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HWN Suggests

Buckle Up a Helmet to Save a Life

I will start this column with its conclusion: Riding a bicycle without wearing a properly fitted helmet is simply stupid.

Anyone who does so is tempting fate, risking a potentially life-changing disaster. And that goes for all users of bike-share programs, like New York’s Citi Bike, who think nothing of pulling a bike from its station and cycling helmetless on streets, with and without bike lanes, among often reckless traffic on foot and wheels.

Even a careful cyclist is likely to crash about once every 4,500 miles and, based on personal observation, many city cyclists are anything but careful. Although reliable details are lacking on bike share accidents in New York or…

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Articles of Interest

Bikes, Helmets, and Public Health: Decision-Making When Goods Collide

When City Councilman Greenfield proposed a bicycle helmet mandate, the Bloomberg administration had to decide whether to support the policy. The decision was far from clear-cut: for every statement that bicycle helmets save lives or prevent injury, there was a counterclaim that the benefits of bicycle helmets had been overstated.

Do Bike Helmet Laws Do More Harm Than Good?

Some cycling advocates argue that helmet regulations can create long-term health problems.

Do Sports Helmets Help or Hurt?

Improving safety has had more to do with changing a group's culture and attitudes about high-risk activities than with any technological advance.

Grown-Up Cyclists Need Helmets, Too

People over 30 should be particularly careful because their gray matter is not packed as tightly as it used to be. And I don’t mean that only figuratively.

How Bike Helmet Laws Do More Harm Than Good

They don’t do much to improve safety, but they’re great at getting people to avoid cycling altogether.

Making Bicycle Helmets the New Safety ‘Seatbelt’

How many of us have gotten on a bike and left our helmet behind? Maybe we told ourselves, “I’m not really traveling that far, I don’t need it.” Or perhaps we were concerned with showing up to our destination with the dreaded “helmet hair.” Maybe we don’t even own a bike helmet.

Mandatory bike helmet laws do more harm than good, Senate hears

nquiry into ‘nanny state’ laws told ‘helmets are utterly useless in collisions with motor vehicles’, are ‘inefficient’ and they discourage riding.

Stop forcing people to wear bike helmets

But in the world's most popular biking cities, particularly in Europe, very few bikers wear helmets. And there are good reasons for that: biking, it turns out, isn't an especially dangerous form of transportation in terms of head trauma. And the benefits of helmets may be overstated. While they do protect your head during accidents, there's some evidence that helmets make it more likely you'll get in an accident in the first place.

The Bike Helmet Paradox

Plastic shells keep our heads from coming open, but they also deter us from riding bicycles. And riding bicycles is good for people and Earth.

The Bike Helmet Paradox

The evidence paradoxically seems to show that while wearing helmets does make cyclists safer, helmet laws don't make cyclists safer and actually harm public health in the long run.

The Helmet That Every Bike Commuter Needs

This improved visibility is a huge step in road safety for everyone, whether riding at night or during the day. The cost (both to your pocketbook and the weight you lug on your bike) isn’t that great, and the built-in features are thoughtful, well-implemented, and easy to use.

The media got it wrong: Bikeshare programs don't increase head injuries

It's impossible to determine that these bikeshare programs caused the declines in injuries that followed them, rather than simply being correlated with them. But given everything we know about bike helmets and injuries, the most reasonable interpretation of this new data is that the programs made biking safer by putting many more bikes on the road, even if most of their riders aren't wearing helmets.

The Overriding Reasons to Wear a Bike Helmet

When we initially put one on, we may feel overconfident and cut more corners with road safety. But once helmet-wearing becomes a habit, we should revert to more prudent behavior, which will let us realize the helmet’s full benefits. That is especially important, of course, with children.

Warning: Bicycle Helmets Could Be Hazardous For Your Health

A bicycle helmet prevented me from experiencing a major head injury. But did it promote the very behavior that caused me to crash my bike?

What evidence is there that cycle helmets save lives?

There is no direct evidence that the wearing of cycle helmets has led to fewer deaths amongst cyclists. Most research into cycle helmets has not included cyclist fatalities. The premise that helmets save lives is by extrapolation from research that has suggested that helmets might reduce injuries to the head. As most fatalities involve head injury (this applies to all major external causes of violent death, not especially cycling), the reasoning is that by reducing injuries to the head, cycle helmets can lead to fewer cyclist deaths.

Why Those Rumors About Ditching Your Bike Helmet Just Aren’t True

What started in the 70s remains true today: wearing a helmet makes riding safer. That may be why half of riders now wear helmets — an 18 percent increase in just eight years — and 98 percent of bike commuters own one. While there is one small study in the UK, that says that wearing a helmet actually puts a rider at greater risk, many experts aren’t on board with its findings.

Resources

Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation

Cyclehelmets.org is administered by the Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation (BHRF), an incorporated body with an international membership, the object of which is: "to undertake, encourage, and spread the scientific study of the use of bicycle helmets, in the context of risk compensation and sustainable transport".

Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute

Welcome! We are the helmet advocacy program of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association. We are a small, active, non-profit consumer-funded program providing bicycle helmet information. We try to explain the technology of helmets to consumers, and promote better helmets through improved standards.

Put A Lid On It!

Since 2011, the Ohio AAP has operated the Put a Lid on It! Campaign to promote Bike Helmet Safety Awareness. Millions of people have heard the message of helmet safety through the campaign...