current state motorcycle helmet laws and fatality rates
Current State Motorcycle Helmet Laws and Fatality Rates The percentage of people killed in motorcycle crashes in 2011 who were not wearing helmets is higher in states without a mandatory helmet law. More than 8 million motorcycles were registered in the United States in 2011, and nearly 500,000 motorcycles were sold in 2012. In 2011, 4,612 motorcyclists were killed in crashes and 81,000 were injured. Per miles travelled, motorcyclists are 30 times more likely than passenger car occupants to die in a crash. Wearing helmets and getting the proper licensing and training have been shown to reduce injuries and deaths from motorcycle crashes. Nineteen states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands currently require all riders to wear helmets. Illinois, Iowa and New Hampshire do not require anyone to wear a helmet, regardless of age. The remaining 28 states require riders of a specific age—usually those under age 18 or 21—to wear helmets.
According to a 2012 National Occupant Protection Use Survey (NOPUS) Survey, conducted by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; In states with universal helmet laws, 89 percent of the motorcyclists observed were wearing helmets. In states with partial helmet use requirements or no laws, 49 percent were observed wearing helmets. Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and National Conference of State Legislatures 2014. Complete Post Card PDF Get Involved With NCSL Tel: 1-800-659-2656 or 711 NCSL in the News 7700 East First Place 444 North Capitol Street, N.W., Suite 515The IP address used for your Internet connection is part of a subnet that has been blocked from access to PubMed Central. Addresses across the entire subnet were used to download content in bulk, in violation of the terms of the PMC Copyright Notice. Use of PMC is free, but must comply with the terms of the Copyright Notice on the PMC site. For additional information, or to request that your IP address be unblocked, For requests to be unblocked, you must include all of the information in the box above in your message.
Green states are .00025 percent and up. The three blue states are .00021 or below. The most dangerous state for motorcyclists is Hawaii that saw 37 deaths during the first nine months of 2012 (the latest date range for which we have data) and has 30,000 road-legal motorcycles registered.
dirt bikes for sale tracy caThe safest state, New Jersey, reported only 65 motorcyclist fatalities on its roads during the first nine months of 2012, despite having over 330,000 registered motorcycles.
motorcycle gear allentown pa This map shows the 20 states with mandatory helmet laws for all riders. Most other states require helmets only for teenage motorcyclists, while three states have no helmet requirement of any kind — Illinois, Iowa and New Hampshire. This map does not distinguish between those states and the 27 remaining, simply because the number of under-18-year old motorcyclists is statistically irrelevant.
While the most dangerous state does not require helmets for adult riders and the safest state does, very little statistical correlation between helmet laws and fatality rates can otherwise be determined. Now this map shows the percentage of motorcyclist fatalities where the rider was not wearing a helmet. Red states report that helmets were not worn in 75 percent of fatal crashes. Yellow states are 50 percent and up. Green states are 11 percent and up. In blue states, that number is less than 10 percent. Perhaps most interesting is that this map doesn’t strongly correlate either with helmet laws or overall motorcyclist fatality rates. The state in which an unhelmeted motorcyclist fatality is most likely to occur is New Mexico, which has no helmet law. In Vermont, where all motorcycle fatalities did involve a helmet, there is a helmet law. Most helmet law states fall into the lower third of states where fatal crashes were likely to involve helmet use. In fact, this data could be said to indicate that helmet use more strongly correlates with fatal crashes than not wearing a helmet does.
Take Vermont for instance, which has both a helmet law and reports 100 percent of fatal motorcycle crashes involved the use of one. Doesn’t make them sound terribly safe, does it? Read More On Page 2 >>>Download a special edition of SMARTER's newsletter (Sept/Oct 2014) for a quick reference that (1) summarizes the below research and/or literature reviews related to helmet use and helmet-use laws, (2) provides a brief history of helmet use and helmet-use laws, and (3) reviews the components and goals of a comprehensive motorcyclist-safety program. Helmets for Preventing Injury in Motorcycle Riders (Review) - a high quality review of the research regarding the effectiveness of helmets in reducing the risk of death and injury. Sixty-one observational studies were selected for review; references for each are provided along with the results and a brief description of the characteristics of each study, references for 18 studies excluded from the review, and 28 additional references.
