America has a helmet problem, and it has nothing to do with safety standards. Despite ongoing efforts to increase helmet usage and awareness, a strikingly low number of riders in the US are actually wearing helmets. In fact, research suggests that as little as 18% of riders are wearing helmets. A lot of riders feel that helmets don't actually protect them but research and statistics say otherwise. In 2019, 97% of cyclists killed were not wearing a helmet. Another set of research published from 2019 states that of the 76,000 cyclists who sustained head and neck injuries while riding, only 22% of them were wearing a helmet.
So what can we do to change this? Well, the most important thing is to implement helmet requirements and actually enforce them. Many feel like if they are not required, they are not necessary. However, that can take a while. In the meantime the best things we can do is to spread awareness to our cyclist friends-make sure they know the dangers of not wearing a helmet-and lead by example! The more cyclists see other people wearing helmets, the more likely they are to put one on themselves. At XNITO our goal isn’t just to raise the standard of helmets available, but to raise awareness to the importance of helmet use. We hope you’ll help us out!