Skateboarders of all ages would be required to wear helmets whenever they ride under a bill that cleared the state House Judiciary Committee on Thursday.

Originally intended to cover youths under 16, the bill was amended to apply the helmet requirement to all riders after the relatives of several young adults killed recently in skateboard accidents spoke about their tragedies, Judiciary Chairman Gilbert Keith-Agaran said.

Kathleen Steinhoff said her son, 21-year-old Hawaii Pacific University basketball player Kameron Steinhoff, was not a regular skateboard rider and was having fun with his friends when he crashed and was killed while riding a skateboard without a helmet last May. She and other family members urged the committee to include college students in the measure.

Milton Kurashige said he lost a grandson, 21, and a nephew, 22, in a similar manner.

"It’s great that they want to protect children, but it seems what we’ve seen so far is that some of the biggest injuries and deaths have been with people that are older than that," Keith-Agaran said.

Under the bill, anyone tagged for riding a skateboard without a helmet would have to pay fines ranging from $50 to $250.

State Rep. Linda Ichiyama, lead author of the bill, said she’s open to discussing the Judiciary Committee’s plan to expand the helmet requirement to skateboard riders of all ages.

"My main concern was for the kids of the community," she said.

Ichiyama said she picked age 16 to mirror a state law that requires youths under 16 to wear helmets while riding bicycles.

New Mexico passed a similar law aimed at youths in 2007, leading to a reduction in skateboard-related injuries in that state, she said.

Hawaii law allows motorcyclists to ride without a helmet.

About 450 children under 16 are hospitalized annually in Hawaii after falling from skateboards, nearly equal to the 510 people (of all ages) injured annually while riding bicycles and 470 injured in car crashes, state Health Director Loretta Fuddy said in testimony supporting the original language.

City paramedics reported that from 2006 to 2008, fewer than 10 percent of skateboard riders under 16 who were injured were wearing a helmet, Fuddy said.

But while children under 16 accounted for about half of all skateboard-related injuries in Hawaii, "unhelmeted skateboarders of all ages are at increased risk for head injury," she said.

Injury prevention advocacy groups Injury Prevention Advisory Committee and ThinkFirst offered testimony in support, as did one orthopedic surgeon and a physical therapist.