Skip to Content
Streetsblog USA home
Streetsblog USA home
Log In
There was a correlation between living in an area with high cycling rates and low levels of hospitalization. Graph: University of British Columbia
Living in an area with high cycling rates is linked to lower levels of hospitalization for bicyclists. There is no similar link for helmet laws. Graph: University of British Columbia
There was a correlation between living in an area with high cycling rates and low levels of hospitalization. Graph: University of British Columbia

If you want to increase cycling safety in your city, drop the helmet law and focus on getting more people-- particularly women -- on bikes, with street designs that offer separation from vehicle traffic.

That's the finding of a new study by researchers at the University of British Columbia [PDF] evaluating safety outcomes for cyclists across Canadian provinces and territories.

Lead author Kay Teschke and a team of researchers looked at cyclist injuries requiring hospitalization in 10 Canadian provinces and three territories between 2006 and 2012. They checked to see if hospitalization rates were linked in any way to helmet laws and cycling rates, and they checked for variations in hospitalization rates by sex and age.

Helmet laws were found to have no relationship to hospitalization rates. That was true even though self-reported helmet use is higher in areas of Canada that mandate it (67 percent) than in areas that don't (39 percent).

But having a higher rate of cycling in one's community does seem to have an impact on safety. Using Canadian government data on cycling activity, researchers found that men and woman were both less likely to be injured while biking in communities where more people bike.

It's not the first time this effect, sometimes called "safety in numbers," has been observed, though the researchers wrote in their summary of the study, "the explanation could also be 'numbers in safety' as safer bicycling infrastructure has been shown to attract more people to cycle."

The researchers also found that women were much less likely to be hospitalized for a cycling injury than men, echoing the results of other studies examining traffic collisions of all kinds. The authors attribute this to a "lower propensity for risk taking" among women.

"Transportation and health policymakers who aim to reduce bicycling injury rates in the population should focus on factors related to increased cycling mode share and female cycling choices," the authors conclude.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog USA

Friday Video: The Massachusetts Company That Traded the Trash Truck For a Bike

This small worker-owned cooperative is reimagining how to do recycling, composting, yardwork and more — no diesel required.

August 29, 2025

Friday’s Deadly Headlines

Reducing our reliance on fossil fuels would bring immediate health benefits for hundreds of thousands of people.

August 29, 2025

Talking Headways Podcast: The Menace of Prosperity

Daniel Wortel-London on his new book, "The Menace of Prosperity: New York City and the Struggle for Economic Development, 1875–1981."

August 28, 2025

Thursday’s Headlines Are a Sneak Preview

Want to see what happens when a city makes major transit cuts? Just look at Philadelphia. It's not pretty.

August 28, 2025

What I’ve Learned From Getting Transit Wrong

"Advocacy isn’t about pretending you’ve always been right. It’s about learning, adapting, and bringing those lessons into the fight for better transit and better cities."

August 28, 2025
See all posts