Should Bike Helmets Be Equipped With Airbags?

Cycling sends more than 500,000 Americans to the emergency room each year, with roughly 85,000 reporting head injuries in 2009. Hard knocks on the noggin are especially dangerous as they can cause skull fractures, concussions, and other brain traumas. Could science find a way to protect cyclists from such life-threatening injuries?

That’s a question Stanford researchers recently took to the lab. Minimizing brain injuries would be a simple matter of bulking up padding and protection in helmets—having people pedal around in motorcycle helmets would be a great way of minimizing trauma. But cyclists overwhelmingly prefer today’s plastic-covered, polystyrene-foam helmets due to their light weight, ventilation, and appearance, and that’s not the best thing for the brain.