Citation

Otte D, Haasper C. Int. J. Crashworthiness 2010; 15(2): 211-221.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/13588260903102484

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

For years, information and motivation campaigns have been conducted in order to increase the frequency of use of helmets for bicyclists. Observation of two-wheeler traffic in 2005 involving more than 13,000 cyclists showed an incidence of helmet use in only 6% of the cases. This may be the reason for the fact that there are no comparative studies from Germany that prove the protective effect of the helmet by comparing victims of road accidents who wore a bicycle helmet and those who did not. For this purpose, data collected at the site of accidents (in the German In-Depth Accident Study) have been used for the first time in 10 years during which accidents with helmeted bicyclists could be documented; scientific researchers drove to the scenes of the accidents using specially equipped emergency vehicles and documented vehicle deformations and accident traces in addition to the injuries. A comprehensive accident reconstruction supplies the data concerning the speed and injury mechanisms. The data are processed representatively for the road traffic situation in Germany by means of statistic random sampling and statistic weighing and are stored in a database. An evaluation of 4049 injured bicyclists documented between the years 1999 and 2006 shows at first a decreasing and then an increasing use of bicycle helmets amongst traffic accident victims (1999: 14.2%; 2001: 3.6%; 2006: 9.5%); 518 children up to 15 years of age and 2979 adult cyclist constitute the total population available for analysis. This evaluation contains the representation of the injury situations of child and adult cyclists. Accident severity and injury samples are represented in detail, and the possible effectiveness of a bicycle helmet is discussed. The detailed data collection of accidents allows for, amongst others, the identification of the damages to the protective helmet and the analysis of head injuries in the absence of the protective helmet according to type, severity and location. For identical accident severities and accident constellations as well as relatively identical total injury severities, a lower-injury-severity Maximum Abbreviated Injury Score of cyclists and a more-frequent intactness of the head can be registered amongst bicycle helmet users (with helmet 72.7%, without helmet 61.3%). Severe injury Abbreviated Injury Score > 3 occurred 50% more frequently without helmet than with helmet (without helmet: 1.8%; with helmet: 1.2%).