How Much Does a Helmet Improve Survival in a Motorcycle Crash

When you ride a motorcycle, you think about the freedom of rolling along in the open air. In some ways, helmets are the opposite of that. They’re sometimes uncomfortable on hot days, they may get in the way, and some are just plain ugly. Helmets don’t meet everyone’s expectations for comfort and good looks, but that’s not what they’re about. Helmets protect a biker’s head. Indeed, they constitute one of the few options that bikers have for improving their chances of survival in a serious motorcycle crash.

Bikers Need Protection

If you’ve ever been involved in a motorcycle accident, you already understand that you need protection. As a biker, you’re vulnerable during any type of accident with a larger vehicle. Because cars outweigh motorcycles, even a minor impact can easily overturn your bike and slam you to the pavement. Despite the high chance of injury, statistics show that many bikers wear helmets only if required by law. Some bikers wear novelty helmets despite Department of Transportation (DOT) findings that these helmets are unsafe and don’t provide adequate protection.

Misjudging the Risk of Head Injuries

It’s understandable for bikers to misjudge their head injury risk. When a motorcycle crash occurs, it doesn’t usually cause head injuries. Most motorcycle accidents damage a biker’s pelvis, legs, ankles, or feet. While lower extremity injuries occur more frequently, they also enjoy faster recoveries. When a biker does endure head trauma, it often injures the brain. Patients with traumatic brain injuries stay hospitalized longer and often require rehabilitation. Some bikers with head injuries ultimately die from their wounds. Others deal with permanent impairments and consequences that often last a lifetime.

Helmets won’t prevent all head injuries, but they do reduce the chance of sustaining disabling head wounds. As the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) motorcycle safety page explains, a helmet is the “best hope you have for protecting your brain.”

NHTSA’s reasons for making such a blunt statement include:

• Motorcyclists are overrepresented in national casualty statistics.
• Motorcyclists are 27 times more likely to die in a crash than other vehicle occupants.
• Motorists have unique visibility issues. Since vehicle operators don’t always see motorcycles on the road, bikers are largely responsible for protecting themselves.

Motorcycle Helmets Prevent Injuries and Fatalities

When a biker has an accident, the lack of protection makes the biker vulnerable to injury. Helmets are one of the few pieces of safety equipment with the power to minimize this risk. When an accident occurs, helmets make a big difference in whether a biker sustains catastrophic head injuries.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considers motorcycle helmets highly effective in protecting motorcyclists’ heads during a crash.

CDC researchers have determined:

• Helmets reduce motorcyclists’ fatalities by 37 percent.
• Helmets reduce head injury risks by 69 percent.
• Bikers used helmets more frequently (86 percent) in states with universal helmet laws.
• A National Trauma Data Bank study determined that bikers who used helmets had lower injury-severity scores and lower death rates.

How Often Do Head Injuries Occur?

Motorcyclists don’t sustain head injuries as frequently as they sustain injuries in the lower half of their bodies. NHTSA researchers determined this while focusing on lower extremity injuries. Researchers evaluated motorcycle accidents, trauma center admissions, and patient treatment outcomes. Through this research, researchers uncovered a pattern of motorcycle injury frequency. In many cases, bikers sustained multiple injuries in a single accident.

Consider these statistics:

• Lower extremity injuries, 47 percent;
• Upper extremity injuries, 40 percent;
• Head injuries, 37 percent;
• Spine injuries, 20 percent; and
• Abdomen injuries, 15 percent.

An NHTSA study of 41,000 bikers found that lower extremity patients usually sustained less severe injuries. Based on the 1 to 6 Abbreviated Injury Scale, trauma centers found that only 19,000 of the bikers had a #2 injury severity or greater. Of the lower extremity injury patients studied, only 3 percent rated a #4 injury severity or higher. Of those with head injuries, 37 percent rated a #4 injury severity or higher. This research demonstrated an injury pattern that showed head injuries as consistently more severe than injuries involving a biker’s lower extremity.

Driving Without a Helmet Puts the Brain at Risk

Any head or body trauma has the potential to cause permanent brain damage. Motorcycle/vehicle accidents present the perfect circumstances for a biker to sustain both head and body injury. Vehicles have a distinct weight advantage, and motorcyclists have minimal protection. This weight difference puts an unhelmeted biker’s brain at risk even during a minor crash.

When a serious crash occurs, the impact often sends a biker airborne or into the street. Whether the biker lands against a stationary object or smashes into the pavement, the head and brain have little protection from the consequences. While a helmet can’t prevent all brain injuries during a serious crash, it protects the victim from the most serious types of damage.

Brain damage is often irreversible, but an injured biker should still seek immediate medical attention. Emergency physicians usually can’t reverse the damage from a serious crash. Instead, they concentrate on repairing the existing damage and preventing further injury. During healing and recovery, a TBI patient focuses on regaining lost skills and abilities. Long-term rehabilitation often allows even moderate to severely injured patients to overcome certain impairments. Often, injured individuals resume normal activities, such as driving a car or going to work.

Traumatic Brain Injury Consequences

When the CDC says that helmets reduce head injuries by 69 percent, it’s not just a statistic. While injuries still occur, helmets lower the potential for the most serious head injuries. When an accident occurs, helmets protect the head from direct wounds that cause the most severe brain damage.

While a minor TBI isn’t ideal, the injured victim has the potential to heal. Patients with moderate to severe brain injuries usually experience protracted recoveries. Organizations that specialize in brain trauma believe that moderate and severe brain injuries are lifelong conditions.

