Last week, we highlighted a new recommendation from the National Transportation Safety Board that cyclists be legally required to wear helmets. A new study says that might be a very bad idea. 

Helmet laws aren’t in place for adults in most US states, with only a handful requiring helmet use in children. The NTSB made a recommendation last week that would make usage mandatory for all cyclists in the United States. That caused widespread outrage across the country from cycling advocates at local, state, and even the national level. As we noted, advocates claim that this potential law would discourage new cyclists and shrink the number of people who choose to ride bikes. 

They may have find some data to help their cause. A recent study from two countries that do have mandatory helmet laws, Australia and New Zealand, found that those law increased the incident rate and greatly reduced participation in cycling. With thirty years worth of data, these numbers support claims of cycling advocates in the United States today just as the NTSB story gains traction. 

Experts claim that helmet use has led to slightly higher injury rates in both Australia and New Zealand among helmet users when compared to non-users. This could indicate a change in behavior, riding with a higher risk tolerance, or may be contributed to how vehicles react as well. 

Maybe the most startling data has to do with how mandatory helmet laws influenced kids on bikes. Overall, children cycling in New Zealand dropped from 23 million hours to 13.6 million hours over the course of a ten-year period. 
You can read the full report here, but it’s hard to argue with one startling statistic. According to the study’s author, helmet use appears to have increased accident and injury by as much as 40% over the past thirty years in these two countries. There are a number of other potential factors and variables, but that’s a big change that counters the narrative of organizations like the NTSB.