beth23

Chris L, your idea about kids helmet designs is a really good one! I know for sure that my 10 y/o sister would want to wear a helmet that said "cradle of filth" or something like that on it, especially when Mum & Dad don't approve. Would I have worn that when I was her age? Hell yeah!!!

jeff-o

I unfortunately see a pretty even mix of kids with and without helmets. The ones with helmets are usually not wearing them correctly.

You say that riding on trails is not dangerous. OK, maybe not, but most kids don't have an entrance to a bike trail beside their house. They have to get there somehow, and unless their parents DRIVE them to a bike trail (silliness) then they're going to be riding on sidewalks and crossing roads to get there. Here the danger goes up quite a bit. There are careless drivers making turns straight into peds, there are people leaving their driveways without using mirrors, etc. etc. The fact is, there is a preventable injury here, so why not try to actually prevent it?

Dchiefransom

If helmets have done that much good, you shouldn't have to lie about it, you can relate a personal story from your area.

Dchiefransom

Sooooooo, do we outlaw the afternoon football and basketball games all across the country? How many millions of injuries per year will we be paying for as a result of "regular" sports? Only requiring protective equipment for people that perfom one activity is discrimination.

galen_52657

You learn something every day.

I had no idea the standards for bike helmets were so lame. I had always considered that bike helmets realy would not help much if hit by a car - they might make the difference between an open or closed casket - but that is about it.

I wear a helmet, but its more out of making loved ones think I am 'safe' than in an actual belief that the helmet will do all that much in the event of a crash...

closetbiker

Yeah, what about the potential and actual head injuries in rodeos', rugby, gymnastics and even golf?

I was flipping abut the 'net one day and happened upon a British insurance companys' site and it was selling insurance specificly for golfers. It said, "In 1998, 7,500 golfers sustained injuries to the head requiring hospitalization, 586 were rendered unconscious."

I checked with local golfers and golf magazine writers and they confirmed the problem of wayward balls hitting unsuspecting golfers while percentage wise is small, is still commonplace. I looked for official figures but they were more difficult to get. One writer suggested this type of information is suppressed because it gives a negative image of what they believe to a relatively risk free game. Still, estimates of golfers injured by being hit in the head with balls in Canada are about half of the British numbers which makes golfing having twice the number of hospitalized players with head injuries as cyclists hospitalized with head injuries.

At any rate, this is all small potatoes. 80% of head injured individuals are motorists or people who have simply fallen. Heck, in peace loving Canada, there are more admission to hospitals of people with head injuries caused by homicide and intentional injuries than by cycling.

Everything has risks. Cycling is not unique.

closetbiker

Me too.

As for the standards being lame, at least we have the knowledge of what the standards are and how helmets are tested.

Helmets are tested in the lab for straight line (linear) blows only. Test procedures set by standards bodies like Snell, ANSI, and CPSC require a helmet containing a 5kg (11lbs) rigid headform to be dropped onto a flat anvil from a height of 1.5 to 2.0 metres (5ft to 6ft 8in). If more than 300g's is imparted to the headform, (based on a 300 gravity deceleration of the head, which is about the maximum impact the brain can withstand without serious injury) the helmet cannot be certified.

Is it realistic to expect a blow to the top of the head? A blow to the side of a helmet is not tested.
Is it realistic to have only a 5kg headform and not a 75kg bodyform attached to the helmet to see how well the helmet would protect the headform with the additional weight and stress of the bodyform?
Is it realistic to have the headform simply dropped onto an anvil from a height of 1.5 to 2.0 meters and not to hit the anvil dropped from that height after an acceleration of 30 kmh to simulate a realistic cycling speed at point of falling?

Further, we have the ability to learn what it is that causes tramatic brain injury and weather the bicycle helmet, as currently designed, protects against this specific stress that causes tramatic brain injury.

