyone would care how your hair looks when you are getting a CT scan to see if your skull is fractured one of these days.)

What also troubles me is that every day, I see kids riding their bikes with their helmets on their heads, but they don’t strap it on! As if the strap dangling would make them look cooler as their helmet flies off in one direction while their head goes in another. Methinks they should teach physics and Newton’s Laws earlier in elementary school…way before they learn the laws of coolness and stylishness.

On the UCD campus, you can tell the smart ones right away by whether or not they wear helmets. The undergrads rarely wear them. The graduate students wear them most of the time. The professors wear them all the time, and sometimes even in lectures! It goes to show that if you have brains worth protecting, you’d protect them…

The judge today asked Kristen two questions. “Do you have a helmet?” To which she answered, “Yes.” And the second question which is the point of this post, “Are you going to wear it?” And without hesitation, she answered, “Yes!” (BTW, I’m writing this post so that she will keep to her word. And if you see her without her helmet, give her a hard time!)

As I was writing this post, a brilliant thought came into my mind: a bike helmet with built-in steam rollers to keep your hair curly! I can wire up a motor generator that converts the kinetic energy of the bicycle to generate electrical power for this steam-roller-bike-helmet! Hey Kristen, how about trying this out? It’ll keep you safe from future court appearances!