Study: Cities with bike shares saw spike in head injuries

With Seattle about to adopt a bike-share program in September, a new study might give some people pause.

A study conducted by Washington State University and the University of Washington finds that other cities with bike-share programs have seen a rise in head injuries.

“We were interested in this because public bike-share programs are popular, positive wellness initiatives in many cities and they’re popping up all over the country,” says Janessa Graves, lead author of the study. “We were concerned that many of them do not provide helmets and that we might observe and increase of head injuries after implementation, and that’s what we say.”

Graves says that severe head traumas jumped 14 percent in bike-share cities, and they think while bike sharing can be a good thing, people need to protect themselves.

“I think the bottom line is the study confirmed our concerns, and that head injuries are much easier to prevent than they are to treat,” says Graves. “We suggest that people do both. They should bike, get out there, get physically active, but at the same time wear a helmet.”

Fortunately, Seattle’s program will also offer helmet rentals. Each will cost $2, and will be sanitized after each use. They hope to see other bike-share programs that don’t currently offer helmets consider it.

“For the public health effort, it would be valuable to integrate helmets into these programs so that people have the choice to be safe if they want to, the choice to wear a helmet if they want to,” says Graves.