Children’s Safety on Wheels

Bicyclists are most likely to be killed by a car driver. The drivers never get much if any punishment, here in the USA you can pretty much commit murder with a car and get away with it. How about actually punishing these drivers, especially the idiots that are on the phone. I was driving along side a Collier County Fl Sheriff’s car the other day, the cop was texting in plain view while driving, apparently steering with his knee.

So much more complicated than this. For example, research shows that motorists drive more dangerously around cyclists wearing helmets: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2018/11/14/motorists-punish-helmet-wearing-cyclists-with-close-passes-confirms-data-recrunch/ Similarly, logic and experience suggests that disobeying the "rules of the road" can be significantly safer. Not a surprise when you understand that said rules are written primarily to expedite motor vehicle throughput, not to promote safety: https://ggwash.org/view/41338/careful-jaywalking-saves-lives

Think about countries where the bicycle is an integral part of the transportation mix: The Netherlands and Denmark come to mind. NO ONE where's a helmet there. Ever. But this America! where we like to scare people.

To summarize the article: Bicycling is so dangerous! Bike helmets are so effective! "The best way to prevent an injury [any injury??] is to wear a helmet." Oh, and as an afterthought "... follow the rules of the road." This is typical of "safety" campaigning in America. Inflate the danger of a common activity, exaggerate the benefits of a commercial product, and ignore the possibility of education and proper behavior. In actual fact, bicycling is not very dangerous. Scientific studies have repeatedly found its benefits greatly exceed its risks. In actual fact, bicycling has been repeatedly found to be even safer than pedestrian travel on a fatalities per mile basis - and pedestrian fatalities (which far exceed bike deaths) are caused by brain injury about as often as bike deaths. Yet somehow, helmet promoters miss that market! Bicycling causes only 0.6% of America's brain injury fatalities, and that number has not changed since helmets became heavily promoted. This information is readily available, but ignored by those who demonize bicycling. Concussions have not dropped since bike helmets became de rigueur; they've actually increased over 60%. The needle isn't even moving in the right direction! In other words, bike helmets are a largely ineffective solution to a greatly exaggerated problem. When you see a kid riding without a helmet, give thanks that he's riding instead of gazing at a screen. Just please, teach him the rules of the road. THAT is the priority.

Helmets don't protect against concussion, the most common brain injury. Nor do they help with broken arms, legs or faces. Studies of helmets in skiing injuries show that helmet use does not reduce serious brain injuries or fatalities.

I remember when I was a kid we never wore helmets while riding our bikes. No one did. People just didn’t know better I guess. Same goes for skiing. I was an avid skier for 3o years before I started wearing a helmet. It was when I started teaching my own kids to ski. I guess we evolve. But that’s a good thing.

I agree with previous comments. Europe’s long history of vigilant public health regulations are summarily dismissed in this writer’s personal anxiety over seeing not enough people in Paris wear helmets. I am a mother of twin toddlers and truly believe we are going overboard with the helicopter hovering and over protectiveness for children. Bicycles can go fast in expert adult hands but toddlers on kick scooters? They barely can go at < 1 km/ hour. At parks I see 3 year olds who are kitted out protectively like flyweight boxers. Parents, let your toddlers and children take some risks - hang back and learn to live with the twist in your stomach as they fall. They will be better for it.

Helmets were black letter law in our home. If it had wheels you wore a helmet. Our son looked strange to most wearing a helmet with a trike that we pushed but when it was time to move to a scooter and then bike he never thought twice about wearing a helmet. It was just what you did.

