Adult Bike Riders Crowding Emergency Rooms

The Wall Street Journal reports emergency-room visits continued to climb in the second year of the Affordable Care Act, contradicting the law’s supporters who had predicted a decline in traffic as more people gained access to doctors and other health care providers

About 2,000 emergency-room doctors surveyed in March said visits had risen since January 2014. That was a significant uptick from a year earlier, when less than half of doctors surveyed reported an increase. Not all but certainly some of those visits were the result of adult bicycle-related injuries.

New research has found that bicycle-related injuries have increased by 28 percent in the past 15 years. LiveScience.com reported a noticeably large increase in the rate  of injuries in people ages 45 and older – accounting for 42 percent of bike-related ER visits.

John Kerry was in Europe, so his crash didn’t count!

If your Labor Day includes a bike ride – stay safe out there!