Despite methodological differences in the 61 included studies, the results showed remarkable consistency, particularly for death and head-injury outcomes. Motorcycle helmets were found to reduce the risk of death by 42 percent and head injury by 69 percent in motorcyclists who crashed. An Evidence-Based Review: Helmet Efficacy to Reduce Head Injury and Mortality in Motorcycle Crashes - a review of the U.S. National Library of Medicine literature from 1990 through 2009, with 507 citations identified. The abstract for each was reviewed, and 197 candidate articles having possible applicability to the guideline topic were retrieved and reviewed. General reviews, letters to the editor, single case reports, and retrospective reviews of poor quality were excluded, leaving 45 articles that were reviewed in detail. References for each are provided along with the results and a brief description of the characteristics of each study. Summary of conclusions: (1) the use of motorcycle helmets decreases the overall death rate of motorcycle crashes when compared with nonhelmeted riders;
(2) the use of motorcycle helmets decreases the incidence of lethal head injury in motorcycle crashes when compared with nonhelmeted riders; (3) the use of motorcycle helmets decreases the severity of nonlethal head injury in motorcycle crashes when compared with nonhelmeted riders; and (4) geographical areas that have mandatory universal helmet laws have reduced rates of mortality and head injury compared with areas that do not. - an extensive and rigorous review of the literature on the effectiveness of helmet use, the effectiveness of universal motorcycle helmet laws, and the economic impact of repeal or implementation of universal helmet laws. The review of helmet-use and helmet-law effectiveness was completed August 2013, and the economic-impact review was completed October 2013. The Community Preventive Services Task Force recommends universal motorcycle helmet laws (laws that apply to all motorcycle operators and passengers) based on strong evidence of effectiveness. Evidence indicates that universal helmet laws increase helmet use;
decrease motorcycle-related fatal and nonfatal injuries; and are substantially more effective than no law or than partial motorcycle helmet laws, which apply only to riders who are young, novices, or have medical insurance coverage above certain thresholds. To provide easier access to the results and to emphasize the comprehensiveness of this particular study, we have chosen to post it below in four separate sections and have provided a description of each: Helmet Effectiveness - this section provides a summary and review of the Task Force Findings and Rationale Statement regarding the effectiveness of helmet use in preventing death, injury, and reducing the severity and risk of head injury, including the results of ⇒41 studies on helmet use ⇒37 studies comparing fatalities ⇒35 studies comparing fatalities per registered motorcycle ⇒7 studies comparing fatalities per mile traveled ⇒14 studies comparing fatalities per crash ⇒12 studies regarding head injury fatalities
⇒18 studies regarding nonfatal injuries total ⇒18 nonfatal head injuries Helmet-Law Effectiveness - this section provides a summary of the results of ⇒the impact of repealing a universal helmet law, including ⇒the impact of implementing a universal helmet law ⇒comparison of death and injury data across states with universal, partial, or no helmet law ⇒the impact on death, injury, and use of a helmet among young riders with repeal of universal helmets laws, implementation of a universal helmet law, and comparison across states with different types of laws or no law • 19 studies regarding helmet use • 17 studies on total deaths • fatality rates per registered motorcycle (17), per vehicle mile traveled (3), and per crash (10) Supporting Material: Helmet and Helmet-Law Effectiveness - this section provides reference information for ⇒69 studies that were included in the review ⇒6 papers that provided more information about included studies
⇒13 studies determined ineligible due to study country or article language ⇒20 studies determined ineligible due to unsuitable study type ⇒15 studies determined ineligible due to lack of outcomes of interest Supporting Material: Economic Impact - this section provides reference information for the 22 studies that provided the information for assessment of economic impact of repeal or implementation of universal helmet laws Motorcycle Helmets Use Reduces Mortality and Resource Utilization, Annals of Surgery, September 2010, A review. Helmet use reduces motorcycle rider mortality rates and resource utilization. Such helmet use occurs more often where laws prescribe helmet use. This large database study clearly shows that helmets provide protection for motorcycle riders from mortality and other injuries. Head injury is also less severe. Health care resource utilization is also diminished. Because more non-helmeted riders do not have health insurance, helmets therefore reduce societal costs of injuries suffered by motorcycle riders.
Because helmet use is greater when laws dictate their use, such laws benefit the individual by reducing mortality and society by reducing costs. Current Motorcycle Helmet Laws and Fatality Rates - an April 2014 downloadable and printable chart prepared by the National Council of State Legislatures (NCSL) that shows the percentage of people killed in motorcycle crashes by state, in 2011, who were not wearing helmets compared to type/kind of state motorcycle helmet law How Safe Is Your Motorcycle Helmet? Study on Motorcycle Helmet Types. American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons, 2014 Facial Injury Severity score was significantly higher for unhelmeted riders compared with fullface helmet riders with no difference between unhelmeted riders and open-face helmet users TBI were statistically greater for those wearing open-face helmets compared with full-face helmets. Effectiveness of Different Types of Motorcycle Helmets and Effects of Their Improper Use on Head Injuries - a case-control study conducted to examine how different helmet types and improper helmet use affected protection against head injuries among motorcyclists in Taiwan