To not make the kids wear helmets while scooting?

[DingbatsFur]

My kids have mini micro scooters and scoot to and in some cases from school. All on pavements, one road to cross. At home the scoot in the driveway and up and down the pavement outside the house. They have fallen off a handful of times. The speed they reach is about what I can do at a jog.
Now I'm all for safety gear and should they ride bikes they will wear helmets & should the roller skate they will wear elbow, wrist & knee pads and when they ice skate they wear helmets.
Scooting no helmet however.
Little boy up the street one year older than my youngest appeared by our house yesterday wearing a helmet with his scooter and wanting to know why my two were helmetless as 'helmets make you safe'.
I hadn't considered we were being reckless?

Mine (6 and 5) scoot to school, mainly on pavements. No helmet = no scooter in our house. They used to complain about it regularly. A few weeks ago one of their best friends (age 6) fell off his scooter at relatively low speed, not wearing a helmet, and hit his head on the pavement. Five weeks off school, emergency brain surgery, blue-light middle-of-the-night ambulance transfer to specialist head injury unit. Still can't do PE, run around in playground, may have lasting effects (though he is loads better). My oldest DC looked at me and said ' I see now why you make us wear helmets, Mummy.'

I watched 24 hours in A&E and one of the consultants said that the biggest cause of kids head I jury's were from kids falling off scooters and then went on to say she didn't let her kids even have scooters.

My kids are rubbish at scooters so walk/ run most places so this isn't so etching we've had to think about.

So relatively low speed as in running speed? Accidents happen and you don't run around wearing a helmet, saying that mine scoot at walking pace alongside me and I'd reconsider if they were speeding along like some of the older children, maybe..

But caterpillar, pace has little to do with it! Yes if you fell awkwardly whilst walking you could get a head injury. You are just more likely to fall if you're scooting, hence the helmets. I wear a seatbelt in my car, not because I'm likely to crash, but to give myself extra chance of escaping serious injury if I am in an accident.

Neither of my DDs have ever fallen off their scooter but have fallen over whilst running more times than I care to remember, pace has a lot to do with it. It's not comparable with wearing a seatbelt

My DDs run faster than they scoot, and are just as likely to fall over. Where we live it is flat so for our circumstances we don't think helmets are necessary - if we took them somewhere hilly or a skate park I would obviously reconsider. On a bike they're travelling much faster and have further to fall and are much more likely to do so, so yes, we insist on helmets. They wear helmets for roller skating as very likely to fall backwards.

my three year old has fallen head first over the handlebars three times now.... each time after the front wheel got stuck in a crack in the pavement. Thank goodness she was wearing a helmet on each occasion. If she hadn't I dread to think about the extent of head injury that she'd have sustained. Even with the helmet I was worried about the impact as she didn't have time to put her hands out to break her fall. It happens so quickly.. as soon as the wheel hits the gap the whole things flips forward in a second and the child is flung forehead first onto the pavement. Very different to falling over while running (as several of you on this thread have mentioned as a possible bigger risk) as there isn't time to put out hands to break the fall. I would never let her on any wheeled toy without a helmet and luckily since the first experience (on day 1) she is fully aware of the need to wear one too.

No children wear helmets on scooters round here. Ds is agile and fairly sensible. I have to balance the risk of him falling off against the risk of making him look like a freak with an overprotective mum.

But having read the horror stories on here I may reconsider!

no ds does not wear his helmet when he is on his scooter

do not see many children wearing one and none that scoot to school

In Belgium, and no helmets here. But as pointythings says, its the infrastructure in the UK that's also dangerous, and there is evidence that motorists think helmets mean the user is cossetted from danger, hence drive more dangerously ie closer and faster.

In fact the roads here are full of bikes with children on the back, very rarely with helmets, often with the driver/rider texting or on the phone.

Here I very rarely see kids with helmets on scooters - or on heelys - or when they run round the concrete paths in the park.....

I see plenty of helmets on cyclists - probably 70% or more of which are poorly fitted, with loose straps and would be more harm than help in an accident.

The main injuries from slow scooters are actually from others not seeing them. Ie cars reversing out driveways, others people/ bikes etc knocking into them.
I always make them wear helmets, and I think if the wear from young it becomes normal and they automatically wear

My rule is anything with wheels = helmet. I fell over on a bike when young and could have been very seriously injured. I was one of the lucky ones but I am all for trying to avoid risks.

The one time I forgot 2.5 yo DS's helmet he went over the front of the handlebars and had a huge egg sized bruise and cut on his head for ages (still scarred)!

He's 3 now and still loves to wear his helmet so he does.

DD has always worn a helmet in her scooter. We wanted her to get used to it before she had a bike. Now she knows, no helmet, no bike.

The school has a scooter day each week where they ride them to school and play with them at break and insist on helmets.

No kids wear helmets on scooters here. ds, 4, seems a little unusual wearing one on his bike too. The 7 and 8 year olds fly round without them. interestingly, the neighbour who worries about getting cat hairs on food , allows her 5 year old to ride a 2 wheeler without a helmet.

Hiya, my sister-in-law wants our nephew to wear a helmet when he's on his scooter and bike. We've seen a lot of bad fitting helmets on the kids out and about near us. I pointed out that a bad fitting helmet is just as likely to cause an accident as anything what with it sliding around and causing a distraction. Not just that if it doesn't fit properly it won't protect him if he does bang his head. We had a look online and saw these www.micro-scooters.co.uk/accessories-type-helmets/micro-safety-helmet-neon-blue-2.html

£19.99 seems a good price, has anyone else bought one before?

My dd doesn't wear a helmet on her scooter but always must on her bike. None of the children round here seem to wear helmets on scooters. May not be correct decision by fyi.

"wheels = helmet"

They're far more likely to sustain a head injury when in the car or as a pedestrian. Do you make them wear helmets then? If not then I suspect your concerns are more about what people think than real risk.

No helmet, no scooter or bike here. It's very easy to sustain a very serious head injury and although helmets don't rule them out, they are a considerable help.

Hmm, we've never used helmets for scooters. But we bought scooters with proper, big wheels like the ones we used to have as kids.

I, dh and our kids have never fallen off a scooter.

Is it to do with the smaller wheels on most modern scooters?

Mine wear helmets if they could fall on a kerb, which basically means everywhere except the local playpark.

I read many years ago that the biggest cause of brain injury from bike accidents is where the person had hit their head on the edge of the kerb. I figure that where we live that risk is as high on a scooter as on a bike, so the helmet rule applies to both.