To ask my DDs to wear helmets when they go out on their bikes?

[LackingInspiration]

Because I'm starting to feel like an overprotective mother (and I so am not one of those!). All the other children in the street don't wear helmets, and my DDs are so good at keeping theirs on, but I know it annoys them.

The thing is that, unlike most of the decisions DH and I have made about parenting, we've just swallowed the standard advice about helments, without researching the ins and outs of them. So what's the deal?

Am I being overprotective? Or haven't I read enough research and arguments to make an informed decision?

Oblomov, not sure about you but I am quite underwhelmed by all these 'risky' scenarios.

Just today I was walking to the train station from work and must have tripped on the edge of a pavement and ended up horizontal on the ground. I must have been walking briskly because I remember (surprised) the momentum carrying me quite a way. Shame I was not wearing a helmet. Perhaps I need one for my commute.

blueshoes - in your scenario, you would have put out your hands to protect yourself as you fell. It is a natural reflex. If you are riding a bike, the fall happens faster and you are not in a position to protect yourself with your hands, and your head is much more likely to hit the ground. What's more, if you are thrown over the handlebars, you are FLUNG to the ground rather than just falling to the ground.

I have ridden on a bike too in a park without a helmet, not just my children. I do practice what I preach and I can actually assess the risk for myself.

Miracle I ever survived to this age.

Odd, therefore, that the two countries with the lowest rate of helmet use, Holland and Denmark, have high rates of cycle use and amongst the lowest rates of death and injury. Perhaps we need to get in amongst the cyclists in the streets in Amsterdam and tell them the hideous risks they're taking. Spreading the idea that cycling is so dangerous that it needs special protective clothes means that fewer and fewer people are doing it: the most generous estimates for helmets are about ten deaths prevented per year, while the death rate from lack of exercise is somewhat more than that. And one of the reasons that Holland and Denmark are so safe for cyclists is that the effect of lots of people, ordinary people, being in the streets on bikes is to tame motorists. Helmets are not as common in Oxford or Cambridge, but the death rates are (if memory serves) low.

Falling off a bike involves about as much energy as falling from a standing position (the vertical component of your speed is zero). If you're incredibly unlucky, in the few feet you slide along the ground dissipating your horizontal component you'll come upon a kerb stone, and that may up the risk somewhat. Equally, rather than your head sliding along the ground and getting cut, the foam shell may act as a brake and injure your neck (which can be very serious; more serious, in some cases, than a fractured skull). Comparisons with motorcycle helmets are irrelevant, as they have smooth, impermeable shells precisely designed to ensure you do slide along the road. I've had a high-speed slide towards a kerb in a motorbike helmet, helmet a good thing, and a low speed slide along a gravel track in a woolly hat when I would have been a prime candidate for helmet-induced rotational neck injuries: it's hard to balance the risks.

Pretty well any argument that you can use to support cycle helmets works for wearing them while walking, and most people spend longer walking than cycling and therefore have a greater risk exposure.

The Wikipedia article (here) is pretty good.

"What's more, if you are thrown over the handlebars, you are FLUNG to the ground rather than just falling to the ground."

No, you really aren't (other than in some very weird scenarios involving cleated shoes that aren't relevant to children or casual riders).

Get a pen and paper and your O Level physics are look at what's going on. Going over the handlebars is essentially a case of the bike stopping and you carrying straight on (hence my caveat about cleats: if you're fastened to the bike you might rotate about the front axle, and the physics are a bit different).

Imagine you're cycling along at five metres per second. At the point the bike stops, the horizontal component of your velocity is 5 m/s and the vertical component is zero. Over the next second, you accelerate towards the ground at 10m/s/s. Your head is falling from about 1.5m up, so you hit the ground at 5.5 m/s, vertically. That's precisely the same speed you'd hit it at had you fallen over whilst walking. That energy is given up instantly, and is what will give you a headache. Horizontally, you were doing 5 m/s, which you're still doing 0.5s later when you hit the ground, and you will slide rapidly to a stop. Provided you don't hit anything, that energy dissipates relatively safely.

The risk with going over the handlebars is not head injuries. The risk is a broken neck, which is fearsomely common. That's because your head rapidly slowing from 5 m/s to zero is safe-ish for your head, but unfortunately unless you're Posh Spice your body weighs more than your head and your neck is therefore doing the job of a towing hitch. The faster you slow down (ie, the more rapidly your head decelerates) the harder your neck has to work, and in motorcycle land a lot of work goes into making the shells of helmets really tough so that the accident can be made to last as long as possible to reduce that load. That's not practical for most cycling purposes, so the helmets are foam with a cosmetic cover. That rapidly degrades in an accident, and may bring your head to a halt horizontally faster than would otherwise have happened. Thus it spares you a headache, but trades a sore neck for a broken neck: not a good deal.

