Riding a bicycle is dangerous. It’s even more so when bicyclists don’t wear helmets, though. Researchers at Taylor & Francis Group set out to better understand whether some bikers are more apt to suffer neck or head injuries in bicycle accidents. They identified trends as to who is less likely to wear helmets and end up hurt as a result.
The researchers discovered that ethnic minorities and men are least likely to wear helmets while bike riding. They found that Pacific Islanders/Asians and Caucasians were most apt to wear helmets at 26.6% and 27.35, respectively. Only 6% of blacks and 7.6% of Hispanics wore helmets themselves. They also determined that women wear helmets 28.3% of the time, whereas men do 7.7% less.
One typical result associated with a lack of helmet use is neck or head injuries. The researchers determined that the death rate for Hispanics from such injuries was 17% higher than it was for whites. They also found that blacks were 19% more likely to die in a bike accident from a head or neck injury than their Caucasian counterparts. The researchers also determined that men were 36% more likely than women to be injured that way. As for helmet use, only 12.1% of bicyclists under the age of 17 wore them. Those 40 years of age and older accounted for at least 31.8% of those riders who did wear them.
The researchers confirmed their suspicions that mandatory helmet laws can greatly affect bicyclists’ injury and mortality rates. They determined that there are many different reasons that bicyclists don’t wear helmets, though. While many bike riders find them uncomfortable, others opt not to put them on because they’re ill-informed about the benefits of wearing helmets. Some simply lack access to them.
While helmets likely save lives, it can help significantly if motorists know about bicyclists’ rights and how to best share the road with them. Some of the more common reasons why North Carolina drivers strike bicyclists is because they follow them too closely or fail to notice them when making a turn. Bike riders often get seriously hurt when incidents like these occur. A personal injury attorney will want to know more about your catastrophic crash here in Wilson before advising you of your right to recover damages from a negligent motorist in your case.