Bicycle helmets are tested to protect against linear blows only. It is diffuse brain injuries which are the most serious. Sudden rotation of the head was found to be the cause of most severe diffuse brain injuries such as contrecoup injuries, intracranial haemorrhages, and concussions. Head impacts from bicycle crashes do not generally involve a direct square-on impact. Most commonly there is an angled impact as the head hits the ground with forward momentum; or the windshield of a motor vehicle. Such an impact is likely to impart some degree of rotational force on the head and brain.

We also have the knowledge that tramatic brain injury victims are only a small group (about 20%) of brain injury victims. The largest group (80%) of brain injured people aquire them, mostly from heart attacks and strokes, something reglar cycling helps to prevent so the kids riding without helmets would seem to be taking a better percentage risk of preventing the larger precentage risk of brain injury caused by heart attacks and strokes than by the smaller percentage risk of traumatic brain injury though a bicycle accident that may or may not have sufficient prtotection from a bicycle helmet.

At least we have this knowledge so we can each make our own decisions as to weather or not we are better protected with a helmet on and to what degree of protection we can expect when we wear a helmet.

Metro

There are some things you can do something about and others that you can't. You could stop the parents and advise them. They may or may not be open to a stranger telling them how to raise their kids. You could maybe relate a sad tale of someone who had a mishap while not wearing one. That may have an impact. If not, leave it alone.

There will always be those who don't know, or don't care. The ones who don't know can be educated. The ones who don't care are not worth losing sleep over.

atbman

Dr Mayer Hillman did some UK research for the BMA and discovered that about 92% of all cyclists who had fatal head injuries would have died even if they hadn't had them, since they also had other fatal injuries.

His calculation was that if all of them had been wearing helmets and the helmets had saved their lives, 6 riders would have survived that year. Of course, the helmet might have reduced a fatal injury to a permanent coma state.

Me, I wear one because it might save me from minor injuries and i make the members of the kids bike club I've been running for nearly 7 years, wear them for the same reason.

If you are hit by a motor vehicle doing any speed, your survival is largely a matter of luck, since helmets are not designed to protect you from such an impact - check with a fairly recent statement by a senior employee of the Bell Co (sorry, no reference).

randya

I never wore a helmet until I was over 30, when I was a kid I did lots of crazy things on my bike with my friends on their bikes, no one ever had a serious accident or a head injury. Helmet use should be a matter of personal choice and not a legislative matter, including for children.

Feldman

What I see most often are families where the children wear helmets but the parents don't.

Feldman

Chris L, you're freakin' brilliant!! I have had the same idea for years; every wholesaler's rep I tell it to just kind of wrinkles up his or her nose at it. Maybe the "On-One" guys would like that one, or the Surly division of Quality Bicycle Products.

Sylvan

They actually DO make cool kids helmets...

My LBS had some really great ones... some of which even attracted the attention of my soon to be teen son. (He chose a "professional" look in red, white and black and commented that it looked like something he saw on Tour de France last year...)

HEre are a few links I found in a quick google...

https://www.specialized.com/SBCEqSect...quipHelmetKids

https://brandscycle.com/site/showitem...ory&Catalog=39

https://www.wiggle.co.uk/Default.aspx...ets%20-%20Kids

Now if they were available in ADULT sizes...

Roody

Why do you not care?

Crazy Cyclist

here is my .02 I say let the kids do what they want, if they get injured than that is the parents problem, I look after myself first when I ride and if some kids parents are too stupid to make them wear a helmet that is their problem not mine. If I stopped and told every kid or their parents about proper helmet use, I would never be able to ride.

chicharron

Are you the bicycle police?

chicharron

In my car, everybody wears a seatbelt. My children do not ride in my car without wearing a seat belt. However, if my children were not wearing seatbelts, would you stop my car and lecture us on seatbelt usage?
I never heard of law requiring bicycle helmets. Ridiculous. My children always wear helmets. But there should not be a law. I dont need the police, or well intentioned bicyle safty advocates looking out for our welfare. I wear eye protection when I mow the grass on my lawn. Should there be a law mandating the use of eye protection for the operation of lawn mowers. Is the poster above going to come in my back yard to check on my proper use of personal safty equipment?