Childhood Bicycle Injuries

Abstract

Of the more than 1200 bicycle-related deaths that occur each year in the United States, approximately half occur in children.¹Among children less than 10 years old, the death rate from bicycling injuries exceeds the death rate from many other causes that received considerably more attention, such as accidental poisonings,²falls,³and firearm accidents.³The death rate from bicycling injuries is similar to that from medical illnesses such asHaemophilus influenzaemeningitis.⁴Therefore, the report in this issue by Selbst and colleagues⁵is timely and important because it focuses our attention on the serious problem of bicycling-related injuries among children (also see Allen and Borland's⁶editorial). Several previous reports^7,8noted that the majority of serious bicycling injuries involve head and neck trauma. In Calgary, Alberta, Guichon and Myles⁷found that more than two thirds of bicycle-related hospital admissions occur because of