While motorcycle helmets work to reduce damage in automobile collisions, they are not as effective as they could be. They only reduce the death rates caused by motorcycle accidents by 37 percent. There are 2,200 fatalities each year from motorcycle accidents, 28 times greater than that of other vehicle accidents. Looking at nature, the woodpecker’s skull can be applied to the design of motorcycle helmets. The trabeculae, which forms cancellous bone in woodpecker skulls, reduces impact by two to eight times. This part protects the woodpecker’s brain from dangerous neural damage from its continuous tree-pecking. New helmets could be created using 3D-printed layers designed to replicate trabeculae, absorbing and directing the impact energy elsewhere and reducing motorcycle injuries, at a minimum, by half.