In every U. S. state and Canadian province a bicycle is considered a vehicle. The bicyclist is subject to all the rules of the road. For close to 50 years I have been a bicycling infrastructure advocate. I have served as a member of the board of directors of Rochester Bicycling Club, Rochester Cycling Alliance, & New York Bicycling Coalition; authored 8 bicycle tour guide books. Typically bicycle (scooter, skate board) helmet laws are not enforced by code & police departments charged with enforcing the laws. No summons need to be given. Simply hand a copy of the laws to the kid & the parents. Yes, we could maintain a computer file etc. Bicycle safety is no longer taught in most schools throughout the U. S. Perhaps it is time to require some type of bicycle riding instruction for both ADULTS, teenagers, & children. In New York State it is time for the Legislature to review, consolidate, and place all bicycle (including the non-existant e-bike law) laws, rules, & regulations under one NYS Code heading. Such an action would make enforcement easier. BTW: Making left or right turns while riding a bicycle means learning how to make the turn properly. When a bicyclist uses the cross walk the bicyclist is generally considered to be a pedestrian (law in Texas but not in NYS)

Bike helmets are a must. My child fell on a paved bike path when his bike skidded on some stray sand- he broke both arms but his head was safe because of his helmet. He was not going fast and it was a fluke of an accident. But his head did hit the ground, and I'm so thankful for the helmet. Wear helmets when biking.

On the topic of scooters.... in NYC many more kids (toddlers to teens) on scooters on sidewalks - and unfortunately posing a danger to the elderly. Parents mostly don’t supervise little kids, and seem unconcerned about being mindful of the elderly....

Many years ago i was a chaplain in a residential rehab center. Most of the patients were young men who were para or quadriplegic because they had been in motorcycle accidents while driving without helmets. Helmet wearing laws are on the books for a reason. If no law protects skaters and riders surely the adults in a child's life should take responsibility for protecting children from the danger a lifetime paralysis.

If we want our children to wear helmets, we as adults,need to lead by example.

Not that this is on topic regarding helmets, but, I wince every time I see some teenager cruising through an intersection while staring at their phone.

Also, if kids are using their scooters in a skate park, it would be a good idea to have a helmet on. Sometimes much bigger skateboarders or bmx riders that are going faster doing tricks can hit into kids. Pro Tec makes certified skateboard helmets for kids.

How about making following traffic rules part of the game of riding a scooter? Instead of making it about rules you have to follow subject to punishment, how about making it fun to learn how to obey traffic rules and ride safely? Rules and punishment are cheap and ineffective methods to guide behavior, primarily cheap, because no resources are spent on educating the regulated.

It's a fraught issue. Yes, a helmet can protect from some very bad, even fatal, head injuries. No, a helmet will not protect you against everything. The best arguments for not wearing a helmet center around the safety in numbers effect. The more people there are on bicycles in your community, the safer everyone tends to be. Enforcing helmet use, for whatever reason, seems to decrease the number of cyclists. As a cycling advocate, and as a daily cycling commuter, I do perceive and want others to perceive that cycling is an everyday way to get around, not a dangerous "sport." I don't wear a helmet in my car, though arguably it would be safer. That said, while I sometimes cycle without a helmet, I usually wear one and my children have always worn one. I am discerning about when not to wear one - if I'm biking into the sun or in heavy, rush hour traffic, I'll wear a helmet. If I'm cruising through a neighborhood, or down the bike path, I may not. Occasionally, I hit a stretch of time when I don't wear one to make a point, but then I think, "May, it would be so embarrassing to get killed via head injury while I'm out making a point."

I cycle daily, and have worn helmets since they first became widely available in the 80s. That said, this article howlingly misses the boat. The best way to drastically reduce injuries from cycling is through better infrastructure and safer road design. Those measures also help normalize urban cycling; there is strength and safety in numbers. A helmet may reduce risk, but it’s nowhere near the top of the list of priorities.

Most head injuries happen to people riding in cars during accidents which throw them and objects around in the car. Where are their helmets? The laws forcing helmet use on non-car users are lobbied into existence by the car and oil industry to get kids off bicycles and into cars. They bribe lawmakers and the media to further this agenda.

In Europe they have far far far less bike accidents involving head collisions and far far far less incidents of people wearing helmets. Literally no one wears helmets in Amsterdam, the biking capital of the world. The piece of stylophone known as bike Helmets don’t save lives. Proper biking etiquette, culture and civic infrastructure do. If people learned to open car doors the “Dutch way”( with your right arm and not your left) which cause you to turn and see oncoming bikers, it would prevent more injuries then wearing a helmet ever would.

