Wearing a bicycle helmet provides significant safety benefits for bicyclists. Despite some debate over the topic, the vast majority of research has shown that wearing a bike helmet is the "single most effective way to reduce head injuries and fatalities resulting from bicycle crashes," the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration concludes.
Reduce Risk of Serious Injury
Wearing a helmet helps protects your head from serious injury. If you sustain a bike crash while wearing a helmet, you are much less likely to sustain injury to your head, face and brain.
Although this seems like common sense, research has also corroborated the concept. According to the Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center, studies have shown strong, clear evidence that wearing a bike helmet helps reduces the risk of seriously injuring your head or brain by more than 70 percent.
Reduce Risk of Death
Even if you do sustain an injury, wearing a helmet lessens the severity of the injury and reduces the chance that it will result in death. If you don't wear a helmet when riding a bike, then you face a much greater chance that any bike crash will result in death. A 2005 report in New York City, for example, found that 97 percent of bicyclists who died from bike crashes were not wearing helmets.
Obey Laws
In the U.S., 21 states and some local governments have enacted mandatory helmet laws. Most of these laws only apply to children and teenagers, but some apply to bikers of all ages. Enforcement methods and consequences vary by location, but, of course, it is always best to follow the law, as your civic duty and for your own protection.
Expert Debates
Some experts, such as the Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation, report that wearing a bike helmet only protects against direct impact to the head, but not against other injuries. For example, helmet cannot protect against injuries that result from your brain moving within your skull, caused by the movement and striking of the rest of your body. In fact, wearing a helmet might increase the chance that a direct injury harms your brain in that manner.
Further, mandatory helmet laws might decrease the number of people who ride bicycles. The Foundation claims that these laws don't decrease the risk or seriousness of injury, and one expert announced that wearing a helmet increases the chance that an accident will occur. However, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that bicycle helmets reduce the risk of head and brain injuries by 85 percent to 88 percent.
References
- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: Bicycle Helmet Use Laws
- Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center: Bicycle Injury Interventions
- New York City Departments...: Bicyclist Fatalities and Serious Injuries in New York City
- Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation: Cycle Helmets - An Overview
- ConsumerReports.org: Bike Helmets - Not Wigs - Save Lives
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