Most adults ride without helmets

January 29, 2:19 PMDenver Cycling ExaminerGary Koenig

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That headline atop a graphic on the front page of USA Today grabbed my attention. I’m not a normal USA Today connoisseur and I’m sometimes skeptical of the “data” they report when I do glance at an edition. So I perused the pie chart with some doubt. Their chart maintained that 58% percent of surveyed adults claimed to never wear a helmet when bicycling, while only 30% reported they wore a helmet often. According to USA Today, 1% of the citizens of our great land are so preoccupied with things beyond my grasp as to not know if they wear a helmet.

These numbers, cited from a study done by the Consumer Reports National Research Center, were startling to me. I almost never see bicyclists sans helmets. I admit that I don’t see much when I ride, and the cyclists I do see when I’m on my bike are very predominantly those who train fairly seriously and almost universally sport helmets. But I’m actually pretty alert when I’m not on the bike and because of my interest in the sport, when a person on a bicycle is within eyeshot I generally notice. Obviously, there are lots of extremely casual bicycle users out there, maybe riding for exercise, but more likely riding to the corner market for a cup of coffee or taking a rolling evening constitutional by riding around the block.

In doing a little research on helmet use my formerly sanguine belief that almost everyone who rides accepts the common knowledge that helmets save lives was sorely challenged. The Internet is of course filled with so many completely contradictory “facts” that it’s best to ignore most of what you read (unless written by Examiners ;-). There are those on the non-helmet side who claim to have facts proving that helmet use is more dangerous than riding bare-headed. I don’t have time to waste trying to analyze that type of “data”. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, likely a much more reliable source than your average web “expert”, reports that 92% of bicyclists killed in 2007 were not wearing a helmet.

Even among dedicated proponents of helmet use there exist large numbers who are adamantly opposed to laws mandating such behavior. These folks argue their position on a number of fronts including: individual liberty, relying on more effective safety alternatives (education, bike lanes, better traffic enforcement) and threats to bicycle usage if helmets are required. A little over two years ago, a very public fight was waged over a proposed helmet law in Lance Armstrong’s hometown, Austin, TX.

As an aficionado of another two-wheel recreational form, I am on the side of mandatory helmet use for motorcyclists, but for bicyclists I think we’re better served by trying to educate riders on the benefits of wearing them rather than making their use mandatory. One thing I can do to help foster this cause is stop running pictures of helmet-less bicyclists. I’ll probably start tomorrow.