Beyond Seat Belts and Bike Helmets: Policies that Improve Lives

Some of us remember the bad old days when nobody wore seat belts and babies bounced on their mothers’ laps in the front seats of cars. For others, it’s the stuff of legend. Since the advent of seat belt laws in the late 1980’s, the proportion of people buckling up has skyrocketed from fewer than 15 percent to over 90 percent in many states.

Buckle Up Your Seatbelt and Behave

Do we take more risks when we feel safe? Fifty years after we began using the three-point seatbelt, there's a new answer.

Do Bike Helmet Laws Do More Harm Than Good?

Some cycling advocates argue that helmet regulations can create long-term health problems.

Do Sports Helmets Help or Hurt?

Improving safety has had more to do with changing a group's culture and attitudes about high-risk activities than with any technological advance.

In the Future, Your Seatbelt Could Be Tailored to Your Body

Good news! Maybe! Your car may soon be weighing and measuring you in the name of keeping you safe.

Making Bicycle Helmets the New Safety ‘Seatbelt’

How many of us have gotten on a bike and left our helmet behind? Maybe we told ourselves, “I’m not really traveling that far, I don’t need it.” Or perhaps we were concerned with showing up to our destination with the dreaded “helmet hair.” Maybe we don’t even own a bike helmet.

Mandating the use of motorcycle helmets: What are the issues?

Although it is impossible to prevent every motorcycle crash, it is clear that universal helmet laws have a profound impact on individual safety as well as health care costs that are absorbed not only by the motorcyclist, but also the general public. Like seat belt laws, motorcycle helmet laws aim to make the roads safer for both the motorcycle rider and automobile drivers and to lower health care costs and other economic burdens that may rest on the rider, his or her family, and the state.

Seat Belt laws - relevant?

Seat belt law isn’t in our province of interest or knowledge, but what we do know is that there is no down-side to public health, better cities, resource depletion nor air pollution from making seat belts compulsory. Actually there might be a down-side to public health, because it’s possible that wearing seat belts encourages more dangerous driving, which increases risks for pedestrians and cyclists. In contrast, bicycle helmet laws do reduce public health, do make cities’ roads and public transport more congested, do cause more fossil fuels to be burned which pollute the air with carcinogens and carbon dioxide. That’s because helmet laws discourage cycling.

Seat Belts - Friend or Foe

Seat belts and airbags may help to prevent serious injuries if you are in a vehicle accident. Yet at the same time, these devices have the ability to cause physical issues themselves,

Seatbelt Laws, Helmet Laws and Nattering Busybodies

Of course wearing a seatbelt or a helmet is “safer.” But so is maintaining ideal body weight — or exercising regularly. Yet there are no laws (as yet) requiring you to eat your broccoli — or do sit-ups every other day. The police do not carry pincers to measure your body fat ratio — and have no authority (yet) to give you tickets for exceeding the “healthful” poundage.

Unbuckled In The Back Seat - Deadlier Than People Realize

Forgetting to buckle-up can be deadly. Rear seat passengers are three times more likely to die in a crash if they are unbuckled, according to a new report that highlights the fact that every year in crashes, hundreds of unbelted adults in the rear seats of passenger vehicles are killed — and hundreds more seriously injured.

What evidence is there that cycle helmets save lives?

There is no direct evidence that the wearing of cycle helmets has led to fewer deaths amongst cyclists. Most research into cycle helmets has not included cyclist fatalities. The premise that helmets save lives is by extrapolation from research that has suggested that helmets might reduce injuries to the head. As most fatalities involve head injury (this applies to all major external causes of violent death, not especially cycling), the reasoning is that by reducing injuries to the head, cycle helmets can lead to fewer cyclist deaths.

Why don't people wear helmets and seat belts, even though they know it is dangerous?

People may choose to not wear or use protective equipment for a variety of reasons. Some of these stem from personal choices about freedom, while others may be based on information the person has about the equipment.