Mandatory Bicycle Helmet Laws in the United States: Origins, Context, and Controversies

Abstract

This article examines the origins and context of mandatory bicycle helmet laws in the United States. Localities began to enact such laws in the early 1990s, having experimented with helmet laws for motorcycles previously. As cycling became increasingly popular in the 1970s and 1980s because of a variety of historical trends, from improved cycle technology to growing environmental consciousness, cycling-related injuries also increased. Bicycle safety advocates and researchers alike were particularly troubled by head injuries. National injury surveillance systems and a growing body of medical literature on bicycle-related injuries motivated a number of physicians, cyclists, children, and other community members to advocate helmet laws, which they argued would save lives. Controversy over these laws, particularly over whether they should apply universally or only to children, raised public health ethics concerns that persist in contemporary debates over bicycle helmet policies. (Am J Public Health. 2020;110:1198–1204. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2020.305718)