Increasing motorcycle helmet use is a key road safety intervention in developing countries. Motorbikes are often a large proportion of personal vehicles; high helmet use quickly reduces fatalities and high-cost brain injuries; and helmet use is an affordable, high return investment.
The mobility brought by motorbikes puts a generation of riders at considerable risk. Motorbikes are involved in a large percentage of the RTAs that lead to fatalities and serious injuries. In East and Southeast Asia, an estimated two-thirds of RTA fatalities are motorcyclists. For example, in Cambodia, road traffic accidents are the country’s largest non-communicable health burden, and motorcycles the greatest source of RTA deaths and injuries, within which unhelmeted riders are a significant at-risk group.
Head injuries represent the most devastating injury subcategory for motorcyclists. Victims who survive a head injury often suffer brain damage that impedes their ability to continue as a breadwinner, and in fact may require a lifetime of personal care that can drain resources from already impoverished families.
The logic for using helmets to address this issue is straightforward: helmet use makes a difference. A 2005 Cochrane Study highlights that use of a helmet reduces risk of a fatality by an average of 42% and of severe injury by 69%. By extension, high rates of helmet use lead to fewer deaths, shorter hospital stays, and speedier recoveries, all of which reduce the economic burden on society, and the emotional burden on families. Despite these simple truths, helmet use remains low in many countries.
