• Posted May 28, 2025

Helmets Save Lives, Head-To-Head Motorcycle Study Finds

WEDNESDAY, May 28, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Motorcycle helmet laws save lives and prevent many severe injuries, according to a new head-to-head study comparing two states.

North Carolina mandates helmets for all motorcyclists, while South Carolina only requires riders younger than 21 to wear them, researchers said.

As a result, North Carolina riders had fewer severe injuries and were less likely to require treatment in an intensive care unit after an accident, researchers reported recently in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.

“The two states’ differing laws created a natural experiment,” senior researcher Dr. Britton Christmas, medical director of trauma at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, N.C., said in a news release.

“The results are clear: helmets save lives, and universal laws ensure they’re used,” Christmas said.

Only 19 states now have universal helmet laws, a sharp decline from 47 states 50 years ago, researchers said in background notes.

Efforts from motorcycle groups have driven these repeals, despite trauma surgeons noting the importance of helmets, researchers said.

“I’ve testified against repeals in North Carolina because the data doesn’t lie,” Christmas said. “When helmets aren’t required, fewer people wear them, and more die or face life-altering injuries.”

For the study, researchers tracked all motorcycle crash patients treated at the Carolinas Medical Center between July 2012 and 2022.

Charlotte is near the state line between the Carolinas, and the hospital’s trauma center regularly treats patients from both states.

Nearly 2,200 patients were treated during the study period for injuries sustained in a motorcycle wreck, researchers said.

About 94% of those in North Carolina were wearing a helmet compared with 52% of those from South Carolina, the study says.

Helmeted patients had less severe injuries overall, results show.

Importantly, only 25% of helmeted riders needed ICU treatment, compared with 39% of riders not wearing helmets, researchers said.

Riders without helmets also required longer ICU stays and spent more time on a ventilator, the study says.

Overall, 7% of riders without helmets died, compared to just over 4% of those wearing a helmet.

Results also show that South Carolina’s under-21 helmet requirement was not effective, with 33% of that state’s young riders not wearing a helmet during a crash compared to 10% in North Carolina.

“Universal laws normalize helmet use,” lead researcher Dr. Stephanie Jensen, a surgical resident with the Carolinas Medical Center, said in a news release. “When young riders see adults without helmets, they question their necessity, and the results are tragic.”

More information

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has more on motorcycle safety.

SOURCE: American College of Surgeons, news release, May 21, 2025