Road safety is a major concern in all countries, and large efforts are constantly dedicated to create safer traffic environments. The use of helmet was deemed as one of the most effective ways to reduce the two wheeler accident fatalities. Tamil Nadu Government through legislation has promulgated a law for wearing the helmets for two wheel riders and seat belts for front seat users of car compulsory. In this study the feelings expressed by the commuters with respect to the use of helmet alone are studied in a scientific manner in order to bring out the true facts about the scenario.The study has been conducted at Chennai, capital of the State of Tamil Nadu. A sample of 550 questionnaires was collected for the analysis, which represents a homogeneous distribution of the population from the study area. The survey data were analyzed in order to bring out statistics about the present usage of the helmet among commuters. Nine variables were finally screened and selected for detailed analysis. Accident severity is a measure of the violence of crash. The present study focuses on this aspect also. A model has been developed using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) for predicting the intensity of severity of a crash. The analysis showed that compliance with helmet law was higher among young and above middle aged drivers. The results from the accident severity analysis show that, accident severity level mainly head injury is higher for those persons who were not wearing helmet during an accident

Keywords : Helmet; Injury severity; ANN; Head injury