A hideous number of cyclists die on the British roads, most of them from impact with cars (which is what kills them) not from the impact with the road (that doesn't). Post hoc "they would have lived had they been wearing a helmet" claims are impossible to validate, but the Dutch experience does not show a rise in the number of deaths relative the number of accidents. There is some evidence that there is also, in high helmet use countries, a rise in the number of serious cervical injuries. Pixie may have headaches; she isn't, by implication, in a wheelchair.

The CTC are not anarchist nutters rolling over the pavements on natty fixies. They're a sober, respectable organisation of cyclists, many of whom tool around on nice sensible Dawes Galaxies. Their view is that the evidence is equivocal at best, and that counts for a lot. There are some styles of cycling where helmets are vital (serious Downhill, for example), but there the helmets are much closer to motorcycle, or at least climbing, practice and people are also wearing body armour. For road bikes? Nah.

And for my big bike accident, had I not been wearing a woolly hat I'd have hat hypothermia to add to my woes.

I survived getting my front wheel stuck in a paving stone, going over, through bushes and smashing into a wall sliding down in it true comedy style

But I was a child.

I've been cycling for a few weeks with the DC and my bicycle has a "always wear a helmet" sticker which would make me feel guilty except that it also says, "do not do stunts" so I tend to equate one statement with the other. It is an asexual Mummy-cycle, I'm not going to be stunting.

LackingInspiration, we've a "no helmet, no bike" rule in our home. DH cycles (always wearing a helmet) and has some professional insight on this question. Appreciate there are lots of other views on here, each to their own based on their own knowledge, research & experiences - but you are no way being overprotective IMHO.

"Yet you get in a car happily and you don't wear a helmet in a car.
You should and I'm sure one day helmet manufacturers will be pushing this."

And to pick up your (and my) point about rotation, note that the single most impressive safety improvement in motorsport over the past ten years is the almost total elimination of neck and upper back injuries. How? Starting in Indy (which has a lot of high-energy lateral impacts) and then coming into F1, and then into everything else as who doesn't want to look like Schumi, there's been in the introduction of HANS devices. A large collar and shoulder piece with the helmet fixed to it with short straps, so the head is restrained in both axes, means that in exchange for not being able to turn your head (so not quite practical for road cars) your head can't move relative to your torso during an accident. It's clear acknowledgement that wearing (heavy) helmets doesn't come without a penalty, that has to in turn be managed.

When seatbelts were first enforced by law, many people said that statistically they didn't improve safety, an dobjected to wearing them. How many of us would let our kids travel in a car without a seatbelt?

I know lots of people don't understand risk, and I believe I do - but there are different sorts of risk - risks which are VERY LIKELY to happen, risks which are rare but may be CATASTROPHIC. And that's where I would put cycle helmets. I've had good evidence from knowing people who have had very serious and disabling injuries after low impact crashes on bikes, and also from a close family member who is an avid cyclist and is also a neurologist. No brainer as far as her family is concerned.

"When seatbelts were first enforced by law, many people said that statistically they didn't improve safety, an dobjected to wearing them."

The difference was that they were wildly, laughably wrong. The statistical evidence for seatbelts is utterly incontrovertible, and for those of us that are nervous about correlations, the mechanisms by which seatbelts protect you are easy to analyse.

In the case of cycle helmets, there is no such statistical evidence (see, for example, Holland) and there is no such clear-cut mechanism as to how cycle helmets are supposed to help.

"I know lots of people don't understand risk, and I believe I do - but there are different sorts of risk - risks which are VERY LIKELY to happen, risks which are rare but may be CATASTROPHIC."

Like falling over and hitting your head while walking. Why are you so irresponsible as to not wear a helmet when you walk to the shops?

"I also from a close family member who is an avid cyclist and is also a neurologist."

Who, by definition, only sees a very small subset of cyclists. Were she a cardiologist, she'd be complaining about obesity and wishing that more people took exercise. Liver surgeons often advocate prohibition: that's because they only see drinkers who are dying.

If your child will wear a helmet while cycling it is better for their health that they do.

If your child will give up the exercise rather than wear a helmet then it is better for their health to continue cycling without a helmet.

That is my understanding of the research literature as pertains to societies like the UK.

But I have a real problem with using Dutch data in this as they have a thoroughly different bike system in operation.

I know a little boy (aged 5 at the time of the accident) who rode his bike, through his gate and straight out onto the road - the side gate was always locked - this one day it wasn't, so the opportunity to ride down the incline was too exciting to pass up... sadly, at that exact moment a car came along this fairly quiet road and the two collided, the driver was shaken but unhurt - the little boy lived, but barely - he has a very compromised life now (can't walk, can't talk, can't sit unaided etc), his parents have divorced over it :(

He was wearing a properly fitted helmet.

It is too easy to say 'A helmet would have prevented xyz' if the person in the accident wasn't wearing one.

