Gillette Children's Specialty Healthcare and Regions Hospital offered compelling evidence Thursday of the need for bike helmets. Out of 150 children admitted for bike-related trauma injuries over the past five years, 109 (or 73 percent) weren't wearing helmets. The rate is likely higher, given that helmet use was undetermined for 27 patients.

Half of the trauma injuries involved children 12 to 16 (mostly boys). And out of this rebellious group, only four of the 79 injured youths wore helmets. (The data excluded children treated and released from hospitals for minor injuries. It only involved the trauma cases: skull fractures, facial fractures, traumatic brain injuries, concussions and lacerations to the face and scalp that required hospital admissions.)

Gillette and Regions issue helmets to any patients who weren't wearing them at the time of their bicycle crashes.

I also checked with HCMC and the numbers matched up. Since 2006, the hospital has admitted 78 patients who were 18 or younger for bicycle-related injuries. At least 53 weren't wearing helmets.

The hypocrisy of all of this is that I was a marginal helmet user as a tween, when friends goaded me into riding over ridiculous jumps, and as a teen, when I biked the 40-or-so mile Grand Rounds of Minneapolis and occasionally took shortcuts through downtown and uptown. In defiance to the safe helmet my parents bought, I purchased one of those leather strap helmets you can't find anymore because they are useless.

That's probably why the Gillette data makes so much sense to me. That adolescent age is when kids will start to bike farther from home, and take a few more risks when it comes to wearing helmets or popping wheelies. (Haven't used that term in a while. Does anyone still use that term?) Parents in that age group should take extra caution, even if their kids have been loyal helmet users in the past.