Here are the results of an observational study on bicycle helmet use in Minnesota from 2015-2016, from my mental and written tally sheets at times and places I’ve been. True statisticians would criticize that time is an uncontrolled variable I obviously don’t know the exact population size (although data might exist in certain locations), but I do think this gives a reasonably accurate sense of bicycle helmet use. If you assume a population of hundreds of thousands of bicyclists over two years the data is probable accurate to within 5%. For the most part data on the trails was gathered on “nice riding days”- when I as well as others were out bicycling. In most locations, several hundred adults were tallied.
The Minneapolis Parkways
Here’s the data for the Minneapolis parkway off-road paths. In this and all graphs, data for kids was only included when I tallied 20 or more in a given location. Also note usage by men and women is close, probably within the margin of error, but I recall there was a much more significant difference between men and women when I did this 10 years ago (and lost the data). Men were around 50% while women were about the same at 60%, which is why I separated them initially for this study. “Kids” is anyone from the low teens on down, and adults were higher teens on up. I originally attempted to tally data for teenagers separately but was unable to do so because of how few teenagers apparently ride bicycles, and it was difficult to classify riders into three classes instead of two.
Here’s the data simplified, combining the data for men and woman and eliminating the data for kids.
Now the Minneapolis Parkways in comparison to other areas. “Minneapolis” is areas not on or immediately adjacent to the parkways in Minneapolis (and a few from St Paul). “Inner Ring Suburbs” are riders on mainly streets and sidewalks suburbs with grids, mostly east Bloomington. “Outer Ring Suburbs” are suburbs with twisty streets and usually bicycle paths along the main roads, mainly Eden Prairie and Shakopee. You also have Hyland Park in Bloomington, the Browns Creek Trail outside Stillwater, and the Root River Trail by Lanesboro.
Notice how low I don’t want to get too much into speculation about the reason for the differences, I’ll let others do that. I only note that areas where bicycles are transportation have much lower bicycle helmet use than areas for recreation.
Possible Future Investigations
There are a few interesting observations that I didn’t investigate. Different city neighborhoods probably have vastly different usage rates (and thus of all my data; lumping the data for the city of Minneapolis together, even excluding recreational trails, downtown, and the U, probably made it meaningless). Also I noticed bicycle helmet use seems essentially nonexistent in small town Minnesota. I spent several days in Kenyon helping to dismantle a fence and I didn’t see a single rider with one there or on the way there. Helmets are also recommended for inline skating. I found usage of about 20% for both genders. I did not break this out by location but most inline skating is done on recreations trails.
Now for the elephant in the room: We now have some idea how many Minnesotans use bicycle helmets, but should it be mandatory, or should they do it voluntarily. See my take on the great bicycle helmet debate, or read about the history of bicycle helmets
Featured Image: “2005 Cloverleaf Ride father & son” (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by Webster Tubbins