Shabba's little boy died in a very tragic accident :( However, Shabba, I really do wonder what someone looking at the evidence today would say. I would hazzard a guess that really, the injuries your son suffered would not have been prevented by a cycling helmet. Shabba, I really do believe your guilt over that is misplaced and wish you didn't carry that with you x

I make the kids wear helmets because I feel better - they look protected! However, after shineoncrazydiamond's thread last year, I'm not actually that convinced they do help a lot. When the kids get to an age where they are complaining about it, I will read all of the literature again and reassess.

Anyone who is adamant their child must wear one when cycling, then allows them to use a scooter without one, really might want to rethink their attitude to both!

dc's have always worn helmets, but rarely cycle now.
I have NEVER had a bike.

"If your child will wear a helmet while cycling it is better for their health that they do."

Maybe. The evidence of the number of clinically significantly improve head outcomes versus the number of clinically significantly degraded neck outcomes is still not in.

And as people keep pointing out, you need to keep this risk in proportion. 14 children died on bicycles on the roads in 2009. If you assumed that every one of those was not wearing a helmet (which is unlikely) and that every one would have been helped by a helmet (which is unlikely) and you take the most optimistic assumptions about helmets, you might be able to reduce the death toll by about four. It could be zero: helmets are pretty useless in road accidents when there's a vehicle involved.

Meanwhile, obesity is going to prematurely kill around a million of the twelve million children currently alive. Why not tell them exercise, a form of exercise that not merely can they easily continue into adult but also doesn't clobber knees and hips and also reduces carbon and energy use, is dangerous and requires protective clothing, with parents telling them that without a helmet they risk instant death? Because that's rational .

Tokyo - I understand your side of the debate - but I am debating from an emotional point and you are debating with facts and figures. 14 children killed on bicycles in 2009 really means 14 x family members, friends, schoolpals, teachers, neighbours etc etc who will grieve the loss of that child until they take their last breath. It is like throwing a stone into water and watching the ripples come from it - the death of a child affects hundreds and hundreds of people. I dread the inevitable day when my precious grandson wants to start riding a bike....Im not sure that my DS1 (his daddy) will be able to cope with the fear.

I still cant see the problem with a child getting used to wearing a cycling helmet - we need a celebrity that children love to start promoting the use of a helmet.

Yes, but unfortunately you don't know how many of those children would have been saved by a helmet. It could be as few as zero.

" I dread the inevitable day when my precious grandson wants to start riding a bike."

Which is utterly irrational. Sixty children a year die in cars: are you terrified every time your grandson is driven in one? What you're experience is at the root of the problem with helmets: it's painting cycling as objectively dangerous, and for every parent who says "OK, you must wear a helmet" there will be others (and we can't know how many) who say "if it's so dangerous you need a helmet, best not do it at all". And obesity will kill a million of the children who are currently alive.

"I still cant see the problem with a child getting used to wearing a cycling helmet"

We still don't know for sure if helmets increase or decrease the number of people who die, because of neck injury. If you factor in long-term health, they probably kill more than they protect.

"Odd, therefore, that the two countries with the lowest rate of helmet use, Holland and Denmark, have high rates of cycle use and amongst the lowest rates of death and injury. Perhaps we need to get in amongst the cyclists in the streets in Amsterdam and tell them the hideous risks they're taking. Spreading the idea that cycling is so dangerous that it needs special protective clothes means that fewer and fewer people are doing it"

tokyo - probably because the drivers are more careful on the road with the amount of cyclists there are and have respect for them. I don't see that same respect here, not even around children who are on their bikes.

Quite agree Sorrento, there is a horrendous amount of hostility to cyclists in this country.

"tokyo - probably because the drivers are more careful on the road with the amount of cyclists there are and have respect for them. "

Which happens because of the sheer volume of cyclists. Encouraged to cycle because, perhaps, their parents aren't rigid with fear. When cycling is a main means of transport, and you see ordinary people, drivers worry about killing their neighbours. They have to pay attention. When you can drive for miles without seeing a cyclist, and the ones you see are Lycra clad specialists, people don't equate "cyclists" with "people".

Tokyo - thank you for taking apart my last message piece by piece and commenting on my irrational fears and thoughts.

Of course, we are on Mumsnet - a forum where we are allowed to have our own opinions and to voice them. Of course your opinion will not agree with mine - that is why we are debating the topic.

I think it best that I leave this discussion because it is a subject that I am too emotional about and too 'involved' in.

As a final thought - the afternoon my son was killed I ran out to the lorry - it was directly outside my house on a quiet estate. I crawled under the lorry to find my son close to death. The lorry hadn't smashed into him it had bumped him and caused him to fall under the wheels banging his head on the road. He lay there with blood pouring from the back of his head. When we got to the hospital and we were told he had died the policeman talked to me and said how he wished that cycling helmets were compulsory.

We all do what we think is right for our beloved children and thats all we can do.

Bollocks Tokyonambu.

Cycling is safer in Holland because of a law that means the car driver is responsible for any collision with a bicycle. No wonder their drivers are more careful!

Shabba - I have huge respect for you and are so sorry for your loss.