Bike helmets

[marmeemarch1]

I have always insisted my two DDs 6 and 9 wear bike helmets. They have recently started meeting our oldest DDs friends and playing around the block. It's a very quiet area but does have some through traffic.

They like to go out on their bikes. I have said they have to wear helmets but their dad and our childminder frequently let them out without helmets.

They say they hurt their heads, make them sweaty and they are embarrassed to wear them as not all of their friends wear them. Our current compromise is if they don't want to go out with helmets they can't take their bikes, but can still play out with their friends.

I have worked with people with brain injury so am worried that my work experiences are clouding my judgement.

Wise mumsnetters what do you think

More people die in road traffic accidents than anything else, Drivers, passengers. Motor vehicles are lethal.

Lethal you are correct about injuries in the home

Lego you're not steering your dc to know about risks as you ignore statistics and follow the example of racing cyclists but not racing drivers. Your son is not a racing cyclist anymore than you are a rally driver, but you follow ones e ample and not the other.

You cleave tried to explain why by saying it's ok to not wear a helmet on some occasions and take the helmet on and off

TBH I don't think you can explain why you follow the example of Mark Cavendish but not Collin McRae

-Basic easy cycling on flat roads/paths/lanes = no helmet

Do you actually cycle?

On a basic 'easy cycle' you could encounter, ice and grease on the road, wet cobbles, car users flinging doors open without looking, dogs running in front of you, raised ironworks, rain filled potholes, all of which could send you off your bike.

ivykaty44

TBH I don't think you can explain why you follow the example of Mark Cavendish but not Collin McRae

Do you really want it explained to you?

Because a car has all sorts of secondary safety features a bike does not. It has airbags, seatbelt pre-tensioners, side impact beams etc along with a larger more stable contact patches on the road and better structural integrity. Risk is mitigated in a different way. Seatbelts and airbags are there to prevent contacts with a hard object.

Cyclists are exposed and travelling amongst far faster, heavier vehicles on two very narrow contact patches.

Hence why builders wear helmets on site and accounts clerks in offices don't.

I've been cycling for nearly 50 years. I cycled to school every day from the age of 7, then for many years cycled 10 miles to work every day. I've never fallen off. Not even come close.

We go around under the impression that cycling is a dangerous activity. Actually it isn't. As others have said, you're far more likely to receive a head injury as a pedestrian or in a car - yet nobody expects you to wear a helmet there. We live in fear because of a small number of anecdotes about people involved in accidents without helmets.

Most of us don't wear helmets because we've assessed the risk - we wear them because everybody else does and we want to be part of the herd. This leads to people making poor decisions about what is a risk - often in situations that are far more critical than cycling.

Because a car has all sorts of secondary safety features a bike does not.

Yet despite all this, people still sustain far more injuries that would be prevented by a helmet in a car than they do on a bike.

Boyofmelody, well the safety features aren't making cars safe 1.5 million people died in the last year inside cars. So perhaps you could also explain that?

www.monash.edu/muarc/research/our-publications/atsb160

Ivy - safer, not 100% safe. No activity is.

Your 1.5m figure is worldwide estimate and utterly meaningless without any context , long-term data or levels of car ownership, distances driven and the hugely varying driving and car safety standards worldwide. Nor have you any information on the causes of the deaths and whether a helmet would have prevented the death.

In one short post you've demonstrated conclusively that you don't understand statistics or risk.

Did you actually read the link ?

And yet again you've managed to prove my point quite spectacularly. The report you link is 20 years out of date at a time when car safety measures have changed beyond all recognition, the report talks of side airbags as an emerging technology. FFS.

It doesn't recommend helmets as the best way of preventing head injuries, just that on a cost-benefit analysis it is one of the cheapest. Twenty years ago.

But feel free to drag up more uninformed googling evidence.

Yet despite all this, people still sustain far more injuries that would be prevented by a helmet in a car than they do on a bike

Evidence?

