Italy: Rome on a Vespa

There isn’t a more iconic image of Rome than one of a young couple riding through the city’s ancient streets on a motorbike, the girl with her arms around the boy’s waist, her hair flying through the breeze. Well, that’s changed. Now the young couples are wearing helmets. And head injuries have decreased, too.

Although a law requiring motorbike riders under 18 wear helmets had been in place since 1989, it wasn’t until March 2000 that the law was expanded to require helmet wearing for all riders, regardless of age.

Guiseppe La Torre and his colleagues at the Catholic University School of Medicine “A. Gemeli” in Rome set out to measure the changes in rates of head injuries after the compulsory law was passed using hospital emergency department visit data collected from patients and medical records.

The researchers confirmed the protective effect of helmets for riders and passengers. Without a helmet, head injuries were 2-4 times more likely than with a helmet. Also the proportion of non-head injuries, such as lower extremities, showed a great proportion to the overall number of injuries.

Helmet wearing increased from about 5% before legislation to about 90% and there was a large reduction of risk for head trauma in people over age 18. Also there was a reduction in the length of average hospital stay and, as a consequence, reduced economic impact of injuries for scooter riders. Because the new law directly affected those over 18, most of the changes in head injuries and hospital stay length were in those over 18.

While these preliminary results show that expanding the compulsory wearing law has had an impact on injuries, La Torre and colleagues feel that further study is needed, especially to measure the continued compliance with helmet wearing requirements. He suggests that an educational component may need to be developed to maintain high helmet wearing.

La Torre G, van Beek E, Bertazzoni G, Ricciardi W. Head injury resulting from scooter accidents in Rome: differences before and after implementing a universal helmet law. Eur J Public Health 2007;17:607-611.

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