This is an analysis of hospital admissions data for children in England provided by the Department of Health (DoH). The source is here in MS Access format. This is analysed below in a number of ways. The background to the analysis is an evaluation of whether legislative action to compel helmet use is justified by either the scale of cyclist head injuries, or by their being more likely to be serious than injuries sustained in other activities.
The conclusion from the data is that child cyclist head injury rates are low and already falling at a rate which cannot be accounted for by helmet use. Cycling accidents are not significantly more productive of head injuries than the generality of child accidents. More than half of all head injuries are the result of trips and falls. In crashes involving motor vehicles, around four times as many children suffer head injuries walking as cycling.
The figures also show that a number of recent claims made in support of helmet compulsion are bogus, notably the idea of 28,000 head injuries per annum stated in Early Day Motion 1783, 2003, drafted by the Bicycle Helmet Initiative Trust.
Section 1: Injury Data Overview
Section 4: Comparison of walking and cycling
Guy Chapman, 2004