Do your DC wear bike helmets ?

[Tipsykisses]

My Ds has always worn a helmet , he's 7 now and rides really well so now rides to school with Dp (his dad) .

The bikes are kept in PIL garage a few doors down from us as we don't have room at our house , all our nieces & nephews are in and out regularly and ds helmet couldn't be found this morning .

I've told Dp he either needs to find the helmet or we need to buy a new one if Ds is going to continue to ride his bike but he thinks I'm over reacting & says that plenty of children ride without them .

Am I over reacting ?

Goosey poor ds glad to hear he is OK

Chops most people don't fall off their bikes even the ones with severe head injuries, usually it is the action of a vehicle driver that knocks them off, totally out of their control

Me, DH and the kids wear helmets for cycling, skiing, skating and scooting. No helmet no bike/skis/roller-blades etc. They don't know any different so never question it. My mum suffered a very serious head injury when her head hit the pavement at speed, doctors told us it would be fatal. She was a pedestrian so obviously would not be wearing a helmet but I know that the chances of me falling from a bike or being hit on a bike are far higher than me having something like that happen to me, I have had close calls over several years of cycling. The doctors in ICU had treated far more head injuries from cyclists than from pedestrians over the years. What mum's accident did teach me was how devastating head injuries can be. Even if you survive them they're very often life-changing. Mum survived but it has changed her life and the lives of all her immediate family forever. She won't ever be the same as she was before the accident. I never want to go through weeks of practically living in ICU again and if putting a helmet on me and my family whenever it is recommended will reduce that risk at all then I'm all for it.

no, which is why I always wear one on the road. :) I've been hit by cars twice.

No helmet, no bike here too. DH didn't agree with me and I gave his bike away (he wasn't really using it and we were moving to a flat with nowhere to keep it, but I hated him riding on roads without a helmet). Fast forward 5 years to our house with garden and two small children and by that time DH was willing to put his qualms aside and wear a helmet so the children would too. New bikes bought with helmets. Now they are teens, they still wear helmets. They might not wear a coat, may have had their first taste of cider, want piercings and tattoos and wild coloured hair and strange clothes but they want to wear a bike helmet.

Christ goosey. Thank goodness it was ok. I have looked at a dented helmet and battered child and shuddered as to how much worse it found have been. It was clear in our case that the helmet saved my dds face and probably brain too.

A relative works as a brain injury specialist though I can't name drop his precise title and he advocates for helmets with a series of horrific anecdotes where he is sure the outcome could have been better. It is that old tiny chance huge impact scenario.

Another thing, once DH was converted to using bike helmets, he brought it up with his parents and other relatves who were anti. It had an impact on them too. One of DH's young relatives was hit by a car a couple of years ago while cycling to school and wearing a helmet saved a life there, too.

at the risk of knowingly entering a thread with a benignly neglectful viewpoint, I dont always insist on helmets for bumbling around on a bike, but would if it was cycling anywhere busy/near a road or stunt type cycling etc.

If it was just ridjng in the garden or round the streets etc, im pretty lax

We always say that is you think it isn't 'cool' to wear a helmet think just how 'uncool' it would be to have to be spoon fed or have to wear nappies for the rest of your life or have to be dressed by a carer every day for the rest of your life due to having a brain injury. Sorry if that sounds blunt and rude! Plus it does not matter how long or short the bike journey is. The tarmac outside your house is no softer than the tarmac 3 miles down the road! And quite often the severe head injuries are not from high speed accidents, they are from those silly little accidents when you come off and you just catch you head on the edge of the curb or on a fence alongside the road.

Our former nanny's husband went over the handlebars of his bike some ears ago and damaged his helmet quite badly. He had a terrible stiff neck and headaches for a while, he was subject to tests in hospital ( scan, though not sure which type) but didn't suffer serious injury. I'm sure if he hadn't been wearing his helmet the outcome would have been very different. I'm not happy to see anyone cycling without one. And the Queen should wear one on her horse...

Branleuse my dd got hit by a car 3 doors up the street from our house. Honestly, its not worth the risk.

Yes ticking . The same friend I talked about upthread says most of her cycling casualties are cyclists who have sliced their skulls open on the edge of the kerb.

I'd forgotten this - my kid brother hairline fractured his skull falling off his tricycle onto a concrete road [estate] age 3. Just smacked the back of his head hard enough. Cue 2 days of monitoring in paediatrics.

