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Today Good magazine asks, “Do bike helmet laws do more harm than good?” The question is inspired by a new study arguing that mandatory helmet laws may actually lead to increased health care costs. The rationale is that they’ve been shown to reduce total bicycle ridership by as much as 40 percent. Author Piet de Jong, a mathematician at Macquarie University in Australia, maintains that since cycling is healthy activity, if people do it less, general public health suffers. He predicts health care expenses would rise by $5 billion in the United States if we enacted a nationwide helmet law.

On the face of it a layer of orange jelly may not sound the best way to protect a soldier's head from high velocity bullets and shrapnel.But the British Army's standard-issue combat helmet is set to be upgraded with a liner made from gooey miracle gel, which responds to a sudden impact by locking instantly into a solid form - absorbing huge amounts of energy harmlessly.A UK-based technology company was today celebrating a £100,000 contract from the Ministry of Defence to develop its D3O shock-absorbing gel to help save the lives of British troops fighting on the frontline in Afghanistan.

Obama's quandary: Wear a helmet, look dumb or be a role model? No image affected Michael Dukakis' 1988 campaign more than his infamous ride in the tank. This image is still funny. Sure, there's world wars and toxic pollution and corruption and Social Security reform and a few other things like trillions of dollars in debt to worry about. But before getting to those easy issues, politicians who want to be chief executives must first get elected. And to do that they must decide if they're going to wear funny hats. It's the bane of most big-time campaigns. And why...

Michigan lawmakers push helmet requirement for skiers, snowboarders by CLAY TAYLOR | Capital News Service Saturday January 26, 2008, 9:34 AM LANSING - Downhill skiers and snowboarders without head protection may find a hefty fine waiting for them at the bottom of the slope. A new bill by Rep. Bob Constan calling for mandatory helmets comes fast on the heels of a fatal skiing accident in December. Clare Dougherty, 13, of Canton Township died from a head injury on Shanty Creek Resort's Schuss Mountain in Bellaire. She was pronounced dead on arrival at Kalkaska Memorial Health Center on Christmas Day....

Vin Ferrara, a former Harvard quarterback, was looking for an aspirin in his medicine cabinet when his eyes fixed upon a ribbed plastic bottle used to squirt saline into sinuses. Ferrara squeezed the bottle, then pounded on it — finding that it cushioned soft and hard blows with equal aplomb, almost intelligence. “This is it,” Ferrara declared. Three years later, Ferrara’s squirt bottle has led to a promising new technology to protect football players from concussions. Football helmets have evolved over more than a century from crude leather bonnets to face-masked, polycarbonate battering rams. But they still often fail to...

Spring is in full swing now, and a number of the straphangers (read: subway riders) in New York City, as well as citizens in other locales, are getting new tubes and tires and dragging their bikes out of storage. Bicycle riding is the skill you reportedly never forget, but there's a raging debate about whether or not you should forget your helmet when you hop on your two-wheeler. Last September a plucky psychologist at the University of Bath in England announced the results of a study in which he played both researcher and guinea pig. An avid cyclist, Ian Walker...

BOSTON -- If one lawmaker has his way, children in Massachusetts will have to put on helmets to go sledding. State Sen. Steven Panagiotakos said he plans to file a bill to require children under 13 to wear helmets while sledding or skiing. He said most kids already have bicycle helmets, and those could be used for sledding as well.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9, 2006 -- Transitioning from the military into the civilian work force can be as simple as trading one type of headgear for another through “Helmets to Hardhats.” Shane Anderson of Seattle registered with Helmets to Hardhats as he was preparing to transition from the Army back into the civilian work force. The organization helped him secure an apprenticeship with the International Union of Elevator Constructors Local 19. Courtesy photo  '(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Helmets to Hardhats helps people leaving military service find careers in the construction industry, said Sarah Hayes, the not-for-profit organization’s general...

Cpl. Brian M. Henner, a 22-year-old Marine from Rochester, N.Y., displays the helmet he wore July 23 when he was shot in the head by an insurgent. Story and photo by Staff Sgt. Jim GoodwinRegimental Combat Team7 CAMP AL ASAD -- Though a religious man, Cpl. Brian M. Henner doesnÂ’t attribute divine intervention, luck, fate or destiny to the fact that heÂ’s still alive after taking an enemy bullet to the head. Instead, the 22-year-old U.S. Marine says it was his helmet that saved his life in the middle of a recent gunfight between Marines and insurgents in IraqÂ’s Al...

WASHINGTON - The subject was whether to modify helmets for soldiers in Iraq, but all eyes were on Cher. As photographers clicked away, the singer and actress entered a Capitol Hill hearing room through a back door 20 minutes after the session was scheduled to start. The hearing soon got under way. Cher has donated more than $130,000 to the group Operation Helmet, which pays about $100 to modify the inside of soldiers' helmets to make them better able to absorb shock from a bomb blast. Cher, wearing a white lace top under a black pant suit, looked solemn as...

