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 ?

The point about risk compensation is that we don't do it consciously. It's not a matter of thinking to yourself 'I've got a helmet on so I'll cycle like a maniac' but rather felling safe so not being as cautious.

Bedsheets that sounds scary, but I thought you said originally that your son didn't hit his head?

The thing is, tipsykisses, that no-one actually thinks it would be alright if their child was injured or killed. I certainly don't. We have different views about risk. I don't think it is possible entirely to prevent terrible accidents happening to my children. They have to take some risks in order to grow up into independent adults.

I guess I think that cycle helmets aren't the most important factor in their safety - cycle training, road awareness, infrastructure (eg cycle paths), more cyclists on the road and proper training for car drivers are all more important.

I agree it's not possible to prevent accidents and that helmets are not the only concern with safety on bikes , we are lucky that our primary has regular road safety classes which includes cycling safety so the children are very aware of how to behave whilst riding especially on the roads , none of the children are allowed to take part in the cycling part unless they wear a helmet .

At the start of the thread most posters didn't think I was over reacting to insist that my ds wear a helmet but as the days have passed I can see that a lot posters have personal experiences that have influenced their decision about this.

I think for my family it's the right choice , i still feel I would worry the whole time if Ds didn't have a helmet on .

He didn't hit his head

I think basically people have their own ideas, and most are not swayed by argument.

What I would say is that, just supposing you read all the evidence, weighed it all up, and came to a measured conclusion that helmets did not contribute to child safety on a bike. (this would not be my conclusion, but just suppose you did).

Then imagine you sent your child out on a bike, no helmet, and they had an accident resulting in a catastrophic brain injury.

Would your reasoned research really allow you to be comfortable with your decision, or would you in fact be forever more saying 'what if?'. And if there would be an element of 'what if', there would also be an element of 'if I could turn the clock back, I would insist on a helmet'.

So insisting on a helmet now is pre-empting that.

I don't expect people to change their minds on this issue. But I'm not changing mine either.

Lily if your DC fell off a climbing frame, hit their head and suffered a catastrophic brain injury, would you spend your days saying 'what if?'. Because I probably would. I'd spend my days saying 'what if?' if something terrible happend to my child. It wouldn't matter what happened or how, I'm pretty certain I would be devastated, blame myself and wonder whether I could have made a different decision about some aspect of what happened to them. It would be natural too. You don't really protect yourself from grief by taking precautions that don't really alter the risk.

It's completely arbitrary to insist on a helmet though. You could just as well say 'why did I buy my son a bike', or 'why did I let him ride on that road', or 'why didn't I get him to do Bikeability training', or 'Why didn't I get him a fluorescent jacket'.

It's not arbitrary, it's a way to help prevent permanent injury or death from what may be a minor accident otherwise.

I'm always amazed how many people argue against them. Look at Natasha Richardson. Look at James Cracknell. Plus I personally know people who had minor bike accidents with no helmet, and had serious brain injuries that a helmet would have prevented. One died, one had to give up work permanently and the third cannot live independently.

It's got to be helmet & safe riding. If wearing a helmet is automatic behaviour, then you emphasise the road safety on top.

Had never heard of James Cracknell so had to google. He was hit by a petrol tanker -- that's the kind of collision that a cycle helmet simply isn't designed to protect you against. And Natasha Richardson was skiing. So not really comparable.

"If wearing a helmet is automatic behaviour, then you emphasise the road safety on top"

Wrong way round! You must teach road safety first and foremost, because a helmet won't protect you if you are riding like a loon, and it won't protect your vital organs if you are hit by a vehicle. Road safety is far, far more important than cycle helmets -- and that's the real danger of the helmet campaign, that people tend to downgrade the importance of road safety.

It is arbitrary, because there are plenty of other ways to help prevent injury or death that we don't employ, such as helmets in cars, or making bikes heavier so they don't go as fast, or any number of other arbitrary things.

And Natasha Richardson died while skiing.

And it's ignorant nonsense to say that a helmet would prevent serious brain injuries. They cannot 'prevent'. They are a plastic hat designed to absorb a very limited amount of energy, far less than you might receive in a crash.

I know Natasha Richardson was ski-ing. The point is, that was a low speed impact that resulted in death. Very comparable to a cycling fall.

James Cracknell was a high speed impact resulting in head injury, but he was wearing a helmet and survived, and is recovering.

That was the point.

And yy, you teach road safety whatever, but IMO the helmet is a fundamental part of that,

Ladies, ladies, princess manners please.

