Assessing the causal contribution of the lack of helmet use in the occurrence of road accidents: a difficult question

The Authors examine how much the failure to wear a helmet contributes to death in motorcycle accidents and offer a necessarily approximate indication of how the death risk percentage would fall if the motorcyclist had worn a helmet. Data from the literature lead to the conclusion that the joint cause of death due to the failure to wear a helmet varies from more than 50% to 30-35%. Nonetheless, the lack of univocal results and uniform studies on the matter calls for further studies based on a larger series, or a series having a higher proportion of motorcyclists without helmet, including assessment of physical features of the event, modality of occurrence, biological state of the deceased person, focal and diffuse brain injuries, helmet type, head impact and helmet retention.