Big Ben Upgraded To Fair Condition Roethlisberger Is Awake And Oriented POSTED: 4:14 pm EDT June 13, 2006 UPDATED: 5:29 pm EDT June 13, 2006 PITTSBURGH -- Doctors held a news conference Tuesday afternoon at Mercy Hospital to provide an update on Pittsburgh Steelers’ quarterback Ben Roethlisberger’s medical condition. The hospital has officially updated his condition from serious but stable to fair. Ben was transferred from the recovery room to an undisclosed unit at the hospital. He is awake, alert, oriented and resting with his family by his side. The upgrade means Ben’s vital signs are stable and his recovery...

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Steelers star Ben Roethlisberger, the youngest quarterback to lead a team to the Super Bowl championship, broke his jaw and nose in a motorcycle crash Monday in which he was not wearing a helmet. Four doctors operated on Roethlisberger for seven hours to treat multiple facial fractures and "all of the fractures were successfully repaired," Dr. Harry W. Sell, chairman of the surgery department at Mercy Hospital, told reporters late Monday night. Photo Gallery...Roethlisberger's accident Also... Bradshaw: 'I pray he's going to be OK' Athletes and motorcycle accidents Dr. Daniel Pituch, who led the team, said Roethlisberger...

See for example this thread first. You're lucky to not break your neck on a motorcycle in a wreck Don't give me no guff Roethlisberger's tough But the pavement is tougher, by heck!

PITTSBURGH — Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was injured in a motorcycle crash Monday and taken to a hospital. "He was alert and conscious," per Allegheny County emergency service. In his second year in the NFL, Roethlisberger helped guide the Steelers to the Super Bowl championship last season. The 24-year-old Roethlisberger has said in the past that he prefers not to wear a helmet when riding his motorcycle. He has pointed out Pennsylvania's 35-year-old state law requiring helmets to be worn was amended to make helmets optional. In May 2005, Steelers coach Bill Cowher lectured Roethlisberger on the dangers of riding...

Virginia May Drop Motorcycle Helmet Law POSTED: 8:35 am EST February 6, 2006 UPDATED: 8:49 am EST February 6, 2006 RICHMOND, Va. -- A House of Delegates committee has endorsed a measure that would lift Virginia's motorcycle helmet law for operators and passengers age 21 years and older. The bill -- now bound for the full House -- is sponsored by William Janis of Henrico. He said helmet wearing should be optional for motorcycle enthusiasts.

Perhaps it was bad timing, but the annual bill allowing bikers to ride motorcycles without helmets was in committee two days after the most famous motorcycle accident in California gubernatorial history. One would presume that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger walking around the Capitol with a fat lip wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement for easing motorcyclist protection laws. The bill was ultimately killed - on the same Tuesday afternoon that Schwarzenegger sheepishly explained that he never bothered to get a motorcycle license. MLS Motorcycle riders wandering through Capitol hallways to lobby legislators took a moment to sympathize with the Harley-riding governor, even...

With strong evidence of long-term neurological damage among a portion of veteran soccer players, some soccer officials, parents, and physicians around the nation have recently been pushing for more safety measures for young players, including an outright ban on heading, an integral part of the world's most popular sport.

PennDOT revises its motorcycle statistics By HARRY YANOSHAK Bucks County Courier Times After its numbers buoyed bareheaded motor bikers, PennDOT skidded and wiped them out. Motorcycle deaths really haven't dramatically dropped in the first full year since the state repealed the mandatory helmet law, state Department of Transportation officials now say. Originally, PennDOT reported a nearly 10 percent drop in fatalities statewide between 2003 and last year (from 174 to 157 deaths). Now, the agency's data, confirmed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, says there were 156 fatalities in 2003 - one less than reported last year. Turns out...

Wednesday May 11, 2005 HIBBS, Pa. (AP) A man angry about an argument chased down a motorcycle and rammed it with his pickup truck, killing the bike's two riders, state police said. Edward A. Belch, 44, of McClellandtown, apparently got in an argument with the motorcycle's passengers Tuesday evening, authorities said. The two people then got on the motorcycle and left, and Belch followed them on state Route 21, passing other vehicles, until he hit the motorcycle, police said. Terri Lynn Gresko, 44, and a 54-year-old man whom police didn't immediately identify died at the scene. Belch was being held...

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — After decades of lobbying, Michigan motorcyclists could be roaring closer to being allowed to ride without a helmet. A state Senate panel on Tuesday approved a bill to let bikers ride without helmets if they are older than 21 and either have been licensed to operate a motorcycle for at least two years or have taken a safety course. The full Senate, which has proved a major hurdle to past efforts to repeal parts of the state's mandatory helmet law, is expected to vote on the bill Thursday. Senate Majority Leader Ken Sikkema, R-Wyoming, opposes the...