Let’s Get Rolling on Bicycle Safety : Protective Helmets Work, and Should Be Used

Remember when seat belts were reserved for fighter pilots? Or when baby safety seats in vehicles were a rarity? Now both are accepted and required devices for avoiding serious injuries and deaths.

By the same token, some day bicycle helmets may be commonplace. Research indicates that they can reduce the risk of head injuries by up to 85%, but aren’t in general use for many of the same reasons seat belts and safety seats weren’t before. Most riders don’t know how effective they are, and others consider them a restriction of their freedom. Still others consider them unfashionable.

Around the nation, however, some parents, police officers and local officials are inventing programs to educate bicyclists--in particular, younger children--to wear helmets as a matter of course. In Orange County, for the first time, both Irvine and Newport Beach will have full-blown helmet safety education programs this fall in the elementary schools. In other years, helmets have been mentioned as a part of good bike safety. Now their use will be emphasized.

These new, laudable programs will be aimed at younger riders so that helmets become part of the ride, just as being strapped into seat belts is part of riding in a car. Not as much effort will be focused on older students because they tend to “think they’re too cool to wear helmets,” as one police officer said.

Currently, California requires helmets for bike passengers who are 4 years old or younger, or who weigh less than 40 pounds. Similar laws are on the books in several other states as well. But there is no state that requires helmets for older children or adult bicyclists.

Recently, Howard County, Md., adopted the first mandatory bicycle helmet law in the nation for older riders. The law, which requires cyclists 15 years old and younger to wear helmets or face $50 fines, came in the wake of three young cyclists’ deaths. Enforcement will be difficult, but Howard County has led the way for the rest of the nation in promoting helmets as essential to bike safety.

In California, the possibility of putting a bicycle helmet law on the books appears remote. There has been great difficulty passing a law that would require helmets even for motorcyclists--despite their proven effectiveness. The Legislature finally managed to approve two motorcycle helmet bills in recent years, but Gov. George Deukmejian vetoed them. Soon, however, there will be a new governor and the possibility of getting a helmet bill signed. That may help smooth the way for the acceptance of bicycle helmets as well. Already, bicycle clubs and serious bicyclists routinely wear helmets as they ride city streets and bike paths.

In California, there were 140,000 injuries and nearly 1,200 deaths associated with bike accidents in the last 10 years. There were more than 110 deaths and 15,000 injuries in Orange County alone in that same period. Nationwide, bicycle injuries cost Americans a staggering $7.6 billion a year--the equivalent of $85 per bicycle in use, the Consumer Product Safety Commission says. Helmets would help reduce this human and financial cost.

The time has come to promote helmets as standard biking attire. In the meantime, at least Newport Beach and Irvine have the right idea: They’re beginning by educating future adults that helmets are “cool” when it comes to safety. One day--if these children learn well--helmets may be as much a part of bike riding as seat belts and safety seats are a part of driving.