If you really believe that padding in a car is superior to wearing a helmet you are deluded

People won't wear helmets in a car just like they don't want to sit backwards in an airplane

If you really believe that padding in a car is superior to wearing a helmet you are deluded

No I believe preventing the head coming into contact with the hard surface in the first place via pre-tensioners and air bags is preferable. At the time of the utterly outdated report from 1997 you cite as 'evidence' side airbag technology was still under development.

Basic easy cycling on flat roads/paths/lanes = no helmet

My DH died 12 weeks ago from hitting his head falling off a bike on a quiet flat lane. A helmet would almost certainly have saved his life.

There will also be a lot of people who have not died specifically because they cycle. So if wearing a helmet decreases a persons inclination to get on a bike, they should feel free to not wear one. It is well documented that when bike helmets become mandatory the amount of cycling decreases, which will lead to more deaths, through chronic ill health and obesity, in the long run.

maeraprocyon

I am so sorry to hear that . Hope you are all OK as can be

Boysofmelody airbags in a car still allow movement beyond that of a five point harness - which would be a better fitting in a car than three point seat belts. Child seats use this system as they reduce movement add a helmet and you would again in a cheap way reduce impact of movement on the head and brain inside

wearing a helmet inside a car would be the simplest cheapest way to safe life but the car industry doesn't want driving to appear dangerous in any form as people would re-evaluate how they perceive cars and travelling in them and this would have a negative affect. So instead the car industry tries to make cars safer in other ways

Five point harness would be far more affective than airbags for protection. Child seats have five point seat harnesses but not adult seats and this is due to public perception of motoring and how it is sold to people.

I question why people would insist on placing a helmet on a head on a bike and not in a car
What is the biggest risk of head injury? Is it cycling of motoring?

Late breakfast - can we go for a bike ride together! Feel the breeze in our hair!

DS is year 11

Husband cycles to work.

Rule still is no helmet no bike.

Fortunately as we live in Cambridge there are lots of cyclists and school enforces a no helmet no bike policy too.

It becomes the norm if it is the norm.

If you send them mixed messages no for this time but yes for next time it won't ever be the norm.

But the norm should be bike-centric cities with safe cycle lanes so helmets wouldn't be necessary.

It's not just Pro cyclists who have to wear helmets, anyone taking part in a ride under the auspices of British Cycling has to. The UCI introduced it after the death of Andrey Kivilev in 2003. Interesting to note that they don't insist on a helmet being replaced after an accident, even though after impact they provide far less protection, nor do they seem to care that the helmets used are not designed for use at speeds regularly reached by pro cyclists, especially downhill.

As other posters have mentioned, most head injuries occur when not riding a bike. If the aim is to prevent injury, then a helmet should always be worn. Why don't people insist on this?

We've always insisted on helmets for anything with wheels, even made the daughter wear her helmet when she was first learning to use her heelies.

I weigh up the level of risk & the severity if the worst happened. So, for many things, they may be very likely to happen but the result is minor. Extreme example, paper cuts are very common, but I'm not going to live in gloves because the actual injury is very minor. Car accidents, not that common but potential result if the worst happened is death, so appropriate car seats non-negotiable. And the same with cycle helmets. The kids are really proficient on their bikes, but a stone in the road could have them hitting their head on a kerb, potential result brain damage or even death, so helmet non-negotiable. It's a minor adjustment to reduce risk of major injury, so why wouldn't they wear one.

For all the reasons that have been given above! If it's made law, which I sincerely hope it's not, I'd wear on, until then I'd like to make up my own mind whether I wear one or not. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't.

No helmet, no bicycle here. We're all cyclists it's saved DS's face and head a couple of times already. Plus my friend went over the handlebars when we were kids without a helmet and split his head on a manhole cover. It was seriously gross, plus painful for him.

They shouldn't be uncomfortable though. Maybe try a proper bike shop if you haven't already for a fitting?