Bicycle Helmet Safety

There are 85 million bicycle riders in the US
About 800 bicyclists die in the US every year
About 550,000 bicyclists visit emergency rooms with injuries ever year
Bicycle crashes and injuries are under reported, since the majority do not involve emergency room visits.
One in eight of the cyclists injured has a brain injury.
Two-thirds of the deaths here are from traumatic brain injury.
Eighty eight percent of cyclists' brain injuries can be prevented by a helmet.
Many years of potential life are lost because about half of the deaths are children under 15 years old.
Direct costs of cyclists injuries are estimated at $81 million.
Indirect costs of cyclists' injuries are estimated at $2.3 billion.
Helmet use in the US varies by orders of magnitude in different areas and different sectors of our society. White collar commuters probably reach 80 per cent, while inner city kids and rural kids would be 10 per cent or less. Overall, our best wild guess is probably around 20 per cent. Sommers Point, NJ, where a state helmet law is in effect, found that only 24 of the 359 students who rode to school in one week of the Winter of 2002 wore helmets (6 per cent) until the School District adopted a helmet rule. North Carolina observed 17 per cent statewide before their law went into effect in 2001.
Helmets are cheap, although in the 1990's the typical discount store rock bottom price has risen from under $10 to about $15.

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