— I am a biker and a critical-care surgeon – an interesting combination that gives me, as you might imagine, a pretty strong opinion on whether or not motorcycle helmets are a good idea.

When Pennsylvania repealed its universal motorcycle helmet law in 2003, it didn’t take long for us to notice the change at Memorial Medical Center’s Level One Trauma Center.

As helmet use went down, head injuries went up.

A University of Pittsburgh study showed that even after accounting for increases in motorcycle registrations, there was a 32 percent increase in head injury deaths and a 42 percent increase in head injury-related hospitalizations in the two-year period following the repeal.

The number of head-injured motorcyclists requiring long-term care and rehabilitation also jumped. Total acute-care hospital charges stemming from motorcycle-related head injuries increased 132 percent.

Unfortunately, brains are a little harder to fix than bones.

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) can have a lasting impact on a person’s physical, emotional, intellectual and social health.

The long-term effects place an enormous emotional and financial burden on an individual’s family, caregivers and society due to the high costs of what often turns out to be lifelong needs.

At Memorial, we began to study the repeal from a different angle. We collected data with the goal of conducting an unbiased and accurate portrayal of the overall costs associated with the medical care required of injured, nonhelmeted riders.

Our data have been gathered and will be published later this year.

I’ll be frank: The results of our study were a bit of a surprise.

When you don’t survive a crash, the costs of follow-up care go away.

Sad but true.

The bottom line for me is that motorcycle helmets really do make a difference. They provide another way to protect a very vital part of your body that, as a medical community, we can do very little to fix when it gets damaged.

So, for those who support the rider’s right to choose, that’s fine.

Still, I urge you to choose to wear a helmet.

I’ll do my best to fix you up either way.

But give me a hand and give yourself a chance at more rides to come.



Dr. S. Lee Miller specializes in general, critical care and trauma surgery. He is chairman of the Department of Surgery at Conemaugh Health System’s Memorial Medical Center.