Study: Cycle head injuries up sharply since Pa. changed law
HARRISBURG - Motorcycle head injuries have spiked significantly since the state repealed its law requiring riders to wear helmets, a new study released yesterday found.
HARRISBURG - Motorcycle head injuries have spiked significantly since the state repealed its law requiring riders to wear helmets, a new study released yesterday found.
The study, conducted by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, showed a 32 percent increase in motorcycle-related head-injury deaths and a 42 percent increase in head-injury hospitalizations in the two years following the law's repeal in 2003.
It was released exactly two years after Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger broke his jaw in a motorcycle accident while not wearing a helmet.
And yesterday, it reignited the debate over whether Pennsylvania should reconsider its helmet laws.
"Helmets save lives. You can't change that," Chuck Moran, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Medical Society, said of the study.
Twenty states - including New Jersey, New York, Maryland and West Virginia - have laws requiring all riders to wear helmets.
But in Pennsylvania, only motorcyclists under 21 and riders with fewer than two years' experience who have not taken a safety course are required to wear helmets.
The university's study, which will appear in the August issue of the American Journal of Public Health, looked at statistics from the Pennsylvania Departments of Health and Transportation for 2001-2002 and 2004-2005, the years before and after the helmet law was repealed.
The statistics take into account increases in motorcycle registration.
In the two years after the repeal, researchers found helmet use in motorcycle crashes dropped 24 percent, while hospital charges for motorcycle-related head injuries increased 132 percent.
The average cost to treat a head injury in Pennsylvania is $88,000, according to Clare Collins, a spokeswoman for the University of Pittsburgh's School of Public Health.
Kristen Mertz, the study's lead author, said researchers looked at both head injuries and other types of injuries.
"The relatively large increase in head-injury deaths and hospitalizations after the repeal suggests that the law was protecting riders," she said.
Still, motorcycle activists argue they do not need the government to tell them how to ride.
"The government has a responsibility to individuals, and I think they are overstepping their bounds" when they want to start getting involved in helmet laws, said Charles Umbenhauer, lobbyist for Pennsylvania ABATE, a motorcyclist organization that opposes helmet laws.
In a statement issued yesterday, ABATE called the helmet debate an "endless obsession to market one single item of riding gear as the 'solution' to motorcycle deaths and injuries."
Gov. Rendell, who supported the helmet-law repeal in 2003, yesterday continued to defend the state's limited helmet law.
"Even though the governor believes whether or not to wear a helmet should be a matter of personal choice," said spokesman Chuck Ardo, "he also believes that wearing a helmet is the better choice."
Rep. Dan Frankel, (D., Allegheny), introduced a bill last year that would reinstate the universal helmet law, but it sits stalled in the House Transportation Committee.
"When we're at a critical time in Pennsylvania, looking at reducing health-care costs - a priority for Gov. Rendell - we need to take a look at something that would instantaneously reduce the cost of health care," Frankel said.
Ardo said the governor has no plan to pursue a change in the law.
