If you look around at the bicyclists in your community, chances are you will see many children wearing helmets but many adults without this safety precaution. This can leave many inexperienced cyclists with questions. Is helmet use required? As long as they are aware of their surroundings and following traffic laws, do they really need to wear a helmet in order to be safe?
Helmet laws vary depending on the community you are in.
In Ohio and Kentucky, there are no statewide laws requiring adults to wear a helmet while bicycling. However, your local community may have regulations about helmet use. The city of Dayton, for example, requires all bicycle riders to wear helmets as well as have bicycles to signal their presence to others.
Even if it isn’t legally required, helmets could be the best way to stay safe on a bicycle.
While there is no statewide law, there is a growing body of evidence that wearing a properly fitted helmet is still one of the best ways to keep yourself safe.
The National Transportation Safety Board recommended late last year that bicycle helmets should be mandatory for all bicycle riders. This opinion is based on a variety of studies that show that helmets reduce injuries significantly: more than 75% of fatal injuries between 2010 and 2017 were suffered by cyclists not wearing helmets, and helmets can reduce serious head injuries by 60%.
This data makes one thing very clear: clear that wearing a helmet is one of the best ways to protect yourself from serious or fatal injury.