It's all or nothing, as far as I can see.

All the evidence suggests that, insofar as helmets do have a protective effect, they protect from impacts at slow speeds -- going over the handlebars or falling off the bike and hitting your head on a kerb, for example. They are acknowledged to have little protective effect in impacts with motor vehicles, particularly if the vehicle is travelling at speed (ie 20 mph or over).

So, they offer more protection when you are popping down to the park or on a cycle path, than when you are on a road in traffic.

A thread like this, which is filled with horror stories makes one want to say 'it's not worth the risk, anything to protect my child', because each time you read one of these stories, I imagine my own child with such terrible injuries. But one's horror at the thought of something terrible happening to your child is not the only basis for weighing up risks. We need to assess evidence as well. And, of course, if we listened to horror stories and acted only on those, we would probably never get into a car...

Bike helmets are non negotionable (as were swimming lessons) in our house. Most kids even the older teen 'cool' kids seem to wear them around where we live. They are so comfy these days I can't see a reason not to wear them.

I did always make sure the kids liked their helmets and that they were comfortable. I've also always bought them their helmets rather than getting them to pay for them.

The analogy between bike helmets and swimming lessons is poor. Bikeability training is a much more relevant comparator, and is also much more likely to save your child's life than a helmet.

The parents who buy their kids a helmet and then send them off to play with traffic without any idea about safe riding defy parody.

The biggest threat to children on bikes is their poor road sense. Helmets are not the answer to that, and it's dangerous and counter-productive for people to bleat on about helmets, as if buying your child a plastic hat is the beginning and end of cycle safety.

Err, no one was comparing bike helmets with swimming lessons . So it can't have been a 'poor' analogy. I simply said both were non negotionable.

But the 'bike helmets are non negotiable. so are swimming lessons' thing has come up several times on this thread, and putting them together like that does imply an analogy -- at the very least, that they are similarly vital to your children's safety. Which is what AgaPanthers was contesting.

As it happens, I think there's a discussion to be had about the way that swimming lessons are sold to parents with the line 'make sure your child is safe this summer'. But that's another thread.

Just wondering why you made no mention of bike lessons.

Here's a Tedx talk on the subject, I think he makes some interesting points.
tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxCopenhagen-Mikael-Colville;search%3AWhy%20We%20Shouldn%27t%20Bike%20with%20a%20Helmet

I'm a cyclist of some 30 years, never worn a helmet.

in particular the pedestrians and motorists have a higher risk of head injury, and so if we accept that cyclists should wear helmets because of the head injury risk so should pedestrians and motorists

My son's accident happened in the park when he was 6. He twisted his handlebars awkwardly, jammed them and went straight over the handlebars. It was low speed and a safe flat non-busy wide Tarmac path. No one else was involved. The front of his helmet was cracked open and crushed. The thought of what his injuries would have been without it fill me with dread, his face was a mess as it was.

Those of you saying its ok in the street, near home, in the garden, in the park are missing the point. They don't have to be 'travelling' somewhere, or going fast, or taking the obvious risks of being in traffic. It just has to be randomly unlucky. A kerb, a wall, a random stone, a misjudgement, a loss of concentration. What about the PP whose child scooted 10ft from door to car, fell off and was knocked unconcious? Do you really think its worth it?

In our house, no helmet, no bike/scooter.

I didn't mention bike lessons and bike safety because we were talking about bike helmets but obviously they are important too.

There was no analogy or even an 'implied' analogy between bike helmets and swimming lessonS. I simply listed two things that were non negotionable in my house. Wearing seat belts, washing your hands after going to the bathroom and being polite are other non negotionable things.

From their very first bikes/ trikes the rule has been no helmet no bike. simple as that, don't care where they are or where they're going they get the helmet as they get their bike.

Please, please, please wear a helmet. My dad was involved in a horrific RTA a few years ago and broke his back very badly. When we went in to see him, he was lying in a funny position on the hospital bed and his helmet (along with the clothes which had been cut off him), was lying on the floor-it was completely cracked up the back.

Always, always wear a helmet

And with regards to the poster suggesting that helmets offer little protection when in collision with another vehicle at high speed, my dad was hit by a motorcyclist overtaking a line of 5 cars (who were all slowing to let my him turn right) at over 60mph. My dad landed mainly on his back, but he also hit his head - if it hadn't been for the helmet, I don't really want to think what would have happened, judging by the state of it in the recovery room