Winter 2008 Editorial

Editorial
WEAK SCIENCE

O’Keeffe and his colleagues from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School have a different take on motorcycle fatalities following changes in Florida’s universal helmet laws. They believe that the increased numbers of fatalities were due to more motorcycles on the road, not the decline in helmet wearing.

Here’s their reasoning: They calculated fatality rate per registered motorcycle, and it hadn’t changed, even as Florida’s helmet laws were changed in 2000 from requiring all motorcyclists to wear helmets to requiring only those under 21 to do so. According to the study’s authors, fewer people wearing helmets because of the law changes wasn’t the reason for more deaths; it was because there were more motorcycles. But the number of fatalities increased from 75 before the law change to 125 in the period afterwards and helmet wearing declined from 80% to 33%.

Here’s the problem: the authors only looked at motorcycle fatalities, not other motorcycle injuries that do not result in death - such as fractures and trauma to other parts of the body. Without looking at these injuries, it is difficult to tell anything about changes in riding habits, ages of riders, and the amount of riding that is occurring. These data should have been fairly easy to obtain. But they present no data on this.

There’s  another reason why O’Keefe’s study conclusions are not acceptable. In this issue we report on a Houston’s study that examined fatality rates in states with universal and partial helmet laws. Those states were likely to have had similar increases in the number of registered motorcycles, like those reported in Florida. Yet, the fatality rates – deaths per person – were about 12% higher in states with weaker helmet laws.

As more States weaken their laws requiring helmets for motorcyclists, careful and complete analysis of injury rates need to be undertaken.

We look forward to meeting you at the World Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion in Mexico. As ever, we welcome your comments and articles.

Mexico: Countdown to Safety 2008
Consider attending the 9th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion – Safety 2008 – which will be held in Merida, Mexico from March 15-18, 2008. read more

United States: Do Partial Coverage Laws Work?
In the United States, each State decides whether or not motorcycle operators and their passengers are required to wear helmets in their state. read more

United Arab Emirates: Bicycle Injuries
During the period October 2001 and January 2003, Eid and his colleagues from the Trauma Group, Faulty of Medicine and Health Sciences, United Arab Emirates University, prospectively examined a series of 200 patients who were treated for bicycle related injuries at Al-Ain Hospital in the UAE. read more

Dominican Republic: Trauma Project Targets Motorcyclists
In the Spring of 2007, Headlines reported on an injury control project that an American resident in pediatrics, Dr. David Kessler, was working on in the Dominican Republic. Kessler, and a team of physicians from New York Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University and the Dominican Republic had undertaken an injury surveillance project using data collected from emergency departments at various hospitals. read more

Vietnam: Mandatory Helmet Law Now In Effect
On December 15, 2007, nearly all Viet Nam’s motorbike riders left their homes wearing helmet. On that day a new law came into effect requiring that motorcycle riders wear helmets all the time. Within two days, some hospitals were reporting that the number of patients admitted for traumatic brain injuries was much lower than on previous weekends. read more

Vietnam: Concerns About Neck Injuries Unfounded
We recently received this email from Vietnam: Some people in Vietnam now raised concerns on the motorbike helmet use for very small children (let's say under 3 year old), that a helmet can potentially harm the neck spinal of the child. read more

WHO: New Traffic Injury Prevention Project
The World Health Organization has received a grant to undertake a road traffic injury prevention project in Vietnam and Mexico. read more