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Study Shows Unhelmeted Riders Suffer More Severe Injury

Written by George Tait

Monday, 07 December 2009 18:55

In this and the next several posts I am going to analyse a recent study by the United States Department of Transportation National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The recently published study is titled Motorcycle Helmet Use & Head & Facial Injuries. The study included data from eighteen containing information on 104,472 motorcyclists involved in crashes during the years 2003, 2004, and 2005.

Fifty-seven percent of motorcyclists were helmeted at the time of the crashes and 43 percent were non-helmeted. For both groups, about 40 percent of motorcyclists were treated at hospitals or died following the crashes. However, 6.6 percent of unhelmeted motorcyclists suffered a moderate to severe head or facial injury compared to 5.1 percent of helmeted motorcyclists.

Fifteen percent of hospital-treated helmeted motorcyclists suffered traumatic brain injury (TBI) compared to 21 percent of hospital-treated unhelmeted motorcyclists. TBI severity varied by helmet use. Almost 9 percent of unhelmeted and 7 percent of helmeted hospital-treated motorcyclists received minor to moderate TBI. More than 7 percent of unhelmeted and 4.7 percent of hospital-treated helmeted motorcyclists sustained severe TBI.

Median charges for hospitalized motorcyclists who survived to discharge were 13 times higher for those incurring a TBI compared to those who did not sustain a TBI ($31,979 versus $2,461). Over 85 percent of hospital-treated motorcyclists without a TBI were discharged home, compared to 56 percent of motorcyclists with severe TBI. Motorcyclists admitted to the hospital with TBI were more likely to die, be discharged to rehab, or transferred to a long-term care facility. While 17 percent of all hospital-admitted motorcyclists had TBI, they account for 54 percent of all admitted riders who did not survive.

The above executive summary is what I see in my law practice. Typically unhelmeted riders are more severely injured than those that wear helmets. However, that does not mean that just because unhelmeted riders are more often more severely injured that laws should be passed forcing riders to wear helmets.