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Bicycles Still a Major Source of Injury

Nearly 400,000 injuries per year, study finds

November 10, 2008

Bike Safety • Bicycles Still a Major Source of Injury • Bike Helmet Laws Reduce Injuries, Study Shows • Cycling-Related Head Injuries Increasing • Good Reasons to Wear a Bike Helmet

Although bicycles are a healthy and cost-saving alternative form of transportation, they're also the cause of a lot of childhood injuries.

In fact, automobiles are the only other consumer product that causes more childhood injuries.

Despite bicycle safety programs and legislative efforts designed to enforce the use of bicycle helmets in some cities and states, an estimated 389,300 children and adolescents 18-years and younger were treated in emergency departments for bicycle-related injuries each year between 1990-2005.

"While the number of injuries decreased slightly over the 16-year study period, in 2005 an average of 850 children per day were seen in emergency departments for bicycle-related injuries," said Tracy Mehan, a research associate at the Center for Injury Research and Policy of The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital and author of a new study published in the online issue of Clinical Pediatrics.

Boys experienced higher rates of injury than did girls, with boys accounting for 70 percent of all injuries. Boys ages 10 through 14 had the highest injury rate while girls ages 15 through 18 had the lowest.

The most common injuries overall were contusions and abrasions, lacerations and fractures. The upper and lower extremities were the most frequently injured body regions followed closely by injuries to the face and head.

Although injuries to the head were not the most common injuries, they were some of the most serious.

Children who sustained injuries to the head were more than three times as likely to require hospitalization and almost six times more likely to have their injuries result in death than patients with injuries to other parts of the body.

While the number of head injuries is decreasing, the study showed that in 2005 alone, nearly 40,000 children and adolescents were treated in emergency departments for bicycle-related head injuries.

"Given the serious nature of this type of injury, continued efforts to decrease the number of head injuries among bicyclists is vital," said study co-author Lara McKenzie, PhD, principal investigator at the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital and a faculty member of The Ohio State University College of Medicine.

"Increasing the use of bicycle helmets should be a key strategy in accomplishing this goal," she said.

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