My first day on the job as a hospital dietitian many decades ago was memorable. One of the patients I saw while making rounds was a young man paralyzed from the neck down.  The nurses said he had been in a motorcycle accident.  He was handsome, well built, with curly blonde hair.  And he would never walk again. This was not only a tragedy for him, but for his family, and the health care providers who would have to take care of him for the rest of his life.  So now, when I see a motorcyclist without a helmet, I can’t help but wonder: Are cyclists who refuse to wear helmets selfish and/or irresponsible?

In most states, the law requires cyclists to wear helmets.  But not in my state.     In Indiana, it’s unusual to see motorcyclists wearing helmets.  Often, a male passenger will have a female on the seat behind him, hair blowing in the wind.  They look free and happy.  While I’ve never ridden on a motorcycle, I envy the joy they must feel as they embrace the outdoors with abandon.  And, I can understand why they prefer not to wear helmets.

Their counterparts in Amsterdam would agree.  https://www.treehugger.com/bikes/why-dutch-dont-wear-helmets.html  Accidents involving cyclists are rare, because it’s a smaller country where people don’t drive crazily.

But, in fact, traveling without a helmet on a motorcycle in the US and  other countries has been proven unsafe.   An international study concluded that the “protective effect of helmets was about a 42 percent reduction in risk of death in a crash and 69 percent for risk of a head injury in a crash.”

https://www.cochrane.org/CD004333/INJ_helmets-are-shown-to-reduce-motorcyclist-head-injury-and-death

Back to the hospital where I worked.   Once, a nearby nursing home was flooded, and had to be evacuated. Our hospital took  about twenty of the most critical patents.  Of those patients, three were  permanently disabled victims of motorcycle accidents,  who would live out their lives while Medicaid paid for their care.   I’m not sure whether wearing a helmet would have saved these men from this fate, but since head injuries are the most frequent cause of death and disability while driving a motorcycle, it would seem that a couple of these tragic situations could have been avoided.

I’ve never tried on a motorcycle helmet, and I’m sure they can be somewhat annoying.  But it seems to me a small price to pay to save one’s family from the heartbreak of caring for a brain damaged loved one.