The National Institute for Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research has determined that moderate to severe brain injury victims often experience adverse results over time, such as:

• Reduced life expectancies for older, unemployed, single males with minimal income.
• Adverse 5-year patient outcomes: conditions improved for 26 percent, worsened for 30 percent, and 22 percent of the injured victims died.
• They are more prone to chronic health problems or disabilities, required in-patient or nursing home care.
• They are more likely to experience infections, accidental drug poisoning, and seizures.

Helmet Laws in the United States

Universal helmet laws require all motorcycle riders and passengers to wear helmets. Congress has never passed a national helmet law, but the Highway Safety Act of 1966 required each state to implement its own. The federal law encouraged compliance by threatening to withhold federal funds from states that failed to comply. By 1967, forty-seven states and all U.S. territories had passed universal helmet laws. When Congress reversed its position a few years later, however, states began modifying their laws to meet local standards.

Currently, 18 states and the District of Columbia have universal helmet laws. Twenty-nine states have modified laws that require helmet use based on age. Most of the age-restricted states have a 17-year age cut-off. Once a person reaches the statutory age, he or she has the right to ride helmet-free. Other states’ age-restrictions mandate helmet use by riders and passengers under age 18 or 21. Three states, New Hampshire, Illinois, and Iowa, have no helmet laws at all.

Florida law requires that a motorcycle rider wear a DOT-certified helmet until age 21. Riders must also show proof of medical insurance with a minimum $10,000 benefit. The statute allows operators 16 or younger to ride without a helmet if they are in an enclosed cab.

DOT-Compliant Helmets

When safety agencies talk about helmet use, they emphasize that the best helmets are DOT-Compliant. Certified helmets have a label that says: DOT FMVSS #218. These helmets meet DOT Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. The DOT stresses that it does not conduct inspections, but rather manufacturers self-certify compliance.

The NHTSA’s Choose the Right Motorcycle Helmet page contains information to help you select a properly fitting DOT-compliant helmet. While you can find colorful themed helmets on the market, the DOT considers these novelty helmets if they don’t meet DOT safety standards. Because of the safety issues, the DOT began the process of implementing novelty helmet regulations, but these are still pending.

When states have universal helmet laws on the books, the NHTSA has found that safety-certified helmet use increases.

The NHTSA publication Motorcycle Helmet Use documents these probability-based findings:

• Overall, bikers in universal and non-universal law states had a 70.8 percent rate of DOT-compliant helmet use.
• In states with universal helmet laws, 89.2 percent of bikers used DOT-compliant helmets.
• DOT-certified helmets provide more protection than non-certified novelty helmets
• Non-compliant helmet use increased in states without universal laws.

Other Types of Protective Gear

When assessing motorcycles for safety, they don’t compare to vehicles. Most cars and trucks have a 3,000 pounds plus advantage. They have steel-reinforced compartments, seat belts, airbags, and air curtains. Motorcycle helmets are one of the few pieces of safety equipment known to reduce injuries and fatalities. While nothing to date shows more promise than helmets, bikers do have a few additional protection options.

Face Shields and Goggles

Bikers have a choice of helmets with full-face or open-face styles. Full-face helmets include a shield to protect the rider’s face. When wearing an open-face helmet, bikers may purchase a shield or goggles to enhance safety.

Kevlar

People use Kevlar because its tensile strength and flexibility make it perfect for industrial, athletic, military, and other applications. Bikers now have a widening variety of Kevlar wearables to protect their bodies during accidents. Manufacturers produce Kevlar gloves, pants, bodysuits, underwear, partially lined clothing items, and items with pockets to place protective Kevlar pads.

High-Visibility Gear

Vehicles often crash into motorcycles due to a lack of awareness of the motorcyclist’s presence on the part of the driver. This is a known issue that’s often referred to as poor conspicuity. Some safety experts believe that motorists don’t see motorcycles because they’re not conspicuous enough. These experts purport that high-visibility gear in bright colors provides an answer to the problem of biker visibility. When the Governor’s Highway Safety Association conducted a high-visibility gear focus group, it found that some bikers would wear the brightly colored items, but only under specific circumstances.

A Responsible Party’s Liability Doesn’t Change Due to a Lack of Helmet Use

If you’re a biker, it makes sense for you and your passengers to wear protective helmets. If you don’t, however, that doesn’t make you responsible for someone else’s negligent actions. When a vehicle crashes into you, the driver is liable for those actions. It doesn’t matter if you were wearing a helmet or not.

Insurance companies, judges, and juries determine liability based on a person’s actions before the accident. When a driver’s negligence causes or contributes to your accident, that driver is legally responsible for the outcome. Had the other driver not made a wrong move, you wouldn’t have sustained an injury in the first place.

Despite the other party’s negligence, insurers often include helmet use as part of their negotiation strategy. It’s another complication that responsible parties use when trying to avoid paying for the damages that they cause.

Do You Need an Attorney to Handle Your Motorcycle Accident Claim?

Motorcycle accident claims sometimes involve complicated issues. Even when responsible parties have few points in their favor, they often try to defend their positions based on issues of liability or damages. When injured parties consult with a motorcycle accident attorney as soon as possible after an accident, they begin protecting their legal interests immediately.

Attorneys deal with negligent parties, their insurance companies, and their attorneys. They evaluate injuries, present claims, and initiate negotiations. If the responsible parties don’t negotiate fairly, attorneys file lawsuits on their clients’ behalf.

When you meet with an attorney, the initial appointment is complimentary. You have an opportunity to present your side of the story and ask your most pressing questions. During a consultation, attorneys don’t push you to file a lawsuit or make a claim. They simply explain your options and let you decide how to proceed.