When it comes to getting out the door for a workout, there are certain necessities you should never leave the house without: proper attire, nutrition, and most important of all, safety equipment. But while most of us would never ride without a helmet, many routinely leave without proper identification—forgetting that there may come a time when you are unable to provide your information to a first responder in an emergency. This is where RoadID plays a vital role—providing all of your essential information in a comfortable, easy-to-wear product.

This is the first of a two-part article to explain why wearing a RoadID is so important, as well as what RoadID may be best for you. This isn’t exactly a review, and we recognize that. Instead, we felt this was a great opportunity to help ensure the safety of all of our readers. In fact, this may be our most important article to date if we can get just one reader to ensure they have proper ID on them during all of their workouts.

Riding Safe

We here at AeroGeeks HQ believe that you should never leave the house without wearing at least one RoadID. With that said, we have instituted a rule that anytime a team member leaves for a workout, they are required to wear two RoadIDs (we will cover why we require two later). Every one of our editors has had at least one incident on the bike where an emergency hospital visit was required. Mike experienced a serious fall resulting in a head injury, which landed him in the ER to undergo a CAT scan. He could not remember what happened immediately following the accident, and he was not coherent enough to be able to pass on his medical or contact information. This is exactly the kind of incident that the RoadID was created for.

If you go RoadID’s testimonial page you will find 57 pages of customer stories that cover the gambit of race, training, and day-to-day incidents where the RoadID played an integral part in saving a life. Some of these testimonials truly stood out to us (we hope they don’t mind that we’ve taken the liberty of sharing their stories):

“Recently, I was cycling down the road in broad daylight wearing a bright yellow Livestrong jersey. Suddenly, a lady turned left into me, hitting my front tire and sending me airborne. I was lying on my back, unable to move, when the Police, Fire Department, and EMTs showed up. They used my Road ID. When I arrived at the emergency room, strapped to a gurney, one of the trauma nurses asked, “Do we have a positive ID”? The EMT said, “Yes, his information is on his Road ID and we have already notified his family.” – Robert W., West Memphis AR

“Recently, I was racing at the 70.3 Cairns Triathlon and I fell off my bike going about 60 kmh. I hit the deck hard and rolled a good 50 meters before coming to a stop. At the scene, the fire and rescue boys bandaged me up and got me in the ambulance. Safe to say, when I got to the ambulance, I was in shock and not entirely lucid. The paramedics used my Road ID to find out I had no allergies or medical history.” – Nathan A. Grovedale, Australia

“One of my friends told me about Road ID, so I told my wife that I wanted to get one for the entire family since we were headed on a cruise to the Bahamas. While aboard the ship and partying heavy, I somehow misplaced my cruise ID card. Then, after having too much to drink, I slipped and hit my head. The crew kept asking me for my name, but due to excessive drinking I simply could not remember it. Without my card the crew couldn’t know who I was right away, without reviewing thousands of passenger pictures. Thankfully, however, someone held up my wrist and located my name and other important information on my Road ID.” — Dewight W., Stafford, VA

The majority of our editors have actually started to wear a RoadID anytime they leave the house, not just for workouts. The rational is that accidents happen and most likely our wrists will still be attached to our bodies, but our wallet may not be. We would all rather be safe than sorry.

Original versus Interactive

An original RoadID provides you with up to six lines of text to ensure any immediate responder knows who you are and what, if any, medical conditions you may have. Here at AeroGeeks we typically have our Name, City/Zip, Spouse Name + Number, major medical issues, and a motivational quote; Mike’s inspiration comes from SEAL training: “This is designed to hurt”.

While the original RoadID allows you to store enough information to ensure loved ones are contacted and major medical issues are noted, it didn’t allow first responders to see multiple contact options, or the entire medical history. To fix this, RoadID created a second type of ID; the Interactive. The Interactive provides the first responder with a phone number and access code to allow them to see the complete Emergency Response Profile (ERP) for the wearer. This includes multiple contacts, blood type, major surgeries, languages, allergies, and just about any other piece of information a person may feel is relevant to their emergency care.

The one drawback of the Interactive is that EMS personnel probably won’t have the time to make a phone call in those first few critical minutes of care, and if you have a major allergy or condition they need to know about, the Interactive may not have enough space to provide that information. We spoke to an EMS first responder as part of the research of this article and were told that “there would not be enough time for stabilizing, treatment, transport, and calling a number to find out more info on a [patient]. It would probably be more useful in the hospital setting for further patient info. The basic info on the RoadID is very helpful for initial treatment.”

This is where our internal AeroGeeks requirement for two RoadIDs comes into play. All of our team has a standard RoadID and an interactive (located on different parts of the body—ankle and wrist, for example). This would allow a first responder to see the critical information required for performing treatment, and then at the hospital the interactive ERP would be accessed for additional information. Yes it may be overkill, but we want to ensure that we’re taking every precaution for ourselves and our loved ones when we step out the door and onto the road.

Stay Tuned

Part two of this article will cover four of the products that RoadID sells: the Wrist ID Sport, Wrist ID Elite, Wrist ID Slim, and the Ankle ID. Stay tuned to read about our thoughts on each of these four products. As always, thanks for reading. And please be safe out there.