The unsupported premise of the article is that in countries where helmets are the norm there are higher rates of serious injuries from bicycle riding than in other countries with strong norms against helmets. I wear a helmet, but it seems sloppy writing to just make the assumption that helmets make a broad, public health difference when European countries with strong public health practices do not see it as a priority. Are they supposed to be daft? I don't think they are. This seems to me provincial and typical self-righteous American attitude.

A whole article on biking and scooter safety, and Dr. Klass didn’t mention the most important part of making those activities safer, for both children and adults. And that is controlling cars. The most dangerous thing on the roads is not a scooter or a bicycle, it’s a car. And if you are one if those people terrified of children on scooters or bicycles on the sidewalk— fine. Make the streets safe for those activities, as they used to be. Nearly 6,000 pedestrians were killed in 2016 by drivers. Perhaps they weren’t wearing helmets? Perhaps the pedestrians didn’t signal? The number of drivers killed by pedestrians? Zero. Scooter and bicycles are not cars. The same rules that apply to a 3000 pound SUV should not apply to a six year old on a scooter (add a motor and thats a different case). It’s nice to wear helmets. I usually do. But to pretend that a lack of helmet wearing is the cause of carnage on our roads is absurd. Hundreds of millions of Americans grew up not wearing helmets on bicycles, and the most dangerous thing then was the same thing that it is now: cars. The most dangerous thing that our kids face now after cars? Sitting inside playing video games, getting fat and unfit. Helmet shaming doesn’t encourage outside play. Go outside and play kid.

A helmet doesn’t do much, but a great deal of the time, that’s sufficient. I was an early proponent, wearing a hockey or a rock-climbing one before good bicycle ones were available. One survived crash while club riding netted me a lovely girlfriend as a side effect! Anyway, the inch of foam will protect the brain more or less up to 5 mph, the speed you attain just falling from standing height, which doesn’t sound impressive, but that covers the overwhelming majority of falls. Recently, I’ve participated in solving the issues related to street-rented bikes and scooters. Another whole world of usage. For my current local report, here in suburban CT, I rarely see serious or casual riders, adult or junior, without helmets. But the locals are upper middle class, educated, and the roads incredibly lousy.

I once read an article documenting the work of emergency doctors. At one point the journalist asked them what lessons they learned from their work in the ER that they follow in their own lives. The first one was: "Always wear a helmet when bicycling.". The second was: "Never ride a motorcycle.". I only put bicycle helmets on the kids I love.

We do not permit our son to bicycle or scoot without his helmet. We wear our helmets, too, when we ride without him and when we ride as a family. We want to model safe health behaviors. He also had fun choosing his helmets at the bicycle shop because they have fun designs on them. His first one had monsters on it. His second one has bright yellow lightning bolts on it. Of course car crashes can kill bicyclists and pedestrians. However, we have had falls on our own over train tracks, potholes, and cracks. Sometimes we encounter bad weather. Sometimes we bicycle as fast as 20 miles per hour. Falling over at that speed and suffering a brain injury can be fatal.

With or without helmets, children on scooters are a danger to pedestrians, especially the elderly or anyone else who might be unsteady on their feet. I see children on scooters not just on the sidewalk but also in grocery stores and in underground stations, their parents distracted (i.e. on their phones), inattentive or just not caring who the little ones might bump into.

My teenage son, now grown, refused to wear a helmet. My teenage son never got a bike.

I also feel concerned when I see an adult and a child cycling together, where the child is helmeted, and the adult not so. Is the message to the child that helmets are for kids, and when you grow up you don’t need to wear one?

