Improve bicycle helmet access, use

A bike helmet can save your child’s life, but only if it’s on their head. According to a 2023 study published in Nature, bike helmets reduce fatalities by 73 percent and nonfatal brain injuries by 58 percent. Despite their proven efficacy, a 2015 study showed that 78 percent of children in bike crashes were not wearing helmets.

One of the largest barriers is that children do not own helmets.

According to the Children’s Safety Network, only 15 percent of bicyclists 14 years old and younger wear helmets, but parents report that 85 percent of their children who own helmets wear them. This exposes a gap of children who would wear helmets but do not have access to them. These children are right here in Albany.

As a local pediatrician, I cared for a teenager in the emergency department after a bike crash in which he was struck by a vehicle. I reviewed with the patient and his parents the results of his CT scan, pointing out that the jagged line on his forehead was a fracture of his skull. With the severity of this injury, he was fortunate to come away with merely a concussion. After sharing these results, I asked him why he was not wearing a helmet. He told me that he did not own one.

There are many solutions for addressing the issue of children not owning or wearing bike helmets. New York state should mandate that insurance coverage fully reimburse helmet purchases, should expand the eligibility of health spending accounts to include helmet purchases and should increase the age requirement of helmets to 18 years old. Pediatricians should talk about bike safety at each physical.