A health benefit model developed at Macquarie University and published in March 2009 suggests national mandatory all-age bicycle helmet laws incur a health cost to Australia of more than half a billion dollars every year.

Piet de Jong, professor of actuarial studies at Macquarie University in Sydney, has developed a mathematical model that provides evidence the helmet laws have a direct health cost to Australia of $301 million per year (see inputs below) and a total cost of $519 million when combined with the non-health costs of the law.

The model calculates various outcomes of the mandatory helmet legislation based upon known or perceived inputs, including the exercise benefits of cycling, head injury percentages and reductions in cycling popularity.

If America adopted nationwide helmet laws like those in Australia, the model suggests the US would suffer a health cost of $4.75 billion every year.

In the UK, nationwide all-age helmet laws would have a health cost of $400 million per year and the Netherlands would suffer a $1.9 billion annual loss.

Download Professor de Jong's study, Evaluating the Health Benefit of Bicycle Helmet Laws

A spreadsheet calculator to use the model is available here

The calculator accepts inputs applied by the user.

Users can input their preferred data via the calculator.

* Note: there is substantial evidence that 65% is a gross overestimation of the % reduction in head injury costs when wearing a helmet - results in Western Australia suggest a reduction between 5-10%.

A similar spreadsheet calculator endorsed by the United Nations and the World Health Organisation estimates the economic benefits of cycling: Health Economic Assessment Tool for Cycling

The Macquarie University study was publicised on April 27 2009 by the prestigious New Scientist magazine but no Australian media consider it to be newsworthy.

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