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All Cyclists Should Legally Have to Wear a Helmet, the NTSB Says

Wearing a helmet when you’re out riding a bike seems like the sensible thing to do but, as of this moment, not a single state in the U.S. has laws stating that helmet use is mandatory. That should change, and soon.
Mandatory helmet laws would lower the number of cyclist fatalities and head injuries, the NTSB believes 6 photos
Photo: NTSB
Retroreflective 2D barcode cycling jacket by Philip Siwek meant to keep cyclists safe from AVsRetroreflective 2D barcode cycling jacket by Philip Siwek meant to keep cyclists safe from AVsRetroreflective 2D barcode cycling jacket by Philip Siwek meant to keep cyclists safe from AVsRetroreflective 2D barcode cycling jacket by Philip Siwek meant to keep cyclists safe from AVsRetroreflective 2D barcode cycling jacket by Philip Siwek meant to keep cyclists safe from AVs
This is the recommendation of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB): active measures should be taken to decrease the number of cyclist fatalities, and laws should take care of the rest and mandate helmet use to prevent head injury when accidents do happen. For the record, the NTSB can only make recommendations, and not actually make state authorities follow through with it.

For the first time since 1972, the NTSB looked at bicyclist safety in the U.S. and determined that concrete action is needed to lower the number of fatalities in car-bike accidents.

The majority of them are still caused by drivers carelessly overtaking cyclists, so “improving roadway design, [and] enhancing the conspicuity of bicyclists through both visibility and technology” would be first on the list in terms of reducing the number of crashes.

Then, to lower the number of head injuries / fatalities in those cases when crashes do occur, cyclists would have to be legally forced to wear a helmet.

If we do not improve roadway infrastructure for bicyclists, more preventable crashes will happen and more cyclists will die in those preventable crashes,” NTSB Chairman Robert L. Sumwalt says of the findings of the analysis. “If we do not enhance bicyclist conspicuity, more bicyclists will die in preventable crashes. If we do not act to mitigate head injury for more bicyclists, additional bicyclists will die.”

Crash avoidance measures and mandatory helmet laws would have to go hand in hand with cyclists’ commitment to follow traffic rules, just like everyone else, to effectively work in lowering the number of fatalities.
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About the author: Elena Gorgan
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Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends.
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