Bicycle helmets save lives and reduce injury during a bicycle accident right? Wisconsin does not currently have a mandatory bicycle helmet rule. Believe it or not, one researcher has found that a mandatory bicycle helmet law might actually be more detrimental than beneficial in terms of overall health care costs.
On the other hand, doctors at Texas Children's hospital and the hospital for sick children in Toronto have concluded that as a result of mandatory helmet laws in Canada, "The bicycle-related mortality rate in children 1 to 15 years of age has decreased significantly, which may be attributable in part to helmet legislation." See Journal of American Academy of Pediatrics http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/122/3/605
Piet de Jong, a mathematician at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, estimates that bicycle helmet laws would cost the US $4.8 billion per year, Netherlands $1.9 billion, and the U.K $0.4 billion. The researcher concludes that savings from fewer head injuries pale in comparison to the costs incurred by decreases in cycling. Jong assumed the health benefit of cycling was a generous $1 per kilometer.
Dorothy Robinson, a statistician at the Department of Primary Industries in Armidale, Australia, claimed that helmet laws caused bike ridership decreases of 20 to 40 per cent in several Australian cities and states.
Jong, is a native of bike-loving Holland, and does not discourage people from wearing bike helmets. He said when he rides in Holland and places like that he doesn't wear a helmet, but when he used to live in London, he wore a helmet all the time.
For more information about bike helmets and head and brain injuries in Wisconsin, see the article by Clayton Griessmeyer bicycle injury lawyer at: http://griessmeyerlaw.com/head-injuries.htm
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