PEDAL CYCLE HELMET EFFECTIVENESS - A FIELD-STUDY OF PEDAL CYCLE ACCIDENTS

The paper describes a study of pedal cycle accidents focussing on helm et effectiveness. Only accidents in which a helmet was worn and receiv ed an impact were studied. Cases were collected from hospital accident and emergency units, through the police and via direct contact. Forty -two cases, all helmeted were examined. There were four fatal accident s; all four involved a collision with a motor vehicle. Nine cases expe rienced a head injury of AIS severity greater than or equal to 2, alth ough there were no skull fractures. Helmet impacts tended to be close to the rim anterio-laterally. The majority of non-fatal (ATS greater t han or equal to 2) head injury cases received a helmet impact to the a nterio-lateral rim, which corresponds to the temporal/parietal region of the head. This site received directly only 25% of the impacts, and of these impacts, 75% produced head injuries of at least AIS=2. Soft-s hell helmets tended to disintegrate on impact, and although only a sin gle impact occurred, a helmet should remain intact to provide protecti on during second impacts. There was. general increase in the percentag e of subjects injured or killed in accidents that involved a second ve hicle compared to single vehicle accidents, 54% to 44%, respectively. This trend was stronger with cars travelling at greater than 30 km/h. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.