I live in a Western PA rustbelt town that saw its most prosperous days about 75 years ago. I ride my bicycle for exercise every day through the neighborhoods and see lots of kids and a few adults out on bikes and scooters. What surprises me is the number of quite young children on motorized scooters and mini-motorbikes. Very few of the people I see of any age wear helmets. Considering the condition of the streets here, at least until the city gets around to filling the potholes, it is sheer craziness to go anywhere, on any wheeled device, at any speed, without a helmet. The majority of motorcyclists go without helmets as well. That's because of "freedom". I don't grab people and lecture them, but if if the opportunity presents itself, I ask them why they aren't wearing a helmet. There are a number of standard responses that reveal, essentially, that most people haven't thought much about the issue. I always say "well, I guess you've never seen brains on the street, have you?" Unfortunately, I have. I don't know if it does any good, but it definitely gets their attention.

I live in Westchester County, NY. During the months of May, June, and September if the weather is good a 7 mile stretch of the Bronx River Parkway, north and south is closed to traffic every Sunday for 4 hours. There are signs that state quite clearly that every person riding a bike must wear a helmet. If 75% of the people biking on the parkway are wearing helmets it's a good day. There isn't supposed to be any racing or high speed biking on the parkway when it's Bicycle Sunday but there is. It's America and that means people can do whatever they want in spite of the rules. I've been wearing a helmet since 1990. For over 20 years nothing happened. In 2013 I rode off a path onto its pebble covered shoulder and skidded. I fell off my bike and hit my head hard enough to crack the helmet. I was unconscious for a second, badly scraped up and bruised too but I got up from that fall. I was too injured to bike for the remainder of the year and too dizzy from the concussion to want to. But I lived. I bought another bike helmet before the next year's Bicycle Sundays started again. That helmet saved my life. I do not understand parents who put helmets on their children's heads but don't wear them themselves. The helmet on their children's head will not protect the parents if they fall off the bike. It can give the children the idea that once they are old enough they won't need to continue to wear one either. Accidents happen. Helmets can save lives. Wear them.

Helmets save lives. If someone loves you, wear a helmet. In 40 years I've ridden over 125,000 miles as an adult recreational cyclist,every one of those miles with a helmet (and a mirror), following the rules of the road. My heart is sad when I see children and adults without helmets riding on the wrong side of the road and pedaling carelessly through stop signs.

Kids in the Netherlands do pretty well without helmets, then again, they have outstanding infrastructure which priorities bicycle use, and have spent decades creating a transportation culture where drivers respect cyclists. Opinion pieces like this simple perpetuate the narrative that cyclists are at fault for any injuries they suffer when the reality is that it's poor infrastructure, design which fails to accommodate cyclists, and unsafe and careless drivers who cause crashes and injuries. A column like this could only be written from the position of someone who has already classified cycling as an unsafe activity. It's not. This writer should be railing against unsafe road design and driving rather than demonizing parents about helmet education.

It makes it much easier that all the parents in my circle feel the same way about helmets. Scooters, bikes and other ride on toys are often shared at the park, the provision being everyone wears their own helmet or in a pinches borrows a friends. No helmet no ride.

Last time I was in NYC, coming off the Greenway, there was a young fellow who passed me in a flash on his motorized skateboard. It was a really cool thing, for sure, mainly because he was very adept and he rode in the designated bike lane. It was the first time I'd ever seen one of these and the speed was most impressive. I mean, how big could a motor be in a skateboard, anyway? He zipped up the steep hill on W158th, leading up to Broadway, at about 10 mph! Imagine the speed he could do on flat road or downhill. Put somebody with less skill on one of these and someone's sure to be hurt. I can easily see someone hitting a pothole and flying off- headfirst- into a pole or a car and actually dying.

We also need to educate parents and kids about when to replace helmets. I worked at a bike shop in college and parents would bring kids in with helmets that had clearly hit the ground HARD and desperately needed replacing. Once the foam shell of a helmet is compromised, it no longer offers the protection your brain needs. Parents often didn't replace damaged helmets because "they're too expensive" (they're less expensive that hospitalization for a head injury) or "the replacement guidelines are just a scam from the helmet manufacturers to try to make more money" (at this point, I directed parents to car air bags and seat belt pre-tensioners which are also single-use and much more expensive to replace).