If you are a cyclist, you are likely to don a helmet before you go out riding as part of your safety precautions or to follow the laws in your municipality. However, bicycle helmet laws are not universal nor are the claims that helmets increase a rider’s safety accepted by all.
History
The adoption of bicycle helmet laws began in 1987 with California being the first state to propose a helmet law in 1986, according to the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute. When introduced, the law applied only to children age five and under, but California amended the law in 1994 to include anyone under the age of 18. New York followed California’s lead and adopted a statewide bicycle helmet law in 1989. Massachusetts followed suit a year later.
Geography
Individual municipalities have enacted helmet laws throughout the United States but, as of 2010, only 21 states and the District of Columbia have passed bicycle helmet laws. There is no federal law requiring the use of helmets for riders. In the states that adopted helmet laws, the regulations apply just to minors—usually under 16, with the exception of California and Delaware, which set the age at under 18. As of the summer of 2010, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont and Wyoming have neither state nor any local laws requiring the use of bicycle helmets.
Benefits
Published in 2010 from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the “2008 Traffic Safety Facts” section on Bicyclists and Other Cyclists states: “All bicyclists should wear properly fitted bicycle helmets every time they ride. A helmet is the single most effective way to prevent head injury resulting from a bicycle crash.” The May 1989 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine made a similar statement 21 years earlier based on research from the Center for Health Studies that found that riders with helmets had an 85 percent reduced risk of head injury and an 88 percent reduced risk of brain injury. The Journal concluded, "Bicycle safety helmets are highly effective in preventing head injury. Helmets are particularly important for children, since they suffer the majority of serious head injuries from bicycling accidents.”
Disagreement
It may surprise you to learn that not everyone is in favor of mandatory helmet laws. In their paper, “Cycling for Everyone: Lessons from Europe” John Pucher and Ralph Buehler from Rutgers University make special note of the fact that in the Netherlands, the country with the fewest cycling accidents, under 1 percent of adults and 3 to 5 percent of children wear bike helmets. Professor Piet De Jong from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia states in his paper, “The Health Impact of Mandatory Bicycle Helmet Laws,” that mandatory bicycle helmet laws do very little in the way of increasing rider safety and reduce the number of riders, thereby cutting the health benefits of cycling for the general population.
Famous Ties
Perhaps the best expert on bicycle safety laws and the benefits of wearing a bike helmet is someone who has crashed. In 2007, CNN reporter, John Roberts, was in a bike accident. The accident mangled his helmet but he was on air the following day. Roberts credited his helmet for keeping him from serious injury: "I never get on a bicycle or motorcycle without a helmet and am I glad. I don't know where I'd be right now if I hadn't been wearing one.”
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