It's not arbitrary to use a cycle helmet. People make choices based on their own experience. When it comes to a situation as dynamic as cycling, experiences vary enormously. Clearly, to an awful lot of people, a mixture of information and instinct tells them that a helmet is relevant.

The idea that a layer of shock-absorber will prevent injury is intuitively appealing and empirically demonstrable. My reading of the evidence is that quite severe brain injury can occur at quite low speeds and can be wholly or largely mitigated by cycle helmet. Less severe brain injury being entirely mitigated, clearly.

A few people feel confident that they can avoid falls and can prevent their children from falling, and that consequently helmets aren't relevant for them. But most people don't, especially when it comes to kids. My understanding is that if someone thinks they are likely to fall off their bike and hit their head, they are usually right, and that probably holds for their kids. In which case a helmet would be a good plan.

I've yet to meet anyone over the age of about 6 who hadn't spotted that road safety might be a bit of an issue also.

"A few people feel confident that they can avoid falls and can prevent their children from falling"

No, this is not correct. Nobody would presume to avoid falls, any more than a pedestrian presumes to avoid getting hit by a car.

However, they would say that either that there is no evidence that helmets improve overall cycle safety (and there is lots of evidence, on the macro level, that they make it worse), or that normal everyday cycling is an inherently safe activity, much like walking, and doesn't require specialist safety equipment.

Several times I've had friends puzzle over why my kid could ride a pedal bike but theirs couldn't. Watching them try to teach their children, and seeing both child and parent reduced to tears by repeated slow tumbles, I explained that my kid had never fallen off. They couldn't imagine that was possible, but were willing to let me try. Within about fifteen minutes, I had each kid laughing, scooting along saying "oh it's easy", and after about three sessions, they could ride. No spills. Magic.

I sure as hell do believe I can avoid spills. I do have a concern about lids, that it distracts people from sharing ideas about how to stay aboard.

I'm not sure what you think is the "lots of evidence" that helmets make cycle safety worse. The population studies seem to suggest possibly some kind of risk homeostasis, with at best only marginal benefits, but at worst no disbenefit, from increased helmet use.

www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10866273/Cycle-helmets-are-useless-says-brain-surgeon.html

That Telegraph article is a a bit The headline is misleading. This is what he actually said...

Henry Marsh, who works at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, London, said that many of his patients who have been involved in bike accidents have been wearing helmets that were too flimsy to be beneficial

I don't think anyone thinks flimsey helmets (or I'll fitting ones for that matter) are any good.

I believe he is referring to full face motorbike helmets. Because ALL cycle helmets are flimsy.

Do any of these studies involve kids?
My kids are pretty much guaranteed to fall off their bike - doesn't every kid fall off their bike at some point?

No matter how little helmets protect the head when it hits a rock solid surface, I can't see any reason in any of the above posts to prove that it has been useless or even made the accident worse.

According to this study of children:

www.nber.org/papers/w18773.pdf

Cycle helmet laws for children result in fewer children riding bikes, and they also result in children switching to other activities such as skateboarding, roller skating and scooters, which were not covered by such laws.

My DC also wears her helmet when riding with her e-bike (Electric Bike), Because that is for her own protection and we cannot say when will be the accident happen so it's better to be safe.
(Safety First).

So kids avoid riding bikes because of wearing helmets but does wearing a helmet really have such a negligible amount of protection if the head heads something hard? My priority is reducing the severity of injury - I have boys and have had more than enough trips to a&e with various head wounds so it's pretty inevitable that there will be more!
In my experience, and many others it seems, it's scary how easy it is to sustain a significant injury to the head and I can't see why wearing a helmet would do anything other than reduce the head injury, albeit by a tiny amount.

What harm is caused by WEARING a helmet? None.

What harm could be caused by NOT WEARING one? In some circumstances, a lot.

This very simple logic is enough to ensure my child will always wear a helmet when on their bike. I'm surprised this is even something people debate.

So do your children wear helmets in the car, and when walking down the street? Your simple logic should ensure they do.

How can you justify not wearing a helmet while riding a bike because you don't wear one in a car or while walking? Cars have air bags, are crash tested etc. There are various crossings and barriers to keep pedestrians safe while walking. What does a cyclist have? Nothing.

Last time I looked you were unlikely to fall off a car. Plus it has a ROOF.

However I wouldn't travel in a car without a seatbelt, as being thrown through a windscreen is a preventable accident. Won't prevent all accidents but will that one.

I don't however wear a seatbelt on my armchair.

natural if your DCs are getting head wounds quite a bit anyway, why don't you have them wear a helmet all the time?